Reese’s cell phone rang. All three of them jumped a bit. Reese answered it, mouthed that it was George Washburn. His face was set in stone as he listened. He nodded a few times, then thanked George for everything before hanging up. “What timing...that son-of-a-gun just made me eat my words. He found something.”
Leonard angled himself forward on the bed. Kevin came over and leaned back against the television, which creaked in protest.
Reese’s head went back and forth, looking at both of them as he spoke. “Last night George found traces of a blue-colored residue on both Delaney’s and Samantha’s clothing. He took samples, ran them through the computer and found them to be identical in nature. An odd and unique mixture of chemicals. He mentioned a few materials, uranium, xenon, some others.”
“Those are nuclear elements.”
“Yep, he mentioned that. Also said that there’re two other constituents, both with metallic properties, that came up as unknowns.”
“You ought to mention this to Porter. Whoever’s doing the autopsy on
Sparke
will have to allow a forensics person in to see if the same residue exists on him too.”
“Porter mentioned earlier that one had stayed along with the body, just in case...maybe they’ve found something already.” Reese sat on the bed and took out the slip of paper with the sheriff’s number on it.
Leonard and Kevin exchanged stares. Kevin said, “You were right, Len. They’re in on something really big and secretive, more than we ever imagined.”
Leonard shook his head slightly, and he was sure the look of disbelief showed plainly on his face. “I just find it hard to believe that
Sparke
could be in on some illegal chemical scheme. C’mon, what could it be? Drugs? Bombs? My gut tells me not to buy it.”
“Why not?” Reese asked. “Last night you were all set to cash in on the whole ghost-dance. Anyway, listen to this...George said he went to
Sparke’s
place early this morning. Said his bedroom is buried in the stuff.”
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Leonard said. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“So whatever they’re doing,” Kevin added, “
Sparke’s
not only in on it, but he’s probably the mastermind behind the whole shebang.”
“He find anything else there? I mean, other than the residue?”
Reese shook his head, lips pursed. “Let me call Sheriff Porter, let him know what we’ve found.”
Kevin slipped into the bathroom and closed the door. Leonard, whose stomach had been publishing his hunger the whole time, offered to fetch breakfast across the road at the diner. He took quick orders from Reese and Kevin, then strapped on his gun--keeping a close hand on it just in case something unusual happened.
Isn’t the unusual the norm these days?
he thought, then made his way outside into the early morning sunlight.
They awoke within minutes of one another, laying in each other’s arms for an indeterminable amount of time. Richard felt at peace for the first time in his life, and if he died right now he wouldn’t regret not having done something in his blinded past--a past with which he only recently gained fleeting and rather inconsistent memories of.
Finally he chanced embarrassment and looked at her. He expected, wanted really, to encounter a smug grin on her face, one of self-satisfaction--find that canary’s feather dangling from her lip. Instead he got a rather offset expression of disquiet: her lips cast into a
tremoring
frown, eyes open and brow furrowed with tense concern.
At first Richard couldn’t be certain what bothered her. She looked as if someone had just stepped on her grave, as odd as that sounded--but that was the impression he got.
“Pam?”
She blew out a gush of air, then leaped out of bed, rifled through the clothes folded atop her knapsack and impetuously started dressing.
“Pam...what is it?” For the first time since coming here, Richard finally had an opportunity to take in his surroundings. Although the curtain was shuttered, daylight filtered in through the edges, providing adequate lighting, enough for him to realize that they were in a motel room. He also noticed that Pam was wearing a bandage on her arm in the place where she was grazed.
How is it that her shattered nose heals in twelve hours, but her arm doesn’t?
“We need to get moving...we don’t have much time.”
“Time for what, Pam? What the hell is going on?”
She put on the knit shirt, and tucked it into her jeans. She said, “Richard, I know this is all very confusing to you. But I promise that I’ll tell you everything there is to know. Now’s just not the right time.”
“Why not? C’mon Pam, at least tell me where we are!”
She leaned over to her knapsack again...
...Pam’s knapsack, the one with the zipper, and the blue light...
...put it on the luggage rack and checked all the pockets, pulling out a small billfold which she slid into her front pocket.
Richard, suddenly recalling a minute detail from his middle-of-the-night escapade, she confessing her true identity...
...my real name is Heather...
...he jumped from the bed and snatched the billfold away. He opened it up. Inside, a state-issued driver’s license with Pam’s picture. To the right was the name,
Heather Barron
.
“I knew it! You told me this last night, didn’t you?”
Pam, arms wavering with frustration, said, “Richard, please don’t make me regret saying anything to you.”
He waved the billfold at her. “My whole life I’ve been trying to find out what’s wrong with me. And now I’m
certain
you have all the answers. Pam, I ain’t going anywhere until you tell me
something
.”
Exasperated, Pam leaned against the worn chest-of-drawers. “Richard, we really need to get moving, and I
do
want to tell you everything there is for you to know, but please believe me when I tell you that there’s no time for that right now. We have to get out of here, otherwise...”
“Otherwise what?”
She hesitated, then said, “Richard, let’s just say it’s a matter of life and death, as cliché as that sounds. But it’s the truth.”
“My whole damn life, what I know of it, has been a goddamned life and death cliché. I’m done, Pam, or whoever the hell you are. I’ve had enough. Before I die I want to know what the hell has been happening to me all this time!” Finding himself amidst such aggressive assertion made Richard’s head spin, and he distracted himself by getting dressed, all the while continuing to tell Pam off. “You come into my life out of nowhere, love me to no end, put up with all my bullshit along the way, then just turn around and unload on me, only to return all sweet and loving again, twice saving my ass. There’s more to you than meets the eye, am I right about that? Huh?”
She nodded. “Yes, there is.”
“So what is it? Tell me. Who the hell are you, and what are you doing to me?”
“I’m not doing anything to you, Richard.”
“Then who is?”
She hesitated, then said, “Richard, if I tell you some things, then promise you’ll listen to me and do everything I tell you to do. Remember, because of me you’re still alive. And as long as you do what I say, you’ll continue to live. That man you killed in the woods isn’t the only one that wants you dead.”
The man in black...
Heart pounding, Richard thought about the man in black, his exact double, now dead in the woods and no longer able to invade his dreams with threats of death.
But is that really true, Richard?
a random voice in his head said.
Is he really dead?
“Who is he? Who is the man in black? My twin? My clone?”
She shifted her body against the furniture. “I think it’s best if I start at the beginning. It’s the only way you’ll be able to understand.”
Richard sat on the bed. “I’m all ears.”
Perhaps it was the sunlight that brought a wave of intuition to Leonard, but instead of following the hunger in his gut across the road to the diner, he listened to the foreboding suspicion sending messages to his brain, and he walked along the row of units all the way to the manager’s office at the end of the strip, questionably eyeing each door. He stopped for a moment to scan the small parking lot, but that would be too obvious. Of course. Only a pickup. Three down from that, his cruiser. A old-model station-wagon two spaces further.
Yeah, too obvious. He would’ve seen Earl’s cruiser right away. Still, something pulled at him. He reached the office and went inside, a small bell jingling overhead. The scene was nothing more than he expected, a small brown-paneled room with a desk, a fireplace, and a few crooked prints on the wall like the ones in his room. A stale-cigarette odor hung heavy in the air. A middle-aged man emerged from behind a curtained room. He was tall and round, owlish eyes with a beard that had toast crumbs in it. He didn’t smile, just raised an eyebrow in question.
“Morning,” Leonard said.
The man pursed his lips, as if nervous and hiding something.
Ain’t no murderer hiding here, so you can just be on your way, officer.
“Morning, officer. Your friend is staying in room twelve. Want me to ring ‘
im
?”
“No, thank you,” he responded, realizing it was Reese he was referring to. Apparently Reese hadn’t told him there’d be anyone else in the room with him. “I was wondering if I could take a peek at your registry?” He pointed a finger towards the littered desk, the large memo book sitting atop a mountain of newspapers.
The man turned, looked at the desk as if unsure of what Leonard was talking about, then said, “
Ayuh
, sure
ya
can.” He staggered over, grabbed the book with two hands and brought it to Leonard. Scribbled on the front were the words,
Joe G., Manager
. Leonard opened the book to the last page. “Not much ins and outs these past few weeks. Once the cool weather comes, all we get is a few afternoon
ron
-day-
vooz
,
heh-heh
,
ya
hear what I’m
sayin
’? Maybe two or three overnights a week, although last night was pretty decent, had three
stayovers
.”
Leonard did his damnedest not to be distracted by the manager’s lack of brilliance--as if there was a whole lot of managing going on here anyway--and his breath, which reeked of bad chowder and smoke, nearly making him lose his appetite. He scanned the names written in the book, saw Reese, who was the last check-in of the night. Before him, someone named Gerard Addison scribbled his name in, as well as a woman by the name of Heather Barron. He flipped back to the previous three days, saw only four other names. Nothing of interest.
“You know these folks?”
“Huh?”
He turned the book to face him. “Gerard Addison. Heather Barron.”
Manager shook his head. “No sir, they both checked in last night, maybe an hour before your friends did.”
“They show any I.D.?”
The man searched the air with his eyes, as if his memories were circling his head like little birdies, then said, “I don’t usually ask for it, but the woman, she offered up a driver’s license.”
“Out of town or local?”
“Local.”
“What’d she look like?”
A mile-wide grin filled Joe-manager’s face, lips thin and wet and so many gaps in his mouth that Leonard wondered how he kept any food in. “Fine specimen, if
ya
’ ask me. Long brown hair, pretty eyes. Might find her type on the cover of one of them ladies’ magazines.”
Leonard’s heart shifted into high gear. “Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“
Ayuh
. Jeans. Plaid shirt.”
Son of a bitch!
“What room is she in?”
Joe-manager started fumbling for words, and then for the keys set up in a wooden lock-box next to the desk. “Is she in some sort of trouble?”
“We need to speak to her about something, is all.”
Holding a key from its ring, he handed it to Leonard.
“Room 2. Second from the end.”
“Our meeting in the cafe that day was no accident.”
Although Richard should have expected this revelation, it still seemed a shock that their flirtatious encounter four months ago had been a part of some pre-planned agenda to a mystery that was probably larger than life itself. A surge of emotions flogged him, not so much for the fact that Pam might have been playing an advised role in someone else’s premeditated scheme, but more so that her love for him might also be a piece of some feigned performance--a way for her to get exactly what she needed from him.
And it’s working just fine
, he thought with dismay.
“Pam, I’m at an utter loss. Why? For what possible reason?”
“My goals at the time were very different than they are now.” She stopped, stared at him right in the eyes, then added, “Richard, I was sent here to kill you.”
Richard’s heart started pounding, and he moved to stand even though he really had no place to go. In the last twenty-four hours he’d been threatened, attacked, arrested, chased, shot at, stabbed, and yet this admission seemed to be the most
real
threat to his life, a clear-cut demise as opposed to everything else that coasted alongside a peculiar dream-like sensation.