Pauses.
He quietly calls the other men over, and the three of them go through the photographs of the dead and mutilated bodies one at a time. A dark, uncertain storm of shock and fury seems to settle all around us in the small clearing.
I wait for them to finish.
Honestly, I’m unsure how much they’ll want to question me, or even if they might take me to the station or arrest me. After all, a man is dead, and I was the one fighting him when he died. I have no idea what the legal ramifications might be, but the longer I stand here, the more I begin to wonder.
Finally, one of the officers, a looming, sloping-shouldered man with a stern face, turns to me. “Looks like you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yes.”
I wait to see what will happen next. He folds his notebook shut, turns to Jacobs. “Walk Mr. Banks back to the center. He needs to have those EMTs take a look at that contusion on his head.” Then he addresses me again. “And Mr. Banks …”
Okay. Here we go.
“Yes?”
“Looks like you saved us some trouble here, saved the taxpayers a lot of money. I’m sure as questions arise, we’ll be in touch.” Without another word, he puts away the notepad, turns back to the body, and Deputy Jacobs motions for me to return with him up the hill.
It takes a moment for the facts of the situation to settle in, but then it strikes me that although there’ll undoubtedly be more questions to answer and probably sheaves of paperwork to fill out, for now it looks like the officers aren’t going to give me a hard time about Banner’s death.
Instead the tall officer had essentially thanked me for getting Banner off their hands.
I’m a bit surprised by my initial thought, but in the end I agree with it: Actually, you know what, Deputy? It was my pleasure.
Jacobs trudges beside me as we ascend the muddy hill. “They’ll probably want to take you to the hospital. Check you over.”
Actually, that wouldn’t be bad. It would give me a chance to see how Tanbyrn is doing.
And get your ribs X-rayed. A fractured one could puncture your lung.
Yeah, that would ruin my day.
You can’t do the kind of stunts I’ve done over the years and not come away with your share of broken bones, and I’ve cracked ribs before but never seriously broken one. Either way, deep breathing or coughing was not going to be fun for the next couple weeks, but it would be good to find out the severity of the damage.
“Also,” I tell him, “there’s a woman who needs to come along. That guy cut her last night. Sliced her arm. She’s back at the center.”
“Alright.” He pulls out his walkie-talkie. “Let’s get you two an ambulance.”
Riah presented herself at Cyrus’s office, and the receptionist, Caitlyn Vaughn, led her grudgingly through the door.
She entered and found Cyrus alone, studying the aquariums containing the wasps. Without even mentioning their meeting with the twins last night, he invited her to join him. “Come here, Riah. There’s something I want you to see. She’s building her nest around the roach. I think you’ll like this part.”
On the way to the hospital, I call Xavier and tell him to meet us there, then I contact Fionna and give her the phone numbers I’d pulled from Banner’s cell and the alphanumeric code I’d gotten from the sheet of paper in his pocket. I also mention Project Alpha, the name of the research program Dr. Tanbyrn had started to tell us about just before the fire. “Look into it. See what you can find out. And see if you can find any reference to someone named Akinsanya.”
When we were in his office, right after we smelled the gasoline, Charlene had taken Tanbyrn’s folder of notes and his iPad and stuffed them into her shirt to save them from the fire. Now, in the ambulance, she has the iPad on her lap, but we find that it’s password protected and we can’t access the files. The algorithms on the sheets of paper are still as unintelligible to me as they were earlier when I was sitting at Tanbyrn’s desk.
I ask Charlene how she’s holding up.
“I don’t know… I mean, what happened to Abina …” A deep sadness pervades her words. “It’s so senseless. She seemed really nice and I can’t believe that guy just …” She shudders. “I’m worried about Tanbyrn too. And about you — about your head.” I’m a little glad I hadn’t told her about my ribs.
The paramedic had given me an ice pack and I’m holding it tenderly against my swollen temple. I take a shot at trying to lighten the mood: “You didn’t see that branch. It got the worse end of the deal.”
She smiles faintly at that.
I reach over and take her hand.
For a moment she’s quiet, then speaks softly: “The test is over, Jevin. We don’t need to pretend anymore.”
I don’t always know the right thing to say to her, but this time I do. “I’m not pretending.”
And instead of pulling away, she repositions her hand to hold more tightly onto mine.
Savants
Things at the hospital proceed quickly.
Xavier is waiting for us and, despite the objections of the nurses, hovers while they fret over the contusion on my head and while a doctor takes a careful look at Charlene’s arm. I overhear the doc tell her that she’s still in the window to get stitches, but that it was good she came in now.
Tanbyrn is still unconscious, and because of the amount of smoke inhalation, his age, and his apparently frail health, he’s listed in critical condition. The doctors say it’s possible he may slip into a coma.
I take some Advil for my mild concussion, the nurses leave me alone while they order an X-ray for my ribs, Charlene heads down the hall to get her stitches, and I start bringing Xavier up to speed, but I’m distracted by the furry-looking bologna and cheese sandwich he’s eating. “Where did you get that thing, anyway?”
“A vending machine.”
“A vending machine.”
“Yup.”
“Looks like it’s been there a month.”
“Tastes like it too.” But that doesn’t stop him from taking another bite. “But I’ve had worse.”
“I’m not sure I needed to know that.”
He listens carefully as I go on with my summary of what happened at the center, and in between bites of his sandwich, he interrupts to make observations about the heat flux of the fire, the likelihood of full-room involvement — flashover — in the doctor’s office. “The paneled walls lined with books — man, you wouldn’t have had much time.”
“Let’s just hope we got out soon enough for Tanbyrn.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “You did good back there, bro.”
“Thanks.”
“I bet it felt good too.” Talking with his mouth full.
“You mean helping Tanbyrn?”
He polishes off the sandwich, licks the grease off his fingers. “Yeah, that and escaping — getting out of the office, through the fire, picking that lock to get out of the building. I bet it felt good to be back in the zone again.”
“The zone?”
“Who you are, Jev. What you do. You’re an escape artist.”
“I’m a filmmaker.”
“No. You’re an escape artist.”
No, you’re not. Not anymore.
I leave the topic alone. “Hopefully, Tanbyrn will pull through.”
“Yeah.” A moment passes. “So you got the footage with the button camera?”
“It’s at the cabin back at the center.”
“And the test didn’t appear to be faked?”
“Not that I could tell, no.”