Deadly Design (9780698173613) (14 page)

“H
appy birthday eve,” I say, and James's smiling face fills up my monitor screen. “I'll tell you happy birthday tomorrow,” I add, because I will tell him happy birthday tomorrow, because I'll be able to because the pacemaker will work, and he will be alive. And the next day, we'll Skype again, and I'll wish him a “happy day after your birthday.”

“Thanks,” he says. “So, how's my brother from another mother but the same mad scientist doing?”

“Okay,” I lie.

“Bullshit,” he says but keeps smiling. “This sucks balls.”

I nod. “How's the pacemaker?”

“Pacing away. I'm all healed up. Don't stress it when you get yours. It wasn't really a big deal, and some of those nurses taking care of me were hot.”

“NILFs?”

James laughs. “Some of them were. And some of them definitely were not.”

“You nervous?” I ask because I know his family is being positive, telling him that the pacemaker will work and there's nothing to worry about. But it doesn't matter how many times someone tells you something; it doesn't mean you believe it.

James shrugs and attempts a smile. “Yeah. I just want it to be over, you know. I want to be eighteen and a month old. I don't know what it's going to be like, if I'll feel my heart stop and then start again, or maybe I won't even notice. I hope I do. I want to know that this thing in my chest worked.”

“How are your folks doing, and your brothers?”

“They all keep staring at me. I'm surprised Mom and Dad aren't in my room right now, sitting on my bed, watching me. Creeps me out.”

“My folks do the same thing. They try not to make it obvious, but I catch them all the time. It's like they're trying to memorize us.”

“I feel bad for them.”

James lives in Kansas City, Missouri, just on the other side of the Kansas border. He's miles away, but he's right in front of me. I can see into his eyes. I can see the fear and the hope in them.

“Watching your family hurting makes it so much worse,” he says. “I think if they were shitty parents, and they didn't care so much, didn't love me so much, it'd be a little easier.”

“I sent you a birthday present,” I say, wanting to lighten things. “I mailed it yesterday, so you'll probably get it late.” It's a T-shirt with the MIT logo on it.

His smile widens, and I notice for the first time that the corners of his mouth have small dimples like little apostrophes that accentuate his grin.

“You want me to tell you what it is?” I ask.

“Nope. It's fine. If it's a day or two or three late, I'll still get it.” He nods, and it's so strange to see vulnerability in such a strong, perfect face. “Ever since I was a little kid, I thought turning eighteen would be so awesome. You're a man at eighteen. You can vote, get married, and buy cigarettes. You can gamble in Oklahoma. Oklahoma's not that far.”

I laugh.

“I figure if I'm alive next week, I've beaten the odds and it's time to pay for my college books with a trip to the blackjack table. How about we take a trip together once you're eighteen? We'll drive across the Kansas border and show those Okies how ‘superior' people do it.”

“Deal,” I say, hoping our luck extends far beyond the blackjack tables. “I think I might find out Dr. Mueller's real name soon, and where he lives.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah, I met this marine. Ex-marine. Medicated and slightly brain-damaged marine. He has a friend who's a computer whiz. He thinks he might be able to find him by hacking into hospital computer systems. I checked in with him just yesterday. He thinks he's getting close.”

“That's great.” James leans in excitedly. “What kind of systems is he hacking into?”

“Hospitals.”

I can see the gears in James's head start to turn, and I don't want him to make this connection, not tonight, not until he's eighteen and a month old. Shit, why did I even say anything? When I was talking to the police about Scott Stiles, James was getting prepped for his pacemaker. I never told him about us being watched or why. I figured it was too much for a Mueller baby with an approaching eighteenth birthday to handle.

“Hospitals, as in not just the hospital in Dallas?” He nods his head, and it's too late. “Autopsy reports.”

I nod.

“That's a good plan. I guess it would make sense that if he's still out there somewhere, he'd want to know what's happening to us. But he's not going to get mine,” James says, a faked confidence in his voice. No doubt he's gotten good at reassuring his parents, at reflecting their optimism. “You find out who he is, you let me know. We'll pay him a visit together.”

“You'll be the first one I call.”

“You know that bucket list thing?” James asks.

“Yeah,” I say, and I have to admit, I've given a little thought to what I'd like to do before I die, that is, if the pacemaker doesn't work and I don't find Dr. Mueller. But then I tell myself that it's going to work and we're going to find the doctor, and there's no need to have a bucket list because I'm not going to die. Not for a long, long time.

“Well, it's bullshit,” James says. “Don't waste any time thinking about who you'd most like to have sex with or what exotic food you'd like to eat on what exotic beach. When it comes right down to it, there's no better place in the world than sitting at the table eating your mom's cooking. And stick a supermodel across from me, and I'd still just be looking at Mama's beautiful face. Home. You think you might be dying, you think time's running out, there's no other place you'll want to be. Remember that.”

“You can remind me tomorrow and the next day. And no wussing out on me when I turn eighteen because you'd rather be with your mom than hitting up those casinos in Oklahoma. That's how I'm spending my birthday, so no backing out.”

He nods. “Yeah. That's the plan. Remember, though, if things don't go according to plan, you got some time to figure it out. And if I'm not there with you, you put down twenty bucks at the blackjack table for me, all right?”

“You'll be there,” I say, wishing I felt as confident as my voice is sounding.

James gives me a smile, his best smile, and then he logs off.

“J
ack! Jack!” she cries out in a harsh, raspy voice, like her tonsils have frozen in her throat.

Why the hell did I pick
Titanic
to watch? I couldn't have grabbed something a little more upbeat, a little happier? Maybe
Jaws
or
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

“You know there are actually websites that show how Jack and Rose could have both fit on the door,” Cami says, delicately eating one piece of popcorn at a time.

“Seriously? Like someone actually spent time researching that?”

She nods. “I know it's stupid. The writer obviously wanted Jack to die, or he or she would have made the door bigger, or maybe had a giant dinner table floating next to them. But people won't let it go. They want a happy ending.”

I grab the remote from the coffee table and turn the television off. I don't need to see a young version of Leonardo DiCaprio frozen solid and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I don't want to see the passengers bobbing in the ice-cold waves either. I have something in common with the
Titanic
victims—having been frozen. But I survived. I was just an embryo and didn't feel the hellish sensations that come with flesh turning to ice. I can't imagine
feeling
that. The body is made up of around 70 percent water. When water freezes, it expands. I can't imagine feeling the molecules in your skin expanding, the molecules in your organs and muscles and brain. I can't imagine the excruciating pain of every cell in your body being torn apart from the inside out.

“Your parents seemed kind of tense tonight,” Cami says.

“Well, they went to bed right after the ship hit the iceberg. That's pretty intense.”

“I don't think that's what's on their mind.” She's sitting on the couch beside me. She's wearing shorts that can't be seen from under her oversized shirt, and her feet are bare, since she left her flip-flops by the front door. Her toenails aren't painted. I'd noticed that the first time she came over for a movie marathon. I don't know why I noticed—I guess it's because I'd seen Emma's feet so often draped over Connor's lap as they watched television or a movie, and her toenails were always painted. I had begun to assume that baby girls were born with pastel-colored toes.

“You want to talk about it?” she asks.

“About what?”

“What tomorrow is? August seventh?” she asks, and at first I'm surprised that she remembered, then I'm not, because Cami would remember. “If you need to talk, I'm here.”

I don't know what to say. Tomorrow is James's birthday. Even if he survives it, he won't necessarily be okay. He has to have a heart attack, and the pacemaker has to save him. The others didn't all die exactly on their birthdays, so he could live a day or maybe a few days after. He could be packing for MIT a week from now and drop dead carrying his mini fridge to his dorm room. “In the words of James Murphy Monroe, ‘it sucks balls.' The whole fucking situation. And what about Matt and the phone? Why don't we hear something?”

Cami pulls her knees in close and drapes her shirt over them. “He said it would take a while, maybe even a month. He's only had the phone for three weeks.”

“I'm just sick of waiting. Of not doing anything. I need to find Mueller.”

“You're doing everything you can to find him,” Cami says.

“But not fast enough to save James, not if the pacemaker doesn't work.”
And not fast enough to save me,
I think. My birthday's approaching like the damn iceberg. Just a little over four months to go.

“The pacemaker is going to work. And Matt's going to hack into the phone and the hospital records, and he's going to find Dr. Mueller. You're not going to be eighteen for a while. That's plenty of time to—”

“Cami.” I stop her. God, I don't want to tell her, but she deserves to know. She deserves to protect herself from getting hurt any more than she already will if I die. I don't want her to stay away from me. Truth is, I think I'd have gone crazy by now if it weren't for Cami. I don't want to lose her, but it has to be her decision. I shift myself on the sofa so that I'm facing her. “I haven't told anyone this, but the guy in Dallas, the one we saw here in town?”

She nods.

“He told me something before he died. He told me that I was ‘made different' from the others. I don't know what that means exactly, but he said I won't make it to my seventeenth birthday. So even if the pacemaker works, even if I get mine put in next week, if I'm different, how do I know it's going to save me?”

She stares at me. “But . . . are you sure that's what he said?”

“Yeah,” I say, because the moments before Scott Stiles died are recorded in my brain. All I have to do is think of him, and it's like pushing a Play button and reliving each second.

Cami keeps staring, and I want to pull my eyes away from hers, away from the fear and hurt I already see there, but I can't. “You're not going to die, Kyle McAdams. I won't let you.”

Suddenly she's across the couch, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. We hold on to each other for a long time, her head tucked in that space between my shoulder and neck. I know we're going to kiss. It's as easy and natural as falling down. Our mouths move against each other, and there is the same flavor of desperation that I'd tasted when Amber kissed me, but it's different too. It's sweeter, because Amber wanted to kiss
someone
and Cami wants to kiss
me.

“Are you ready?” she asks once our lips part.

I look at her. “Ready for what?”

“Me.” Her voice starts to falter, but she's gathering strength from somewhere, strength that will keep the tears contained and her voice strong. “You're stuck with me. No matter what. You're mine, Kyle McAdams. And my terms are simply that you keep living until I'm tired of you—and I'll never get tired of you. Do you agree to my terms?”

I want to agree. I want to sign my name in blood to a contract that says I can't die because my girlfriend won't let me. My girlfriend. Something inside me smiles at that.

But there is no such contract, and no matter how much Cami or my parents want me to live, no matter how much I want James to live, death holds all the power.

“I'll try,” is all I can say back to her, but it must be enough, because she takes my face in her hands and kisses me again and again and again.

I
try not to think. I open my eyes, get dressed, and hop on Facebook to send James a happy birthday message. I'd like to say this feels totally normal because I have so many Facebook friends that I've sent so many birthday greetings to, but the fact is, this is my first one. I log on, and my heart dips a little because James isn't online. It's nine
A.M.
He might still be asleep, but I doubt it. Most likely he's having a birthday breakfast with his family. Why not start celebrating early, especially when you don't know if you'll make it to the birthday cake and presents.

There's a light knock on my door, and it opens. It's Dad, and I know instantly from the expression on his face.

“His brother called this morning,” he says.

I look at the screen, at the
Happy Birthday
I just typed. I look at the multitude of other greetings, and I look at his picture. He's not dead. James is not dead. He can't be. I talked to him last night. I saw his face on the screen last night, and he was so alive, and we're going to go to the casino on my eighteenth birthday, except I won't have an eighteenth birthday. I won't have a seventeenth birthday. James is dead.

He's dead.

A pain as real as a knife shoots through my heart, because his parents are going to get a package in the mail. A late birthday present. An MIT T-shirt. Maybe his mom will have finally stopped crying, and she's going to open that fucking box, and . . .

“Kyle?”

I've been mad before. I've been upset before. But I've never literally felt like I could explode. Dad comes toward me, attempts to put his hand on me, but I wave him away. If he touches me, if anyone touches me, I'll detonate. All I see is the door and how I have to get out of here. I have to
do
something.

I move past Dad. I don't look at him, but I know the expression on his face. I've seen it a thousand times before, that look of sympathy and compassion—pity. Only now it's magnified a million times, and it's not because Connor won another award or another race. It's because I'm going to die. But I'm not.

I stop at the bottom of the stairs and look back at him standing in my doorway. “I'm not going to die.” I mean it, and he nods in agreement because he thinks we have time. He thinks we have a year and a half, but I know better.

• • •

I go outside to the driveway, and I'm ready to take on the world. I'm going to drive to Cami's house, get Matt's address, and if he hasn't figured anything out, I'll make him work faster. We'll work together until I have a fucking name.

I hit the Unlock button, and the pathetic chirp of the doors of the Smart car unlocking brings me crashing back to reality.

I'm going to go force a handicapped ex-marine to give me secret information he might not be able to get, and I'm going to get there in a car that I seriously think I can pick up and throw across the lawn. I want to throw it because I shouldn't be driving this car, because Emma should, because Connor should be alive, and I shouldn't have this fucking cemetery in my brain with its newest plot of freshly churned earth.

I make a fist and pound it against the top of the green, eco­friendly piece-of-shit car because it can't save the world, not when the preferred method of transportation in the Midwest is still giant gas-guzzling four-wheel-drives. One little clown car isn't going to make a difference. It's not going to change anything, and whoever thinks it will is delusional and stupid. I hit the top of it again and totally expect it to buckle like a crushed pop can.

“Kyle!”

I hear my name, but I ignore the voice as I hit the car again.

“Kyle!” Cami grabs my arm. “I've got it.”

I stop and look at her. She's holding a piece of paper in her hand.

“Matt called Jimmy this morning. His name is Richard Sharp. Dr. Richard Sharp.”

I fall against the side of the car.

“He's willing to meet with you. I have his address. He lives in Wichita, Kyle. He's not even thirty minutes away.”

Wichita. The man who knows that we're dying, the man who is my only hope for living, was James's best hope, lives thirty minutes away. And of course he would. He'd want to be close to the majority of his creations.

“James is dead,” I say, and I hate the words. I hate them, and I hate Dr. Richard Sharp.

“I'll drive you, okay?” Her voice is soft, and I nod because I don't trust myself to drive. How can I drive if I rip the fucking steering wheel off because I'm so . . . ready to rip his fucking heart out? Dr. Richard Sharp. I swear I could rip out his heart, but first I have to know if he has one.