24
They made Kate wait for a very long time in a room with bare, white walls. She sat on a wooden chair, at a wooden table. An interrogation room. When they’d questioned her before, they’d done it in an office. She’d been a minor then, she’d been the victim. Now she didn’t know what she was. An accomplice?
Kate sat back in her chair, swinging her feet, tracing her finger across the rough surface of the table. A cup of coffee, now cold, sat untouched in front of her.
Spence came in with a file and sat on the edge of the table. They looked at each other for a moment. Spence looked tired, and Kate knew she must look as rough. Her hair didn’t like getting wet, then drying naturally; it tended to result in an unkempt, tangled, curly dark mass.
“No one is pressing charges. His story and the Mexican woman’s story match up. She’s saying some crazy things, but even Harvey doesn’t think we can pin anything on Val. The woman’s an alien, so at the moment, everyone is more interested in her than in Val.”
“I’m sorry, she’s a what?”
“In the country unlawfully.”
“Oh. Right. You’re letting Val go?”
“Not yet.”
The tension flooded back, perhaps worse than before, a knot between her shoulder blades.
“There’s a guy from Immigration who wants to talk to him. Should be here in a few hours.”
“About the woman?”
“Must be. She must be some kind of big deal if they’re coming this early. They asked us not to send him home, to keep him here so they wouldn’t have to go looking for him.”
Kate felt as though this should have eased the knot in her neck, but it didn’t. Tonight. She’d demand they go to Santa Fe tonight. No more of this.
“The paramedics said he did an impressive job keeping the boy alive as long as he did. If the kid had lived, he’d be a hero. I want to get your side of things.”
“But since he died, we’re happy with not getting arrested.”
“Kate, look. I know he’s not a violent guy. I like him. I want him to stay out of trouble. He’s had a really awful couple of days.”
“We’re moving to Santa Fe soon,” Kate said.
“Good. Rich is toxic. This place is toxic.”
“But you’re still here?”
Spence smiled a little and shrugged. “I’m fine. My family’s all here. I can’t leave them.”
Kate nodded, though she didn’t understand. Family was something to run from. She told her version of what happened, omitting, of course, the parts where she hid the gun. She didn’t like lying to Spence, didn’t like lying to anyone, but it was all she’d done for the past few days.
“That’s all I need to know. They’ve searched his trailer, found nothing linking him to a crime, nothing illegal or out of the ordinary. You’re good to go back there.” Spence said, organizing the papers into his file. “Oh, Kate, one more thing.”
Oh, fuck
. TJ. It felt like the color drained from her face, but Spence didn’t react, so she assumed she hadn’t gone white.
“Rich called in last night saying his wife was missing.”
“Good. Took her long enough.”
“He sounded kind of frantic. He suspects foul play from Val.”
“Of course he does.” Kate locked eyes with Spence, and felt like she surely was going to hell. “How else can he justify the massive coincidence of his best friend and his wife going missing at the same time? Knowing them, I bet they waited for Val to get out because they knew Rich would think he had something to do with it.”
Spence studied her a moment. She could feel tears coming. Frustration leaking from her eyes—they were powerless, powerless against the monster in the desert. One slipped from the corner of her left eye, cutting a wet trail down her face.
Spence’s face softened. “I hope you get to Santa Fe. Wherever TJ and Maria went, he’ll be gunning for Val.”
“Can I see him?”
“Sure. I’ll take you there.”
She followed him. She wiped at her eyes. Exhaustion covered her like a cape, heavy and muffling.
The walls of the sheriff’s office were all the same, light industrial green, devoid of pictures on the walls. Val’s interrogation room was two doors down from hers.
“Knock when you want to come out.” Spence knocked once on the door and opened it, admitting her. The lock clicked as he closed it behind her.
“Hey,” she said.
Val looked exhausted, great dark circles under his eyes, and his dark hair a disheveled mess. “You should go home and get some sleep. I can get one of these guys to give me a ride. I guess someone from Immigration needs to talk to me, this lady’s run a few illegals across the border.”
She nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything else she could do.
“You called Felix?” he asked.
“Yeah, he said he’d be here. He was pretty vague about when.”
“Here or the house?”
“I think the house.”
“Yeah, go home and rest, wait for him, I’ll be along in a bit. I can’t imagine this guy will have much to say to me.”
“How are you being so calm about this?” Another tear, this time from the other eye.
“Don’t cry,” Val said, and took her hand. “I’m on auto pilot. I’m exhausted. I’m going to cooperate, and then they’ll let me go. They’ve got nothing on me.”
His tone calmed her even as she stood sniffling. “Okay.” She wiped at her eyes and nose. “You sure you’re okay?”
“What can get me in here?”
“Don’t talk like that. Please.”
“Okay. I’m safer in here than I am at home.”
“I want to go tonight.”
“Okay. As soon as I get back, we tie up loose ends, and then we’re gone.”
The tension ball melted. They were going. They were going to be safe. Everything would go back to normal.
“Go home,” he said again.
She nodded. Being tired made her so goddamn emotional. She hugged him, loving the feel of him through his old T-shirt. So he wouldn’t see her cry she turned away. Like Spence asked, she knocked on the door and he opened it for her.
25
What the fuck was Felix doing here?
Val opened his mouth to ask that very question, but Felix, sporting a nasty gash on his face and wearing an official
Homeland Security
windbreaker, winked at him. Val forced a quick cough but remained silent.
Felix stuck out his hand and Spence took it. “I’m Albert Vargas with USCIS.” It was a forceful handshake. Val suppressed a laugh. Felix and Spence would get along great. He had no idea why Felix was here under this guise. He trusted his friend. All would be revealed in good time.
“I want to take a minute of your time, Mister,” Felix checked a folder, “Slade.” Felix was good.
“Okay,” Val said. This felt a bit like the role-playing activities the prison shrink tried to get him to do. He couldn’t get over himself enough to pretend to be someone else.
“You need me for anything else?” Spence asked.
“No, thank you.”
Spence nodded and stepped out.
“What are you—”
Felix put a long finger to his lips. He touched his ear then gestured around the room. It was bugged.
“Gabriela Correa had quite the little racket going. I need you to come with me to her apartment and look at a few things, see if anything jogs your memory.”
“What?” This was stupid. Was Felix doing this to get him out? Because if Felix hadn’t done whatever he’d done, saying he was with Immigration, Val could have already been home by now. This wasn’t helping.
“I’ve gotten clearance to take you to her apartment, with your consent, of course.” Felix winked again and Val smiled a queasy smile. “It’s downtown, then I can run you home.”
“Okay.”
Felix strode over to the door, looking like a government type. It made Val’s head spin, didn’t seem right. This was his prison buddy, for heaven’s sake. At his knock, Spence opened the door for them.
“You feeling all right, Val?” Spence asked as they passed him.
“Yeah, it’s been a rough day. I’m going to sleep all afternoon.”
As soon as I hide the body festering in my girlfriend’s trunk.
Spence clapped him on the back. “Get out of here, man.”
“As soon as I can.”
Val followed Felix to the car.
It was a navy blue Crown Vic with USCIS decals on the doors and government plates. Oh Jesus, did he steal this car?
Val got in on the passenger’s side, and buckled in. He didn’t want to get shushed again, so he waited to speak until he was spoken to. At least the hum was gone.
“You look like shit, Val-ey boy.” Felix started the car.
“I am beyond confused, man. What the fuck are you doing? Did you steal this car?”
“Nope.”
Val waited a beat, but Felix didn’t elaborate.
The car accelerated, pushing Val back into the plush seat. Buildings blurred outside. The cops wouldn’t stop a government car, even if he whipped through stop signs.
“Felix, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m really quite sorry about this.”
Val looked at his face, intent on the driving. They left the little downtown behind and sped out of Lott.
“Sorry about what?”
“I have to take you in.”
“In? I was in. What the flaming fuckbuckets is going on?”
Felix chuckled. “You’ve always had a way with words.”
“Yeah, it’s why you like me. Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“What?” Something in Felix’s tone suggested “home” didn’t mean Val’s trailer.
“You’ll see.”
“Whose home?”
“Mine. It’s gonna be a long trip.”
Panic trickled in. This was Felix, his trusted friend and confidant for years. He talked like a crazy person—and drove like one. They took the corner near the National Forest much faster than the recommended speed. If Val didn’t ask any more, he wouldn’t have to hear any more. Maybe Felix was bringing him home the long way. Maybe this was a joke. He opened his mouth to ask if it was, but when a bump made his jaw snap shut with a clack, he left it closed.
Whatever. He would hunker down, and he’d make it through. He’d survived jail with his humor intact, he could survive this.
Unless...
The dam holding back his panic burst. What were the chances he would be in the same cell with an alien?
None. The chances were none. But it had happened anyway, because they’d planned it.
His seatbelt wouldn’t come undone. The button depressed under his mashing fingers, but didn’t give.
The door handle worked the same way, even when he unlocked the lock.
And Felix was smiling.
Val elbowed the window, unsure how that would help even if he got it open. At such speeds he’d be ground burger if he made it out of the car. The contact made his funny bone hum, sending vibrations up and down his arm. He cradled it, panting and sweating.
“You can’t get out,” Felix said. “And I am sorry. I liked you. You’re an interesting guy.”
“What are you?” Val asked, pretty sure he knew exactly where this was headed.
Felix turned to look at him.
“Watch the road!”
“We’re fine,” Felix said, keeping control of the speeding Crown Vic even though he faced Val. “I know these roads like the back of my hand.”
Val had to break the eye contact.
Too weird, too intense
. He tried the seatbelt and the door handle again, even though the ground outside was a purple-brown blur in the building dawn.
“You’re very special to us.”
“Why?” Val was drenched in ice-cold terror…
special…why?
He was sure he wouldn’t like the answer.
“You and your sister have some pretty impressive genes.”
“Sister? I don’t have a sister.”
“Bullshit.”
“I checked. There’s no record of my mother having a second child. No one can even prove she was pregnant. I checked all the hospitals within a hundred and fifty miles of here.”
Felix’s grin widened, stretching the edges of his face and reminding Val of a snake detaching its jaw to swallow its prey whole.
“You would have had to look a lot farther away, buddy boy. You know how you’ve never known who your father is?”
He said nothing, would not rise to the bait.
“It’s me, you fool. It’s my DNA that knocked up your drunkard mother to make a pair of freak babies like you and your sister.”
Val’s heart stopped. It felt like it took a second to get it started again, for him to breathe. It was nice the hum was gone, but the sound of his pulse pounding at his temples was worse.
He tried to speak but only a whimper squeaked out. He tried again. “Really?”
Felix exploded with laughter, spittle catching the rising sun and splattering the steering wheel.
“No. Not really.”
Val felt punched and abused and torn apart. He wanted very much to leave this car, wanted to wake up. Kate. Kate would have to notice he wasn’t back, after a while.
And what would she do?
“Things didn’t really go so well with your sister. Something went wrong. The enzymes didn’t bond entirely right. I think—and I’m no scientist, mind you—it has to do with a lack of gravity and the artificial atmosphere.”
Val’s head spun.
Wake up, wake up, wake up
. This could not be real life. Felix was his friend. Why would he take his mother’s side?
His mother was dead.
He couldn’t get out of the car, but he could get Felix. He stared at the steering wheel, really saw it; examined the faux leather grain. And he pushed it.
At this speed it should have sent the car careening in another direction, but Felix fought it easily.
If anything, Val’s demonstration seemed to please him. “I knew you could do it. When did it start?” Felix asked.
“Last night.”
It seemed to surprise Felix and he turned to look at Val again, still keeping the car on the road without even a wobble. “Last night?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re, like, the latest of the late bloomers in history.” And Felix laughed again. “I always wondered, hoped, you could do it all along. That you weren’t telling anyone.” He paused, and turned back to the road. “And that was all you had? That little tug?”
It was like his worst fears of living in his mother’s science fiction movie were being intermingled with some weird male performance high-school metaphor thing.
The car snapped to the left, down a dirt road camouflaged with the desert. The back end barely fishtailed.
“When did this start?” Val asked, knowing he set himself up for more mocking, but needing to know.
“When did it start?” Felix echoed. “Val-ey boy, this is your life. You were born with it.”
The whir of tires on dirt road was the only sound.
“It’s in your blood.”
Contaminated.
Something wiped the smirk of Felix’s face. Val looked behind and saw something in the car’s dust, something tan and running.
Felix said something under his breath that sounded like a cross between a curse and a sneeze.
Ahead of them were chain-link fences, loops of concertina wire along the top. Val’s chest constricted. It looked like a prison.
A monster behind and incarceration ahead. Was this even possible?
As the Crown Vic hurdled towards the wall, Val cast another look behind him. The creature was gaining ground. He silently spurred it on.
Ahead of them, the gates ground open, sliding on a track. The passenger side mirror folded in as they passed, and the opening snapped shut behind them. Val watched as the creature skidded to a stop, avoiding contact with the gate.
“Did it hit?” Felix asked.
“Hit what?”
“The fence!”
“No,” Val said, very glad it had stopped in time.
“That fence would cook a rhino.”
“The Space Puma is alive and well.”
Felix let out a braying laugh. Val used to like his laugh. “It’s called a Lharomuph. But that’s as good a name for it as any, I guess.”
Another fence loomed ahead of them, this one a tall cement wall. Another set of gates rolled open, smooth on their tracks. Inside sat a long, low building, single story, that at first reminded Val of his elementary school. Schools were welcoming, though. At least they tried to be. This one, the closer they got, reminded him more and more of the edifice where he’d spent those six years.
“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Felix asked as he parked the car in a parking lot filled with similar nondescript cars, all sporting government plates.
“What do you mean, anything?”
“Us. Them. Any of your
contact
” Felix framed the word with air quotes “with extraterrestrial beings. Talk about close encounters. Yours is of the seventh kind, buddy boy.”
“Why don’t you tell me?
“Those gray fuckers took you on their ship.”
“Sorry,
buddy,
but you’ll have to start at the beginning.”
“I know we gave you false memories, but I didn’t know they were that good.”
Val bit down on the inside of his lip. He didn’t want to play anymore, this was stupid. Why was Felix teasing him.
Felix’s smile reminded Val of the face a dog makes before it’s about to throw up. Felix began to speak.