The Immortalist (54 page)
Authors: Scott Britz
Freiberg held out his arm to stop Waggoner, leaving Cricket to step outside alone.
She winced at the brightness of the sun, which she hadn't seen in two weeks. Through the glare she made out Hank and Emmy sitting on the tailgate of Hank's pickup.
Emmy jumped up and ran to throw her arms around her mother's neck. “Oh, Mom! Mom! I couldn't wait for them to let you out.”
It was the first they had touched since the night Emmy had gotten sick. Emmy was still pale and her lips were cracked, but Cricket could feel Emmy's heart frisking through her ribs with all the vibrancy of youth. Her hair had its familiar lavender scent.
“My little girl. My princess. I was so afraid I was going to lose you.”
Emmy's eyes welled up with tears that reflected Cricket's own. “Oh, Mom, it's gonna be the best trip ever. Dad and I loaded up the
Bay Dreamer
with food and gas and fishing tackle and suntan lotion and shampoo. We could live for a year without dropping anchor.”
“Not quite a year,” said Hank, who stood a foot or two away, smiling. There was a pink line over his left eyebrow where the stitches had just come out. “Emmy's sick leave from school only covers one semester. We'll need to have her back by Christmas.”
“Dad and I went down to Freeport and bought you a whole new wardrobe. Sundresses, bathing suits, sandals, deck shoesâeverything a beach girl could want.”
“What about Bonnie and Chuck?” asked Cricket.
“They'll stay with my sister in Portland until we get back,” said Hank. “By then, the social worker says the adoption paperwork should be ready. Yolanda's cousins back in Puerto Rico have agreed to everything.”
“Are you sure you're ready? It'll be like starting over.”
“I'm good with that.” Hank shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans. He glanced at Emmy. “Princess, could you put your mom's suitcase in the back of the truck?”
Emmy pecked her mother on the cheek, then took the handle of the suitcase and dragged it away. Cricket heard the tailgate slam shut.
Hank took a deep breath and looked into Cricket's eyes. “Did you mean what you said? About us?”
“Yes,” said Cricket, smiling shyly.
“Prove it?”
Cricket pressed her cheek against the bare V of skin inside his shirt collar. She felt his hands gliding up her back, pulling her in tighter. Then he tilted her chin back, and she found herself looking up into his dark brown eyes. His head blotted out the sun as he bent down and pressed his lips against hers. His mouth was soft and warm.
She felt weak in the knees, as she had when he had first kissed her so many years ago, when he was an unexplored wilderness to her. Now he was new to her again. He had shown courage and quick thinking and a fearsome fighter's instinct that she had never had an inkling of before. She liked the new Hank.
She liked the new Cricket, too. Being able to melt at his kiss without holding back. Being able to need him. Not having to prove anything to him or to have him prove anything in return.
The kiss followed its course. She cradled her arms around Hank's warm chest, her eyes just high enough to look over his shoulder and see Emmy leaning against the pickup, studying her fingernails in the sunlight.
Hank grunted. Cricket was embarrassed to realize that she was squeezing his broken ribs. “S-s-sorry,” she mumbled as she broke away from him. Hank made no complaintâjust stood smiling, with his head cocked.
Hank held out his hand. She extended her own, then drew it back at the last moment with a little girl's laugh. Hank laughed, too. But when she offered it a second time, he seized it as if he would never let it go. He led Cricket toward the open door of the pickup. Emmy already sat beaming in the middle of the seat, her hair shining platinum in the light that blazed through the windshield.
Why did it take me so long to come home?
S.D.G.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nowadays the creation of even a thriller novel is a team effort. Any attempt to list those who had a hand in this book must wind up overlooking someone, a fact of life for which I can do little except offer the most heartfelt apologies. Nonetheless, special note should go to my agent, Al Zuckerman at Writers House, who stuck with me through the arduous process of outlining and revising, and who kept me honest at every step of the way. Sarah Knight, my editor at Simon451, was quick to grasp the concept of the book and showed an almost uncanny instinct for focusing the story on what counts. Thanks should also go to Kaitlin at Simon & Schuster and Nora and Mickey at Writers House, who all did a great deal to get the book in shape. Leo, Olga, and Sasha (in Boston) and Pat and Nicole (in California) did service beyond the call of duty in reading the earliest (and messiest) drafts of the story. Their feedback has always been of inestimable value. Finally, I scarcely know how to begin to thank my wife, Evelyn, who has given me precious input from the beginning. She graciously put up with the mood swings and obsessions that necessarily accompany a project such as this and guarded my time like a pit bull so I could keep working.
The cover design by Julius Reyes combines a double-helical DNA motif with elements from
Laocoon
, a celebrated Hellenistic Greek sculpture. In Virgil's
Aeneid
, it was Laocoon who warned the Trojans against accepting the infamous Trojan Horse. His warning went unheeded, leading to the downfall of the cityâbut not before the gods, who inclined toward the Greek side in the war, had sent a serpent to punish him and his sons for sacrilege.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Scott Britz-Cunningham
Scott Britz, MD, PhD, an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, is a faculty member in the Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine. He was also trained in Pathology, performing over seventy autopsies, some under infectious disease precautions, although none as death-defying as the one performed in
The Immortalist
. His research interests are in the field of molecular imaging.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
authors.simonandschuster.com/Scott-Britz
Also by SCOTT BRITZ
Code White
(as Scott Britz-Cunningham)
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Scott Britz-Cunningham
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First Simon451 ebook edition April 2015
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ISBN 978-1-5011-0236-3