"Why do you have to kill her, or me for that matter?"
"We've got to protect ourselves."
"We?"
"Yes, we," he said.
"Look, if you're including me in this, I want to assure you..."
"We're not," he said.
Will gazed into the rearview mirror and saw him, his eyes fixed on the back of his head. He's mad, he thought. Whatever he is, he's insane.
"This won't help you," he said. "They won't take you back if you do something like this. I'm the chief law enforcement officer in the county!"
"That doesn't matter to us. We don't want to go back now. We want to go forward. Axe we going to her or what?" He leaned closer.
"Okay, okay, we're going to her," Will said.
"We knew you would make that choice," he said smiling. "We know you as well as you know yourself."
Will Dennis shuddered with a chill that brought him back to his childhood days when he first confronted something horrifying in a movie. He had gone with his older brother and his older brother's friends. His older brother wasn't supposed to take him, but he had to watch him that day and he wasn't about to be stuck in some G-rated film. He confronted his first vampire on the screen and cringed at the sight of blood dripping from those long, sharp teeth.
The creature seating behind him, for that was the only way he could think of him, a creature, revived those images. Would he lean forward any moment and sink his teeth into his neck, drawing out some precious nutrient and leaving him in mortal agony? Will Dennis thought his position had brought him face to face with some pretty cruel and violent people, but he always had the sense that he and the force behind him had the upper hand. They were there to punish, and punish they would. This was different. No court, no laws, no objections and motions to strike mattered. He was as helpless as the women who had fallen victim.
"You understand, I hope, that I was cooperating with your people. I've kept your existence secret, just like they wanted, and like I'm sure you want, right?"
"What did they promise you?" he asked.
"Me? I just do what I have to do to help. It's all for the better, isn't it? I mean as I understand it, you will be the answer to all diseases and illness, to aging itself. You're quite a wonderful thing."
Will saw him turn his eyebrows in. He had him thinking.
"You're absolutely right about this," Will continued, excited by the apparent breakthrough. "You've got to stop this Dr. Barnard. She doesn't have the same view of things. She's threatening to make trouble. She threatened me on the phone just an hour or so ago, in fact."
"Oh?"
"She said she was going to go public and expose you. She was going to put the blame on me. Actually, when you came up to me at the gas station just now, I was talking with your people, deciding how we would handle her."
"Well, now you know how we'll handle her."
"Yeah, right. That's good. She's at this cabin that belongs to the old doctor she works with, Templeman. It's on the lake, in the woods. We're about forty minutes away. I know exactly where it is. I've fished on that lake, hunted around it, too. I grew up here, you know."
"That's nice," he said.
Will actually felt himself relax.
"Now she's not alone. I'm giving you important information here. She's with her fiance, this lawyer, Curt Levitt. He's the one who you, I mean, who Dr. Stanley, confronted. You've got to be careful."
"Oh, I'm careful," he said. "Drive on and keep talking. It's better than the radio." Will saw him smiling. Was he really satisfied or was he toying with him. Keep talking? Yes, that was the way to handle people like him.
I'll slip out of this, he thought. Somehow, I'll survive.
He drove on and he kept talking.
Although the day began quite overcast, the cloud cover thinned and weakened until direct sunlight wove through the gauzy layers and brightened the water on the lake. In the distance it looked like ice to Terri. The wind had died down and the boat barely rocked now. She was lying back in Curt's arms. They had just eaten their cheese and bread and had nearly finished the bottle of Merlot. She felt cozy and warm as she leaned back. He leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead and move off some strands of her hair. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"Happy?" he asked.
"Content. Glad I followed your orders for a change, Doctor," she told him and he laughed.
"Why is it," he asked, "that I get the feeling this is really a unique occasion?"
"Don't worry. I'll settle down to just a mere twenty hours a day," she replied, and they both laughed softly. She closed her eyes again and he took a deep breath.
"I think I must have dug up sour worms or something. We haven't had a bite."
"Oh. I saw the bob thing bobbing."
"You did?"
He sat up quickly, moving her off him to seize the pole. When he wound in the line, he saw the hook was clean.
"Oh, that's great," he said. "We've provided a picnic for the fish, too." She laughed harder, her voice carrying over the water.
"If we don't catch anything significant, don't tell my father," he warned. "He's never gone fishing without success."
"Stop competing with him. You're your own man, Curt."
"Aye, aye, Dr. Freud."
She smiled and shook her head. Then she turned serious.
"Do you suppose there is some kind of psychological drive to recreate ourselves in our children?"
"Are you kidding? If I heard him say, 'when I was your age...' once, I heard it a hundred thousand times."
"Maybe that's part of this unrelenting drive to clone ourselves," she offered.
"I'm sure it is. I'm sure it has a lot to do with ego. I'm so good. There should be more of me. Of course, there would have to be more of you or I'd be in competition with myself," he said. He laughed, but she didn't. "What?"
"That's what he's all about, I think, competition. In the end he wants to be better than his original self."
"He's already better. He's survived."
"Yes," she said. She looked worried.
"Terri?"
"Let's go back, Curt. I want to go back," she said with that final and firm tone he recognized.
"Why?"
"As far as I know there are only two people, three now counting you, who know the truth, Curt. The other person is Will Dennis, and we've handled him wrong, I think. This isn't a matter of negotiations. You don't negotiate with cancer or pneumonia. You eliminate it.
"Or," she added pulling in her fishing pole, "it eliminates you."
"Right," he said, somewhat annoyed. "I knew this vacation idea was a dream."
"It's not that," she began, but he pulled the cord and got the little engine going, revving it up as high as he could to drown her out. She fell back against her seat as he turned the small boat and headed for the dock. She saw him squinting.
"What?" she asked, sitting up and turning.
"Someone's on the dock waving at us. It looks like... our boy, Will Dennis," he said.
Her heart stopped and started with a thick, resonant pounding she could feel in her temples.
"Is he alone?"
"Far as I can tell he is," Curt said.
They drew closer.
"I guess you got to him," he added.
Will Dennis stood back as they brought the boat in, Curt cutting the engine and stepping up.
"Will," he said, nodding.
"I thought it would be better to come out here to speak with you, Doc," he told Terri as Curt helped her out of the boat.
"Something new happen?"
"Yes. We got him," he said.
"You got him?"
"How did that happen so fast?" Curt asked. He reached for the poles and the marine bag.