The last thing I remember

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Radio News The jail was in the city of Centerville. I stared through the window as it slipped past. We went along a row of shops. We went down a shadowed corridor of office buildings. I saw a green sign for the interstate go by. Then we were on the highway, gathering speed, and the blue sky was opening before us and the skyline was falling away behind us as the cruiser sped north.

I watched all of this, but barely noticed any of it. I was still dazed from what had just happened. My heart was going a million miles a minute. My thoughts were going just about as fast.

I worked my hands behind my back. I found that I could slide the handcuffs open and closed without any effort at all. Someone-the same man who had whispered to me, I guess-had somehow stripped the lock on them. That must’ve been the pinch I felt on my wrists. That must’ve been when he did it. Just before he said those words to me:

You’re a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

What did it mean? What could it mean? Waterman. I didn’t know anyone by that name. But then, I didn’t know much of anything anymore. I wasn’t even sure I really knew myself.

Still, the words burned like a flame inside me, like a small flame in the roiling darkness.

You’re a better man than you know.

Did that mean I wasn’t a killer? Did that mean my whole life wasn’t a lie, as Detective Rose had said? But who had said that? Who had freed my hands? A friend? An enemy? Someone who knew the truth or someone with a reason to lie?

The cruiser raced along the highway. The thoughts raced through my head, coming so fast they seemed to jumble together. Outside, vast stretches of forest went past, a sea of leaves rising and falling on the hills like waves. The leaves were changing color. Their reds and yellows mixed with the evergreens against the bright blue of the October sky. I stared out at them, but I barely saw them. I worked the handcuffs behind me, opening and closing them.

You’re a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

Waterman. Who was he? How could I find him? Was he another part of my life that was lost? Was it gone forever? Might there still be a trace of memory, a clue buried in my mind that I was overlooking?

Again-obsessively-I went back over the events of yesterday, trying to force some fresh detail to the surface of my consciousness. The torture room. The faces of my tormentors. The voices I’d heard outside the door.

Homelander One.

We’ll never get another shot at Yarrow.

Two more days.

We’ll send Orton. He knows the bridge as well as West.

There was more. There were names. The voices mentioned names. I strained to find them, but I couldn’t. I just remembered that one voice saying, Whatever the truth is, the West boy is useless to us now. Kill him.

I let out a sighing breath in frustration. It was all crowding together in my mind. The things I remembered, the things that had slipped away, a useless mess of half-understood words and images. What did I know? What was I supposed to believe? What was I supposed to do now?

Find Waterman.

I worked the handcuffs, opening and closing them- and the answer came to me.

I was supposed to escape. Of course. That must be it. That must be what the man had meant when he whispered to me.

You’re a better man than you know.

He must’ve been telling me that I wasn’t a criminal, that I should make a break for it and “find Waterman,” whoever he was-or whatever.

I looked around the backseat of the car. It was really just a moving cell. There were no handles on the doors. No locks I could open. Even if I took my handcuffs off in here, there’d still be no way I could get out. I would have to wait, look for a chance. I would pretend the handcuffs were still locked until I saw the right moment. But then what? Once I got out of the car, I would be surrounded by police. Handcuffed or not, I would never be able to get away…

I shook my head. Too many thoughts, too many questions. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. I needed to calm down and stay calm. I needed to think. I needed to make a plan.

That sleepy sadness I had felt in the cell-that passivity and despair-they were gone suddenly. I had hope again. I was thinking again. Trying to take control of things, trying to find a way out.

I remembered how I prayed for help in my cell. How I’d thought there’d been no answer. I was wrong.

Now I had a chance. All I had to do was figure out how to use it.

“Hey, Detective Rose,” I said.

Detective Rose hardly glanced back at me. He grunted.

“Are we going straight to the prison?” I asked.

It took him a while to answer. I could tell he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to talk to me at all.

Finally, though, in a kind of grim, slow voice, he said, “No. Winchester. State Corrections sends a van to the jail there in the morning. They’ll take you up to the prison.”

“Winchester,” I said. “How far is that?”

Detective Rose snorted. “What do you care? You’re in no hurry. You got all the time in the world.”

The driver gave a heavy laugh. “Twenty-five years, at least.”

“Right,” I said. “I was just wondering. You know, how long a drive it was.”

Detective Rose gave a shrug. “Not long. We’ll be there soon. Now shut up. I can’t hear the radio.”

“The radio’s not on.”

He turned on the radio. A strain of country music played very low. It barely reached me in the backseat.

I sat back, thinking. If I was going to escape, I would have to do it before they put me in another cell. Once we reached Winchester, once they saw that my handcuffs were loose, I would lose the advantage of surprise. I had to find a moment to break away before we reached Winchester.

“When will I be able to call my parents?” I asked.

Detective Rose turned and glowered at me. “Hey, is my memory going or didn’t I just tell you to shut up?”

I pushed on. “I mean, those cameramen outside the jail. I’m gonna be on TV. My mom and dad’ll be worried about me.”

“You probably should’ve thought of that before you committed murder.”

“Have you seen them? My parents. I mean, you work in Spring Hill…”

“Your parents don’t live in Spring Hill anymore,” said Detective Rose.

I felt my stomach twist a little at that. I remembered how I’d tried to call home at Mrs. Simmons’s house. I remembered the recording: This number has been disconnected. Now I knew: my mom and dad had moved away. My home was gone.

“Where do they live now?” I asked.

“How would I know?” said Detective Rose. “What am I, a phone book?”

With that, he turned the radio up louder, as if to drown me out. I could hear it more clearly now. The music had ended, and an ad for mattresses had come on. When the ad ended, the news began.

“Winchester County is preparing security for the arrival of the secretary of homeland security on Saturday,” the newsman said. “Richard Yarrow will meet with President Spender at his vacation retreat in the Green Hills. The dynamic new secretary, who has completely reorganized the Homeland Security Department, says he and the president plan to discuss what he called a ‘bold and uncompromising new program’ to fight Islamo-fascist terrorism at home.”

I sat up straight, listening intently. The newsman stopped talking and the secretary of homeland security came on.

“The president and I are both strongly committed to rooting out the evil of religious extremism, and we will destroy the specter of terrorism that has arisen in the Middle East and is threatening this nation at home. Our country was founded on the principle that people should be free to worship God as their conscience guides them. We will protect that freedom from anyone who wants to destroy it.”

Then the newsman came back with another story: “A fire at the Brandon factory just outside Winchester injured seven people yesterday after a boiler exploded…”

His voice faded into the background of my thoughts. I was still sitting up straight in the backseat. Staring into space. Seeing nothing.

Secretary of Homeland Security Richard Yarrow. That’s what the newsman had said. And I remembered those voices speaking outside the torture room:

We’ll never get another shot at Yarrow.

Secretary of Homeland Security Richard Yarrow was arriving to meet with the president at his vacation home on Saturday.

Two more days.

“We will destroy the specter of terrorism,” Yarrow had said. He and the president were discussing “a bold, new initiative” to fight the terrorists. On Saturday…

Two more days.

We’ll never get another shot at Yarrow.

“They’re going to kill him,” I whispered.

I hadn’t even meant to speak aloud. The words just broke out of me almost before I could think them. And yet the minute I spoke, I knew it was true. I could feel it. It made sense of everything. The people in the compound, the people who had captured me, tortured me, hunted me through the forest-they were terrorists. That had to be it. I don’t know how I’d gotten involved with them or what they wanted from me, but I felt sure now of what they were planning. They were going to kill the secretary of homeland security, to derail his new initiative against them.

My eyes focused on the seat ahead of me. The grate holding me. The two men up front, the backs of their heads.

“Two more days,” they’d said.

Saturday.

Only one more day now. Saturday was tomorrow.

We’ll never get another shot at Yarrow.

One more day and they would assassinate the secretary of homeland security.

I stared at the back of Detective Rose’s head as the cruiser sped along the highway.

How could I explain it to him? How could I ever get him to believe me?