Seizure Page 9
"Seattle, Washington." Kent jammed the toothpaste tube into his suitcase. It was already getting full.
"When are you leaving?"
"Uh, tomorrow morning. My flight leaves in four hours." Kent tried to think what else he'd need. Razor blades? Would he be gone long enough to need them? He might as well pack them, just in case.
Kent went into the bathroom. He took down some Tracer razor blades, Gillette shaving cream, a comb, and a small bottle of Listerine. That should be enough.
Kent walked out again. Troy was still by the door, his expression unchanged.
"You never told me," Troy said.
"I know," Kent said. "I didn't realize I was going until this morning."
"How long will you be gone?" Troy asked.
Kent was pushing his shaving cream deeper into the suitcase, then remembered he still hadn't packed underwear. And he might need something to read on the plane. "A day. My return flight is for tomorrow evening at seven."
"You're leaving me alone," Troy said, "for a day, and you never told me."
Kent froze, realizing what Troy was saying. Troy's expression was now something he could read; anger.
Kent felt sick as he realized his son was right. "Oh...look, I'm sorry, I didn't think--"
A cracked smile broke Troy's face. "You didn't think it would bother me. You didn't think about me at all."
"You know that's not--"
"You never ask me what happened in school or anything. If you had, you would've seen this." Troy stepped into the light. The right side of his face was swollen and mottled black and blue.
Kent let go of his suitcase. "Troy, what--"
"I got into another fight. Yeah, another one. But don't let it bother you. I know it never does."
"That's not fair. You lock yourself in your room all day, every day. You never talk to me unless you want an argument. How am I supposed to know these things?"
"You never tried. Oh, forget it. Go on your trip to Seattle. Leave me here alone. Wouldn't be the first time."
Then Troy was gone.
Kent ran out of the bedroom just in time to see Troy's door slam closed. Kent walked up to it and leaned his head against it, feeling the grain of the wood against his cheek.
"Troy? Look, I'm sorry. I...I didn't think. It's only for a day. When I come back, we can talk. Okay?"
There was only silence on the other side of the door.
Kent took out his wallet. He fished out a hundred-dollar bill, and left it at the base of the door. "I'm leaving some money. If anything happens, call me. Okay?"
Silence.
Kent walked away from the door, through the darkened hallway, back to his bedroom. He tucked a pair of socks into his suitcase, then folded down the lid. It stopped an inch away from the lock, held back by the mountain of personal effects inside.
He sighed as he opened the suitcase again, and began to sort through its contents. He needed to figure out the essentials. Packing wasn't as easy as he had thought.
Neither was parenting.
* * *
The gray van was parked a few houses away from the Reynolds home. Sonya peered through her window as her men listened and recorded the conversations in the house. Her hands were burdened with a large salad from a fast-food place. It was a little dry, and there wasn't enough dressing, but it was all she could get. She didn't even like salads, but Sonya was on a strict vegetarian diet for her next competition. She knew the diet would shed excess fat and add muscle, but that didn't keep her from craving a slice of pizza so badly it hurt.
Her driver with the parabolic ear muttered something to his partner, who leaned back to her. "He just told his son he's taking the flight to Seattle."
Sonya bit the lettuce off her fork, then put down her salad to bring her phone to her ear. "He's going to Seattle, Washington."
"Seattle?" Weaver asked. "What for?"
"Well, we heard him talking to some guy at the Northwest Institute for Epilepsy Research. That's in Seattle."
"This is incredible," Weaver whispered. "How could he be tracking this down so quickly? All right, we can have another jet waiting for you at JFK Airport. Find out when Reynolds' flight lands in Seattle, and be there. Stay on him and report back. I want to know where he goes, what he does, everything. If he sneezes, I want to know about it three seconds later."
"Got it," Sonya said.
Weaver hung up.
Sonya clicked her cell phone off and sighed. She wondered if they had time to run to a pizza place before Kent left for his flight.
* * *
Troy lay on his bed in his room, staring at the ceiling. He listened to a brisk wind blowing outside his window, shaking the glass like a prisoner shaking the bars of his cage. He could hear his father's footsteps in his bedroom as they walked out into the corridor.
"I'm leaving," his father called out. "See you tomorrow, okay?"
Troy remained silent, clenching his jaw as he looked up at the dusty cobwebs in the corners of his ceiling.
After a moment, his father's footsteps moved slowly away from Troy's door, down the staircase to the first floor. They faded into silence, broken by the sound of the front door squealing open, then closing again. And Troy was alone.
He sat up, glaring at his bedroom door. He picked up his sneaker off the floor and hurled it with all his strength. It thudded off the door onto a pile of the clothes on the ground.
So he was all alone for a day. Fine. It wouldn't be the first time. He was alone pretty much all the time, even when his father was home. He could take care of himself.
He would stay up all night. He would watch TV. He'd just stay home playing Odyssey and having fun. It would be great. Troy wished his father would leave home more often.
So why had he exploded like that in his father's room? Troy didn't know. And he didn't care. His father was gone, and could stay wherever he was, for all he cared.
An ice pack lay next to him on the bed, and Troy pressed it to the bruise on his face, bringing with it another sting of pain. It hurt, but the pain felt good. At least he had given Peter a black eye to match. Troy was sick of Peter's "jokes" at his expense. By now, all the kids at school should know Troy wasn't a man to mess around with.
He felt his eyes burn with tears. He was so alone. Maybe that's why he had gotten angry at his father. At least, after Mom died, Troy had his dad with him. True, his father spent less and less time at home. Their usual breakfasts together had grown more and more quiet, his father reading the newspaper, Troy reading comic books, until finally it had ended all together. They talked less and less until they never spoke at all. But through all that, at least Troy had known his father was there for him. On Saturdays, Troy could hear his father moving around the house, working on a project or something.
But now he was gone for a whole day, and Troy couldn't help wondering if this was the beginning of the end, if his father would go out of town for a few days, then a few weeks, a few months, until finally he wasn't around at all. Troy wondered if his father would leave him, just like his mother had.
He was fourteen. He was old enough to outgrow his childhood belief that his mother had died to get away from him somehow, but Troy still found himself wondering from time to time. That thought hurt more than anything else.
Troy winced at another stab of pain from his cheek, then went to his computer. He flicked it on, listening to the comforting hums and beeps of the computer coming to life.
He loved the computer. When his father had first given it to him, Troy hated it. The machine seemed like nothing less than a bribe to make up for years of neglect. But now the computer was Troy's lifeline, his means of escape. With games, Troy could venture into exotic and fantastic worlds, from outer space to ancient Greece. With the Internet, Troy could contact people from around the world. The world of his computer was more real to him than his real life.
Troy sat down in the glow of his computer and turned off the lights, cutting off the rest of the room. Now it was just him and his world.
Troy logged onto his Orion Instant Messaging program, and was instantly transported to a world of lively conversation. Troy set his icepack to one side, unhooked a Coca-Cola from the six-pack next to his desk, and leaned back in his chair. Troy was home.
10.
investigation. He just can't.
11.
KENT'S FLIGHT left early in the morning at three o'clock. As his taxi drove down to the John F. Kennedy International Airport along the Van Wyck Expressway, Kent thought he saw a flash of gray in the rear-view mirror. When he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there.
Kent stepped out of the taxi at his terminal with his suitcase in hand. On the way, he saw a gray van waiting in a parking space by the elevator doors. It looked very familiar.
The terminal was crowded, but less than usual because of the morning hour. Light music echoed off the high ceilings as he waited in line for his boarding pass. As he stood there, he felt eyes watching him from every direction, but when he looked, he couldn't see anyone watching him.
He got his boarding pass, then wandered into a newsstand. He bought a copy of Time and a Wall Street Journal, and a pack of gum, then walked down the long hallway to his gate. As he did so, his eyes hunted the crowds for any suspicious activity. There was none.
He took a seat in the waiting area at his gate. Unfolding the Journal in front of his face, he peered over the top of the pages to scan the crowds.
He wasn't really sure what he was looking for. He wasn't even sure there was anything to look for. Kent was just taking a flight to Seattle. There was no reason for anyone to be following him.
But he wondered. He wondered if someone knew he was investigating Morgan's death, maybe even the person who had killed him. Supposedly. Kent was trying to keep an open mind, but he was becoming more and more convinced that Morgan's death wasn't an accident. Someone had killed him.
But how? VGRS was a connection, but a slim one at best. Other than the unusually large number of epilepsy-related deaths around the world, he had no reason to suspect murder. But suspect it he did, and if there was a murder, there was a murderer, and that meant someone else knew the truth. That someone had killed before. He might kill again to protect his secret.
This was nonsense. Kent had no proof that anyone had killed Morgan, let alone that someone was stalking him because of it. He was becoming paranoid, pure and simple.
He forced himself to fold up his newspaper and stop worrying.
When his plane arrived, the attendants opened the boarding gate. Kent gathered his bag and coat and headed for the open door. While the attendant checked his pass, Kent glanced over the crowds.
And saw someone.
At first, Kent thought it was a man, but he got a brief flash of a narrow face and long blond hair. It was a woman. An unbelievable muscular and tall woman. Just as he caught sight of her, the woman vanished into the crowds.
"Sir?" the stewardess asked, holding out Kent's pass to him.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks." Kent took the pass, then glanced over at the crowds again. The mysterious woman did not reappear.
He walked down the humming passageway that led to the door of the plane. He found himself flashing back to the woman in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if she even was a woman. She had been huge, at least six feet, maybe more. And broad. Even the long black coat she had worn couldn't disguise that. Maybe the person had been a man. But her face had looked undoubtedly feminine.
Kent handed his pass to the stewardess, who directed him to his seat. He had managed to get a window seat in couch, and thankfully, no one was sitting next to him. Kent settled in to wait for the plane to taxi. His mind drifted back to the woman.
He wondered why he couldn't stop thinking about her. She had been an unusual sight to be sure, but he was haunted by her. Then he realized that she had been looking at him. For that brief moment, she had been staring right at him. Then she disappeared.
He looked out at the darkness of the night through his window, lit only by the glow of the terminal. He could hear the engines rumbling to life as the captain began to murmur about the flight.
He realized why the woman stuck in his mind so much. He had seen her before, at Morgan's funeral. She had been wearing a long, black coat, just like the one he had seen a moment ago. She was the one who had taken pictures of Morgan's grave. At the time, he had assumed that person had been a man because of his size. Now he realized it was her. It couldn't be a coincidence. There was a connection, after all.
Kent couldn't help feeling as if he had a brush with Death itself.
* * *
The Vulcan jet was small, but comfortable. Sonya walked up the universal step to the door, but had to duck to get inside. The interior of the jet was warm and brightly-lit, humming softly from its engines. Sonya took an aisle seat, then let her partners work their seating out among themselves.
Sonya took off her coat, relaxing as her skin was allowed to breathe again. Then she pulled out her cell phone and hit redial. Weaver answered almost immediately. She sometimes wondered if he did anything else besides wait for the phone to ring.
"Report," he said.
"Our target's on the plane," Sonya said. "It's a 747 bound for Seattle. Should land at six o'clock. Captain says we should get there a half-hour earlier."
"Good. Anything else?"
Sonya peered out at the darkness of the night that cloaked Reynolds' plane. "Uh, yeah, I think he saw me. I followed him into the terminal to make sure he got on the right flight. I was just leaving when he looked in my direction, but I don't think he got more than a glimpse."
"Do you think he's suspicious?"
"I dunno. He bought a newspaper and pretended to read while he looked over the crowds, but after a while, he stopped, and went on with his business. I think we threw him off."
"Well, all right, but be careful. If he sees you again, he's sure to remember you."
Sonya grinned as she flexed her bicep, watching it curl into a solid mass rippled with veins. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Call me when you land." He hung up again.
Sonya turned off the cell phone and tucked it onto her pocket again. A steward approached her with a smile.
"Can I get you anything?" he asked.
"You got any pizza on board?" Sonya asked.
The steward made a show of looking disappointed. "No, I'm afraid not."
"Oh," Sonya said. "Well, then, just gimme a salad."
The steward nodded and walked away.
Sonya looked up at the moon that hung over the runway. It reminded her of that song that talked about the moon hitting your eye like a pizza pie.
She was so hungry.
* * *
Through Kent's window, lights flickered from the cities on the ground below like a cloud of fireflies. Kent closed his window. He wasn't in the mood for pretty sights. His argument with Troy earlier had soured his mood. He found himself wondering if Troy wasn't right. Kent hadn't even thought about the fact that he was leaving his only son alone for almost a day. It was as if he had forgotten Troy existed.
And for what? To investigate a series of deaths that may turn out to be natural after all.
He was becomi
ng obsessed with it, and he knew why. The fact that Morgan's death had occurred so soon after the trial of Sharon's killer put murder into his mind. He wanted justice. But he was putting his desire above his job, his life, and his son. He had to regain control of his life, but he also had to know the truth. He couldn't live without it.
Kent sighed. He was getting tired of trying to juggle everything in his life, but he realized that up until recently he had tried to concentrate on one thing, his job. Now he thought it was time to shift his focus onto his son.
That was what he was going to do.
Kent felt good about that. He was getting his priorities straight again, trying to undo any damage he may have caused. He just hoped it wasn't too late.
12.
KENT LOOKED out the window at a wall of clouds through which his plane descended. The plane dropped into an endless fog that parted to reveal the glistening jewel of Lake Washington, which they passed to approach the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
Rain already splattered Kent's window as the plane touched down and coasted towards the terminal. Kent reset his watch to Washington time, making it six o'clock in the morning, then exited the plane.
Kent got the key for his rental car from the Budget Rent-A-Car agency, then looked out of the Sea-Tac airport at a pouring rainstorm. He felt a rush of pride as he remembered he had packed a raincoat and umbrella. Nothing to packing at all. He opened his suitcase, and his spirits sank.
It was a mess inside. The clothes jammed together into a wrinkled ball. The toothpaste tube had burst, squirting all over everything. So much for packing being easy.
Kent checked to make sure he could salvage his raincoat and umbrella, then made his way to the parking lot. Climbing inside his rental car, a Lincoln Mercury, Kent drove off into the storm to the Sandstone Inn south of the airport.
As he drove, Kent glanced in his rear-view mirror several times. He wasn't sure why until he remembered the woman at the airport. But none of the cars behind him were recognizable. Then again, maybe they had rented a new car, just like him.