Epitaph Road (9 page)

“You're talking about my
brother
, who once meant
everything
to you. You're talking about your
son.
”

“I've made arrangements for Kellen to go east,” Mom said. My heart pounded in my chest. I hoped it wasn't reverberating through the boards. I was going
east
?
Why?
When was she going to tell me this wonderful news? What about Dad? My trials? My
life
?

“We've got to warn Charlie,” Aunt Paige said.
Charlie.
My
dad.

“We can't. We can't consider it. He's involved. He'd warn the others.”

“His involvement is minimal. We can make up a lie to get him out of there.”

“He's not stupid, Paige. He'd suspect.”

“No, he
wouldn't.
” Aunt Paige's voice shook. “I'll think of
something.
”

I heard a knock on their door, footsteps across the hardwood floor, and Mom's voice: “Rebecca.”

“Can we talk?” Rebecca Mack said. Her distinctive, demanding voice moved into the room. “Alone?”

“Paige knows,” Mom said. “She's been playing detective.”

“I'm hardly a detective,” Aunt Paige said. “I don't know what Heather has told you about me — if anything — but I'm a doctor. Public health. The Council sends me advisories on potential mass fatalities and bulletins on quarantine activity, even when the deaths and quarantines are virtual, just part of supposedly mock exercises. I'm sworn to secrecy, of course, but between the notices, the scurrying around I've witnessed lately, and a small amount of investigation on my own, it wasn't that difficult to put together a fuzzy picture of something on the horizon.”

“You'll tell
no one
,” Rebecca Mack said.

“I have a brother in harm's way,” Aunt Paige said.

“Of course,” Rebecca Mack said. “Kellen's father.”

“I lost
my
father,” Aunt Paige said. “Uncles, cousins, a grandfather. I can figure out a way to lure him away without raising his suspicions.”

“You — we — can't take the risk,” Rebecca Mack said. “And your losses were hardly unique.”

“There will
be
no risk,” Aunt Paige said.

“Paige,”
Mom said.

“If you persist in this idea,” Rebecca Mack said, “we will need to place you in custody until the event's…
conclusion.
”

“Custody?”
Aunt Paige said.

“Yes,” Rebecca Mack said. “Lock and key and no way to communicate.”

The room was silent for a moment. Then footsteps sounded. The door slammed.

“Well, you've got me alone,” Mom said.

“Can she be trusted?” Rebecca Mack said.

I waited for Mom's answer. My head spun. What was going on? For some reason, I wished Tia were up here with me, listening to this. I had a feeling she'd figure it out. “I don't know,” Mom said finally.

“Come downstairs with me,” Rebecca Mack said. “I need to show you something. And we have to make a call.”

I waited for the door to close, then belly-slid back toward my room. I was sweating more now, breathing harder. Even all the way up here, I could smell dinner cooking. But my stomach felt knotted. I was no longer hungry.

I found Aunt Paige in the backyard by herself, pacing barefoot back and forth near a bed of sweet peas and rosebushes. A fragrant sugary scent saturated the air, at odds with the foul thoughts filling my head. She didn't seem to notice that one of the thorns on the yellow rose she was holding had pricked her first finger. A trickle of half-dried blood wound around it like a thin red ribbon.

Not certain what exactly to say, I stood there a minute, silent, before she noticed me. She forced a smile. “How are you, sunshine?” she said.

“I heard you,” I confessed.

“What?”

“I heard you and Mom and Rebecca Mack talking. I was in the attic.”

She smiled again. This one was small but authentic. “Up to your old tricks.”

“What's going on?” I said. “What do Dad and I have to do with it?”

“Forget what you heard,” Aunt Paige said. “You'll be taken care of.” She paused. “And so will your dad.”

“You won't tell me?”

She got close. She grasped my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Listen, Kellen. I have to go away for a day or two. But you can't say anything about it until after everyone knows I'm gone. And you have to do exactly what your mom tells you to do, go where she wants you to go. No matter what, don't try to see your dad.”

“What about the
custody
thing?”

“An empty threat. Don't worry about it.”

“When will you go?”

“You'll know when you don't see me.”

“Where?”

“I can't say, buddy. If you think you have it figured out, though, keep it to yourself.”

We went in for dinner. Tia sat down next to me at the big table, and I wondered if Sunday had let something slip. But neither of them acted like anything had changed. I breathed in, mostly smelling myself, wishing I'd thought to take a shower after a couple of long bike rides and baseball and lawn-mowing and crawling around in a hot attic. But I'd had other things on my mind, and Tia was nice enough not to say anything. She even shifted on her chair, getting a little nearer.

Two of our housemates were elsewhere, so there were twelve of us, counting our guest of honor, surrounding the table. The conversation was cordial, but it felt artificial. Mom introduced Dr. Rebecca Mack to everyone she hadn't met. She didn't say who Rebecca Mack was, but I had an inkling everyone knew.

Across the table from me, Aunt Paige told a joke about an old-lady patient who wanted to know the location of her heart. Along with the rest of us, Rebecca Mack chuckled at the punch line, but I wondered if she appreciated the humor. I wondered if my aunt was purposely trying to get under this old lady's skin.

After dinner, everyone carried dishes to the kitchen and went their mostly separate ways. Mom and Rebecca Mack returned to the office. Aunt Paige headed upstairs. Tia and Sunday asked me to go with them on a bike ride.

I was tempted. The sun had just dropped below the rooftops across the street, perfect conditions for biking, and I could impress the girls — Tia, maybe — with my knowledge of the city. I certainly hadn't impressed them with my pitching, but I told them no. Something was about to happen, and I wanted to be there when it did.

I grabbed
Slaughterhouse-Five
from my room and slipped into the quiet of the backyard. Beyond the glass of Mom and Aunt Paige's upstairs window, the light was on but the shades were drawn. I found a chair and began reading. The story grabbed me and pulled me in, but after twenty pages I looked up. The light was off.

I walked around the side yard to the front. Aunt Paige's little car, a green Volt-Age Midget, was gone. A strange gray micro-van cruised down the street and slowed at our house. Tinny country music wept out from under its hood. On its side was a familiar logo — a green globe behind silhouettes of a giant woman and miniature man — above the letters
PAC
. The driver — a red-faced, pig-nosed woman — looked at the house number and pulled up to the curb.

She and her partner, younger and thinner with skin the color of milk chocolate, got out, eyed me for a moment, and walked to the porch. They knocked, but no one answered.

“You live here?” the driver asked me. Her blue uniform jacket angled open. She had handcuffs hanging from her wide leather belt. A PAC cop. The enforcement arm of the Population Apportionment Council. I'd heard about them and their strong-arm tactics, but they kept a low profile most of the time. The Council preferred to pay people to comply with sterilization and other regulations.

If the time came, would I accept their money and conditions? Hide? Head for the hinterlands? If I didn't pass my trials, I'd have a decision to make.

I nodded.

“Is Dr. Rebecca Mack on the premises?”

“She was here for dinner. I think she's still around.”

“Can you get her for us?”

“I'll see if I can find her.” I left them standing on the porch and went inside. I rapped on the office door, still closed.

Mom opened it. “We're in the middle of something, Kellen,” she said, but she didn't need to tell me that.

“Some PAC cops are here,” I said. “Looking for Dr. Mack.”

“Oh.” Mom swung the door wide. Rebecca Mack was already on her feet, scurrying toward me. She swept past and toward the front door, Mom in her wake, me tagging along.

Dr. Mack asked the cops to come in. “She's upstairs, I believe,” she said. She turned and saw me. “Can you take these officers to your aunt's room, Kellen?” she said.

It wasn't really a question, although for a moment, half numb with disbelief, I considered disobeying the command. I didn't want to be a part of this, whatever shape it took. But then I remembered Aunt Paige's dark window, her missing car. “Sure,” I said, and led them up the stairs.

I knocked. Relief eased my pulse when no one answered. I pushed open the door and turned on the light. It was obvious nobody was there, but the cops went to the closet and bathroom, making sure. The young one —
BLEVENS
, her name tag said — even peeked under the bed. Brilliant.

“Where else would she be?” the older one —
STOUDT
— asked me.

“I don't know.” I didn't mention Aunt Paige's car. If she'd made her getaway, she needed a head start.

The cops pushed past me, so I followed at a distance. As I descended the stairs, I heard them telling Rebecca Mack and Mom that Aunt Paige wasn't in her room.

“Search the house,” Dr. Mack ordered.

Mom touched a key on her e-spond and held it to her ear, waiting. “She isn't answering,” she told Rebecca Mack as I got downstairs. Mom left, and I heard her moving from room to room. She went upstairs and returned, ignoring Dr. Mack's glare, and hurried outside.

In a moment she was back. “Her car's gone.” She looked at me. “Did she say anything to you, Kellen?”

I started retelling the joke Aunt Paige told at dinner, the one about the old lady and her heart.

Mom gave me the vile eye. “About
where she was going.
”

I decided I was out of favor, suddenly. “No,” I said. “I didn't see her after dinner. Maybe she went back to work or something.”

“I don't think so,” Mom said.

“Why does it matter?” I asked. “Why are you — they — looking for her?”

“We need to find her, Kellen,” Rebecca Mack said. “It's important. Are you sure she didn't tell you anything?”

“Why would she?” I asked. “I'm a kid — a guy — with a runaway mouth.”

She gave me a long look, but I resisted flinching. I stayed in character: wiseass kid whose mother — but no one else — thinks he walks on water. “You're right,” she said finally. “Why
would
she?”

The two cops returned empty-handed. The cuffs clanked uselessly on Stoudt's belt. She and Blevens walked to the front porch with Mom and Dr. Mack, mumbling and muttering. I stared at the back of Mom's head. I was having a hard time digesting the idea that she could have a role in putting Aunt Paige behind bars. Or locked doors, at least.

When Mom and Rebecca Mack returned, they went straight back to the office. I stood in the foyer, imagining them sending out advisories and all-points bulletins like the police in the old cops-and-robbers movies. I imagined them adding Aunt Paige's name to the list of most-wanted criminals, posting her picture with front and side views on the Net.

From the stuff I'd overheard, I thought I had an idea of where she was going. She wanted to warn Dad about something. Which was good, I guessed, except Rebecca Mack and Mom knew what I knew and more. They knew
why
the fugitive criminal wanted to warn Dad.

So they'd be on her trail. They'd be watching the ferries and roads. They'd try to find Dad and wait for her to show up. I didn't know why they wanted to keep her from talking to him, but I knew they were serious about it.

Reflexively, I reached in my pants pocket and fingered my e-spond. But I couldn't call or message him. He didn't have a phone of any kind. He preferred it that way, and where he lived and worked, the service was sketchy anyway. He didn't own a computer, either, so e-script was also out of the question.

I couldn't reach him. Aunt Paige couldn't reach him. It was in person or nothing. But even if I'd been able to talk to him, what would I have said?
Hey, Dad, I'm hereby giving you an official warning, but I don't know what it's about or what you can do about it.