Disturbance

FIFTY-THREE

I rolled Parrish’s body off me, retrieved the garrote, and came to my feet.

I felt shaky, but I made my way to Donovan, who was lying very still.

I turned him over. He groaned. Under the circumstances, it was a welcome sound. I didn’t feel so good about all the blood soaking his left arm. I bent to put pressure on the wound, which was near his collarbone.

His eyes fluttered open. “In my backpack, there’s a field kit with Celox in it. Hurry.”

I ran to the pack, pulled out the field kit, and following his gritted out instructions, went to work.

I was just finishing up with the bandaging when I heard the helicopter again. It seemed closer, but maybe that was wishful thinking. I looked up in the sky, but all I saw was fast-moving clouds.

“Did you kill Kai?” he asked.

“No. He ran off. I didn’t want to leave you here bleeding.”

“Thanks.” He pulled himself up to a sitting position. “Hand me Nick’s gun, would you please? Just in case Kai comes back.”

“Is that smart? I mean, your shoulder-”

“He’s probably not going to come back, but he might also be lost out there, and there’s a chance he’ll circle back. I’d rather be ready for him.”

So I gave him the rifle and picked up the gun I had been using. “You have any ammo for this one?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, sorry. There will be lots of it in the cave, but Parrish only brought extra rounds for the rifle. Look in his right breast pocket.”

I forced myself to reach into the bloody pocket and found the ammo. I gave it to Donovan. His face was looking pale and drawn.

“Do you have anything for pain in your field kit?”

“Yes, but I need to try to keep my head clear.”

A gust of wind reminded me of my next priority. I searched for a nearby spot to pitch the tent. I didn’t have to go far, fortunately-I was within sight of Donovan and Parrish’s body. I noticed that Donovan had pulled his knife back out of Parrish’s chest.

I went to work on getting the tent set up. The wind was blowing harder, something I seem to be able to make wind do just by putting a tent stake in the ground. But I got it assembled-including the rain fly-without letting it blow away and soon had the bedroll laid out inside.

I went back and helped Donovan to his feet, then got him settled inside the tent-an awkward and painful process for him, given the nature of his injury, but a loud crack of thunder made us hurry it along.

The rain began to fall. In torrents.

I set up a rain catcher. Donovan had a canteen we shared while the catcher did its work.

After we had both been sitting there a few minutes, Donovan said, “They’ll be big on you, but I have some extra clothes in my pack.”

I looked down at myself. I was wet, dirty, bloody, and stinky with God knows what. I didn’t want to think about it.

“Thanks.”

He closed his eyes.

At that point, I would have stripped in the middle of Times Square for the chance to be out of those clothes, but he allowed me as much privacy as you can get in a tent without stringing a blanket down the middle of it.

He had a pair of soft workout pants with a string tie, and I changed into those, then stuck my pants outside the tent, hoping the rain would make a start on washing the stench and stains out of them. I took off the parka, which made me cold, and slipped a big flannel shirt over the shirt and long underwear I had been wearing since we left the lodge. His clothes were so big, I was swimming in them, but they were soft, dry, warm, and clean, which made them more valuable to me at that moment than designer wear.

I kept the wet shoes off, hoping they would dry, and did my best to clean the parka before putting it back on.

“You can open your eyes now,” I said. There wasn’t much light in the tent by then anyway, and we both thought we should keep the use of the flashlight in his pack to a minimum.

He accepted the offer of an energy bar.

“Thanks for all the help,” I said.

He laughed. There wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “I should ask you to shoot me. And you’d have every right to do it. No jury would convict you.”

“No, I’m not going to shoot you. I know you’ve tried to help me. Besides, there’s a little girl waiting for you somewhere, right?”

He looked away. “You remember that?”

“Yes, although I don’t remember all of it, at least not clearly.”

“Miranda. That’s her name. I may have just signed her death warrant. Parrish told me that if he didn’t make a call by a certain time, she would be killed.”

“I heard a helicopter. I’m sure they’re waiting out this storm just like we are. But as soon as it’s over, they’ll find us, we’ll get you to a hospital, and the police can do an all-out search for your daughter.”

“My daughter. With any luck, she’ll never know that. If she survives this, at least she won’t have to spend time around her grandfather or her father. One is dead, and the other’s going to prison.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said. “I mean, Parrish can stay dead-”

He did laugh at that.

“And I’ll do what I can to help you stay free. I know a great defense attorney.”

He was silent for a long time, then said, “You’re kind. And I-I’m glad you don’t think the worst of me, although I couldn’t blame you if you did. Which still makes me the son of that piece of shit out there.”

It occurred to me that, until that moment, I had never heard him use even so much as “damn” under the most trying of circumstances. Which confirmed me in an opinion I had been forming for some time now. “You aren’t like him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“No. You don’t.”

“Look, Donovan, you’re right. I don’t know your history. I don’t know your background. I don’t know a damned thing about your past. But I know that whatever may have been in the past doesn’t matter to me. Right here, right now, it brought you to do things for me at great risk to your own life-and your daughter’s. I wish I could tell you how it felt, when I was alone, trying to hide from Nicky out there, to suddenly realize that you were rooting for me to survive. Not just in favor of it but actively helping me. You thought everything out. If you hadn’t, I don’t think I would have made it this far.”

“You underrate yourself.”

“Likewise.”

We fell silent. I had insisted, over his strong objections, that he sit on his own sleeping bag, rather than give it to me. He lay down now but shifted, apparently unable to get comfortable.

“Donovan.”

“Yes.”

“Remember the physicist I interviewed about the Large Hadron Collider?”

He seemed startled by the change in subject. “Yes.”

“I did that interview because my boss, who was once a lowly underling at the Express, got on an astrophysics kick. He came across this sentence, ‘The universe is expanding.’ He fell in love with that. You know why?”

“Because it’s true.”

“It is true, but that’s not the only reason he has all but come up with a coat of arms to put it on. Do you know much about Ethan?”

“You were his mentor. He took over running the news at the radio station, and after the paper closed, he hired you. He rents a room from your friend Ben Sheridan and is learning to be a dog handler, although his new job has made it hard for him to keep up with that.”

I tried and failed not to look taken aback.

“I studied you,” he said in a tired, flat voice. “You and everyone around you.”

“So-you know that he was a cocky, lying little bastard who hid how shitfaced drunk he was getting every day, then fucked up big-time and brought so much shame on himself and on the paper that he nearly got fired, and probably would have found it easier if he hadn’t ever returned to the newsroom, where just about everyone hated him?”

There was a long silence before Donovan said, “No, I didn’t come across that information.”

“Yes, well, in a nutshell, he changed. He’s still cocky, but I kind of hope that never changes. So even though the astrophysicists don’t mean it in the same way, he believes we should all embrace the fact that the universe is expanding.”

“I don’t know what sins Ethan committed, but-it’s not that. It’s not what I’ve done. It’s who I am. Cold. My own mother knew I had inherited an evil streak.”

“What?”

“Parrish raped her. She decided not to get an abortion. But even from the time I was little, I remember her being afraid of me, of who I would become, of my nature. I’ve always known I’m… not like other people.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

He laughed then, a genuine laugh. He reached for his shoulder.

“Sure you don’t want that painkiller?”

“Sure. I need to stay awake. I’m fairly certain Kai would have found his way back here by now if he was going to, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“What happened to her?”

“My mother? My stepfather killed her. He’s in prison.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I never felt close to either of them.”

After a moment I said, “The world would be a horrible place if all children believed everything their parents said about them.”

“It’s not just what they said. It’s what I know I’m capable of.”

“That can be tough. For example, I’ve learned I can kill a man with my bare hands. A little earlier today, I wondered if I could bring myself to garrote someone. Guess I answered that. I ran to have the chance to do it.”

“To save me. Besides, I killed him.”

“Grateful for that, but really, I’m not so sure he wasn’t already gone. And besides…” I drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “He’s not the first person I’ve killed, and there are others whose deaths I probably could have prevented.”

“You aren’t God. And I know about the killings-you were defending yourself.”

I fell silent. My ghosts endure. I struggle to forgive myself, but they endure.

I felt weary and lay down, even though I knew I would not sleep.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” he said.

“You didn’t. Just something I have to live with.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

He wanted to stay awake, to stand guard, but blood loss and physical exhaustion trumped even pain, and soon I heard him fall asleep. He was on top of, rather than in the sleeping bag, so I put the survival blanket over him, trying to make sure he stayed warm.

“The universe is expanding, Donovan,” I whispered. “However small any of our lives are at any given point, we can draw bigger lines around them.”

I lay back on my side of the tent and thought about ways to get the attention of a helicopter that might not also draw the attention of a young serial killer.