Authors: Hallie Ephron
Come and Find Me (13 page)
W
hile Ashley showered, Diana spread out the hospital forms on the bed. It would take more than paperwork to convince her that Ashley had spent four days in a hospital recovering from an exotic disease.
She pulled out the doctor’s business card and dialed his number. The call was picked up without even a single ring.
“Compassionate Care Medical Associates,” said a woman’s recorded voice. “Our hours are weekdays from nine
A.M.
to five
P.M.
If this is an emergency . . .” Diana left a message, pretending to be Ashley and asking for the doctor to call. She left her cell-phone number and hung up.
She set the card aside, picked up the prescription form, and examined it. It was dated Monday, yesterday, probably written in the morning when Ashley had been supposedly released from the Neponset Hospital. Later in the day, Pam had been running her forum, its banner
FIGHT BACK. LIES KILL
. There was more than a little irony to that.
“The signature on the form wasn’t all that legible, but the initials
P
and
B
were clear. She Googled Pamela David-Braverman, MD. Back came thousands of hits. She’d been an activist for handicap rights at NYU Medical School. There were news articles about demonstrations and petitions she’d organized to get the teaching hospital to adapt equipment to the needs of physically handicapped physicians. Her nickname had been “Hell on Wheels.”
Diana found plenty of links between Pam and Cambridge City Hospital. Lots of mentions of her in connection with the Spaulding Rehab Center and the Fund for Science, Honesty, and Morality. She also found the home page for Compassionate Care Medical, P.C., with Pam’s name listed along with Dr. William Kennedy and three other physicians.
If Diana had saved the access codes to Neponset’s systems, she could easily have checked whether Pam was one of their attending physicians. But it was standard practice, part of Gamelan’s contract with every client, to obliterate from their systems every bit of information and every copied file when a project ended. Overwriting the data from a completed project was time-consuming, but it was a ritual Diana had diligently followed from day one.
GROB had offered to help. Would his “special access” get her answers?
The pipes thunked as the shower turned off. It would be at least another fifteen minutes of blow-drying her hair and getting dressed before Ashley emerged. Diana opened a session in OtherWorld and activated Nadia. While she waited for her home office to rez, she checked to see if GROB was in-world.
He was.
She hesitated for a moment. She’d never invited another avatar, not even Jake’s, to her virtual office. A few typed numbers and a click later, she’d sent GROB its coordinates.
She didn’t have to wait long before a chime sounded. She clicked yes, he could come in, and GROB materialized. He took off his mirrored sunglasses to reveal dark, deep-set eyes. He did a 360 as the person controlling him checked out her office. The “room” felt much smaller with him and his broad-brimmed Stetson in it.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” she said.
“I’m afraid to ask.” She recognized his synthesized voice. “Your sister? Is she okay?”
From the bathroom, over the hair dryer’s buzz, Diana could hear Ashley singing, “I will survive!” and doing a shockingly decent Gloria Gaynor imitation.
“I found her. She’s turned up, back in her apartment, incoherent at first. She’s literally lost four days of her life. She had some paperwork that shows she was at Neponset Hospital for four days with trypanosomiasis. That’s sleeping sickness.”
GROB whistled. “Sleeping sickness?”
“Right. How likely is that? And the paperwork she came back with? It feels wrong. Like there’s a hodgepodge of tests that I doubt they’d have ordered. Of course I’m no doctor, but you offered to help and I’m hoping you can check it out.”
“Sure. Neponset Hospital?”
“I want to know. When she was admitted. When she was released. The names of the doctors who treated her. Anything that can be verified.”
“Do you have the release form?”
“Right here.”
“Good. That makes it easy. There should be a case number somewhere on the top of the first page. Can you find it?”
Diana read it off to him.
“I’ll do a little digging and get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Are we talking minutes? Hours?”
“Depends. But if I run into a problem I’ll let you know.” GROB held out his hand to Nadia.
She wanted to make her avatar take it but she stopped herself. Touching meant linking, and she couldn’t risk losing control of Nadia. She wasn’t taking any more chances.
“Thanks,” she said.
His hand dropped to his side. “Friend?” The empty voice balloon over GROB’s head seemed to evaporate slowly.
“Friend,” she said.
Please, be a true friend.
GROB hesitated a moment more, then vanished.
It would be a while before GROB got back to her. Anxious and edgy, Diana listened for reassuring sounds of life from the bathroom while she checked through the stack of messages from Jake. In one dated yesterday, Monday afternoon, after Diana had fled her apartment, he said he’d submitted the proposal to Vault Security and left her a copy of it in their shared e-mail. A few hours after that, he sent her an update saying that Vault had received the proposal. Then another update, later that evening: initial reactions were positive but the company’s executives had a few follow-up questions. Was she available the next morning for a call?
The next two messages, sent late into the night on Monday, had wanted to know if she’d received the previous messages. Then a message sent this Tuesday morning. “Never mind” was in the subject line. He’d been able to address their concerns.
A final message had been sent an hour ago.
RE: FOUND VOLGANET
First Jake confirmed what she already suspected. Volganet was not in Eastern Europe. Their server’s time clock had been altered to make it look as if they were. He’d used satellite tracking, triangulating on their signal, and determined that they were actually located not far from Boston.
His message went on:
F*ING tapeworms. Parasitic scum.
Two years ago, the three of them would have deserved precisely those sobriquets.
His message continued:
You were right. This is not the first time we’ve been hit by them. They’ve been onto us for weeks. Maybe more. I shut them out. Gave them a taste of their own. My bad.
Inside for weeks?
How many? Had the creeps behind Volganet been targeting their clients? Were they responsible for infiltrating her security systems too? Jake said he’d shut them out, but was it really safe for her to go home? Was it any safer to go back to Pam’s? She looked around Ashley’s apartment and shivered. Was it safe anywhere?
Ten minutes later, a chime sounded, and she let GROB back into her virtual office.
“Your sister definitely was at Neponset Hospital.” The electronic voice pronounced it Nep-on-set, like it was three words. “Admitted last Friday, released yesterday morning. You must be the Diana that your sister lists as next of kin.”
Diana tried to catch her breath. He probably had her home address now too.
GROB went on. “There were two physicians connected to her case: Dr. William Kennedy.” Diana didn’t bother to copy the phone number he gave her. It was the same one that was on Dr. Kennedy’s business card.
In the bathroom, the hair dryer switched off.
GROB continued, “And Dr. Pamela Braverman. Same number.”
Diana winced.
“Diana, you can talk to one of her doctors,” GROB said. “But I wouldn’t advise you do that until you hear the whole story.”
“What whole story?”
“I can’t tell you . . . not here.”
“Why not?”
Ashley emerged from the bathroom dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe.
“Hang on,” Diana said to GROB. She muted the sound and lowered her laptop screen.
Ashley sank down on the edge of the bed, her brush pulled halfway through her long hair. She returned Diana’s gaze. “What? Have I got soap on my face?”
Diana reached over and wiped an imaginary soap bubble from her sister’s forehead, noting as she did so that Ashley didn’t feel feverish. “You still hungry?”
Ashley eyed the folded over laptop screen, then narrowed her eyes at Diana. “It’s that GROB, isn’t it?”
“I thought you couldn’t remember anything.”
“You think I don’t notice things, but I do.”
“I like your hair that color,” Diana said. “Nice highlights.”
“Nice try. I’ll be in the kitchen when you decide to get real.” Ashley heaved herself to her feet. She left behind a swirl of jasmine and ginger.
Diana raised the laptop screen again. GROB was still there. She unmuted the sound. “Why the hell can’t you tell me now?”
“Because this Wi-Fi connection might not be secure. What I can tell you is . . . that diagnosis? It’s bogus. And there’s more. I’m not even sure I understand everything I found out.”
The room went fuzzy as Diana’s throat constricted. She tried to swallow.
“Meet me,” he said.
“When? Where? And how will I know who you are?”
But before she had an answer, GROB had vanished.
“How do you make rice?” Ashley called out to her from the kitchen.
A moment later, a text box appeared. It contained the words:
I’LL KNOW YOU. NOON TOMORROW.
Beside that were two numbers—a pair of real-world GPS coordinates.
Ashley cleared her throat. “Diana?”
Diana looked up and saw Ashley staring at her from the doorway and holding a glass measuring cup.
“Okay, now I know someone died,” Ashley said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
The last thing Diana wanted was for Ashley to worry, not until Diana knew what they should be worried about.
“Okay, okay. You’re right. It’s GROB. He wants me to meet him.”
Ashley’s face broke into a grin. “That’s great. Oh, honey, that’s really wonderful. Are you going?”
Diana forced a smile. “I’m going to try.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure.” Diana brought up a map and entered the coordinates. “Somewhere in New Hampshire.”
Ashley’s look turned somber. “Diana, it’s been a long time since you were out there. Are you sure you know enough about him? I mean, he’s just someone you met online. He could be anyone.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, Miss Match Dot-Com.”
“Diana.” Ashley gave her a hard look.
“Ashley . . .” Diana stuck out her tongue. “Listen, you’ve been wanting me to get out. I’m getting out!”
“Promise me you’ll stay out in the open where there are lots of other people.”
“And if I get into trouble, I’ll call. Promise.”
Ashley shook her head and sighed. “So, where in New Hampshire?”
Diana turned the computer so Ashley could see a little flag that was midway between Concord and Manchester at a town called Mill Village.
Ashley sat beside her. “You ever been there?”
Diana shook her head.
“Me either. But it looks like that’s about a ninety-minute drive. You up for that? Alone?”
Diana zoomed in and toggled to
STREET VIEW
. A black-and-white photo of a street lined with typical, mid-twentieth-century New England storefronts came up. Cars were parked at meters on the street.
She rotated the view. Down the street was a brick building from the fifties with plate-glass windows, probably once a department store, and the same vintage motel. She rotated the view some more. Across the street was a broad expanse of lawn, the town green with trees and benches and a bandstand, and beyond that a neat row of Victorian houses with gingerbread trim.
“Looks like a very darling village. Très New England,” Ashley said. “Want me to come with?”
Diana shot her what she hoped was a withering look. “Don’t you have to work?”
“Okay, okay. Just asking.” She held up the glass measuring cup. “Rice?”
“One part rice to two parts water,” Diana said. “Salt and a little butter.”
Ashley flashed her a thumbs-up and returned to the kitchen.
Diana toggled back to the map and street view. Mill Village was set on the banks of a tributary of the Merrimack River, just south of where it widened into what looked like a lake.
She could hear GROB’s synthesized voice in her head:
. . . that diagnosis? It’s bogus.
T
hat night, Diana tried to fall asleep on Ashley’s pullout couch. What could GROB have to tell her? That Ashley hadn’t been sick at all? Or that she had something more serious wrong with her, like HIV/AIDS or MS? Or—and now Diana knew she was being paranoid—that she’d been exposed to some highly contagious viral infection or deadly toxin that would panic the public. And what did Pam, aka PWNED, have to do with all of this? Diana’s mind churned the possibilities.
She took a pill and finally fell asleep. But an hour later she was awake again, bathed in anxiety. She’d been dreaming that she had to pack her clothes and meet Ashley at the airport, only she couldn’t find her suitcases, then she couldn’t find Ashley’s car. She fell back to sleep, only to wake up terrified by the kind of mountain-climbing nightmare she hadn’t had for months.
The next morning she felt more exhausted than she had when she’d gone to bed. Before Ashley left for work, she insisted that Diana take her GPS tracker, loaded with the coordinates of her destination. Ashley’s parting shot had been “I can’t get used to that hair,” followed by “Call me. Because I’m calling the police if I don’t hear from you by five o’clock—”
“Eight,” Diana said.
“Six,” Ashley said. “And not a minute longer. And if the police don’t get on the stick fast enough, I’m coming up there to find you myself.”
“Y
ou have reached your destination,” announced the robotic, British-accented female voice on Ashley’s GPS. The screen told her it was 11:50
A.M
. She was ten minutes early. The drive had been easy, any remaining rush-hour traffic having dissipated by midmorning. The sky had gone from clear to overcast.
WELCOME TO MILL VILLAGE
announced a cheery sign. Diana was stopped in traffic bunched up at the one stoplight in the center of town. The borders of the Hummer’s broad windshield framed her surroundings. There was the town green with storefronts surrounding it. The gazebo. The center of Mill Village was exactly like the town green in OtherWorld, where GROB had transported her after they’d been attacked on the beach.
She checked her rear- and sideview mirrors. GROB had to be here, somewhere. In a parked car. Inside one of the businesses lined up along the street. Walking on the town green. Was he dressed like his avatar, as she was like hers?
An elderly couple strolled by, the woman in a summery straw hat and white parka and the man in starched tan trousers and windbreaker. They stopped in front of Tweets, a pet store, and looked in at a person-size birdcage in which a bright green parrot hopped about. They both carried umbrellas, and Diana smiled to herself, imagining the bird checking them out: a pair of winter birds that had returned prematurely to New England.
A man strode down the sidewalk toward her, a knitted cap pulled down over his forehead and a plaid muffler around his face. GROB? Diana gripped the steering wheel and her heart lurched. She ducked down as he hurried past without even glancing at the Hummer. She watched, breathless, as he ducked into what looked like a luncheonette.
Diana sat forward and unstuck her T-shirt from her sweat-slicked back. She tried to swallow. She’d taken a pill before leaving Ashley’s apartment. She didn’t want to think about what she’d be feeling if she hadn’t.
A car behind her tooted. The light had changed.
Diana continued slowly up the block, looking for a place to park. Finally she pulled into the lot of a motel. Its black sign with
RITZ
in bold white letters outlined in neon tubing welcomed cars to a deserted parking lot. The proprietor must have had a flare for irony because the place looked a whole lot more like the Bates Motel than the Ritz-Carlton. Diana didn’t need anyone to cue the scary music.
“Turn around when possible.” It took her a moment to realize that the GPS had picked that moment to put in its oar. It told her she’d overshot her destination, and that it was now 11:58.
She turned off the GPS and slipped it into her jacket pocket. Then she waited for a break in the traffic, pulled out, and drove back the way she’d come in. She found a parking spot in front of the luncheonette. Painted in yellow letters across the plate glass, it said T
HE
S
UNNY
S
IDE
U
P
. As she watched, unseen hands pulled from the window a sign advertising
Full Breakfast
for $3.99 and replaced it with one advertising
Meatloaf Plate
for $6.99.
Now what? She was here, but where was GROB? He’d never find her behind the Hummer’s dark tinted windows. She rolled down her window an inch. Chilly air seeped in. No matter what the calendar said, this late March felt wintry.
Across the street a woman wearing a short puffy jacket, a long skirt, and boots biked across the town green. Its empty gazebo was large enough to double as a bandstand. The structure was set, like a wedding-cake topper, on a little rise at the center of the grass with six footpaths radiating out from it. It offered a perfect vantage point, an unobstructed view of the storefronts and houses and, more important, GROB could see her.
Diana zipped her jacket and turned up its collar. In her rearview mirror, her dark-rimmed eyes looked back at her, wide and frightened. She found the sunglasses in her jacket pocket and put them on. Ran her fingers through those blond curls. Ashley wasn’t the only one who found her new hair jarring.
She pictured Nadia getting out of the Hummer. Crossing the street and walking decisively across the green, and stepping into the shadow of the gazebo. She could do it too. Diana grabbed Daniel’s walking stick before opening the car door a crack. When there was a break in the traffic, she opened the door farther and stepped into the street.
Fighting the impulse to dive back into the car, she slammed the door, pressed the remote to lock it, and crossed the street. She could feel the vibrations traveling up her legs as her boot heels connected with the brick walk with each deliberate stride toward the gazebo. She climbed the steps and stood on the platform, as tall and straight as Nadia might have stood in OtherWorld, waiting for GROB to show himself.
She checked her watch. It was 12:05. Cars drove by. There were plenty of pedestrians, but no one was coming her way.
She sat down on a bench in the gazebo and picked up a newspaper that had been left there. She settled back and waited. Made a futile attempt to read the news.
12:11. Still no one had approached her.
A week ago she could never have contemplated doing what she was doing, sitting alone on the town green of a village that, until an hour ago, had been nothing more than a dot on the map.
To new beginnings.
That’s what Daniel had said the night before their last climb.
The three of them had rented a one-room condo at the foot of the Eiger to use as their base camp. Over a dinner of spaghetti, warmed in a microwave oven, Daniel had raised a paper cup with an inch of brandy in a toast to their future.
“You guys sure you want to do this?” Diana had said, or words to that effect. “Leave behind your checkered past? No more free Hummers, you know.”
Daniel had laughed, snorting brandy.
“And what will NASA do without our drawing attention to their security lapses?” Jake added.
Daniel drew a little hash mark in the air and poured another inch all around. “Here’s to the time we turned that bank’s Web pages upside down—”
Jake broke in, “And replaced their surveillance camera feeds.”
That had been Daniel’s brainstorm. He’d hacked in and replaced South Savings Bank’s video surveillance feeds with a continuously looping five-minute Three Stooges clip. Before the bank could fix it, another hacker replaced the Stooges with continuous porn.
Jake and Daniel went on, passing their escapades back and forth like they were kicking a soccer ball downfield. Diana had prepared for just that moment. She pulled out a narrow scroll of paper on which she’d listed all the hacks she’d heard Jake and Daniel talk about and all the ones they’d pulled off since she joined up with them. She struck a match and offered it to Daniel. He lit the end of the paper.
“To starting over,” Diana said as she dropped the burning paper into a garbage can and they watched for a few moments in silence. When just curls of ash were left, Daniel and Jake exchanged a look. They both grinned.
“This is gettin’ on my noives,” Daniel said.
“Shut up,” Jake shot back.
Daniel poked a finger at Jake’s chest. “You talking to me?”
“Nah. I’m talkin’ to the fish.”
It was another of their endlessly recycled Three Stooges routines, and Diana had heard it so many times that she could intone the reply at the same time as Daniel.
“Don’t call me a fish!”
Daniel reached across and smacked Jake in the back of the head, and a minute later he and Jake were rolling around on the floor together like a couple of overgrown puppies.
When it was time to go, Jake had paused in the doorway, his hand up for Daniel and Diana to hold on to. “All for one!” he said. It was the start of yet another Three Stooges routine.
“One for all!” Diana said, joining her hand to theirs.
“Every man for himself!” The three of them chorused the punch line.
That had been a lifetime ago. A fat tear fell on the front of her jacket and she smeared it across the black leather.
12:25. Still, no one had approached her in the gazebo. The air turned a notch cooler, and she realized the sound she heard was light rain falling on the roof. Was there really some big secret about Ashley’s medical condition? Or was it just a ploy to get Diana out there?
Diana fished the cell phone out of her pocket, turned it on, and called Ashley. The call went immediately to voice mail.
“It’s me,” Diana said. “I’m here and I haven’t been kidnapped by the Ripper.” She paused. She couldn’t bear to deliver the pathetic news that she’d come all this way only to be stood up. “I should be heading home soon.”
She was about to put the phone back when the message-waiting alert went off. Had to be Ashley, seeing the missed call. But when Diana went to retrieve the text message, she saw it was from a number she didn’t recognize.
She nearly dropped the phone as she started to read.
Sorry. Car crapped out. Sunoco on 3A at I89. Meet me? GROB
She didn’t know what to feel. Dread that there was still, at the very least, unsettling news about her sister? Relief that she hadn’t placed her trust in a creep who was just out to make her look like a fool? Guilty excitement that he was waiting for her?
She pocketed the phone and used the newspaper to cover her head as she sprinted back to the car. She opened the door, tossed the walking stick into the back, climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut, and jammed the key into the ignition.
“Hello, Diana.” The familiar voice walloped her.
