Dammit, she was cornered. Lie or risk worrying Allie. She should never have told Tavak she wanted to stop to see Allie.
"Allie, I don't want to discuss this."
"Tough. Talk to me."
It was Allie who was tough, she thought. Fragile in body but strong in spirit. She wasn't going to back down. She'd keep battering in that gentle way of hers until Rachel caved. "Damn, you're stubborn."
"It's a family characteristic. Talk."
Rachel sighed. "Where do you want me to start?"
"Egypt, then go on from there. Every detail."
Do it quickly. Just facts, no emotion. She began to talk.
After she finished, Allie sat in silence. Finally she got to her feet, opened the closet, and pulled out a suitcase.
"What are you doing?" Rachel asked.
"I'm borrowing your rolling bag."
"Why?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Like hell you are."
"You don't have a choice. I can't let you fly to the ends of the earth, risking your life for me, when I'm stuck doing nothing back here."
"You need to take care of yourself."
"I will. But I also need to take care of you. We need to take care of each other. Like we did before I got sick and you started treating me as if I was made of glass. Remember the Dennison sisters?"
How could Rachel forget? Yet that memory had faded, obscured by an Allie haunted by illness. Before the onset of the disease Allie had been a tough little kid. She had never shied from a fight when neighborhood brats picked on her nerdy sister. Allie's finest hour came in their elementary-school lunch-room, when she once used a cafeteria tray to beat the hell out of three girls who had been punching and otherwise tormenting her. "This is different than the Dennison sisters," she said.
"Of course it is. I might need two cafeteria trays."
Lord, all those childhood episodes were coming back to Rachel. They had been so close in those days that they could almost finish each other's sentences. That camping trip in the Rockies when they'd both fallen in a creek and nearly frozen. The pinata Rachel had made for Allie's eighth birthday party that had been so strong they couldn't break it open. All the love remained, but that untroubled innocence had been taken away from them.
"I can do it, Rachel," Allie said softly. "Let me help."
"This isn't a good idea. I promise to call you every day."
"You won't need to. Because I'll be right next to you."
"Allie… "
"I need to do this. Don't you understand? All these years, there hasn't been anything I could do to help you. I couldn't direct the resources of a supercomputer to help cure my disease. I couldn't grab a microscope and investigate treatment options. But this… this is something I can do. When I'm feeling good, like I do now, I'm as strong as I ever was. Use this time. Use me."
Rachel stared at her sister, overwhelmed at the passion in her voice. Allie had never seemed so strong, so alive, as she did at this moment.
"I need this," Allie repeated.
"I can see that."
"So I'm coming with you. My passport is current after that trip Letty and I took to Italy two years ago. If you don't take me along, I'll follow you. I was going to do it anyway. There's no way you could lose me. It would drive you crazy having me wandering around by myself trying to tag along. You'll feel much more comfortable having me under your wing."
"You have it all thought out."
"I'm going to do this. I had to find a way to make you agree."
Rachel slowly nodded. "There appears to be nothing I can say to talk you out of it."
"You know me better than that."
"Yes, I do." Once Allie was set on a course, there was no way to keep her from following it.
"And what will this Tavak say?" Allie asked.
"I don't know." Rachel shrugged. "Not that I really give a damn. I can't let him run everything. He'll be here in a couple of hours to take me to the airport. We'll tell him then."
TWELVE
Tavak's gaze shifted from Rachel to Allie. "I don't even get a vote in this?"
Allie smiled. "Sure you do. Two of us against one of you. I'm going."
Tavak glanced at Rachel. "Is that really the way you'd vote?"
Rachel nodded. "She has more at stake in this than any of us."
"I can't argue with that. But does she have any idea what we're up against?"
Allie stepped forward. "Yes, Rachel didn't hold anything back from me."
"She wouldn't let me," Rachel said ruefully. "She knows what she's doing. Allie is coming with us to St. Petersburg."
"Fine," Tavak said. "But she should know I'm a hazardous person to be around. The last person to help me is now recovering in a Cairo hospital."
"Is that supposed to frighten me, Mr. Tavak?" Allie asked.
"Not at all. It's just in the interest of full disclosure."
"Good, because I don't frighten easily," she said quietly. "I've had doctors telling me I was at death's door since I was thirteen years old. You want to know real fear? Try dealing with a death sentence when you're in the eighth grade."
"I can't even imagine," he said soberly.
"But when you come out the other side of something like that, it's liberating. You realize what's important in life, and what you and Rachel are doing is important."
"Unless it turns out to be nothing."
"You don't want to get my hopes up. It doesn't matter. It's the attempt that's important. And even if it is the real deal, I know it may never help me. Medical breakthroughs can take years to get from the labs to our neighborhood clinics."
"Don't say that," Rachel said.
"It's the truth, isn't it? And believe me, if we find a cure, I'll do everything I can to hang on. I've made it this long. But in any case, this could help a lot of other people." She turned back to Tavak. "This is too important for me not to be a part of it."
"As long as you're aware of the risks."
Allie pulled up the handle of her rolling bag. "Believe me, it would be a bigger risk for me to stay here and do nothing."
* * *
It was past 2 A.M. when Allie looked up from reading her magazine to see only one overhead light in the entire first-class section of the jet. Tavak's seat, she realized. He was three rows ahead and on the other side of the cabin from her and Rachel. She glanced at her sister. Rachel was dead asleep, her head resting against the window. Allie quietly unbuckled her seat belt and moved toward Tavak.
As she drew closer, she could see that he was scribbling furiously in a notebook, occasionally consulting some kind of spread-sheet on his laptop.
Tavak looked up. "Hello."
"Hi." She motioned toward the empty seat next to him. "May I?"
Tavak moved some papers off the seat. "Of course. I thought you were sleeping."
"I tried, but I can never sleep on planes." Allie sat down and buckled herself in. "And I suppose you're one of those people who never sleeps."