The Epidemic (30 page)

“I’ve been unable to get in touch with Dr. McKee,” Marie continues. She doesn’t even glance at me when she mentions my father’s name, and fresh fear of his condition burns my skin. But it’s just one of my many problems. “It is entirely possible that Tabitha has run away to Portland,” Marie says. “And that is her right. So now I’m giving you the same option. It’s too late for closers here. There is no cure for this epidemic.”

Reed shifts on his feet. Aaron walks out from behind the
counter and crosses his arms over his chest. Marie sees them both, still avoiding my eyes, and closes the folder on her lap.

“And what about Deacon?” I ask, panicked at the lack of immediate answers. “What happened to him?”

Marie sits quietly, letting dread and fear surround us in the room. “I know he wouldn’t leave without you,” she says in a measured tone. “So the fact that he’s not here means that he’s in danger.”

No,
I think.
No, please.
“Then we’re going to save him,” I say simply. “And you’re going to help us.”

Marie gives me a stoic look of admiration, agreement. She glances past me to Shep. “There’s money in an envelope on the counter to help you get out of town,” she tells him. “Let me be very clear—go far. Any interference will only cause more complications for us. We have bigger things to consider now.” She stands, her rigid posture shutting down further conversation on the topic. “Thank you for your time, Shepard. Please go.”

Shep gets to his feet, slapping hands with Reed before grabbing the envelope and heading to the door. Attachment is clearly not one of his difficulties. The minute the door closes behind him, Aaron scoffs.

“What was that about?” he asks Marie. “We need him to find Deacon.”

“No we don’t,” she says. “He’s a handler for Arthur. I only found out about Shep yesterday morning—Tabitha told me. And then she disappeared.”

“That’s not possible,” Reed says, sounding stunned. “Shep . . .”
He runs his fingers roughly through his hair. “I was staying with him. He’s a kid.”

“You’re all kids,” Marie responds, standing up. “And yet we’ve used you anyway.”

The words are harsh, and Aaron flinches against them. Marie notices his reaction and takes a step toward him before stopping herself. “I wish you’d stayed away,” she tells him quietly. “You and Myra had a real chance. But now . . . now we need your help.”

Aaron’s jaw is clenched. Although he cares about us, he misses Myra. I took that from him when I asked for his help. I’m to blame for this. He tilts his chin up defiantly. “Yeah, no shit,” he says. “I’m not leaving without Deacon.”

I press my lips together, holding back a cry. My gratitude. Aaron shifts his dark eyes to mine, and they glass over. No matter what, we don’t abandon each other. We’re family.

“I hoped you’d say that,” Marie tells him. “Now, I need you to trail him, track him, I don’t care how,” she says. “You need to find Deacon and bring him home.”

Aaron looks at me when he answers. “We’ll get him back. I promise.”

Marie turns to Reed, a slight crease between her eyebrows. “We could use you too, Reed,” she says. “You in?”

“Yeah,” he says, and forces a small smile. “I didn’t have much to go back to anyway.”

I walk over and put my hand on his arm, grateful for his help. But he lowers his eyes at my touch, his thoughts seemingly clouded. Marie notices too.

“And, Reed,” she adds, “stay away from Virginia Pritchard. She . . . she’s not well, and I’m concerned. So please, under no circumstances should you contact her. Do you understand?”

“Not a problem,” he says.

Marie studies him for another second before saying thank you. Reed’s demeanor alarms me, and I do the same, noting the strange mood that seems to plague him. As if he got some really bad news. As if he’s really sad . . . deeply sad.

“Now,” Marie says, drawing my attention again, “I suspect Shep will tell Arthur everything we’ve said. So be careful. Get new places to stay. I know you’ll want to go searching now, but we need to be smart about this. Start by tracing his car and phone; see if you can get a location on them. Do
not
go charging over to Arthur Pritchard’s house. He’s a dangerous man.”

She pauses. “In fact,” she says, “leave Arthur to me. Perhaps there are still deals to be made. Get set up and I’ll contact you the minute I know more.”

“You’ll contact us?” Aaron repeats, taking a step toward her. “You want us to trust you . . . after everything?” The mention of Marie making a deal with Arthur has clearly gotten under his skin. In his career he never once doubted Marie. But in the last week he’s learned what she did to me, how she lied. I’m not sure he’ll ever truly trust her again.

“You have no choice, Aaron,” she says simply. “We have to work together on this.”

“And who do you really work for, Marie?” he asks. I look
from him to Marie, scared of the answer. “Who are you running from?” Aaron adds. “We deserve to know before we get in any deeper with you.”

Marie’s expression grows calm. “I work for myself, Aaron,” she tells him. “And part of that is making sure you’re all safe. The rest is really none of your business. Now get started. I’ll be in touch.” She turns away and grabs her laptop from the bed. “We don’t have much time.”

We wait a minute to see if she’ll admit what’s really going on, but she doesn’t say a word more about it. It might be our training or our past with her, but we allow her silence.

And so we walk out her door without the answer.

*  *  *

Aaron and I exit the building with Reed trailing behind us. He’s been quiet since he returned from dropping off Virginia, and I plan to discuss it with him, but I’m a fucking mess. So instead I walk over to Aaron and hug him—my friend seeming to need it just as much, because he buries his face in my hair and squeezes me tight.

We don’t lie. We don’t promise. We give ourselves one second to fall completely apart. And then, like good closers, we bury our feelings and straighten up. Aaron turns away, wiping his cheeks. I don’t bother.

Outside, it’s dark, and cold droplets of drizzle paint the windshields of the cars parked at the curb. I bury my hands in the pockets of my coat, and Reed pauses near us.

“I just wanted a normal life,” Aaron says into the wind
before turning around. “I just wanted to get my girl and live my life.”

His words hit me in the chest. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

Aaron curls his lip. “Are you crazy?” he says. “This is
not
your fault, Quinn. None of us are to blame. The system, the people we trusted—they’ve wronged us.”

“We’re trapped,” Reed adds from behind us. “Don’t you see we’ve always been trapped?”

The words are heavy, and I look at the wet sidewalk, thinking about something my father told me before I left town. He told me that if I stayed, the grief department would find a way to get me back under contract.
By any means necessary,
he said. Whether it be money, or blackmail, or threats. I turn toward Marie’s building. Whether it be our advisor.

“She’s the one who brought us together,” I say, mostly to myself at first. But then I furrow my brow as the thought comes together in my head. I look at Aaron. “Marie gathered all of her scattered closers. Sure, I tracked her down—but was it really that hard?” I ask. “Her number was practically waiting for me. She said she was warning us, but instead . . . Deacon was right,” I say, my voice ticking up in volume. “She’s trying to make us into handlers. And now two of us are missing.”

Aaron curses, and glares up at her building. “Then we have to find Deacon on our own,” he says darkly. “We’re done trusting people.”

“Agreed,” I say, courage building in my chest. “And I think
I know where to start looking.” I turn to Reed. “You want to drive or do you want to jump in with us?” I ask, motioning to Aaron’s car.

“I have something to do first,” Reed says, taking a step back. “It’s stupid and dangerous and I don’t want you involved.”

“You should know by now that stupid and dangerous are exactly the kinds of things that Quinn does best,” Aaron says.

Reed hesitates, but I reach out my hand to him. Both as support and a plea for help. I need him right now. And after another second of thought he takes it and lets me pull him along to Aaron’s car. The rain has started to pick up, so I flip up my hood while we wait for Aaron to unlock the door. He opens the passenger side before rounding the front to get in.

I push the seat forward, and Reed climbs into the back, his confidence and humor now missing. I get in and close the door. As Aaron starts the engine, I look back at Reed, concerned.

“You sure you’re okay?” I ask him. I want to ask what else he had to do, but as closers, we don’t demand people’s secrets. It may end up hurting us in the end, but privacy in our world is something we covet.

Reed smiles, and I can’t decide if he’s faking it or feeling genuinely glad he’s riding along. “I’m good,” he says. “Thanks for asking.”

I nod and turn toward the front. Next to me Aaron glances in the rearview mirror at him. “You know what?” he says, maybe picking up on the same melancholy that I am. “When this is all over, I’m going to miss you, you handsome bastard.”

Reed sniffs a laugh. “We’ve had quite the summer-camp romance, Aaron,” he responds.

The misery of our moment is temporarily replaced with care and compassion. This has been the most twisted, heartbreaking week of my life, but Reed has become one of my best friends. And for that I can be grateful.

“So where do we start?” Aaron asks, looking sideways at me. When he sees my expression, he laughs. “You’re just like him,” he says, shaking his head and shifting the car into gear. “You and Deacon have always had that in common—dumbass plans.”

And at the mention of his name, all the air is sucked out of the car. We can’t hide our pain and worry. A small whimper escapes from between my lips, but I pinch them closed with my fingers.
Keep your head
.
Be a goddamn closer.

I pull myself together. I harden myself against my fear and turn to stare out the windshield. And I tell Aaron to head straight to Arthur Pritchard’s house.

I HAVEN’T SPOKEN TO MY
father since I called him at the taco shop. Marie said she hasn’t been able to get in touch with him—although at this point I have no idea if she’s telling the truth. Still, as we drive my thoughts turn to my father, replacing one fear with another. If something’s happened to him, if he’s really gone—I’ll be an orphan. Unless my real parents are alive.

But even if they are, I don’t know them. They didn’t raise me. I’ve set in motion a series of events that have taken everything from me. It wasn’t worth it. I had a father—and yeah, he was messed up, but he loved me. And I had Deacon. We could have run. We could have saved ourselves.

I was stupid to think that finding my identity would change me. Now I might have lost who I really am. But once
I get Deacon back—and we
will
get Deacon back—I’ll set it right. We’ll be on the run for the rest of our lives, but at least we’ll be free from the control of Arthur Pritchard and the grief department.

I try to call Virginia, but there’s no answer. Despite Marie’s warning, we can’t stay away from her.

“So what exactly are we thinking?” Aaron asks from the driver’s seat. “Virginia is in some sort of negative loop, right? She’ll be fine for a while, but then she starts spiraling down. And whoever’s around . . . they sort of catch it. A behavioral contagion.”

“Pretty much,” I say. “It’s like Arthur’s studies—there are certain behaviors that inspire copycats. This is one of them. It’s been true for years: clusters and outbreaks with only death as the trigger. Somehow the emotional state of others affects us, affects our behavior. But this is slightly different from the usual suicide cluster. Here you have a person who tells you there’s no way out. Virginia feeds that misery, and by doing so, maybe she feeds her own. She digs into it. That’s why her father resets her after each death—she gets too deep into the pain. She can’t get out. But her hopelessness . . . In one way or another, Virginia is encouraging hopelessness. She’s causing this outbreak to spread.” It’s a crazy theory, but I believe it wholeheartedly. It makes sense . . . enough sense, at least.

And now this is our world. People are killing themselves for no apparent reason other than the loss of hope. Or maybe there is another reason. Maybe we’ll never know the actual truth.

I turn to Reed in the backseat. “How did Virginia seem when you dropped her off?” I ask him.

His jaw tightens. “I ended up parking around the block. She was worried her dad would see me. We talked for a bit.”

I narrow my eyes slightly. “What’d you talk about?” I ask.

He seems taken aback by the question. “Uh . . .” He hesitates before answering. “We talked about her father. I asked her what his plan was to stop the epidemic. I wanted to know if it would work.”

My heart skips. “Did she know?” I ask.

“No,” he says simply. “She didn’t.”

But something about the way he says it . . . I kind of think he’s lying. I look at Aaron to see if he heard the same thing, and he swallows hard and stares at the road. Although I want to give Reed his privacy, his state of mind has me worried. I turn to ask him to elaborate, but just as I do, bright blue and red lights flash across his face. He squints against them, and I spin around.

Police cars line Virginia’s street, sending the light into the shadows. I sit forward, and Aaron tenses next to me. There are four police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance parked diagonally in the driveway of the Pritchard residence. One of the lights flashes in my eyes as we get closer, and I hold up my palm to block it.

Every interior light in the house is blazing, including from the attic window—a bright circle cut into the siding. There are half a dozen people crowded on the small front porch; a small, older woman cries as an officer consoles her.

The ambulance.
Arthur knew Virginia wasn’t really kidnapped; we got her home in time. That’s not why they’re here. A chill starts up my arms, and I feel the blood drain from my face.