Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (25 page)

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. Send him to my apartment.”

“He’ll be there.”

Jacob tapped the keyboard to end the call. He looked again in the direction of his brother. George was back in his work corner, drawing what looked like practice sketches for his next painting. His large hands moved steadily over the broad sheet of paper, and his head was leaned to one side. He was calming himself.

He’ll come around
, Jacob thought.
But first we have to deal with this cop-killing idiot.

Jacob began typing on his computer. The path was still clear – he knew what had to be done – but he didn’t like the idea of spilling blood this early in the process. Staying on schedule was key.

The schedule might have to be modified
, he thought.

He pulled up a calendar application.

Plan B. Just in case.

Part 3 – Crashing

Embarrassing Yourself

Kevin tried to pull himself together. He showered and shaved, and A
ndrew fed him a good breakfast.
Kevin thanked him and tried to put on a brave, now-I-can-do-it face, but he still felt like throwing up. He was simply too tired. And his mind was going in circles, jumping from one thing to another without warning. He couldn’t focus.

The fourteenth floor; an office that’s not really an office, it comes and goes as needed, like a cheap movie set.

A huge apartment and an assistant. Great, except all the doormen have been replaced recently,
not counting
the one who spoke to me. The one who disappeared last night.

No memory of the last three months, but a memory like a computer when it comes to new stuff. Spanish and physics, for example.

Not a wink of sleep for three days

Inconsistent time.

Beautiful Emily Beck.

That last one almost brought a smile. He managed to keep an image of her in his mind for a few seconds, and this was enough to get him on his feet and out the door. Andrew tried to push some kind of pastry into his hands before he left, but he waved him off. He didn’t want to lose his momentum. He thought of Emily’s light blue skirt and her simple white shirt and t
hose fierce, bright eyes
, and he was able to push the button for the lobby. He was able to walk out of the building and head uptown. He was moving slowly, taking tiny little steps that made it look as though he had injured himself somehow, but at least he was moving.

Emily.

The last three days had been maybe the worst, most confusing days of his life, but there was no denying the wonder of that woman. She glowed like the birthday girl at
the
party, the bride at the wedding. She seemed to smile more often than everyone else, and yet it seemed only natural that she would be smiling, as natural as it was for Ron Clemson to be scowling. Kevin tried to picture her coming up to him, tried to imagine her talking to him and smiling that beautiful smile, and he followed this dream all the way to 74th street, followed it like a dog following the mechanical rabbit around a race track. He didn’t care that it was a dream, didn’t care that he was chasing a mirage. It pulled him forward, and that was enough.

He saw Danny at the entrance, greeting students as he had been the day before, and Kevin wrenched himself out of his fantasy. Prepared himself for friendly banter. But before he could say anything, he saw Danny’s expression fall. Again like yesterday, but this was more severe.

“Kevin,” Danny said. His voice was a whisper. He propped the entryway door open with a small wooden wedge at his feet and left the students to walk in on their own. His eyes were dark with concern. “My friend, you look
terrible
. Talk to me.”

Kevin shook his head. He tried to smile sheepishly as he had the day before. “Had a couple of drinks,” he said, and did his best to make it sound like a devilish admission, an acknowledgement that things did not look good, but that it was all in good fun. That he would be fine in a bit, once he got himself hydrated, or did a few stretches, or ate half a banana. Or something.

But Danny’s look of concern did not soften. He put his broad hands on Kevin’s shoulders, as though worried that Kevin might topple over without warning. “You need some sleep,” Danny said.

“I know.”

“I’m serious. Go home. Take a day. Sleep this off, whatever it is.”

Kevin shook his head. “No way,” he said, and meant it. He suddenly realized that he
needed
to be here, that he wanted to be teaching a class right now.

I’m not going back to my huge, silent house and my trim, mercilessly efficient butler. Not before I’ve had some normal human interaction. Middle-school kids are better than nothing.

He shook his head again and
then
looked back steadily at Danny, and
he
tried to show him that he would not be persuaded. Neither man blinked.

For a moment Kevin was worried time might be slowing down.

Oh, Jesus. Say something. Move. Anything to –

But then Danny sighed, dropped his hands from Kevin’s shoulders, and pressed his lips together in a way that made him look briefly like Andrew; it was the same resigned, worried expression. “Okay,” he said quietly, and turned without another word to resume his greeting duties.

Kevin brushed past him, walked into the building, and headed upstairs as fast as he could.

Which was not very fast.

He
had only two classes scheduled before lunch
, but even this was almost too much. During
the first one
he had to sit down without warning; he found himself breathing hard, as if he had just been running vigorously in place rather than writing an example on the board. He caught several of the students giving him strange looks, but they were now far too wary of him to say anything. Mr. Brooks was not someone to be trifled with, and asking him why he looked as if he w
ere
about to keel over seemed risky. Maybe the question would come out sounding rude
, and
he would send you to Principal Stewart or, far worse, hurl you against the wall, which was rumored to be Mr. Brooks’ preferred method of discipline.
Not to mention that
Mr. Brooks, even in his clearly weakened state, looked like a man who could throw an 8
^th
-grade boy against a wall as if that boy were nothing but a medium-sized piece of Play-Doh. In the students’ imaginations, the hurled boy would
stick to the wall for a moment –
just like Play-Doh
would –
before sliding slowly down to the ground in a regretful and well-kneaded heap.

So they kept quiet and stole glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. He noticed, but he was too tired to care.

He made it through the class, through his free period, and then it was time to head down to the lab.
Walking down the stairs was a challenge, and when he arrived
he had to put his hand on the doorframe and puff a few times, much the way Ron Clemson had done on the first day. But at least he was there. And now he could sit.

He gave them a project to work on and hoped they would ignore him. Which they did, for the most part.

But then, halfway through the class, Anselm Billaud came to speak to him.

Suddenly here
was this boy, Anselm, in front of him
, his face very serious, his brows knitted together under
his
thick curtain of blond, bowl-cut hair, as though he had come to report to Mr. Brooks that his computer had begun to melt or that he needed very badly to visit the bathroom.
He
stood there for a moment, so silent and serious, and Kevin grew worried.

“Anselm?”

“Mr. Brooks.” His voice the barest whisper.

“Yes. I’m right here.” Kevin tried to mirror the tone, the confidential, careful secrecy of the boy’s voice. “What is it?”

Anselm paused. His face grew even more serious, his lips tight and bloodless. “You should go to a doctor,” he said finally.

Kevin
let his eyes shut for a moment
. He was absurdly touched by Anselm’s concern, the more so somehow because of the boy’s age, and in his surprise and gratitude he could not summon the proper excuse. The proper lie.
Kevin opened his eyes.
“You might be right,”
he
said, without thinking. A nearly unforgivable act, to let such a boy shoulder even a fraction of a teacher’s burden, an
adult’s
burden, by confessing to a life outside the school, a life that could be anything but seamless. An E.R. attending did not tell the patient with the blood infection that he had been working for thirteen hours straight; a firefighter did not tell the grandmother with the charred third floor that he had not slept in the last two days, or that he had not seen his family since the weekend. These were private things, separate things, and Anselm should not have had to hear his concern justified. He should have been shooed away with a shake of the head and a smile, told that his teacher had eaten a bad bunch of scrambled eggs that morning, eggs that were just working their way through his system. But Kevin Brooks was not himself, and he allowed himself a moment – a single moment – to let this 10-year-old boy share a small piece of what had become, at last, an unbearable load.

Anselm was up to the task. He did not look away, did not repeat his recommendation that Kevin see a doctor. He stood there and gave support
,
s
imply by sharing the knowledge that Mr. Brooks was in pain
.
A
nd
by
saying nothing more.

At last Kevin took a breath and sat back, and
finally
he was able to do what was necessary. He nodded once, curtly and with a forced strength, and thanked Anselm as though he were thanking him for a neatly-typed homework assignment. “Everything’s okay,” he said, and he pointed the boy back to his chair.

Anselm waited an extra half-second
.
T
hen he turned and walked back to his computer. He resumed work, and did not seem distracted. Kevin went back to giving advice and answering questions, and the clock kept ticking. Anselm did not look his way again.

Lunch time came, and Kevin felt an easing in his chest, something close to eagerness.