The cops and Charlie Rice ran into the office to retrieve him and Quinton put his hand back under my free elbow, urging me forward. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before this gets crazier.”
I was still at war inside: A part of me said I should stay and try to help Will, but I turned with Quinton and we zigzagged our way out of the antiques warehouse and back to the Rover. I hoped that Will was all right—or as all right as he was likely to be—and that Rice’s nose wasn’t too badly wrecked, but I didn’t go back to find out. We bailed into the truck and abandoned the situation to the cops.
TWENTY-ONE
We reached the West Seattle Bridge near the container yards before I broke down. I felt as if some fortress of ice had surrounded me and now shattered, letting the horror and despair I should have felt before rush out. I had to pull over and stop the truck as my vision flooded with wavering crimson. Quinton drew me into his lap and pressed a paper napkin to my cheek to catch my running red tears. “It’s OK, babe. It’ll be all right.”
“ ‘Babe’?” I sniffled, pulled out of my confusion, upset, and pity by the oddity of the word.
He shrugged. “I’m terrible with synonyms. I’m a science geek, not an English teacher, you know.”
I blotted up the bloody mess and blew my nose. “ ‘Babe’ is what you call women with more boobs than brains,” I said. “And I may be acting stupid, but given how little bust I’ve got, it doesn’t say much for what’s north of my chin.”
Quinton made a bemused face. “I am not going to try to unravel that. But regardless of whether it’s your boobs or your brain you’re insulting, you’re wrong: They’re both magnificent.”
I poked him in the shoulder. “What are you on? I feel like I’ve got a sieve full of Jell-O in my head. Oh, gods, poor Will. . . . I shouldn’t have left him like that.” And why had I? Why had I gone so cold . . . ?
“It was Rice’s call—he thought the cops might be the best solution. He’s known Novak for years and he’s just as worried about him as you are. He’ll be all right.”
“No, he won’t.” I squirmed around so I could see Quinton better. “Maybe you didn’t notice—”
“That he’s lost it completely? Yes, I did. But it wouldn’t be diplomatic of me to say it.”
“You just did.”
“Yeah. . . .” He bit his lower lip and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the truth, so . . . you shouldn’t be. And I feel there’s nothing I can do. I wanted to—I tried . . . but it didn’t work. I felt like it was too much to care for. . . .”
“You can’t fix everything. You try too hard to fix too much of the world as it is. And don’t start saying that what happened to Novak is your fault: It isn’t. No one could expect him to keep his head on straight after being kidnapped and tortured by things he thought only existed in horror films and pulpy novels. This is one thing you’re going to have to let go. You can’t help Novak. You can help a lot of other people by completing the task you already set for yourself. You have to stop wasting your energy on what you can’t change.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I wanted to be angry or, better still, to be as cold and remote as I’d felt at Charlie Rice’s warehouse—it would hurt less than the horror and sorrow that now pressed on my chest—but that, too, wasn’t working. Quinton dropped his forehead onto my shoulder for a moment and took a deep breath before he looked up again.
“Harper. I’m not saying it’s wrong to want to help, but you can’t do it all, and some of it is simply not doable. Someone said, ‘Pick battles small enough to win, big enough to matter.’ You need to pick the one you can win.”
“How do I know which one that is?”
“You know. You just don’t like thinking you’re abandoning someone. Especially someone you went back for once already. But that’s not the job you’re on now. It’s up to Novak and his brother to take what you gave them and do their best. Like it’s up to you to do your best with what you have in front of you right now.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and spread it on my thigh. “I have the address in Leavenworth.”
My heart stuttered. “For the maze?”
“No. For the other puzzle ball. Kind of a funny coincidence that it went right back where it came from, yeah?”
I felt a tug of curiosity and a touch of premonition. My brows drew down as I thought about it. “Probably not a coincidence at all. . . .”
Quinton hugged me suddenly and with unexpected power. “Glad to have you back, sweetheart.”
I slumped into him. “Have I been missing?”
“A little. Off and on.”
I shook my head. “I’m hearing things and I can’t seem to . . . feel what I ought to, as well as all the rest. I feel pressed for time and anxious to get this over with before things get worse. As if I even knew what sort of worse they might get. And yet part of me is growing remote, as if none of this matters.”
“It does matter. You’re just overwhelmed.”
I took that in with a nod, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
“You’re hearing things?” he asked, looking concerned.
“Yeah. Singing and voices. From the Grey. Not ghosts, something more . . . endemic. Sometimes it says things I need to listen to, sometimes it seems to move me, but most of the time, it’s just noise. Intrusive, implacable noise. Like the audience at a rock concert without the music.”
“Do they have lighters?”
“What?”
“Lighters. You know: The sappy ballad dedicated to some dead band member starts up and everyone flicks their Bic and holds it on high.”
I fixed an incredulous stare on him. “You have a romantic streak as wide as a hair.”
“I am very romantic—I brought you flowers for your birthday.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“The ferret ate them.”
I glared at him.
“All right, she didn’t eat them. She pushed them on the floor and broke the vase and I had to throw them out, but I did bring them. You just weren’t home to appreciate them. See: That’s romantic, even if it’s kind of messed up. But that rock concert thing is sentiment, of which I have almost none.”
I continued peering at him, though I did feel a giggle tugging at one corner of my mouth.
“I traded it in,” he explained, “for an oscilloscope—it was a pretty nifty one, too.”
I snorted a laugh. “Goof.”
“Yup. Big goofy geek-boy here. I’m working on that ‘he makes me laugh’ thing because, you know, Roger and Jessica have it all over Rhett and Scarlett.”
Now I laughed out loud and Quinton had to shut me up by kissing me, which I didn’t mind at all. It wasn’t that I was happy about what had happened at Rice House Antiques, but I no longer felt too awful to go on or too cold to care. Quinton was right in saying I couldn’t do anything for Will—at least not right then—and there were more pressing things on my agenda. I did feel terrible for the brothers Novak, but I’d have to make some kind of . . . amends later.
It’s about a three-hour drive to Leavenworth from Seattle if you don’t pause for much. Most map searches will tell you it’s two and a half, but even in the best weather the roads through the mountains in the final third of the trip don’t encourage driving over the posted limits. The surfaces themselves are fine, but the twists and turns with precipitous drops into rivers and ravines just a few feet aside aren’t. Ribbons, rock piles, and occasional plaques mark the places where the road and some of its drivers parted ways. We took the northern route through Monroe, but I had to ask Quinton to take the wheel once we passed Skykomish. Even with the filtering effect of the Rover’s steel and glass, the sudden flashes of accidents and ghosts racked me with shocks. We were almost out of the pass when I spotted the last shadow of a fatal accident on the route: Two women and a young boy in 1940s clothes stood at the outside edge of a bend that hung over the Wenatchee River below. They were dripping wet and looked frightened and confused. Even the small black dog at their feet seemed disoriented by what must have happened to them all. I had to turn my head away from their imploring stares.