Biofire, p.31
Biofire, page 31
McNolte smiled as he watched her enjoy that single bite of food more than he had ever seen anyone enjoy anything. Her face seemed to glow as she chewed with her head tilted back slightly, muscles in her neck working slowly, luxuriously beneath her pale skin.
“You know,” she said, “not long ago, I probably would have been horribly offended by this food. I mean, compared to what I’m used to, I probably wouldn’t even have touched it. But right now…well, this is maybe the most delicious meal I’ve ever had in my entire life. I was living on candy bars and the occasional bag of chips or teriyaki beef stick. My God, it’s amazing the things people put into their bodies as snacks, isn’t it? This, however…is delicious.”
“I’m glad,” McNolte said with a chuckle.
She put her fork and knife down and sighed. “I just hope all these nice people don’t get killed because of me.”
His smile dropped off his face as he put his knife and fork down. “You sure know how to spoil a mood.”
“Why do you think I didn’t want to come here in the first place? I mean, now I know it’s a great place to hide for a while, but that’s only because it’s so comfortable for me. That’s my selfish streak showing. I know my husband too well, McNolte. I know what he can do. Apparently, your friend P.W. doesn’t believe me. He seems to think he can do something to keep me safe. Your friend is a nice man and I know he means well, but he has no idea what we’re dealing with, here. And after all, he’s just a homeless guy, right?”
McNolte felt a tentacle of anger and another of loyalty make vicious swipes inside him, but he buried them. “No, he’s not just a homeless guy. I’m not sure exactly what he is, but there seems to be a lot more to P.W. than meets the eye.”
“That’s the problem with my husband. There’s more to him than meets the eye, too. What meets the eye is charming and sophisticated and engaging. But beneath that…” She took another drink rather than finishing the sentence. “He’s going to find me. Eventually. I…I guess I’ve resigned myself to it. That way, it won’t be such a shock when it happens. But I know it’ll happen. Sooner or later.”
“Why do you say that. How is he going to find you in the basement of a mission, for God’s sake? There’s no reason for him to look here, or even consider this a possibility. Unless you’re the charitable type and you spend a lot of time in missions.”
A cold laugh bubbled out of her. “Hardly. I mentioned my selfish streak earlier. Normally, I’d never step foot in a mission.”
“Then why would he look for you in one?”
“I know Landon. I’ve known him a long time, and I know that if he wants to find someone, he will. Especially if it’s his wife who’s supposed to be dead…and who’s carrying around one of his precious projects in her head. He’s big on ownership, my husband, and the way he sees us, he owns both of us. His project and me. And he wants us back. He found me in that little greasy spoon, didn’t he? That man with the gun?”
“Why was he wearing a surgical mask, by the way,” McNolte said.
“I have no idea. Maybe as some kind of disguise, something to confuse witnesses. I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize him? Have you seen him before?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen him before. I don’t know his name, but I recognized him right away. He works for Landon, of course.” She scooped up a second helping of mashed potatoes, speared a second slice of turkey with her fork and put it on her plate. Her mouth was soon full of turkey and mashed potatoes again.
“What if your husband doesn’t find you?”
Her chewing slowed as she narrowed her eyes at his question, frowned. She stopped chewing altogether for a moment, thinking about the question.
“You’re dead, right?” McNolte said. “Let’s say he turns the city upside down, doesn’t find you, looks everywhere else, then finally gives up, figures you’re really dead, or something. Just think, you could do whatever you want then. You could start your life over. Right?”
Emma looked him in the eye and laughed, covering her mouth with a hand because she had not swallowed her food yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after gulping the food down. “I just found that funny because…well, see, Landon never gives up. Never. He just doesn’t. Especially if he’s hunting for something that belongs to him that he’s lost, or that’s been taken away from him. You don’t know him, McNolte.” She put her knife and fork down and leaned back in her chair. “He collects collections. He has a car collection, an art collection, a rare books collection. He drives the car, but he doesn’t read and he hates art, doesn’t see any point to it. Because he’s an empty human being. Empty of everything but greed for more. He has a thimble collection. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But it’s a thimble collection worth millions. He lost one of those thimbles once. We looked and looked, but couldn’t find it. He moved us into another house and then tore that one apart looking for his thimble. Literally tore it apart. He found the thimble, but the house was destroyed. He had it demolished and sold the land. He never gives up. That’s the kind of man he is, and that’s the way he does things.”
McNolte frowned as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “You say that as if you admire him for it.”
Emma flinched and her pleasant smile was swallowed up by a look of fiery anger. “I don’t admire that son of a bitch for anything. I’m simply telling you how things are, trying to make you understand what he’s like, what you and your friends are up against with me around. I would’ve gotten out of that marriage a long time ago if I weren’t so damned afraid of him. And as you’ve seen, there’s plenty to be afraid of. The man is evil.” She shook her head. “No, that’s probably the wrong word. It suggests something supernatural. He’s just empty, like I said. Empty. And evil is what results from that emptiness.”
“Um, I’m sorry,” McNolte said, squirming in his seat. “I didn’t mean…I just misinterpreted you, I guess. I apologize. Please, eat your food. You were enjoying it so much.”
After about thirty seconds, she leaned forward and began to eat again. In a moment, she seemed to be unaware of anything being wrong in her life, even unaware of what she had just said a moment ago. The food made her happy. Soon, she was smiling again, and she shared that smile with McNolte, locking her eyes with his as she chewed.
“You see?” he said. “Things aren’t so bad after all, are they? You should stop assuming that everything is hopeless. You’ll end up fulfilling your own prophecies.”
She shook her head as she swallowed her food. “Good Lord, I’ve gotten myself hooked up with an optimist. What do you do for a living, anyway? Clean chimneys in a Disney movie, or something?”
“No, I’m a writer.”
“A writer? An optimistic writer? Isn’t that like military intelligence? Judging by the writers I’ve known, that’s quite an oxymoron you’ve got there. Shouldn’t you be inebriated and brooding about the meaningless of existence? Something like that?”
“I’m not that kind of writer. Besides, that’s a stereotype. The only writers I’ve known who were drunk all the time were that way because they were always broke. I’m optimistic only because…well, I’ve had to be. I guess if you find yourself in a hole, you either have to look up and start climbing or, sooner or later, it’ll fall in on you. I have a pessimistic streak, believe me. I’ve just found out that I don’t have much use for it, so I keep it in a closet, you might say.”
She rested her hands on the table, one holding the fork and the other the knife, and looked at him curiously. “Bad things have happened to you, haven’t they, McNolte?”
“Hey, I crawled through a bathroom window with you while being shot at, didn’t I?”
She laughed. “I mean before that. Tell me your story, Mr. McNolte.”
“It’s more a case of me being my own worst enemy.”
“Let’s hear it. We’ve got time.”
“Oh, take my word for it, you don’t want to hear the story. It’s very boring. Full of clichés. Sort of like a network TV movie of the week, but without the pretty stars and dramatic music. You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure. Usually with several commercial breaks.”
“No, really, tell me. After all, I had to bare all to you and your friends upstairs. Not necessarily of my own free will, either. You practically had me imprisoned in that office. So…I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”
Reluctantly, McNolte told Emma his story, keeping it short. She listened with interest, interrupting at times to ask questions or make comments. When she finished her meal, she removed her tray from the table and put it on the floor so she could prop her elbows on the tabletop and rest her chin on her joined hands, eyes looking sleepy but attentive, her unfinished soda on the table before her.
When McNolte was done, she said nothing, but continued to look at him. Her eyes were heavy-lidded but alert as she searched his face, as if trying to decide what to make of his story, his misfortune.
Finally, she said, “It’s amazing. It’s like I’ve been living with blinders on my whole life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I always thought my life was so different from everyone else’s. Not everyone’s, exactly, but different from the lives of people who weren’t…like me.”
“You mean poor people.”
She sighed. “I was born into a wealthy family. Ridiculously wealthy. Then I married a wealthy man. I’ve been wealthy my whole life. And I’ve always assumed that people who aren’t wealthy have very different lives, worlds apart.”
“We do. Trust me.”
“The only real difference is the tax bracket. The problems pretty much stay the same. Wealthy people just have more options open to them when they deal with those problems, that’s all. Well, better drugs, too. That’s usually different.”
“I always thought rich people snort coke, too, right? From what I’ve heard, that’s how a lot of them get poor.”
“Some, I suppose. But not in the circles I’ve moved in all my life. Illegal drugs can be messy. We prefer the prescription variety, and we can afford doctors who’ll be generous with their prescription pads. For a while, I had a rather serious relationship with Xanax. I had to go into rehab in Colorado for that. Which wasn’t so bad, because it got me away from Landon. But it was a problem nonetheless and it messed up my life for a while. After that, I had a fling with OxyContin and went back to see my friends at the Colorado rehab facility. Some of the same ones were there, too. I had a friend, a rich woman, even richer than us, and she had a drug problem, too. She was involved with a variety of prescription pills. One night a few years ago, she took too many Halcions with her Remy Martin. She was on life support for about six months until her family decided to pull the plug. She died the same day. And there’ve been others, too. Some close friends, some who were just acquaintances. I guess pain is pain and drugs is drugs, huh? And the results are usually the same, no matter how rich you are. I guess I’m just a little surprised to come to that realization.”
McNolte saw the conversation taking a serious, even dark, tone and he was not in the mood to follow it in that direction, so he smiled and said, “But how many people do you know who have been stupid enough to burn up a suitcase full of cocaine about forty-five minutes after buying it with money borrowed from a vicious loan shark?”
She laughed. “You really think this guy will have you killed?”
“Eventually. He’s told me he’ll start with my fingers.”
“Your fingers?”
“Yes, he’ll break them.”
“If I had my checkbook with me, McNolte, I would happily solve your problem with a few scribbles.”
“Dead women don’t write checks.”
She chuckled.
“What about you, Emma? Why do you suppose your husband wants you dead? Seems to me he’s got a lot invested in you. Why doesn’t he just round you up and take you back to his lab instead of blowing a whole diner away to kill you?”
“Obviously, I’m very important to him, but I’m a danger to him. What I’ve overheard alone is probably enough to ruin him, if I could get the right people to believe me. But that’s not the only reason. I’ve also defied him one time too many. I’m afraid this is the last straw. He’s probably already got my replacement picked out. Somebody who will be afraid of him and acquiesce to all those disgusting procedures. That’s how I used to be. Until recently. He’ll find someone who doesn’t know him as well as I do. Or hate him as much.” She sipped her cola. “And this time, thanks to what they learned from working on me, his drones at OdysseyCorp will probably be much more efficient. Only one operation instead of two. Twice the results in half the time. In the end, Landon will get exactly what he wants. And so will the Pentagon.” Her voice lowered to a near-whisper. “And so will his miserable goddamned shadow clients.”
“Shadow clients?” McNolte said. “You mentioned those upstairs. What kind of people does he sell OdysseyCorp’s work to under the table? Are we talking about foreign governments, or enemies of the country, or organized crime? That sort of thing?”
“All of the above,” she said. “Whoever can put up the most money. That’s all the morality Landon has ever known. The morality of the highest bidder. Of course, these days, that’s just about all the morality we’ve got left in this country.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t pull the rug out from under him,” McNolte said. “You just said you know enough to ruin him. Why don’t you?”
“If I could get the right people to believe me. I don’t have any proof I can hand them. Besides, I never know who might be in Landon’s pocket. The police department in the little town next to the lab? He owns them. If I went to them, they’d just take me right back to him.”
“I think you’ve got plenty of proof. What you can do is proof. You’ve done it to me twice and even though it still sounds like science fiction to me, I—hey, wait a second. Why haven’t you done it to him? Why is he even a problem? Why haven’t you—”
“Yes, I know. It’s the logical question. I’ve considered it. I even came close to trying it once. Nothing I can say, though, will make you understand my reasoning. I can’t even call it that, it’s unreasonable. It’s irrational. But it’s natural given my experience with Landon.”
“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”
“I was afraid.”
“But what’s he going to do? This isn’t like a gun he can grab out of your hand. This is right inside your own—”
“I know, I know. But it’s not that simple.”
Emma told him about The Towel.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” he said, wincing.
“That’s just one example of my life with Landon. And I never knew when he was going to surprise me with a new one. When he wasn’t actually physically abusing me, he was threatening physical abuse. And he was good at that. He could make my knees shake with his cruel threats because I knew he might actually carry out those threats. I was terrified of him, McNolte. I still am. All I have to do is think about him and my skin tightens. Do you know how powerful that kind of fear is? I was in training to fear Landon the whole time we were married. That’s what our marriage was. Fear training. And it worked. Now, I’ve got this bizarre ability inside my head that I could use on him in a second, but just being in the room with him freezes me up. Does that make any sense at all?”
“It does, yes. I’m sorry for making you go to such great lengths to explain it. You’re the victim here, you shouldn’t have to explain anything.”
“But even though I couldn’t use it on him, I still used it,” she said. “That’s how I got out of OdysseyCorp. I don’t know how badly those people were hurt, or if I killed any of them.” She massaged the back of her neck with her left hand for a moment. “To be honest, I don’t care. They’re all nothing but sycophants.”
With a heavy sigh, she began eating again, but after a couple of bites, she put down her fork and pushed the plate away. “I think I’ve eaten too much.”
“You had quite an appetite.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead eating that much in front of someone. But, yes, I was very hungry.” She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “So, McNolte, tell me, who should I go to with my story? The Pentagon? They’re the ones who commissioned the project. If I went to them and showed them what I can do, it would be like Santa Claus dropping in a couple of months early. They would be thrilled. And I would never be seen again. Who else? The FBI? The president, maybe?”
“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I have. I’ve had plenty of time to think locked up in my house for so long, then at OdysseyCorp. And the one conclusion I come to again and again is this: get the hell out of the city, out of Landon’s reach, before he even knows I’m gone. Go somewhere far away. Start over.”
“What about your family?”
“They’re all dead. And Landon and I have no children. Thank God.”
“Friends?”
“All of my friends were Landon’s friends first. And they remain Landon’s friends first, trust me. Going to them would be like going straight to Landon.”
It would be easy to believe that she wanted her situation to be hopeless, so determined was she to shoot down his every suggestion. But he knew she was telling the truth, that she had thought it all through, considered every possible option, and found them all to be dead ends.
Frustrated, Landon said, “Please don’t think I’m trying to blame you for your situation. I’m not. I’m just curious. Why didn’t you leave him years ago? When you found out what a nightmare he is?”
“Oh, I tried. I tried to leave him once. I was going to fly to Florida to be with my sister. She was still alive then. But he had a couple of goons catch me at the airport and drag me back to him. I have no idea how he knew that’s what I was going to do, but he did. I even tried to have him killed once, but that didn’t work, either.”
McNolte’s surprise registered on his face. “You tried to have him killed?”
Without a word, she said yes—with a twitch of the brow, a smile that played about her eyes, a tilt of her head to one side and back a bit. It was a mild look of defiance, as if she were daring him to make a castigating remark, to pass judgment on her.
“You know,” she said, “not long ago, I probably would have been horribly offended by this food. I mean, compared to what I’m used to, I probably wouldn’t even have touched it. But right now…well, this is maybe the most delicious meal I’ve ever had in my entire life. I was living on candy bars and the occasional bag of chips or teriyaki beef stick. My God, it’s amazing the things people put into their bodies as snacks, isn’t it? This, however…is delicious.”
“I’m glad,” McNolte said with a chuckle.
She put her fork and knife down and sighed. “I just hope all these nice people don’t get killed because of me.”
His smile dropped off his face as he put his knife and fork down. “You sure know how to spoil a mood.”
“Why do you think I didn’t want to come here in the first place? I mean, now I know it’s a great place to hide for a while, but that’s only because it’s so comfortable for me. That’s my selfish streak showing. I know my husband too well, McNolte. I know what he can do. Apparently, your friend P.W. doesn’t believe me. He seems to think he can do something to keep me safe. Your friend is a nice man and I know he means well, but he has no idea what we’re dealing with, here. And after all, he’s just a homeless guy, right?”
McNolte felt a tentacle of anger and another of loyalty make vicious swipes inside him, but he buried them. “No, he’s not just a homeless guy. I’m not sure exactly what he is, but there seems to be a lot more to P.W. than meets the eye.”
“That’s the problem with my husband. There’s more to him than meets the eye, too. What meets the eye is charming and sophisticated and engaging. But beneath that…” She took another drink rather than finishing the sentence. “He’s going to find me. Eventually. I…I guess I’ve resigned myself to it. That way, it won’t be such a shock when it happens. But I know it’ll happen. Sooner or later.”
“Why do you say that. How is he going to find you in the basement of a mission, for God’s sake? There’s no reason for him to look here, or even consider this a possibility. Unless you’re the charitable type and you spend a lot of time in missions.”
A cold laugh bubbled out of her. “Hardly. I mentioned my selfish streak earlier. Normally, I’d never step foot in a mission.”
“Then why would he look for you in one?”
“I know Landon. I’ve known him a long time, and I know that if he wants to find someone, he will. Especially if it’s his wife who’s supposed to be dead…and who’s carrying around one of his precious projects in her head. He’s big on ownership, my husband, and the way he sees us, he owns both of us. His project and me. And he wants us back. He found me in that little greasy spoon, didn’t he? That man with the gun?”
“Why was he wearing a surgical mask, by the way,” McNolte said.
“I have no idea. Maybe as some kind of disguise, something to confuse witnesses. I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize him? Have you seen him before?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen him before. I don’t know his name, but I recognized him right away. He works for Landon, of course.” She scooped up a second helping of mashed potatoes, speared a second slice of turkey with her fork and put it on her plate. Her mouth was soon full of turkey and mashed potatoes again.
“What if your husband doesn’t find you?”
Her chewing slowed as she narrowed her eyes at his question, frowned. She stopped chewing altogether for a moment, thinking about the question.
“You’re dead, right?” McNolte said. “Let’s say he turns the city upside down, doesn’t find you, looks everywhere else, then finally gives up, figures you’re really dead, or something. Just think, you could do whatever you want then. You could start your life over. Right?”
Emma looked him in the eye and laughed, covering her mouth with a hand because she had not swallowed her food yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after gulping the food down. “I just found that funny because…well, see, Landon never gives up. Never. He just doesn’t. Especially if he’s hunting for something that belongs to him that he’s lost, or that’s been taken away from him. You don’t know him, McNolte.” She put her knife and fork down and leaned back in her chair. “He collects collections. He has a car collection, an art collection, a rare books collection. He drives the car, but he doesn’t read and he hates art, doesn’t see any point to it. Because he’s an empty human being. Empty of everything but greed for more. He has a thimble collection. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But it’s a thimble collection worth millions. He lost one of those thimbles once. We looked and looked, but couldn’t find it. He moved us into another house and then tore that one apart looking for his thimble. Literally tore it apart. He found the thimble, but the house was destroyed. He had it demolished and sold the land. He never gives up. That’s the kind of man he is, and that’s the way he does things.”
McNolte frowned as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “You say that as if you admire him for it.”
Emma flinched and her pleasant smile was swallowed up by a look of fiery anger. “I don’t admire that son of a bitch for anything. I’m simply telling you how things are, trying to make you understand what he’s like, what you and your friends are up against with me around. I would’ve gotten out of that marriage a long time ago if I weren’t so damned afraid of him. And as you’ve seen, there’s plenty to be afraid of. The man is evil.” She shook her head. “No, that’s probably the wrong word. It suggests something supernatural. He’s just empty, like I said. Empty. And evil is what results from that emptiness.”
“Um, I’m sorry,” McNolte said, squirming in his seat. “I didn’t mean…I just misinterpreted you, I guess. I apologize. Please, eat your food. You were enjoying it so much.”
After about thirty seconds, she leaned forward and began to eat again. In a moment, she seemed to be unaware of anything being wrong in her life, even unaware of what she had just said a moment ago. The food made her happy. Soon, she was smiling again, and she shared that smile with McNolte, locking her eyes with his as she chewed.
“You see?” he said. “Things aren’t so bad after all, are they? You should stop assuming that everything is hopeless. You’ll end up fulfilling your own prophecies.”
She shook her head as she swallowed her food. “Good Lord, I’ve gotten myself hooked up with an optimist. What do you do for a living, anyway? Clean chimneys in a Disney movie, or something?”
“No, I’m a writer.”
“A writer? An optimistic writer? Isn’t that like military intelligence? Judging by the writers I’ve known, that’s quite an oxymoron you’ve got there. Shouldn’t you be inebriated and brooding about the meaningless of existence? Something like that?”
“I’m not that kind of writer. Besides, that’s a stereotype. The only writers I’ve known who were drunk all the time were that way because they were always broke. I’m optimistic only because…well, I’ve had to be. I guess if you find yourself in a hole, you either have to look up and start climbing or, sooner or later, it’ll fall in on you. I have a pessimistic streak, believe me. I’ve just found out that I don’t have much use for it, so I keep it in a closet, you might say.”
She rested her hands on the table, one holding the fork and the other the knife, and looked at him curiously. “Bad things have happened to you, haven’t they, McNolte?”
“Hey, I crawled through a bathroom window with you while being shot at, didn’t I?”
She laughed. “I mean before that. Tell me your story, Mr. McNolte.”
“It’s more a case of me being my own worst enemy.”
“Let’s hear it. We’ve got time.”
“Oh, take my word for it, you don’t want to hear the story. It’s very boring. Full of clichés. Sort of like a network TV movie of the week, but without the pretty stars and dramatic music. You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure. Usually with several commercial breaks.”
“No, really, tell me. After all, I had to bare all to you and your friends upstairs. Not necessarily of my own free will, either. You practically had me imprisoned in that office. So…I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”
Reluctantly, McNolte told Emma his story, keeping it short. She listened with interest, interrupting at times to ask questions or make comments. When she finished her meal, she removed her tray from the table and put it on the floor so she could prop her elbows on the tabletop and rest her chin on her joined hands, eyes looking sleepy but attentive, her unfinished soda on the table before her.
When McNolte was done, she said nothing, but continued to look at him. Her eyes were heavy-lidded but alert as she searched his face, as if trying to decide what to make of his story, his misfortune.
Finally, she said, “It’s amazing. It’s like I’ve been living with blinders on my whole life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I always thought my life was so different from everyone else’s. Not everyone’s, exactly, but different from the lives of people who weren’t…like me.”
“You mean poor people.”
She sighed. “I was born into a wealthy family. Ridiculously wealthy. Then I married a wealthy man. I’ve been wealthy my whole life. And I’ve always assumed that people who aren’t wealthy have very different lives, worlds apart.”
“We do. Trust me.”
“The only real difference is the tax bracket. The problems pretty much stay the same. Wealthy people just have more options open to them when they deal with those problems, that’s all. Well, better drugs, too. That’s usually different.”
“I always thought rich people snort coke, too, right? From what I’ve heard, that’s how a lot of them get poor.”
“Some, I suppose. But not in the circles I’ve moved in all my life. Illegal drugs can be messy. We prefer the prescription variety, and we can afford doctors who’ll be generous with their prescription pads. For a while, I had a rather serious relationship with Xanax. I had to go into rehab in Colorado for that. Which wasn’t so bad, because it got me away from Landon. But it was a problem nonetheless and it messed up my life for a while. After that, I had a fling with OxyContin and went back to see my friends at the Colorado rehab facility. Some of the same ones were there, too. I had a friend, a rich woman, even richer than us, and she had a drug problem, too. She was involved with a variety of prescription pills. One night a few years ago, she took too many Halcions with her Remy Martin. She was on life support for about six months until her family decided to pull the plug. She died the same day. And there’ve been others, too. Some close friends, some who were just acquaintances. I guess pain is pain and drugs is drugs, huh? And the results are usually the same, no matter how rich you are. I guess I’m just a little surprised to come to that realization.”
McNolte saw the conversation taking a serious, even dark, tone and he was not in the mood to follow it in that direction, so he smiled and said, “But how many people do you know who have been stupid enough to burn up a suitcase full of cocaine about forty-five minutes after buying it with money borrowed from a vicious loan shark?”
She laughed. “You really think this guy will have you killed?”
“Eventually. He’s told me he’ll start with my fingers.”
“Your fingers?”
“Yes, he’ll break them.”
“If I had my checkbook with me, McNolte, I would happily solve your problem with a few scribbles.”
“Dead women don’t write checks.”
She chuckled.
“What about you, Emma? Why do you suppose your husband wants you dead? Seems to me he’s got a lot invested in you. Why doesn’t he just round you up and take you back to his lab instead of blowing a whole diner away to kill you?”
“Obviously, I’m very important to him, but I’m a danger to him. What I’ve overheard alone is probably enough to ruin him, if I could get the right people to believe me. But that’s not the only reason. I’ve also defied him one time too many. I’m afraid this is the last straw. He’s probably already got my replacement picked out. Somebody who will be afraid of him and acquiesce to all those disgusting procedures. That’s how I used to be. Until recently. He’ll find someone who doesn’t know him as well as I do. Or hate him as much.” She sipped her cola. “And this time, thanks to what they learned from working on me, his drones at OdysseyCorp will probably be much more efficient. Only one operation instead of two. Twice the results in half the time. In the end, Landon will get exactly what he wants. And so will the Pentagon.” Her voice lowered to a near-whisper. “And so will his miserable goddamned shadow clients.”
“Shadow clients?” McNolte said. “You mentioned those upstairs. What kind of people does he sell OdysseyCorp’s work to under the table? Are we talking about foreign governments, or enemies of the country, or organized crime? That sort of thing?”
“All of the above,” she said. “Whoever can put up the most money. That’s all the morality Landon has ever known. The morality of the highest bidder. Of course, these days, that’s just about all the morality we’ve got left in this country.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t pull the rug out from under him,” McNolte said. “You just said you know enough to ruin him. Why don’t you?”
“If I could get the right people to believe me. I don’t have any proof I can hand them. Besides, I never know who might be in Landon’s pocket. The police department in the little town next to the lab? He owns them. If I went to them, they’d just take me right back to him.”
“I think you’ve got plenty of proof. What you can do is proof. You’ve done it to me twice and even though it still sounds like science fiction to me, I—hey, wait a second. Why haven’t you done it to him? Why is he even a problem? Why haven’t you—”
“Yes, I know. It’s the logical question. I’ve considered it. I even came close to trying it once. Nothing I can say, though, will make you understand my reasoning. I can’t even call it that, it’s unreasonable. It’s irrational. But it’s natural given my experience with Landon.”
“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”
“I was afraid.”
“But what’s he going to do? This isn’t like a gun he can grab out of your hand. This is right inside your own—”
“I know, I know. But it’s not that simple.”
Emma told him about The Towel.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” he said, wincing.
“That’s just one example of my life with Landon. And I never knew when he was going to surprise me with a new one. When he wasn’t actually physically abusing me, he was threatening physical abuse. And he was good at that. He could make my knees shake with his cruel threats because I knew he might actually carry out those threats. I was terrified of him, McNolte. I still am. All I have to do is think about him and my skin tightens. Do you know how powerful that kind of fear is? I was in training to fear Landon the whole time we were married. That’s what our marriage was. Fear training. And it worked. Now, I’ve got this bizarre ability inside my head that I could use on him in a second, but just being in the room with him freezes me up. Does that make any sense at all?”
“It does, yes. I’m sorry for making you go to such great lengths to explain it. You’re the victim here, you shouldn’t have to explain anything.”
“But even though I couldn’t use it on him, I still used it,” she said. “That’s how I got out of OdysseyCorp. I don’t know how badly those people were hurt, or if I killed any of them.” She massaged the back of her neck with her left hand for a moment. “To be honest, I don’t care. They’re all nothing but sycophants.”
With a heavy sigh, she began eating again, but after a couple of bites, she put down her fork and pushed the plate away. “I think I’ve eaten too much.”
“You had quite an appetite.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead eating that much in front of someone. But, yes, I was very hungry.” She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “So, McNolte, tell me, who should I go to with my story? The Pentagon? They’re the ones who commissioned the project. If I went to them and showed them what I can do, it would be like Santa Claus dropping in a couple of months early. They would be thrilled. And I would never be seen again. Who else? The FBI? The president, maybe?”
“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I have. I’ve had plenty of time to think locked up in my house for so long, then at OdysseyCorp. And the one conclusion I come to again and again is this: get the hell out of the city, out of Landon’s reach, before he even knows I’m gone. Go somewhere far away. Start over.”
“What about your family?”
“They’re all dead. And Landon and I have no children. Thank God.”
“Friends?”
“All of my friends were Landon’s friends first. And they remain Landon’s friends first, trust me. Going to them would be like going straight to Landon.”
It would be easy to believe that she wanted her situation to be hopeless, so determined was she to shoot down his every suggestion. But he knew she was telling the truth, that she had thought it all through, considered every possible option, and found them all to be dead ends.
Frustrated, Landon said, “Please don’t think I’m trying to blame you for your situation. I’m not. I’m just curious. Why didn’t you leave him years ago? When you found out what a nightmare he is?”
“Oh, I tried. I tried to leave him once. I was going to fly to Florida to be with my sister. She was still alive then. But he had a couple of goons catch me at the airport and drag me back to him. I have no idea how he knew that’s what I was going to do, but he did. I even tried to have him killed once, but that didn’t work, either.”
McNolte’s surprise registered on his face. “You tried to have him killed?”
Without a word, she said yes—with a twitch of the brow, a smile that played about her eyes, a tilt of her head to one side and back a bit. It was a mild look of defiance, as if she were daring him to make a castigating remark, to pass judgment on her.
