Ashes of Foreverland (10 page)

Alex frowned.
Enough, already
.

The plain folders were unlabeled and loaded with printed photographs and documents with tiny font. Most of it was public knowledge, but some of it was exclusive stuff that Geri was good at finding. It's why Alex paid her to do the preliminary work. Sorting through the chaff was tedious.

“There are two documented cases of Foreverland body snatching. One was somewhere in BFE, where a bunch of girls were kept in dirty cabins with a wood-burning stove and candles while rich old ladies lived in luxury. Their host was a comatose woman.” Geri looked over her glasses. “I think you know her.”

Alex opened the folder and saw a photo of mountains and rolling hills and an old cabin. It could be the middle of Montana or Wyoming. She was familiar with the story, knew the girls were teenagers. The wealthy women kidnapped them, used Foreverland to suck their identities out of their bodies and then, voilà, an old woman moved in. It was like buying a new car—a young, healthy car with smooth skin and perky breasts and another sixty years of life.

Alex lifted a photo of an old woman that looked like a shrunken version of a full-sized person, like God left her in the oven too long.

Patricia Ballard.

“The other folder has to do with the first Foreverland, the one on the tropical island. They were doing the same thing, the body-switch stuff, only with boys. They had it way better than the girls.” She grunted. “Figures.”

There were photos of the boys and old men, of the buildings and grounds. It was more like a resort.

“What happened to the kids?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was it like their brains were erased and reformatted? Where did the personality go, I guess is what I mean?”

“That's a good question.” Geri flipped through the pages and pulled a photo out of the stack. “The survivors said there was some gray cloud beyond the sky, like outer space. That's where their minds got shredded and mixed together.”

Dios mío.

“They called the gray space the Nowhere. But here's where it gets weird.” Geri put down her cup and slid the bottom folder out. “The guy that ran the tropical island Foreverland was Harold Ballard. He made a zillion dollars and went missing when the whole thing collapsed, probably sipping mai tais in a Mediterranean bungalow somewhere. He was, or is, the son of Patricia, the host of the wilderness Foreverland.”

Harold looked more like a vagrant with a tropical shirt than a mai-tai-sipping zillionaire. There was a smile behind the dull gray beard, she could see it in the squinting eyes.

“Patricia Ballard is married to Tyler Ballard,” Geri said. “Or was. Are you still married if your wife is a vegetable? I don't know, maybe she's not in a coma anymore, who knows where she is. In fact, I don't think anyone knows.”

“At the Institute.”

“Did you see her?”

I felt her.
Alex flinched. That thought slapped her hard.
She was at the Institute when I was there, when I was looking into Coco's eyes.

“I'll bet you didn't see her,” Geri said.

Alex shook her head. No, no, she didn't.

“That's what I mean. They say she's in the Institute, but no one ever confirms it. You ever hear of her husband?”

Again, Alex shook her head.

“He invented the whole computer-aided alternate reality thing.”

“Foreverland?”

“Yeah. He used it to experiment on his wife, turned her into an overcooked vegetable and went to prison. And then guess what happened? Harold followed in daddy's footsteps and started experimenting on anyone he could get his hands on, pretending like he was healing minds when he was just buying property and tropical islands to serve the insanely wealthy. The bastard put his mother in the wilderness and they played their messed-up alternate reality games while they made billions.”

“What happened to the money?”

“What?”

“After the rings fell apart, what happened to the money?”

“Authorities got it, mostly. Used it to set up a Foreverland fund to help the survivors. They're a little cuckoo with the hole in the head and everything.”

Geri put a finger gun to her forehead.

“Where's the rest of it?” Alex asked.

“Rest?”

“You said ‘mostly'. Where's the rest of the money?”

“Some of it went to fund the Institute.” She avoided looking at Alex, knowing that was where things got weird, and flipped through the pages on her lap. “I got it noted in there somewhere. There were also a number of accounts that went missing, which they figure was moved when Harold disappeared.”

“How much?”

“Millions.” Geri flicked the photo on Alex's lap. “Twisted pups, right?”

Alex heard the rumors, she knew the story about the Ballard family, but no more than the general public. Most of it sounded like science fiction and the family no more than characters with split personalities. If pressed, she didn't believe most of it. It was tabloid fodder.

But now it was sitting on her lap. There were documents from reputable sources, things no one would know, from people she trusted.

A quiver of fear shot through her midsection and lit up the nerves in her arm. Her hands began to shake, coffee spilled through the lid. She pretended to sneeze, clasping her fingers together.

Geri looked at her phone and explained freelance work was picking up. She threw her bag over her shoulder. “I can still do some research for you, if you need me.”

“I need to pay you.”

“I'll bill you with PayPal.”

Alex looked at the folders, careful not to release her hands. They would shake if she let go.
What's wrong with me?

The trees began to quiver. A rogue breeze swept through the park. Alex slammed the folders down before the papers ended up littering the park. A crowd roared somewhere, but she knew better. There wasn't a crowd.

She closed her eyes.

Geri sneezed as the dust rode past them.

Alex was staring down, waiting for the wind to die, but losing track of time. Time seemed to be doing that—speeding up and slowing down. Had she been staring at her lap for one minute or one second?

“What happened at the Institute?” Geri was still there. “If you don't mind me asking.”

“Getting old. I don't recommend it.”

“I heard a rumor about you. Want to hear it?” She waited, but continued without Alex's consent. “Rumor is you tripped out, tried to activate some enhancement during the tour that short-circuited your senses. Like pushing 240 volts through a hair drier, you know.”

Alex chuckled. She didn't respond because it was stupid. But then the time lapse thing happened again and she lost track of how long she'd been chuckling, how long Geri had been standing.

“Why do you want to do this?” Geri pointed at the folders.

“What do you mean?”

“This is heavy. Why do you want to get involved? You're getting old, like you said.”

There was a time when that would've pissed her off. Now she couldn't disagree. She was sitting in the park trying not to let someone see her hands shake.
Why am I doing this?

“You ever feel an untold story?” she said.

“What?”

“It's a journalist's gut feeling, a sort of sixth sense you develop when there's more to a story than what's being presented, a piece that wants to be told, that wants you to know it. That wants you to tell others.”

“That's what this is all about?” Geri tapped the folders.

“Yes.”

“Seems pretty open and shut to me. Old people with money and poor people with something they want. A tale as old as time.”

Alex wasn't sure about that. She was letting her instincts lead the way because something was out there, an untold story that even the secrets didn't know. She felt it at the Institute, a wave welling up in the ocean, something just below the surface. A monster in the deep and she was sitting directly over it in a little boat.

The wind had died.

Geri said goodbye. She was running late for another appointment. Alex sat with the folders on her lap until her coffee was cold. She opened her briefcase and placed all of Geri's research on top of the torn travel agency photo and
National Geographic
.

She stopped.

It took a moment to find the photo in Geri's folder. She placed it on the bench, side by side with the travel agency photo and
National Geographic
.

The exact same island.

The monster in the deep.

Upstate New York

T
he backyard felt like carpet. Deep, lush green carpet.

Alex slid her shoes off, wiggled her toes, turned her face to the sky like a sunflower and listened to her call go to voicemail.

“This is Shane Lee, director of photography at
National Geographic
. I can't take your call right now. Please leave your name and number. Thank you.”

This time, she decided to leave a message. “Shane, this is Alex Diosa. We have a mutual friend, Amy Ferris at
The Washington Post
. I had a question about a photographer in one of your back issues. I won't take much of your time, please give me a call.”

She continued her walk to the vegetable garden while thumbing a text to Mr. Lee. If she didn't hear back by the next day, she'd call again. Some folks never returned a call until after the third message.

How did he get that shot of the Foreverland island? And why was a travel agency using it, a travel agency that wasn't returning her calls, either?

First, find the photographer.

The lilacs were spent but still fragrant. Weeds choked the garden. A month ago, it was as clean as the driveway. That was before Geri delivered a gold mine in Central Park.

Alex rolled her shoulders. Knots were bunching up beneath her shoulder blades and a perennial ache took root in her spine, keeping her awake when she did make it to bed. She didn't need a chiropractor. She fell on her knees and sank in the composted soil; puffs of organic dust filled her nostrils.

Just a little horticultural therapy.

The weeds easily came out. She crawled to the next row and recalled playing in the garden while her mother pulled weeds, setting up dolls and rolling cars between the stalks. She'd sit in the shade of sweet corn and pretend it was a forest.

She was halfway down the third row when she noticed something yellow tucked between the tomato plants. Sweat stung her eyes. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt, but everything seemed a little out of focus.

Samuel's car rolled up the driveway.

“Hey.” His tie was loose, his collar open. He dropped his leather briefcase on the ground. “What are you doing?”

She got up and wiped her hands on her thighs.

“Got a call from the Institute today,” he said. “Know anything about it?”

“What?”

“They said you were dropping the lawsuit.”

“I...I told you, Samuel, I don't want to sue.”

“Nah, nah, nah, that's not what this is about.” He tugged the knot on his tie. “You're angling.”

“What?”

“What are you up to?”

“Samuel, I don't like the way you're talking to me. I told you in the hospital I didn't want to sue.”

“You're trying to go back there.”

She stepped out of the garden and pushed all the weeds together. The ground swayed.
Am I dehydrated?

The Institute wasn't supposed to tell him she was negotiating an interview with their executives.
We drop the lawsuit, I come back for another tour. And this time I see Patricia.

It was a long shot.

“We're not doing this,” he said. “You're not going back. Write whatever you want, you're not going back to the Institute.”

“Don't tell me what to do.”

“I'm worried.” His hands were on his hips, jaw set. The words didn't match the body language. For a second, he looked like someone entirely different, like a man ready to break something in half.

“I need some water.”

She went into the shade of the garage. Samuel came out with a bottle of water. He set up a chair and watched her drink until she waved him off.

“I'm all right. Get out of your suit; we'll talk later.”

He paused, unsure if she would be all right. Or just didn't trust leaving her alone. Eventually, he went inside. Alex finished the water but still felt wobbly.

Her phone buzzed. Alex took it on the third ring.

“You busy?” Geri asked.

“No, I'm fine. What do you got?”

“I got more weird for you.”

Something squeaked. Samuel was rolling the wheelbarrow into the backyard, the axles squealing for oil. He loaded the mound of weeds, significantly more than she thought.
Have I been out there this long?

The sky had cleared, clouds on the horizon. Everything was back in focus and she felt good again. Normal. Just needed water.

“I'm sending over more notes,” Geri said. “This Ballard family is a bunch of dysfunctional geniuses. You should consider writing a book on them. At the very least, a novel. They're like characters out of a science-fiction movie.”

Alex had been through her notes. She was having the same thoughts.

“The father's been in a maximum-security prison for over thirty years. He was only sentenced to twenty years.”

“Twenty?”

“Yeah, twenty.”

“So, why is he still incarcerated?”

“It gets a little murky there. Best I can find is that his sentence was extended twice, but there's no reason.”

“Even bad behavior doesn't extend your sentence.”

“See what I mean?”

“Can I get an interview?”

“I made some calls, talked to a few people, but it doesn't sound good. He doesn't take visitors.”