He put the book back and turned to leave. Then he noticed the glint of something between the seat cushions of the couch. It was a vial he’d emptied here two months ago. His hand was inches from it when he realized what he was doing and yelled, “Fuck!”
He went to the kitchen, found a dish towel, and wrapped up the vial without touching it. Then he went to the back porch and smashed the plastic with his heel. Risking a final touch he picked up the towel and threw it like a football into the backyard among the roots of the oak tree.
He shut the door-and immediately got an image of himself sneaking out here in the middle of the night, rooting through the grass for the towel, pressing it to his face…
It took another five minutes to find the gas can for Jo’s lawnmower. He soaked a rag and set the towel on fire. He stood back from the smoke and thought, Jesus, I got to get out of this town.
He walked back to Jo’s bedroom and lay on the bed. He stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then he grew cold, so he pulled back the dusty covers and climbed inside.
I’m sorry, Jo, he thought. They killed you and I didn’t tell a soul.
Even now he couldn’t hate the girls. He just wanted to know that they were all right. Safe. Happy.
“Shit,” he said. I think I fell in love with them, Jo.
He lay in the bed, feeling like a spy in her house-a foreign agent in deep cover. If this is what it’s like to be human, he thought, no wonder the world is so fucked up.
A night in his own house had not made Reverend Martin any happier. The new bed was too stiff, the couch too big, the new paint too sloppily applied. He despised the weakness of Mr. Teestall’s coffee.
“I’ll talk to him about it,” Pax told his father. “I’ll be checking in every day.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Then most days,” Pax said. “Every day I possibly can.” He showed Harlan again how to use the contacts list in the cell phone he’d purchased. It was a model the argos favored for its oversized buttons-good for fat charlie fingers as well. Pax had also tried to teach his father texting but had quickly given up. “And you can call me any time you want.”
Harlan poked at the phone, put it down. “Rhonda won’t be happy with my decreased output.”
“Well, she’ll have to live with that,” Pax said. And so will you, Pax thought. Harlan was happier when he was producing than when he wasn’t. They hoped the phone calls would trigger some production. Their theory was that there should be nothing magical about Pax’s physical presence; it was the feeling of closeness that started the cascade. That was the theory, anyway.
Pax said, “And after the quarantine is over I’ll be able to visit in person.”
He saw motion outside the window and looked out. Aunt Rhonda’s Cadillac was pulling into the driveway.
“Okay,” Pax said. “My ride is here.”
His father looked up at him. “This new job. It can’t wait till after Christmas?”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
Harlan grunted. “You promise it’s not doing anything illegal?”
“Uh, illegal, or immoral?”
“Paxton Abel…”
Pax looked out the window. Everett was outside the car now, waiting with arms crossed. “Okay, you think you can keep a secret?”
His father skewered him with a look. “Don’t get smart, Son.”
“I’ll be setting up a safe house. They need people they can trust outside of Switchcreek. Rhonda’s organizing another batch of people to leave in February.”
“You could be arrested.”
“Or sent back here. Same thing, right?”
“I’ll start fattening the calf.”
Pax stood up. He went into the kitchen and shook Mr. Teestall’s hand. “Thanks again, and good luck with him. You know my number. Oh, and here are the keys to the Tempo. Drive it until it runs out of gas.”
“Good luck yourself,” Mr. Teestall said.
Outside, a car horn beeped.
Pax went to the guest room and grabbed his suitcase. When he got back to the living room his father had somehow pushed himself up off the couch. His face had swollen. The pores had begun to glisten.
Pax shifted his suitcase to his other hand. “I don’t think I should hug you,” he said.
“Ah,” his father said. He looked down at himself. “‘New wine in old bottles.’”
“Matthew, uh, nine?”
His father grunted. “Good boy. Nine-seventeen: ‘The bottles break, and the wine runneth out.’”
Pax could smell the vintage radiating from him. “Dad, I have to go…”
“Go, go.” He waved a hand. “Just don’t forget your way back.”
Everett took his suitcase and put it in the trunk. “Backseat,” he said.
“But I called shotgun,” Pax said.
Everett didn’t bother to answer.
Pax opened the rear door to a cloud of lilac perfume. He got inside and reluctantly closed the door. “Hi, Aunt Rhonda.”
The mayor sat in the front passenger seat. “It’s not polite to keep a lady waiting,” she said.
“Sorry about that. My dad always says that I’d be late for my own funeral.”
She turned and eyed him critically. “I trust Reverend Martin is comfortable? Or is there some other custom treatment we can provide for him-a daily foot massage maybe?”
“He’s happy,” Pax said. “As happy as he can be.”
They drove the western loop into town, over the single-lane bridge, past Jo’s house.
Rhonda handed him a large manila envelope. “This is the address of the house we rented in Vermont, the keys, and receipts. There’s a credit card and some cash in there to get you started-oh, and the prepaid phone. Use that instead of your own cell when you call Everett-and you only call Everett, never me, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She gave him more instructions-most of which she’d told him multiple times before.
“What about the other address?” Pax asked.
“We’ll talk about that later, once you get out of detention in Louisville.”
“No, we’ll talk about it now. That was part of my price.”
Everett gazed at him through the rearview mirror. Pax ignored him. “You know I don’t have the files on me, right? My father doesn’t have them either. A friend of mine outside of Switchcreek has everything-”
“Liar,” Everett said.
“-and he’ll release them if he doesn’t hear from me on a regular basis.” Actually, he and Andrew Weygand had never worked out a schedule. He hoped that if Everett killed him, Weygand would find out about it eventually. But then what? Even if he died he wasn’t sure he wanted Rhonda indicted. She was the only person holding the town together. It was the threat he needed, not the execution. “In fact, there’s one or two things I did not give you a copy of.”
“That’s it,” Everett said, and hit the brakes. The car skewed and shuddered to a stop. “I’m coming back there.” He opened the door and hopped out. Pax pushed to the far side of the seat and pulled on the handle-it was locked.
“Everett! Settle down, both of you!” Rhonda said. “Paxton’s just trying out his big-boy muscles, aren’t you, Paxton?” She looked at him over the seat back, seeming genuinely amused. “I tell you, for a second it was like having Jo Lynn back again.”
She handed him an index card. “I’d appreciate it if you memorized that and then, I don’t know, eat it, burn it, whatever you’d do in that spy movie running in your head. And Everett, for goodness’ sake, get back in here and close the door before you freeze me to death.”
The government car was waiting for him at the Cherokee Hotel, a young soldier already at the wheel. Pax tried to show him the paperwork Dr. Fraelich had worked so hard on, but the boy waved him off. “They’ll do all that at the checkpoint,” he said. His voice was muffled by the mask. Pax wondered if he would keep it on all the way to Louisville.