Cutting Edge

23

Lund was on a private mission to cook more at home, shunning the caloric content of restaurant food. To that end, she created time each day for a trip to the grocery store in search of something fresh. Today it was a halibut fillet that would carry her through two nights. She’d just dropped the fish into her cart, and was turning toward the produce department, when her mobile rang.

The number didn’t register as known, but she picked up all the same. “Hello?”

“Hi, Shannon … it’s Trey DeBolt.”

Lund froze in the middle of the seafood aisle. “Trey … well, hi. I’m really glad you called.” She heard him expel a long breath. “Are you okay? Last time I saw you … I mean, when you left here, you weren’t doing so hot.”

“Still kicking,” he said.

Lund had heard that one before — a rescue swimmer’s response. “Look, I know we only met once, but do you remember me?”

“Sure I remember. You interviewed me at the Golden Anchor about that drunk skipper who lost his boat.”

“That’s right.”

“There was almost one other time,” he added. “You were at Monk’s Rock Coffee House … I saw you talking to another guy, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

Lund racked her brain, trying to remember. “Okay, right, a couple of months ago. I was with Jim Kalata, the petty officer who works in my office. He and I make up CGIS Kodiak. I wish you had come over.”

DeBolt said nothing for a time. The small talk was clearly awkward for them both. “Anyway,” he finally said, “it’s good to hear a familiar voice. When I got your message it surprised me. I guess it means you’ve been looking for me.”

“I have.”

A hesitation. “Can you tell me why?”

“Trey—”

“The reason I ask,” he interrupted, “is because some other people are looking for me. They’ve already tried to kill me twice.”

“What?”

“I watched them gun down a woman in cold blood. Now they’re after me.”

Lund wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Look, I know this sounds crazy … like I’m some paranoid lunatic. But there’s a lot going on, and … and I don’t know who to trust.”

Lund sensed an edge in his voice, and she tried to place it. Fear? Anxiety? Whatever it was, he sounded nothing like the easygoing, confident young man she’d had a beer with at the Golden Anchor. Lund was deliberately calm with her response. “Who are they, Trey?” she asked, caring less about his answer than his reaction.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure they’re under DOD, but I have no idea which branch.”

“DOD?” Lund struggled for another calm reply, something logical and full of assurance. Nothing came to mind.

“Sounds delusional, doesn’t it? The government is out to get me. I don’t know how to make you understand what’s happened. I wish I could, Shannon. I wish someone could explain everything to me and…” His voice went hollow and trailed off.

“Maine,” she said. “I can come to Maine.”

“What? Christ, you’re triangulating this call! You’re tracking it to tell them where I am! I’m outta here—”

“No, I swear I’m not, Trey! Please don’t hang up! I got a call from a detective, a place called Washington County. He called me because he’d discovered you were stationed at Kodiak — he said you were implicated in a case he was investigating there.” Lund waited, not breathing. The disconnecting click didn’t come.

“Implicated in what?”

“There was an explosion — a cottage along the coast blew up from a gas leak. They found fingerprints in the wreckage and got a match to yours, what the Coast Guard has on file. This detective saw right away that you were listed as deceased, but he was trying to figure out why you’d been to the cottage. He seemed to think the blast was suspicious.”

“Suspicious? That’s putting it mildly. I know exactly who was responsible — the same men who are trying to kill me. They did it to destroy any traces of their murder.”

For the first time Lund sensed a thread of reason, slim as it might be. That was good, because otherwise DeBolt was right — what he was telling her sounded delusional.

“But you left a voice mail I could access,” he said. “You didn’t believe I was dead. Why?”

She explained that she’d gone to his apartment and seen things that didn’t add up. She told him about the med-evac flight that never went to Anchorage.

“So that’s how I got here,” he said, “a private jet. I never even knew. I have a hazy recollection of being in a hospital, but the first thing I remember for sure is waking up in Joan’s cottage. That was her name, Joan Chandler — she was a nurse. Look it up. Now she and her house are both gone.”

“Excuse me!”

Lund turned and realized she was blocking the aisle, a stern-faced woman trying to get by. She steered her cart to one side, then leaned forward on the push handle.

“Trey, I’d really like to help you. But whatever else is happening, I can’t ignore the fact that you’re AWOL right now. For God’s sake, think about it … the Coast Guard, your commander, your friends. They all think you’re dead.”

Another silence. “Maybe I am.”

“Trey, I want to help you.”

“Let me guess — I should proceed to the nearest Coast Guard facility and turn myself in? Look, I know it’s part of your job to track down AWOLs, but I’m not some E-3 who’s running from a child support payment or who got caught in a drug deal. You know the condition I was in after that accident — I did not leave Kodiak of my own free will.”

“I understand that.”

“My life was taken from me! And … and there’s something else, Shannon. Something that overshadows the very fact that I’m alive. I don’t know how to explain it, but believe me when I say I can never go back to Kodiak or the Coast Guard. I can never be what I was. In that hospital — they changed me.”

“Who changed you? How?”

Silence.

“Trey, I only want to help!”

“They gave me an ability to do things, Shannon. Things you could never imagine. A few days ago I wouldn’t have thought what’s happened to me is possible. It’s a curse more than anything. The whole world is mine for the taking, yet at the same time I feel … I feel so damned isolated.”

Lund didn’t know how to respond. She felt like a crisis counselor. He wasn’t making sense, sounding more unbalanced by the moment. Was it the damage to his brain? she wondered. The ensuing silence stretched too long, and she felt him slipping away. “Trey, I’m coming to help you. I’ll be on the next flight. I want you to go to Boston, meet me there tomorrow.”

No response.

“Trey, I won’t ask where you are, and I won’t tell anyone I’m coming.”

“No.”

“I will be in Boston, whether you like it or not. You have my number, call me tomorrow.”

Silence.

“Trey, please! Sooner or later you have to trust someone.”

A click, followed by silence. Lund stood still, but only for a moment. She left her cart and her fish where they were. By the time she reached the parking lot Lund was already talking to Alaska Airlines.