Altered States (31 page)

As I rounded the corner there was the noise of a TV. The sound had that frantic high pitched quality of children’s entertainment. It was coming from a room with its door slightly ajar. The door had a child’s drawing taped to it featuring the stick-figures and rainbow of a typical child’s masterpiece. I stopped walking. I took a quiet step forward and peeked through the gap in the door. The room was decked out like a nursery. Brightly muralled walls, mounds of cuddly toys. The TV was on the far side, cartoon images casting a colourful glow into the room.

And there in the middle, perched crossed-legged on a large red beanbag, was a young girl with fair hair.

I steeled myself. How not to become the bogeyman. I took a deep silent breath through my nostrils then pushed the door open. It made a tiny sound. The girl didn’t jump; she just turned her head.

‘Hi,’ I said in a soft voice almost lost in the sounds from the TV.

I remained outside the door as the girl studied me for a moment. Then she wiggled herself free of the beanbag, placing the teddy she had been hugging back to continue watching TV, and walked toward me.

‘Hello,’ she said.

I crouched down to her level and regarded her face. It was flat and emotionless but I could see Gemma in every muscle. My eyes welled up heavily. This was almost too hard to take.

‘This is...’ I tried to talk smoothly, but my voice crackled. ‘This is hard to explain. You don’t know who I am but...’ I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

I didn’t need to.

‘I trust you,’ said Pearle. ‘You’re a good man.’ And with that she threw her arms around my neck. I took her up into my arms and hugged her tight; and it felt like I’d suddenly found a part of me I never knew was missing. I cried a little; I took in the moment. Then it was back to business. It had to be.

‘It’s time to go,’ I said. ‘We don’t have much time.’ I dropped Pearle to the ground. ‘Do you have any things you need to bring?’

Pearle rushed back into the room and scooped up teddy and squished him lovingly into a pink rucksack, then scooted round the room gathering a few more pieces. Just as she was ready to go she stopped and turned.

‘Oh, I need to leave a note.’

She tore a piece of paper from a scrap book on the floor and selected a crayon from a tin; then she started to write in slow considered letters: ‘Thank you Miss Polly xxx’. When she was done she dropped the crayon and ran to the door.

‘Who’s Miss Polly?’ I asked.

‘She’s a good lady,’ said Pearle.

It was time to get out. There was almost certainly a quicker way out than the way I’d come in but I didn’t know what it was and I couldn’t risk getting stuck anywhere. I figured that the best plan was to retrace my steps. I knew the route and there was only one door I couldn’t get through – and I could deal with that.

‘Hey man,’ I said casually. The guy looked up. ‘I’ve gone and left my pass in the lab.’ I hoiked a thumb over my shoulder. ‘Don’t suppose I could grab yours for a minute?’

‘Umm,’ pointed out the man eloquently and narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you...’

Oh enough already with the cross-examination, I thought, and I punched him in the face and grabbed his pass. I had given him ample opportunity to be helpful.

I legged it down the corridor, grabbed Pearle’s hand and barged through the door.

‘Okay,’ I said to Pearle, ‘we need to be brisk without running.’ My brisk was slightly faster than hers and she ended up being dragged along beside me.

Fortunately, the hospital area was quiet, as this was the place where Pearle was most likely to be recognised. We got through there; out the other side; along all the corridors; past all the offices; down the elevator.

Sure we got a whole host of strange looks; mostly because people didn’t expect to see a kid in their workplace. They knew something didn’t quite sit right. But they were all off home to their other-halves and widescreen TVs, and they really didn’t want to make it their problem.

Then, in the lobby, just as we were about to exit the last door, there was a voice from behind us.

‘Hey,’ it called.

I turned. I was a packet of nerves on the inside but wrapped in a perfectly-composed exterior. The owner of the voice was a portly older man with grey thinning hair.

‘Hey, you dropped your pass.’

Time froze. It was lying on the floor about a third of the way from him to me. Don’t be a nice guy, I prayed, but it was too late. He was already stooping down to retrieve it for me.

I stepped quickly toward him and reached out a hand as he came up. He smiled at me, looked me straight in the eye, and handed over the pass without even glancing at it.

‘Thanks,’ I said with a smile.

He ruffled the hair of Pearle on his way past and was gone. I looked down at the pass in my hand. Jane Harleson. Long blonde hair. I wouldn’t have pulled it off.

I took Pearle by the hand and we were out. We got to my rental car and hit the road, speeding out of the state, marginally below the speed limit.

The next part of the plan couldn’t involve Pearle, but equally I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her again so soon, for however brief a time. So, just as soon as we were out of the state, I treated her to a milkshake at a roadside diner. I’m pretty partial to a vanilla shake myself.

‘Nice to meet you Brown. Thanks for taking care of Miss Pearle for me.’ Then I leaned toward Pearle and cupped a hand beside my mouth. ‘We forgot to get him a milkshake,’ I whispered to her with mock concern.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered back as she prodded his belly softly. ‘He’s on a diet.’

We shared a laugh at Brown’s calorific expense, and I was relieved to see that the girl seemed remarkably emotionally-intact considering her ordeal.

I glanced around the diner and my mind suddenly leapt back to the day Gemma and I were reunited after I’d gone into hiding. Pearle was studying me and she stopped slurping her drink to ask a question.

‘Why are you sad?’

My instinct was to respond by saying I wasn’t sad. That’s what one is supposed to do with a six-year-old kid. But not with this one. The rules didn’t apply. I had to answer straight. I suddenly realised how annoying I must be to other people sometimes.

‘I miss your mum,’ I said honestly. I’d explained about her mum on the drive here. It was the first topic we covered. It wasn’t one that I was going to be able to avoid.

Pearle’s eyes fell to the table glumly. ‘Me too.’

‘I know,’ I said without promising that everything would be okay, and I reached across and put a hand on hers. How
are
you supposed to reassure a kid you can’t lie to? This, in case you were in any doubt, sucked big time.

As the poor kid began to cry she hopped down from her chair, ran around the table and threw her arms around me. I pulled her up onto my lap, brought teddy Brown into the embrace and we held each other until it was time to go.

A few hours later I dropped Pearle off with surrogate auntie Felicity. I hadn’t expected to be back there so soon. I gave her some money to take Pearle to the mall to get some new clothes and stuff; and I apologised profusely for not being able to stick around.

Sleep

I stepped off the plane in New Meadows feeling better than I had in a long, long time. Things were coming together. I knew I still had a long way to go to end this thing, but for the first time it felt feasible.

But, just as I was emerging from the departure gate in what could almost be considered a Good Mood, I realised something terrifying. It leapt up at me so unexpectedly that I actually blasphemed out loud.

The thing is, I’d become too accustomed to looking out for myself, the invisible man. It was easy for me to walk away from trouble. But now I was responsible for someone else. Multiple someone elses. Pearle was as safe with Felicity as I could make her right now. At the very least I knew she was too valuable for any harm to come to her.

Someone else was not.

I pulled out my phone hastily, almost sending it toppling to the ground. I punched a few buttons to make a call, and eventually it began to ring. And ring. After an excruciating period of time – like almost three rings – Karla picked up.

‘Where are you?’ I barked over her greeting.

‘How specific do you want me to be?’

‘Very specific and very quick.’ I was racing through the airport terminal by this point, barging impolitely past anything in my way. Most of those things happened to be children or old people, but it couldn’t be helped.

I’d never thought of that before. How do women know when they’re being tailed? I made a mental note to think about it another time, if I needed to.

‘Okay, fair point. Listen carefully.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Just drive.’ I’d reached the exit of the airport and was stealing a cab off an innocent family. The driver wasn’t too keen on queue jumpers but I’d snapped at him with enough menace to get him moving.

I ignored the question for a second time. ‘I’m going to hang up in a minute, so listen carefully to what you have to do. First, take a note of my number, then dump your phone. No, better still, plant it on someone. In their pocket or bag or whatever. Got that?’

‘Yes, but...’

‘Then get the hell out of there, as far away as possible, but stay where there’s lots of people. Then get hold of another phone. Steal one, borrow one, buy one if you must. Whatever you’re comfortable with, but do it quick. Then call me. Okay?’

This was more than a precaution. It was a necessity. I just hoped it was enough. I didn’t wish to impugn Karla’s talents, of which she had many, but she was worthless to them now – to Zack Bayliss or whoever was running this show – now that I’d blown her cover. And that meant she was a corndog within 24 hours, unless we could hide her. I hoped she was right in believing that she wasn’t under constant surveillance. The fact that she was still alive supported this. But if she was hanging onto her cell phone it wouldn’t be long before they pin-pointed her.

I hung around on the Strip waiting for a call. I wished I’d arranged a back-up rendezvous, so I’d know where to head next, but there hadn’t been time for that.

‘I was in a store getting a phone. It took quite a while and there was this guy in there hanging around and when I left he left at the same time.’ Her words were rushed and falling into each other.

‘I know.’ She sounded like she was about to break down. ‘But there were so many people. I couldn’t move fast enough. I just wanted to get away.’ She started to sob.

‘That’s okay,’ I reassured. But it wasn’t. ‘You did a good job. Stay on the phone.’