The Chemist

CHAPTER 32

It was a strange morning.

For Alex, it was also a very late morning. It was peaceful in the empty veterinary hospital, and no one disturbed her. She learned later that Volkstaff had called his office team, canceled all the appointments, and put a sign in the window that read CLOSED FOR FAMILY EMERGENCY.

It was an odd place to feel so safe – an unfamiliar place, a place where she’d prepared no traps or defenses.

But things had changed. She’d only really thought of rescuing Kevin, but their actions last night had also shifted their position significantly.

Kevin was as energetic as ever, despite the fact that he was stuck in the rolling office chair again, his gauze-wrapped feet elevated on the wheeled stool. Val disappeared as soon as she saw Alex to take her turn on the couch. Daniel had had his eyes closed to ignore his brother but quickly “woke up” when he heard Alex’s voice. Volkstaff was apparently out getting lunch. The others had left her a bagel and cream cheese.

As soon as Alex had finished her examination of Daniel – who was recovering more quickly than anyone who hadn’t worked with Kevin Beach would believe – Alex grabbed her breakfast and the newspaper Volkstaff had brought in with the bagels. She read furiously while she chewed. They’d made the front page – though only the people in the room knew that.

“This all feels anticlimactic, Ollie,” Kevin complained, using a broom to push his chair in circles around the room. “It would have been more fun to shoot him.”

The big headline for the day was Wade Pace’s fatal aneurysm. The journalists had barely paused for a moment of silence before they were on to guessing what President Howland’s strategy would be for finding his new running mate.

“Well, you did get to shoot Deavers.”

“I was too stressed about Danny to really enjoy it, though,” he mused.

Kevin had been terse in his explanation about how Deavers had gotten the upper hand. Alex could tell he was embarrassed, but she didn’t think less of him. How could anyone have prepared for the extremes that Deavers’s paranoia had pushed him to? More than forty men, deployed into three perimeters, one more than a mile out from Deavers’s position. Once Deavers hit the panic button, the perimeters had collapsed in. Kevin maintained that if he hadn’t ignored his gut and brought a rocket launcher along, he would have made it out.

There was nothing else in the news, nothing about a violent shootout in an underground bunker on the outskirts of town. No word about a missing CIA deputy director. No mention of Carston, not even the relatively public kidnapping of his granddaughter. Maybe in tomorrow’s news.

Kevin didn’t think so.

“It’ll be a gas-line explosion or something like that. That real story is all going to get buried so deep, they’ll name Jackie Kennedy as the Dallas shooter before any of it gets out.”

He was probably right.

They couldn’t be 100 percent sure, of course, and they would continue to behave with caution, but the pressure was significantly decreased. Alex knew she would feel the lightness like a layer of helium under her skin, if she could ever convince herself to believe in their good luck.

After lunch, Volkstaff removed the stitches from Alex’s ear and complimented Daniel’s even hand when she gave him the credit. Alex was bemused by how much the white-haired old man took in stride. None of them had tried to explain their unusual injuries or even make up a cover story, but Volkstaff asked no questions and showed no obvious curiosity. He didn’t comment on the fact that Kevin was supposed to have died in prison, though apparently – Daniel informed her in a whisper – Volkstaff had been at the funeral. He asked only about old acquaintances from their childhood and, more particularly, the animals they’d known together. Though Alex had just barely learned to recognize love at all, she thought she might be falling for Volkstaff just a little, too.

Still, they couldn’t live in the animal hospital forever. Volkstaff had other patients. After a few minutes of discussing options, Val surprised Alex by volunteering to house them again, back in her palatial penthouse, now that it was safe. For a fee, naturally. Kevin seemed the most shocked at her offer.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she told him. “I want the dog. And I actually like Alex and Danny. Almost as much as I can’t stand you.” Then she’d kissed him – long enough that it got uncomfortable for everyone. Volkstaff politely turned his back, but Alex just stared. She would never understand what Val saw in Kevin.

“Sooo…” Kevin began.

Alex turned from her organizing; it wasn’t quite packing yet. Kevin was lounging in the doorway of the room Alex and Daniel had always shared in Val’s home, his left arm braced against the top of the frame. For one second, Alex was irrelevantly jealous of tall people in general. It wasn’t an uncommon feeling these days, always surrounded by giants as she was. She put it away.

“So what?”

“So how did the appointment go today? What did you and Volkstaff conclude?”

He didn’t have to ask where Daniel was now – Daniel’s normal shower-serenade volume would have gotten him in trouble if the other tenants were any closer. The Bon Jovi phase hadn’t passed yet; he was particularly fond of “Shot Through the Heart” at the moment. Alex didn’t find it so funny, but she tried not to let it irritate her.

“The vet thinks Daniel’s good to go. I concur. You Beaches are a charmed breed.” She shook her head, still a little incredulous at how quickly and thoroughly Daniel had healed. “Also, he wants to look at your feet.”

Kevin scowled. “My feet are fine.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger. I mean that literally.”

His frown faded into his normal expression, but he continued to stand there in the doorway, staring at her.

“Sooo…?” she echoed.

“So… do you have any ideas about where you’re heading now?”

Alex twitched her shoulders noncommittally. “Nothing too specific yet.” Like a coward, she turned back to her worn duffel and looked over her stowed chemicals again, checking that they were all appropriately protected from jostling. She might have been going overboard with the organization, she admitted to herself. They probably didn’t need to be alphabetized. But she’d had a lot of time on her hands, and other than surfing the web for possible new digs, she was at loose ends. Daniel had objected to being examined more than four times a day.

“Have you talked to Danny about it?”

She nodded with her back still turned to him. “He says wherever I want to go is fine by him.”

“He’s planning to tag along with you, I guess.”

Kevin’s voice was casual, but Alex knew it must be a strain to keep it that way.

“I haven’t discussed that part specifically with him, but, yes, it does seem to be the assumption.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she really had nothing left to do with the bag. She turned slowly to face him.

“Yeah,” he said, “I could tell it was going to go that way.” His expression was indifferent. Only his eyes revealed the depths of his hurt.

She didn’t want to tell the full story, but she felt guilty holding it back. “If it makes you feel any better, he seems to be assuming you’ll be there, too.”

Kevin’s eyebrows eased back from their normal compressed position.

“Really?”

“Yes. I don’t think he’s envisioned any more splitting up at this point.”

Kevin inclined his chin. “I can understand that. Kid’s been through a lot.”

“He’s bouncing back pretty well.”

“True, but we wouldn’t want to traumatize him again. Don’t want him to have a setback.”

Alex knew where Kevin was going with this. She suppressed both a sigh and a smile, keeping her face neutral.

“True,” she said in her serious-doctor tone. “It might be best to keep his environment as stable as possible, aside from all the unavoidable changes.”

Kevin didn’t suppress his sigh. He blew out a huge breath and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’ll probably be an enormous pain, but I guess I can stick close until he’s adapted.”

Alex couldn’t resist pushing back just a tiny bit. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to put yourself out. He’ll survive.”

“No, no, I owe the kid. I’ll do what I have to.”

“He’ll appreciate that.”

Kevin met her gaze for one long second, his expression candid, and then suddenly sheepish. The moment passed, and he grinned.

“What’s the general area you’re looking at?” he asked.

“I was thinking maybe the Southwest or the Rocky Mountains. Medium-size city, settle in the suburbs. The usual.”

No one was looking for them, as far as they knew, but Alex was always a fan of playing it safe, just in case. She’d have to use a fake name regardless – Juliana Fortis was legally dead.

Daniel’s singing cut off, then picked up again, muffled by a towel.

“I know a town that might work.”

Alex shook her head slowly. He’d probably already rented a house and set up the new identities. She’d choose her own name no matter what he’d done. “Of course you do.”

“How do you feel about Colorado?”