‘Please… I’ll tell you.’ He drew his knee to his chin, groped for the small gun above his ankle, putting a wince on his face as if pain were overwhelming him. He’d forgotten about it in the shock of being shot, of running, of Groote dying, of memory returning with the force of a bullet. ‘I’ll tell you…’
He tucked his hurt leg close to him, gripped under the cuff of his pants as though grimacing against the pain. Closed his hand around the small pistol.
Sorenson leaned forward and Miles sprang the gun up, firing, painting a neat hole in Sorenson’s eye.
Sorenson fell dead.
‘Uhhh,’ Miles said. He started to crawl back across the concrete, slowly, painfully, aware of the blood oozing out of his leg and arm, toward Groote.
He checked Groote’s throat. No pulse. He dug in his pockets, checking for a cell phone to call for help.
He flipped the phone open, tried to make his thumb work the pad.
He heard footsteps approaching him. Sorenson had help, backup, Miles was dead now, nothing to be done. This was death; this would be peace. He crawled, waiting for the inevitable bullet to break his spine, drill into his head.
A weight slammed into his head, once, then again, and he knew no more.
SIXTY
Stone was cold and damp against his skin. Slowly he opened his eyes and sat up. Dried blood covered his face. He wore only his T-shirt and underwear. Rough bandages, fashioned from his shirt, covered the wound in his arm and in his leg. Pain pulsed under the wrappings, as though fingers had dug around in his wounds, and patched him up without care. The room was narrow, the air tasted dense and coppery in his mouth, as though fear lived and grew in the dark corners and its essence had seeped, over many years, into the stone.
The abandoned madhouse. He was still inside.
He tried to speak. ‘Hello?’ His voice sounded broken. He cleared his throat. ‘Hello?’
Several seconds passed. He heard the clicking of locks – more than one – and the door to the room opened. A person stepped inside the dim light of the room from the bright light of the hallway. Miles blinked and his voice died in his throat.
‘Hello, Miles.’ Allison Vance wore a suit; her hair was lighter, styled neatly, as it had been in the pictures at Edward Wallace’s house. She stayed ten paces back.
At first he thought, My mind’s still gone, snapped, and it shouldn’t be, he knew he had not killed Andy. No. But then she said, ‘Hello, Miles,’ again and her quiet voice echoed, ever so slightly, against the stone. Instead of echoing in his head. Then she raised a gun – the gun Groote had given him, that he’d killed Sorenson with – and leveled it at him.
‘Allison?’ he managed to say. ‘Allison.’
‘My name is Renee Wallace,’ she said.
‘Your… name is Allison Vance. You’re… dead.’
‘No. You’re dead. Unless you do exactly as I tell you.’
‘You – you asked me for help, you set me up.’
‘Miles.’ She cocked her head, offered the gentle smile she’d always used greeting him in her office as they prepared to sit and talk and she would try to pierce his past of secrets. But there was no understanding, no kindness, in her face; the concern was only a false expression painted on a mask. ‘I’m not the problem. You are.’
‘Sorenson said in Santa Fe… he didn’t kill you. I thought he was lying.’ He coughed. ‘The auction-’
‘Miles. There is no auction. Not now. I have a buyer already.’
She’d set him up again. ‘Singhal.’
‘Yes. I’ll make you a deal, Miles. You tell me what I need to know and I’ll make sure you have Frost. I’ll cure you. You’re a killer, and it’s a better offer than anyone else will make you.’
‘I’m not a killer. I remember it now. I didn’t kill Andy.’
‘Yes, you did. I’ve seen your government file, Miles, two federal officers swear you shot him…’
‘No… FBI did… they even told me the tape was botched… blamed it on me…’
She shook her head. ‘You killed him. You killed Groote, you killed Sorenson. You killed Hurley. I’ll bet you even killed DeShawn Pitts.’
‘That’s a lie. You – you asked me for help…’
‘Miles. All I have to say is that I told you about the Frost program, that you wanted in, Hurley said no. After all, it’s designed to help the innocent victims of violence. People like Celeste. Like Nathan. But not you – you coldbloodedly murdered your best friend.’
Miles shook his head. ‘No.’
‘So you snapped. You’ve killed everyone who got in your way. That’s how the authorities will see it, Miles. A mentally broken man, denied his wish for help.’
‘No.’
‘You went after Frost yourself. First you wanted to get rid of me. I’ll bet the bomb fragments they find at my office will be very similar in composition and design to bombs the Barrada family used in the past. You might know how to make one of those, Miles. It won’t be coincidence.’
‘You can’t explain away… vanishing… after the explosion.’
‘I was on a business trip, Miles. I didn’t hear about the blast and you know I forgot my cell phone back in Santa Fe. The woman who died was looking at office space, I imagine. I can step back into being Allison Vance long enough for the story to be over with, then I just leave town again and no one cares.’
He remembered the woman’s voice then, before he picked the lock into Allison’s office: a woman from Denver asking about office space. Yesterday’s paper mentioned a missing tourist in Santa Fe. Jesus.
‘I just need to know what you know.’ She held up a white pill, perfect as a pearl. ‘The answer to your prayers. The cure for your pathetic madness. All you have to do is tell me who else knows about me and Frost, and tell me where I can find them.’
Celeste and Nathan. She wanted them. So Singhal’s company could silence them. No one else could gut her; no one else was still alive who could hurt her.
‘I – I can’t.’
The awful false smile disappeared; in its place was a fury of cold resolve. ‘I won’t kill you, Miles. I’ll shatter you. Singhal’s company will buy Sangriaville from Quantrill’s estate – I’ll hook you up to one of Hurley’s machines, play every horrible nightmare and trauma into your head. I’ll break your mind so bad it can never be fixed. I’ll keep you locked up in a hospital forever. No one will ever look for you. The feds will give you up for lost or dead. You and Groote’s brat, I’ll just use your heads as my research playground. Unless you help me. Help me and we’re friends again, I’ll cure you.’
Groote’s daughter must be here as well, locked elsewhere in the decaying madhouse. ‘No. I didn’t kill Andy. I didn’t… I don’t need what you’re selling.’
‘You’re not a hero, Miles, you’re a useless punk of a head case. You’ll never be fixed without this’ – and she showed him Frost again, a white oval, pure as snow. ‘Celeste. Nathan. Tell me where they are. Now.’
‘You won’t hurt them?’ He clutched at the bandage on his leg as though twisted in doubt and agony.
‘They want Frost too. They want to be healthy and whole. I’m sure I can reach the same deal with them as I’m offering you.’
She would have them, and Victor, too, all killed, he knew. She’d kill him as soon as they were confirmed dead; his usefulness was over, and she was gambling on his desperation, believing that he couldn’t think cogently.
‘I understand you a lot better than you think,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You said that to me before… I believed you died. It’s true. It works both ways. I want help. Don’t want to be this way no more.’
‘So tell me.’ She lowered her voice.
‘Celeste… had a total breakdown. After the shooting in Yosemite. She and Nathan both. Her TV agent wired her money, they rented a house there in Fish Camp for a week. She and Nathan are still there. Far as I know.’ He leaned against the stone wall. ‘Hard for us… to be out in the real world. Couldn’t cope. Couldn’t.’ Let her think he and the others were nothing, useless, help her put her guard down.