Kiss of the Sun (22 page)

“We'll offer you a simple deal,” Briggs said. “If you don't run, we won't shoot.”

She heard the timbre of the men's footfalls change as they stepped off the stairway and onto the polished cement floor. Martha looked under the undercarriage of the Hummer and could see their shoes, the cuffs of their pant legs. Panic was crawling up through her like a fever.

She gripped Jarrell's arm. He put a finger to his lips. He opened the matchbox, took out another match. He glanced at the stream draining from the Cessna. It had formed a wet sheet on the floor, which was draining down to a narrow gutter that ran toward the center of the warehouse.

Jarrell snapped a match along the striking strip and it lit. He mouthed “Get ready” to her and gave a jerk of his head toward the exit door. He took her hand tightly and threw the match.

The match landed in the pool of fuel, which erupted in a whoosh, a wall of bright orange and yellow flames that extended across the floor all the way to the gutter.

The men started shouting and made a run for it. Jarrell pulled Martha by the hand, sprinting across the floor alongside the hot barrier of flames. Martha heard the sound of gunfire again, strafing the room, shots ricocheting off metal, the hollow sound of cinder blocks cracking. They reached the metal door marked
EXIT
, slammed through it, and kept running across a graveled side yard until they reached a grass lawn next to an outbuilding. As they rounded the corner of the building, Martha heard a muffled boom behind them. They dove down onto the grass. Martha looked back toward the warehouse. In the glow of the security lights, she could see a rupture in the side of the warehouse, and black smoke billowing. Beyond that, looming above it in the predawn light, was the silhouette of Erringer's mansion. She could make out the portico, a gabled roof supported by a line of white columns.

“Come on,” Jarrell said, pulling her to her feet. He pointed toward a tall security fence topped by concertina wire.

Fire alarms were going off and she could hear shouting and gunfire somewhere in the distance, but they didn't look back, just kept charging toward the fence, which was impossibly high.

They reached the chain-link barrier and Jarrell fell to his knees in the purple twilight. He pulled out the wire snips he'd pocketed from the tool room and began snipping at the steel diamonds one by one, cutting two straight lines. At the top of the second line he paused and blinked several times.

“Jarrell—what's wrong?” In the dim light she could see him on his knees, breathing heavily.

“Nothing,” he said, handing her the wire cutters. “Just finish the other side.”

“Jarrell?”

“It's okay,” he said. “I'm just feeling dizzy. Cut across the side—hurry.”

Martha took the wire cutters and made seven snips down to the ground. Then Jarrell pushed against the wire, folding the square upward so they could crawl through.

“Jarrell, what's wrong?”

“I'm fine,” he said. “Let's go. You first. Hurry….Be careful you don't cut yourself on the wires.”

Martha crawled through and Jarrell followed. They found themselves at the edge of an embankment. They descended the slope, trotting downward through weeds and rocks. It bottomed out in a dry ravine that was scattered with flat-sided granite boulders.

“Wait a second,” Jarrell said, touching her arm. He swayed, then gripped one of the boulders to steady himself, and sat. “I just have to—”

Martha turned and reached out a hand to his chest. It felt wet and sticky.

“Jarrell—” She took a step back. In the waxing predawn glow she saw that the front of his white shirt was covered with a great dark stain, like a black rose. Its petals spread from his chest up to his shoulder and down to his waistline.

She looked at her own hand. It was red with blood.

“Jarrell!”

Jarrell lowered himself to the ground and leaned against the rock. “I guess I got hit back there,” he said. “I didn't even feel it. I just need to rest a minute.”

She crouched down, put her hands on his knees, and looked at his face.

“Jarrell, oh God…no, no, no—”

“I'm okay. I just can't go any farther.”

Martha unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it back, but in the muted light she could not see the wound, just the wet glisten of blood.

“I'm sorry I had to stop,” he said.

“No, it's okay. You're going to be all right.” She could hear new sounds now, up beyond the top of the embankment behind them: fire alarms going off in the compound, shouting, somewhere the faint thrum of a helicopter. She stood and looked up the slope. The sky had become a pale shade of orange. There was a cloud of black smoke rising against it.

“They'll see the fire—someone will come and bring emergency help. We can get you to a hospital.” Martha stood and turned toward the direction they had come from, rubbing the wetness from her eyes. “You have to wait here. I'll go get help.”

As she stood, Jarrell took her hand. His grip was firm.

“No, wait, don't go,” Jarrell said. His voice was calm, earnest. “Stay with me for a minute, Martha. Just for a minute.”

She crouched in front of him, touched his shoulder, looked at his face through watery eyes. “Jarrell…” She stroked his face and kissed him. The light was growing steadily and she could see his dark eyes catching traces of the orange glow from the brightening sky. Jarrell leaned his head against the boulder, looking up at her. He reached up and caressed the side of her head, pushing a strand of hair back from her face.

“Oh God, Jarrell, this is my fault. It's all my fault.”

“Listen…you need to know something.” He put his hand on her forearm. “They were after me, too. All along. Don't you see that? I was the one who messed up their plan for the island. That's why Erringer gave me the fellowship, started messing with my life. Everything. It was me they were after, just as much as you.”

Martha nodded. “Both of us.”

A helicopter passed high overhead. Martha rose, but Jarrell held tight to her hand.

“They can help us,” Martha said. “I have to flag them down.”

“Wait,” he said, his voice horse.

“Yes, Jarrell?”

“Martha, I don't know what's going to happen. This may not be over yet.”

“But he's gone now, Jarrell. Erringer's gone, and I have to get help.”

His eyes looked distant for a fleeting second, and he gave his head a shake. “It may not be over. This Organization…I'm afraid it may be too large, too powerful…I just don't know what's going to happen.”

Martha nodded, gave him a squeeze, and tried to pull away, but he held on to her.

“Martha…you know that guy you hear…that voice you hear…what's his name?”

“Lenny,” she said softly. “His name is Lenny.”

“Lenny.”

She nodded.

Jarrell took both of her cheeks between his large hands and pulled her closer so that she was facing him. “Listen to me, Martha. Look at me. No matter what else happens, that guy is gone. After this, you'll never hear from Lenny again. Do you understand?”

Martha brushed tears away so she could see his warm, dark eyes. There was no anger there, only purpose. Always purpose.

“You'll never hear him or any other voices again. No more. They're gone now. Do you hear that?”

Martha blinked but said nothing.

“Do you hear me?” He squeezed her hand tightly. His eyes were intense. “He's gone. I want you to say it.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to say it.”

Martha nodded. “Okay. Lenny is gone.”

“Good,” Jarrell said, and he pulled her face close to his. “That's good.” He kissed her gently, then lowered his arms. When she pulled back to look at him, his eyes were closed, his face peaceful.

“Oh, Jarrell…no…no…” She placed her hand on his chest. He was breathing.

She sprang up and clambered out of the ravine. She reached the top and turned toward the mansion, waving her hands wildly and shouting. She glanced back down into the ravine, where Jarrell lay against the rock.

She headed toward the compound. The sun was sending bars of gold across the rolling hills. Another helicopter appeared over the treetops, glinting like a june bug in the morning sun. She shouted and waved and ran as the helicopter turned and went on toward the columned mansion, where a pillar of thick black smoke was rising against the ochre sky.

It was a warm, clear Monday in April when the social worker finally closed the screen door of Martha's cabin and headed down the sandy road to catch the noon ferry from the pier back to the mainland. The worker, an Asian woman who wore heavy rouge on her cheeks, had spent all morning observing Martha, watching her unload her groceries, making sure that Martha appeared competent to live on her own (never mind that she had done so for over a year prior), was not living in filth or hoarding. Martha had to explain, yet again, that the jars of herbs and feathers and tiny bones she had ranged in her bookshelf were part of her research, not symptoms of madness.

The woman had insisted on taking a look at everything—inside the kitchen drawers and cabinets, inside the bedroom, in her closet, her bureau. Martha wasn't sure what the woman expected to find that might be a deal-breaker, but she had patiently answered each and every question. Now that the worker was gone, Martha let her guard down and steadied herself, holding on to the laminate edge of the kitchen counter for a moment before she could go on, rinsing and drying the few dusty dishes she'd left in the drying rack months earlier. Through the open window over the kitchen sink she could hear the familiar hum of the cicadas in the palmetto bushes, the twitter of robins and orioles in the sweet gum tree.

She wanted to linger in her first moment alone, but that was an indulgence she could not afford just yet. There was business she needed to attend to.

As she pedaled down the sandy, sun-dappled road that threaded through the village, she could feel how her legs had weakened over the last few months. The sun felt strong on her face, grown pallid from weeks inside Northside Behavioral Hospital. She had spent the first week on a suicide watch, with extra measures in place, given her demonstrated penchant for escape. It was all unnecessary. Martha had no further interest in escape, and she certainly wanted no further business with death, her own or anyone else's. At least she had convinced Dr. Goodwin to reduce her clozapine dosage to just 1 mg per day. Perhaps, in time, Dr. Goodwin would agree that Martha was ready to discontinue her medication altogether.

Martha took a sandy side trail off the main road, descending through a canopy of pines that quickly thinned into palmetto scrub and reached a low rise of dunes. She walked her bike up the sandy slope and stopped, standing in a small glade of pennywort and ice plants. She looked out over a long, empty stretch of beach. The rolling breakers performed their aquatic ballet as far as the eye could see. The sound of the waves was a gentle explosion followed by a sigh as the water raced backward across the sheet of beige sand. It was a soundscape deeply familiar to her, but changed now. A song without words.

Martha leaned her bike against the porch rail as Hizzie held open the front door and greeted her. Martha could scarcely restrain herself from rushing past the elderly woman and into the cottage. She scanned the room and saw the cat jump down from a hassock near the television and come trotting toward her. She crouched down and stroked Mojo, who rubbed and turned and rubbed again, alternating between purrs and long, accusatory vocalizations.

“I'm sorry, Mojo,” Martha said, picking him up. The cat wriggled free, dropped to the floor, and started doing figure eights between her ankles.

“He's spent most of his time in that window over there,” Hizzie said, pointing to the sill, which held a conch shell and looked out onto her backyard. “He likes to watch the birds in my garden and sleep and eat. He sure lets you know when he's ready for dinner, though.”

“Thank you for keeping him for so long.”

“He was no trouble at all,” Hizzie said.

“Well, thank you.”

“You want a glass of lemonade? I just made a fresh pitcher with lemons from the tree out front.”

“Sure, I'd love a glass.”

Hizzie put ice in a pair of tumblers decorated with gold stripes and placed them on the Formica table. “Let me give you some lemons to take with you, too,” she said, selecting a few from a bowl on the counter and putting them into a paper sack. “That tree put out so many lemons this year, I can't even keep up.”

“Thank you.” Martha took a seat at the table and sipped the lemonade.

“Reckon you're going to stay put for a while now?”

“Yes. For a while. They want me to stay here so I keep out of trouble. I need to stay focused on my next book, anyway.” Hizzie seemed to have taken little notice of the bulge in Martha's sock, which concealed the electronic anklet she was required to wear at all times now, even when taking a bath. The GPS anklet was a compromise Dr. Goodwin had worked out with authorities to ensure Martha was not a flight risk.

The investigations into the bloodshed at the Erringer mansion, the Organization, and the UNICON murders would likely drag out for months, if not years. Keeping Martha confined to a mental hospital during that period would be detrimental to her fragile mental health, Goodwin had testified. The best thing for her, Goodwin had assured the authorities, would be to return to her house on the island, where she had shown the greatest signs of stability and progress. She would remain available for further questioning if needed, though the authorities considered her testimony unreliable. Despite her academic achievements, Martha had been certified as mentally incompetent, and therefore could not be considered accountable for her actions last fall. Of course, no one, including Goodwin, was ready to believe that the silencing of her voices was a permanent condition. That was all right. Martha was exactly where she wanted to be, for the time being.

And she knew that the Organization, though it had been maimed, was not yet destroyed. The filaments of its web were still out there, hiding in plain sight, influencing the outcome of events. The UNICON murders were blamed on some nameless, obscure cult. The full story and magnitude of the Organization had yet to emerge. Maybe it never would.

Martha spent a few more minutes with Hizzie, catching up on news of the island, then rode back home along the road that led through the center of the village, back to her cottage. Mojo rode in the handlebar basket, yowling plaintively inside his cardboard pet carrier.

Back in her own kitchen, she freed the cat, then opened a can of cat food and put the contents in the plastic bowl. She gave Mojo a stroke and the cat arched his back as he devoured the food with purring gusto. Martha turned and looked around the room. Her spiral notebooks and notecards were stacked on the desk; her mail had been piled up on the kitchen table, waiting to be sorted. Flipping through the pile, she spotted several bills, some marked
SECOND NOTICE.
Then an envelope from her publisher. She tore it open and breathed a sigh of relief. It was her second royalty check from the first book. The amount was more than she'd expected. The timing could not have been better.

She went outside to the backyard to check on her tomatoes and string beans, which had withered during her long absence. She turned on the sprinkler, then paused to look at the homemade box she had fashioned out of chicken wire and placed in the grass near an anthill. The cage contained the skull from a raccoon carcass she'd found on one of her walks. She had left it out in the yard so that the ants and burying beetles would pick off the remnants of flesh and leave it clean and ready. According to the folklore she'd gathered, once rinsed in holy water, the skull would become a potent talisman. Now the bugs were gone and the skull looked ready for cleaning and preparation. But she would get to that later.

An hour later she rode her bike out of the village again, this time taking a different direction, turning west, toward the lee side of the island. She waved to Garland Rusk, who was on the porch attached to his converted school bus, working the knots in a fishing net. She pedaled for a half mile, following a shady, overgrown side road that terminated after a short distance at a sandy spot next to the marsh.

She laid her bike down on the crabgrass and pulled off her sneakers, then both her socks, and tucked them inside her shoes. The black anklet with its tiny electronic box hung just above the knob of her bare ankle.

It was mid-tide, and an emerald field of creeks and estuaries lay spread before her like a green labyrinth, the mudflats shimmering and ticking. Fiddler crabs walked and burrowed along the dark banks. A bed of oyster shells was half exposed, like the masonry remnants of some ancient city. Dragonflies alighted on the tips of the tall, round blades of sawgrass, then flew on. It was a busy place, teeming, going about its cyclical business.

Martha walked across the grass in her bare feet and stepped onto the mudflat. A white ibis standing on the bank across from her looked at her briefly, then turned its attention back to its search for food. It took a step forward, scanning the shallows.

She waded into the cool water up to her calves. She looked down and could see her feet through the brackish water, like pale mushrooms, clouded by the mud that was curling between her toes.

She opened the woven bag that hung from a leather thong about her neck and poured the contents into her palm: sage, master of the woods, angelica, flaxseed, powdered mace, juniper berries, black snakeroot. She broke and twisted the tendrils of the dried root until they fragmented into powder, which she rubbed between her palms and then scattered on the water. She whispered the incantation, a spell taken from one of her musty tomes on the art of hoodoo conjuring:

“As these fragments

Disappear with the tide

So shall the sickness

Disperse from your body

And as the tide returns,

So shall your life be renewed.”

She closed her eyes and thought of him, some three hundred miles distant, silent, motionless except for the rising and falling of his chest, in the intensive care ward at Grady Memorial Hospital, his spirit suspended, floating in some netherworld between life and death. Waiting.

The coma, induced by blood loss, had now lasted for six months.

She thought of his powerful, panther-like form, which had dodged death once before, had survived a fall of ten stories by landing in soft mud. Had not only survived, but recovered. But how much could a human body take?
Just one more chance,
she whispered to the wind.
Just one more chance…

She dusted her hands together, dispersing the last of the root, and then shut her eyes again. She tilted her face toward the sky and paused, focusing, transmitting healing energy across the miles. As she did so, a group of familiar sensations began to gather around her once again—the brush of the warm and briny air, the earthy scent of the mud, the caress of the water, the kiss of the sun.