Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) (17 page)

“What did you do for her?” Anna
asked.

“There wasn’t much I could do. I
hooked her up to a hydration IV and tried to talk to her, but she didn’t
recognize me. She was babbling about her friend.”

“What friend?”

“I thought it was just delirium,
you know? But, after I got her settled back in bed, I did a foot patrol, and,
sure enough, I found a trespasser who claimed to be looking for Celia.”

Anna’s head was spinning. Celia
was dead, and there was a trespasser on their land looking for her.

“But you said she died?”

“She was in really bad shape,
Anna. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. If I had to guess, and this
is only a guess, she vomited while she was unconscious and choked on her vomitus.”

Anna shuddered. Then she drew
herself up and pushed past the image.

“Does this friend know?”

“No. I mean, as far as I know,
she was alive when I encountered him. I quarantined him, and then I went to
check on her. That’s when I found her,” Lydia said.

“You quarantined the man?”

“I had to. He said he’d seen her
already. He’s been exposed to … whatever she had. Sergeant Rollins was back
from getting the propane by then. He instructed me to quarantine the man, so I
did,” Lydia said matter-of-factly.

Quarantine. Unlawful
detention. Kidnapping.
There were a lot of ways to describe what Lydia and
George had done. Anna closed her eyes briefly and tried to think.

“I need to talk to Jeffrey. Do
not engage with this friend, whoever he is, until you hear from one of us,” she
said finally.

“Yes, ma’am. What about Celia’s
body?”

“What do mean?” Anna asked.

“Uh, what should we do with the
corpse? I mean, people will start arriving en masse in the next twenty-four
hours, don’t you think? We can’t just leave her lying in the cabin, can we?”

Anna’s heart thumped. She lowered
herself to the nearest kitchen chair. Jeffrey had put out a call to convene at
the camp and hadn’t told her? That was unthinkable.

“Anna, are you still there?”
Lydia asked.

“I’m here. Bury her, I guess,”
Anna didn’t know what else to do with a possibly infectious corpse. More
pressingly, she didn’t know what to do about Jeffrey’s apparent betrayal.

“Will do,” the nurse said,
chipper now that she had her marching orders.

Anna ended the call and took a
moment to steady herself, gripping the edge of the counter. She waited until
her heart had slowed and her breathing was steady, then she walked to the door
and stepped out into the backyard.

Like mothers the world over, she
pushed down the panic that rose in her throat so her children wouldn’t sense
danger.

She turned on the floodlights and
leaned over the porch railing to shout, “Use your remaining ammo and come on in
and get ready for bed!”

A flurry of snowballs and hoots
of laughter filled the air as the kids finished their battle. Anna inhaled the
cold night air, hoping it would drive out the fear and worry that flooded her
body. The little ones tromped up the stairs to the porch, trailed by their
older siblings. She brushed snow off faces, helped chubby hands unlace boots,
and kissed the crowns of six heads, even those she had to stretch onto her toes
to reach.

She stopped Bethany as she passed
by and pulled her to the side of the porch. At twelve, she was capable of
helping—old enough to handle the responsibility and young enough to find it a
novelty, not a burden. The older kids would take care of themselves but would
chafe at bathing and dressing the youngest two.

“Bethany, I need to talk to Dad.
Can you please get Clara and Lacey into the bath and help them with their
pajamas?” she asked, keeping her tone light.

“Sure, Mom,” Bethany answered
with a serious nod.

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

Anna smiled at her daughter.
After the back door slammed shut behind Bethany, she turned and stared out into
the dark, her eyes sweeping her fallow vegetable garden, the sturdy hen house,
and the tall oak tree from which Jeffrey had hung the tire swing.

She could barely make out the
dark shapes in the night, but she stood there for a long time, trying to
imprint the scene in her mind’s eyes. She felt, deep in her bones, that she’d
never see her backyard again.

She was still standing like that,
scanning the dark yard, when she heard the door ease open and then softly shut
behind her.

Jeffrey crossed the porch and
came to stand beside her. He stood close, his shoulder touching hers, and said,
“Is everything okay?”

She kept her eyes pinned forward
and steadied her voice before answering.

“No.”

He waited. She steeled herself
and turned to face the man she’d followed, without question, for almost two
decades.

“Celia Gerig is dead.”

His eyes widened, and he inhaled
sharply, but his expression gave nothing away.

“That’s unfortunate. She seemed
like a good woman,” he said mildly.

Anna pressed her palms against
his chest and stared up at him. “Jeffrey, stop. I know. I know about the stolen
flu vaccines. I don’t know why you didn’t share your plans with me, why you
didn’t trust me, but we don’t have time to get into that discussion now. Lydia
Markham called. Celia got very sick and died. She’s at the camp, along with
some civilian who Lydia and George found prowling around. He claims to have
been in contact with Celia, so they’ve quarantined him against his will.”

His face crumpled, and he
swallowed hard. “I trust you, Anna. I trust you without reservation. I was trying
to save you some worry and to wall you off from the mission. We probably broke
some laws. The vaccine acquisition was a critical priority, though. I
am
sorry Celia’s dead, but she died in the service of our cause.”

Anna considered this for a
moment. She could tell he was being truthful, if understated—they definitely
broke some laws. She could also tell he was holding back information.

“Are those vials in your duffel
bag the vaccines?”

“Yes,” he answered instantly.

“Is that all of them?”

“No. There are more doses up at
the camp, enough to vaccinate the entire organization. I also have some in
reserve to barter with if the currency system collapses. I already traded some
to a militia outfit in exchange for silver.”

“Why do you need them so badly?”

He took her hands in his and
stared into her eyes, “Because we received reports from abroad that the killer
flu live virus is on its way to the U.S.”

“The Doomsday virus? You mean
there’s been an outbreak somewhere? Asia?”

He closed his eyes briefly and
shook his head.

“No,” he said, opening his eyes
and meeting her gaze. “Someone stole the virus from a research facility in
Europe. The virus is on its way here—if it’s not already within the borders.”

Anna stared at him and tried to
comprehend what she was hearing. Jeffrey’s reach was wide and deep, he had eyes
and ears everywhere: if he’d heard it, she could assume it was true. But,
still, she sensed he wasn’t telling her everything.

“The killer flu is here, in a
bottle somewhere?”

“Yes.”

He looked down at her but didn’t
say the words that they’d spent fifteen years preparing for. The words she
always knew would change their lives, even as she hoped the day would never
come.

If he wouldn’t say it, she would.
“It’s time to go.”

She went inside and talked to each
child, one at a time, and explained it was time to move to the camp. From
little Clara up to Clay, her oldest, each of them looked at her with wide,
serious eyes and simply nodded. They’d been preparing for this day for
years—and, in the case of the younger ones, their entire lives. They hurried to
change out of their pajamas and into warm clothes and choose the special items
they wanted to bring along—each child was permitted to pick two treasured
belongings. Then they filed downstairs and grabbed their Go Bags.

Anna trailed behind them, turning
out lights and pushing in chairs. From behind his closed office door, she could
hear the rumble of Jeffrey’s commanding bass voice but not his words. She was
glad for that. He was likely talking to Rollins and Lydia, giving them
instructions for dealing with the quarantined trespasser.

She stopped in the mudroom and
unearthed the first aid kit and a pile of old towels from beneath the utility
sink. She loaded the towels and the medical supplies into the back of the
Suburban, next to the chickens, who clucked at her and scolded her from within
their cage.

Jeffrey came out from the house,
his eyes hooded and his expression unreadable. He zippered his hunting jacket
to the chin and hefted two containers of gasoline from a shelf. She waited at
the back of the SUV until he walked around to wedge the containers in the
corner.

“Everything set?” she asked.

He nodded yes but didn’t meet her
eyes. She knew him. He viewed the chain of events that ended with a dead woman and
a quarantined prisoner as a personal failure. Although she tended to agree with
that assessment, he was her husband, and she loved him. She put a hand on his
arm.

“Thank you for protecting us,”
she said in a low voice.

He turned and gave her a brief
smile, and then he said, “We should go.”

While he warmed the engine, she
went back inside and walked through the dark, silent house one final time. It
already felt deserted, like a house that had been abandoned years ago, not like
the home they’d built together. She allowed herself one look back and then
crossed the threshold, pulling the door shut behind her. The click of the lock
engaging was loud in the still night.

She hopped into the passenger
seat, buckled her seatbelt, and twisted around to look into the back seat. Clara
was already drifting off to sleep, but the others were wide awake and watchful.
They stared back at her.

She flashed them a reassuring
smile before turning to Jeffrey. They looked at each other for a long moment,
and then he shifted the vehicle into gear and pulled away from their home.

It was after nine
when Connelly pulled the SUV into the garage behind his rented townhouse. Sasha
stepped out of the car and stretched, working through a series of quick yoga
poses right there in the cold night air, stretching in her bulky wool coat,
just to loosen her muscles. Connelly shouldered his bag and, over her protests,
took hers, too. She trailed him through the small square of gravel that served
as his backyard and blinked into the motion-detecting floodlights that snapped
on as they approached his back door.

While Connelly unlocked the door,
she pulled out her phone to try one more time to return Gavin’s missed call.
She’d noticed Gavin’s message after she and Connelly had left the service plaza
and, concerned by the urgency in his voice, had tried twice to reach him, but
got his voicemail both times.

She began unbuttoning her coat
while the phone rang. Gavin’s voicemail picked up again. She waited for the
beep and said, “Gavin, I’m getting worried now. Call me.”

She ended the call and tossed the
phone on Connelly’s spotless kitchen counter.

Connelly was rummaging in the
refrigerator. He turned and looked at her over his shoulder.

“Gavin’s a competent guy, Sasha.
He can take care of himself.” Connelly stood and raised two bottles of winter
lager. “Beer?”

Sasha nodded. “Thanks. I know
Gavin’s a big boy, but his message said Celia’s really sick and she’s at the
prepper compound. So, who knows what’s going on. Maybe Celia has the killer
flu. Maybe Gavin’s going to get sick.” She stopped herself as the
maybes
piled up in her mind, each one worse than the last.

Connelly pried the caps off the
beers and handed her one.

“I know. But, worrying is just
wasted energy, Sasha.”

She sighed. He was right. She
knew he was right.

She took a long swallow of the
cold, spiced beer. Then she asked, “Do you think the virus is already out
there? In your gut, is that what you think?”

His eyes told her nothing and
everything.

Images of pedestrians collapsing
in the streets, grocery store shelves bare of food, doctors and nurses wearing
masks, and soldiers marching door to door quarantining frightened families as
babies cried flashed through her mind. She thought of Naya, of her pregnant
sisters-in-law, then the rest of her family. Her throat constricted.

Connelly pulled her into his
arms, and she pressed the side of her cheek into his warm, broad chest. The
cloth of his shirt felt soft against her skin. He held her tighter.

“I don’t know, Sasha. I don’t
know.” He murmured the words into her hair.

Monday morning
dawned cold. A nor’easter was tracking its way toward D.C., stalking like a cat
through North Carolina. A quick glance out the bedroom window revealed a light
dusting of snow, but lines of school and government office closings scrolled
across the ticker that ran along the bottom of the Weather Channel feed.

Leo supposed that spate of
closings could simply be the metropolitan D.C. area’s usual overreaction to the
threat of snow, but he had to wonder if someone had made the call to shut down the
city because of the more serious threat that lurked somewhere out there, far
more deadly than even the worst blizzard.

You’re paranoid
, he told himself.
He turned away from the window and looked down at Sasha, curled into herself
like a cat, still sleeping. Even sound asleep, she looked tired.

He tried to recall another time
that he’d woken before she did and failed. The fact that she hadn’t sprung from
bed before the sun was a worry in itself. He watched her heavy, slow breathing.
Her wavy hair fell over her face in a partial curtain, but her pale skin peeked
out. He smiled at the faint smattering of freckles that sat on her small
straight nose and annoyed her in the summer, when the slightest tan served to
connect the dots into a dark constellation.