Then we were in the basement, and from there into the parking garage.
I’d warned Denise not to react when she saw Cora. But it was all she could do to stay in character. “Mission accomplished,” I said, just to remind everyone we weren’t out of the woods. “Driver, take us back to base.”
Laurel climbed in front. Jerret opened the back and started to maneuver Cora in ahead of him, but I cut him off. “Lapp, you’ve got shotgun.” He started to protest, but this wasn’t negotiable. “Now, soldier. That’s an order.”
He let go and slid into the front. Moments later, Denise, Cora, and I were in the back. Cora in the center. No thought to that one: the duckling, however well-grown, flanked by the parents. A moment later the car was full of flies. No way we could leave them behind; try that and Jerret would have been back in the here-and-now faster than I could possibly come up with a way to stave it off.
But there weren’t that many flies. Forty, maybe fifty, tops. And Jerret was clearly losing his focus on the “mission;” flies were drifting into the backseat, hovering near Cora, circling her head, brushing her cheeks, hair, ears, lips.
Cora never moved, even as a tear slid from her eye and a fly landed to taste it. With a clarity that might have come from a swarm but didn’t, I realized she hadn’t been raped. Not in any conventional fashion, anyway. This—this was Jerret’s way of making love: like me watching Denise in Laurel’s office, carried to its extreme.
Traffic in the parking garage had been minimal—most people fleeing a high-rise fire aren’t going to risk getting trapped in the garage. Jerret’s voice was distant, muffled by the squeal of tires as Laurel gunned up the ramp toward the street.
Or maybe my own hearing hadn’t completely recovered. “What did you say?” I asked.
But it hadn’t just been my hearing. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, forlorn. Not a soldier’s. Or a kidnapper’s. “So few…”
I knew what he meant, but Cora didn’t know I did. “Usually there are a lot more flies,” she said. “Something happened to the rest.”
“So few,” Jerret repeated. He was becoming agitated. “Where are the Ladenites? Where’s the rest of the unit? What happened to my swarm? There was a guy with a spray can…”
Uh-oh. I made sure my gun was ready. Cora saw, and another tear followed the first. But she said nothing.
Please, God, if you exist, don’t make me have to do this.
Laurel saved the day. “Here, soldier, take this.” She fished in her pocket, dropped pills in his hand.
“What are they?” Suspicion hadn’t yet hit his voice, but it would.
“Anti-withdrawal medicine. Take it.” She was talking to him, but in the rear-view mirror she was watching me.
“What kind?” His voice was stronger, and my gun was now pointing at him, through the back of his seat. Please, God…
“Valium,” she said. And Ambien. I knew. The prescriptions had been mine. Not that I liked to use them. I preferred my flashbacks unmedicated. “Use your swarm,” Laurel added. “See if I’m telling the truth.”
Reluctantly, Jerret pulled a few flies away from Cora. Then a few more.
“I can get you a new swarm,” Laurel continued, once she was sure she had his full attention. In the rearview mirror, she actually flashed me a grin. “Isn’t that right, Kip?”
Laurel had found a way both to save the day and ensure her millions. “Yes. I’ve flown it.”
More flies moved from Cora, into the front.
“But you have to give up Ms. McCorbin. You can’t have both. We’ll give you the best insects outside the military, but you’ll have to do what our psychologists tell you, and wear a tracking bracelet, because you have to let her have her own life. Isn’t that right Kip?”
That one was easy. “Yes.”
“You really don’t have much choice, because otherwise the FBI’s going to get you eventually, and they really don’t like kidnappers.” She paused, accelerated onto Lakeshore Drive, watching a fire truck heading the opposite direction. Our doing, or something else? There are, I realized, things you never know… and never have to know.
“Right now, you’ve got to take those pills. Because otherwise Kip here is going to have to shoot you. And you know he’ll do it if he has to. Isn’t that right, Jerret?”
Jerret looked down at the pills. He turned, looked over his shoulder at Cora—his eyes, not the swarm’s. She was leaning slightly against me now, and I felt her stiffen. But her face showed nothing. Then, ever so slowly, Jerret raised his hand, tipped the pills into his mouth, swallowed. The opposite choice from the one I’d made. The only one he could possibly make.
“Good job.” Laurel sounded like she was talking to a child. She looked at her watch. “We’ll be in St. Louis in five hours if everything gets out of the way.” She again glanced in the mirror. “Want to come with us?”
I looked at Denise, Cora. Shook my head.
“Didn’t think so. Midway Airport’s on the way. Tickets are on me. Send the bill.” She paused. Jerret was already starting to nod off. “And remember what I told you, okay? Everyone in this life is walking wounded. I’ll take care of him; you do what I told you. Make this a win-win-win-win. You, me, Jerret, her. You hear me, Kip?”
I nodded. Started to grin, but she was deadly serious.
“Because life doesn’t give you many of those, so you damn well better not waste them.” There were tears in her eyes, too, and suddenly, it no longer seemed funny. There but for the grace of God. Her, me, Jerret, Cora. We were all each other, but for the grace.
The car was on the Stevenson Expressway, heading southeast, the electric motor’s whir barely loud enough to mask Jerret’s soft snore.
I lowered the gun, slipped on the safety. Looked at Cora, into the eyes in which once, I could do no wrong. Realized that life sometimes really does give you second chances. Can and will, without the shoulda-coulda.
I longed to put an arm around her, pull her tight, hear that all-restoring Daddy. But it was way too soon. Instead, I broke the gaze, looked across her at Denise. And wondered. Was there enough grace for a win-win-win-win-win? You sure as hell don’t get many of those. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t in any hurry to go back to Seattle. Especially in gray, rainy November.