Knowing this couldn’t be anything but bad, Rachel flew out of her car and ran across the rutted blacktop. Following the path of the ambulance, she rounded the side of the building just in time to see Jack and Sidney emerge from a nearby alley, Sidney struggling to keep Jack upright as the ambulance came to a stop and two paramedics jumped out.
Barely able to walk, Jack waved them away. The paramedics ignored him and took over for Sidney, guiding him to the rear of the ambulance. Throwing the doors open, they sat him down on the lip of the doorframe as one of the paramedics pressed a stethoscope to his chest.
Rachel just stood there, holding her breath, wanting to shoot him. Kick him.
Punch him, at the very least.
Maybe he wasn’t technically her responsibility, but he might as well be, because she wasn’t about to waste all this anger on anyone else. He was her jump start, goddammit, and two years exchanging glances and quick smiles and tucking away her feelings was two years too many.
Screw the job, screw office protocol.
Screw the waiting.
And despair need not apply. Only hope.
Hope was essential.
They would find Jessie and things would change-oh, boy, would they change.
That is, of course, if she didn’t kill the bastard first.
36
Donovan wasn’t about to go back to the hospital. Not a chance.
His heart was still doing a dance inside his chest, but it had started to slow and he could already feel his strength returning. Another trip to the hospital would only be wasted time-time he couldn’t afford.
As he sat at the back of the ambulance, arguing this point with Waxman and the paramedics, Rachel walked up and joined the chorus. She looked upset, and Donovan felt a twinge of guilt. But he didn’t back down.
“Look at yourself,” Rachel said as she angled one of the doors to show him his reflection in the window. “You think you’re doing Jessie any good in this condition?”
Donovan was surprised by what he saw. Skin pale. Dark circles under his eyes. Pupils dilated. He looked like a skell, a hype. One fix away from the graveyard.
They told me you were dead.
A whisper of voices cascaded through his already crowded brain, and before he could stop them he was thinking about where he’d been and what he’d seen. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing the thoughts away, and when he opened them again, Rachel was staring at him, full of concern. Waiting.
“It’s almost twenty-four hours,” he said. “If I give up now-”
“For God sakes, Jack, nobody’s asking you to give up. Just get some rest. Let Sidney take over for a while.”
“You don’t understand. There are things going on here. Things I can’t explain.”
“What things?”
“Oh, brother, here we go again,” Waxman muttered.
Rachel glanced in his direction but he looked away, studying the ground. Frowning, she returned her gaze to Donovan, concern giving way to puzzlement.
“What things?” she repeated.
At the periphery of his brain, Donovan saw a turbulent sky, dark craggy mountains. A crowd of people marching like lemmings into the darkness.
He considered telling her about it, but held back. He didn’t want her looking at him the way Waxman had. What little he’d related to his friend had been greeted with a heavy-and entirely reasonable-dose of skepticism.
Actually, that was putting it mildly.
Waxman thought he was nuts.
“Later,” he said. “Right now we’ve got a suspect to track.”
Rachel started to protest, but he cut her short by turning to Waxman and gesturing across the street to the parking lot. A small group of people were gathered outside Reed’s warehouse door, watching them. Reed’s cast and crew.
“Get a canvass started. See if somebody knows that asshole’s name. And get Al working the F-150. Maybe the guy was stupid enough to drive his own truck.”
“Wishful thinking,” Waxman said, pulling out his cell phone. “You see Reed over there?”
Donovan squinted at the crowd and shook his head. “Nope.”
“I’ll check inside.”
“Wait for me.” Donovan got to his feet, but his legs were as weak and rubbery as month-old celery sticks. He grabbed the door to steady himself.
Rachel took his arm. “Jack, let Sidney handle this.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Not if you keep going at this pace.” She clearly wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t about to budge, either. She sighed. “At least let me get some food in you. You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
She was right. He hadn’t even thought about food. Now that he was thinking about it, he realized he was famished. The tap dance in his chest had nearly subsided, but a bit of nourishment might make him feel better.
“She’s making sense,” Waxman said. “You keep running on empty, sooner or later you won’t be running at all.”
Donovan felt the heat of Waxman’s gaze, judging him, the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
He wanted to resist, but he knew full well that Waxman could handle Reed as well as he could. Probably better at this point.
It was his turn to sigh. “Someplace close,” he said to Rachel. “A quick refuel and that’s it.”
She squeezed his hand and started across the street. “I’ll get my car.”
Donovan watched her go, feeling as though he’d just escaped a lynching. She was as stubborn as he was.
“You sure you’re okay?” Waxman asked.
Donovan looked at him. “I know you think I’ve lost it, Sidney, but I saw what I saw.”
“I don’t doubt that, old buddy. But you are under a lot of stress.”
“Just get me a goddamned name.”
Waxman nodded. “Consider it done.”
They found a deli about three blocks over.
Donovan thought the short ride might rejuvenate him, but when he stepped onto the curb, the world started to sway and he nearly lost his balance.
Rachel came around the car, took his elbow, and guided him inside to a table.
“Deja vu,” she said as she sat him down. “Only in reverse.”
Donovan had no idea what she was talking about and didn’t have the energy to try to figure it out, so he forced a chuckle and left it at that.
She waved a hand toward the menu mounted over the counter. “What are you hungry for?”
Donovan scanned it. “Pastrami. Mile high.”
Rachel mumbled something he didn’t catch and headed for the counter where a stout, round-faced woman waited to take their order. It was long past lunchtime, but still too early for dinner, and the place was nearly a ghost town. All but two of the remaining tables were empty.
Donovan watched as Rachel put in their order, but his mind was on a different plane, thinking of Waxman and Reed and Ski Mask.
And the dark place. The road to Yaru.
He thought about the stark landscape, remembering what A.J. had told him. That we bring our own baggage to the place, our minds filling in details to help us cope with something we don’t yet understand.
Did this mean that some of the walking dead found themselves in a field of lilies or on a beach at sunset? Were others cruising through a Vegas casino, slot machines spitting out shiny silver dollars?
What did it say about Donovan’s state of mind that his chosen deathscape was as bleak and as cold as the far side of the moon? Had the dark world he’d conjured up always been there at the periphery of his brain?
He thought about the job, and about the death and destruction he’d witnessed over the years. He thought about his parents, both gone, lost to a plane crash in the Bahamas just months before his divorce.
And he thought about his sister. The other Jessie.
Jessica-Anne Donovan, as smart as she was artistic, a scholar, a painter, a terrific pianist-and a victim of suicide just three days before her nineteenth birthday. She had suffered a nervous breakdown during her freshman year at Sarah Lawrence and come home to recuperate. A week later, Donovan-still in high school-trudged in from a long afternoon of football practice to find her hanging from a ceiling beam. A lavender robe tie was cinched around her neck, her once beautiful face an unnatural shade of blue.