Wild (24 page)

Forty

D
awn streaked the horizon, a fine scarlet line that promised rain later. Though the airfield smelled of diesel, the trees that surrounded it threw off the scent of coming rain. Leaning against his police cruiser, Sheriff Porter watched the puddle jumper land at the municipal airport.

When the small, white plane finally stopped, a door popped open to reveal stairs. They sank slowly to the ground. Then, after what seemed like hours, Dr. Jupiter O'Toole emerged. He walked like he talked, thoughtfully and slowly.

Time to meet and greet. Sheriff Porter approached him, hand already out to shake.

“Thanks for coming all this way.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Dr. O'Toole said.

He was much older than the man in the picture. Afro shot with silver now, Dr. O'Toole also boasted bifocals. Fine lines traced the edges of his lips. Though his face was still smooth and round, the seventeen years that had passed between the picture and this moment were unmistakable.

Leading him to the cruiser, Sheriff Porter took the box Dr. O'Toole carried off the plane. “Hope you don't mind going right to the station.”

“No, of course not.”

“Since he recognized the picture, we're hoping that talking to you will get him to open up. I've gotta tell you, anything would help. Especially now that it looks like he was telling the truth.”

Dr. O'Toole slid into the passenger seat with a sigh. “I can't even imagine.”

“Me either.”

Sheriff Porter packed the box into the truck. It rattled a little, and he looked forward to opening it. Dr. O'Toole, being a meticulous man, had cleaned out his partner's desk when it was obvious she wasn't coming back. And very neatly, he taped it closed, and marked it with the date and her name.

The last of her worldly effects, perhaps. Maybe something they could swab for DNA, to make the ID on Cade stick. More important, Sheriff Porter hoped to find a connection. A scrap, a name, a number. Somebody living who was related to the kid.

Because if he really had spent all this time living in the middle of nowhere, he needed someone to take over. Get him therapy. Get him integrated, and into school. Teach him how to get along before he turned eighteen and the system cut him loose.

He got behind the wheel, and looked over at Dr. O'Toole. “Hungry?”

“I could eat,” Dr. O'Toole replied.

The cruiser purred when Sheriff Porter started the engine. Because he had the sirens and the lights, he could leave through the back roads. Leaking the picture to the press was going to make things easier in the long run. But it gave them a blood trail to follow, and he wanted to keep the doctor to himself for the time being.

Drumming his fingers against the wheel, Sheriff Porter glanced over. “Can I ask you something? Off the record?”

“Of course.”

“What do
you
think happened?”

Dr. O'Toole brushed his hands down his slacks. It was obvious he wasn't trying to deceive with the hesitation. More like he wanted to say the most accurate thing possible. Sheriff Porter appreciated that. After all these messy, hazy half truths, he looked forward to some nice, concrete facts.

“You must understand, Liza is a wonderful woman. I enjoyed working with her immensely. But I think it started to overwhelm her. If you can't separate yourself from your work, that happens sometimes. As soon as you know how much can go wrong, you anticipate it. I'm sure that happens in your line of work, as well?”

“Oh yeah,” Sheriff Porter agreed.

“So, you really must understand. We spent—I still spend—all day thinking about a catastrophic viral event.”

“An epidemic.”

“
Pan
demic,” Dr. O'Toole corrected gently. “In the 1600s, disease could only travel so far. It decimated cities because that's where all the people were. But it was contained in cities, for the same reason. If you got cholera in London, sheriff, I would have been perfectly safe in Edinburgh. Your contaminated water would have never crossed my lips.”

Turning onto a gravel road, Sheriff Porter slowed to keep the ride as smooth as he could. He wasn't sure, exactly, where the doctor was going with this. But he'd hear it through, and that meant saying just enough to keep him going. “All right.”

Dr. O'Toole nodded, as if agreeing with himself. Then he went on. “This morning, I was in Ohio. If I have a virus inside me right now, a perfect mutation that will spread because we shook hands, I just gave it to you. To everyone on the plane. To everyone in the airport.

“Are we going to have breakfast in a restaurant? I'm going to expose all those people. Then we'll go to your place of work, and I'll infect the deputies there. The people in the hotel.

“Then, they will go home. Perhaps this perfect virus has no symptoms for . . . two weeks. So you feel fine when you go on vacation with your family to Florida. The pilot who flew me here flies to Juneau to go whale watching. Our waitress honeymoons in Singapore.

“When we finally get sick, all of us, it's not just our enclosed community. When we start to die, this perfect disease won't burn through our neighbors and die out. It will grow and grow, because we carried it farther and faster than we ever could have in our history.

“If this virus truly is perfect, it will have a little more than a fifty percent mortality rate. If it kills too many, too quickly, it will die too. So imagine, then, sheriff. Half of everyone you know is dead in a month, simply because I got up this morning and got on an airplane.”

Uneasy, Sheriff Porter glanced at him. “You're creeping me out, I gotta say.”

“And I haven't told you one eighth of one thousandth of one millionth of what Liza and I knew when we were building our model. So when you ask me, what do I think might have happened, I think it's better to ask you: What does a
sheriff
think about, late at night, as he waits for his first child to be born?”

The car went quiet. Nothing but the sound of the engine, and the gravel crunching beneath the tires. Licking his dry lips, Sheriff Porter flipped on the turn signal and pulled onto the main highway. “I wanted to take her away so nobody'd ever hurt her.”

“I had no idea how overwhelmed Liza was,” Dr. O'Toole admitted. “But I understand exactly how she got there.”

 

“You're ruining my life,” Lia complained.

Dara peeked out the front window again. Because of their dad's bright idea to leak the picture, things were even worse. The street in front of their house was choked with vans. People walked through the alley behind their house, staring up at them.

The neighbors on either side of them had put up No Trespassing signs, and Dara was pretty sure they were off the Christmas card list. Probably permanently.

Dropping the curtain, Dara turned to her sister. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Duh.”

“Then come on.”

It was crazy, and Dara didn't care anymore. Grabbing her purse, she plucked her keys off the wall and headed into the garage. Her third-hand Honda wasn't a tank or anything. But basic rules of self-preservation stated that when faced with four cylinders and a driver who had ceased to care, a person would get out of the way.

Lia followed Dara, hopping into the passenger seat without a question. Things were about to get interesting.

“Seat belt,” Dara said.

She started the car before opening the garage door. Incredibly dangerous, and ordinarily, totally unnecessary. But she wanted to be able to hit the gas the second the door lifted. The reporters had proved at the mall that they could swarm. Today, they wouldn't get a chance.

Foot still on the brake, she hit the gas hard. The tires screamed and smoke billowed around them. The reporters scattered, and she dropped the brake. The car shot out of the driveway. The tires shrieked again when Dara pulled hard to the right. It wouldn't do any good to escape, just to crash into Mrs. Bickham's stone garden wall.

Lia reached across her and punched the garage door remote. Then she flipped the radio on, turning it all the way up. Pounding bass filled the car, Lia's whoops, too.

“Holy crap, that was awesome!” she shouted.

Too keyed up to talk, Dara just nodded. She figured she had a head start on the news vans. They had to gather everything up if they wanted to chase her. She'd drop her sister at Mom's office, and then . . .

And then what? There were probably reporters at Ms. Fourakis' house, too. And Cade was probably already at the police station. She didn't want to sic all these lunatics on Sofia, and it wasn't safe to be in public, either. The mall had proved that.

Rolling through a stop sign, Dara tried to swallow her rising panic. There was no way she could go to Josh's. The only thing waiting there was the official breakup. It was already too late to fix, and she was tired of spreading misery.

So it was a fact: she was trapped. Unless she wanted to drive until she ran out of gas, she had nowhere to go.

Quietly, she hated herself, because she wished for something terrible to happen. An explosion at a factory, or a celebrity suicide, or . . . something. Anything more interesting than the Primitive Boy in Kentucky. Anything.

She stopped short of Mom's office when she saw a single news van in the parking lot. Pulling up to the curb, she left the engine running. Pulling a twenty from her purse, she pressed it into Lia's hand. “Go. Be free.”

Lia opened the door. “My life is still ruined, you know.”

“Whatever,” Dara replied.

Once Lia closed the door behind herself, Dara pounded the gas and sped away—to nowhere.

 

Already, there were too many people in the room. They stank of cologne and soap, coffee, too. Greasy breakfast things that turned Cade's stomach. Clutching the arms of his chair, Cade forced himself to keep his feet on the floor. He forced himself to keep his head up.

“If you need a break,” Branson said, sliding up next to him, “just say the word. You're not in trouble, and this isn't an interrogation. We're here to help you.”

Somehow, Cade doubted that. He had ears. He could hear them in the next room talking about next of kin and foster care. They wanted to find a stranger to keep him permanently. Far from here, locked up in houses with windows and doors. Not one of them wanted to consider letting him decide.

The door swung open. Sheriff Porter walked in with Ms. Fourakis. And then, behind her, the man from his picture. Jolting inwardly, Cade made himself hold still. These people had no intention of being fair to him. Listening to him. Anything. So he wouldn't tell them anything they could use. He would behave, and be quiet. He could make his own plans when they weren't looking.

“Cade, I think you know everybody here.” Sheriff Porter nodded. “This is Dr. O'Toole, he worked with your mother.”

Flattening his lips, Cade stared at him impassively. It felt like holding an ember in his palm, a slow heat turning to pain. He just had to endure it. This Dr. O'Toole probably had answers. Maybe he'd share them. Somehow, Cade doubted it, though. Everyone said they wanted to help. None of them really did.

Dr. O'Toole shook his head, wonder struck. “You look just like her. My dear boy . . .”

Cade only blinked. There was no question he paid attention. He followed everyone with his eyes, quick and certain to track them in the room around him. They couldn't stop him from listening; they couldn't force him to talk.

Stepping in, Sheriff Porter slid a box onto the table. “Now y'all know we're still piecing this all together. I think we all agree our best bet is to sort out a timeline. The lab boys pulled a couple rubber bands and a hairbrush out of Dr. Walsh's personal possessions, so we're going to rush a DNA test.”

“Your part is already done,” Branson assured Cade. “You remember, when they swabbed your cheek.”

Cade gritted his teeth. If Sheriff Porter noticed, he didn't mention it. Instead, he went back to answer the knock at the door. Taking a couple heavy sacks from an assistant, he turned to slide breakfast onto the table. Cade smelled bacon in there. Eggs, too. And he'd already learned what happened when he took food from Sheriff Porter.

Generous still, Sheriff Porter said, “If you want a few minutes alone with Dr. O'Toole, son—”

“I don't,” Cade said.

The abruptness of the reply seemed to dismay Dr. O'Toole. But he waved a hand, brushing up a wavering smile. “I'm sure this has been very confusing for you.”

“Why don't we get started, then?” Branson drew his chair to the table. With swift fingers, he split open a package of small, blank cards. Producing a pen, he wrote
1997
on the top of the first. Beneath the date, he scribbled
Jonathan Cade Walsh, b. August 19, Cleveland, OH.
Capping the pen, he looked back at Cade. “Does that sound right to you?”

It didn't. He knew the name, the Jonathan name. But he didn't know what a Cleveland, OH was. What Walsh was. August was a month of the year, named after a Roman emperor. But he'd never kept time that way. He had seasons in the forest. Cycles. His birthday was the hottest month of the year, just as the birds gathered to fly south.

Disappointed, Branson gave him another encouraging nod. “It's okay, Cade. You're doing fine.”

Cade closed his eyes. He was so sick of
fine
.

Forty-one

T
he tank was almost empty, and Dara drove past Clayton Park for the fortieth time.

So much for her great escape. All she'd done was waste a week's worth of gas, and listened to the same six songs on high rotation. The clock read just past noon. With more optimism than the situation warranted, she headed up the street that would take her to Ms. Fourakis' house.

She almost left when she saw the reporters outside. Where did they all come from? It seemed like they were multiplying, and they were everywhere. Her patience had run out back when it was just a jerk posting to Tumblr in Sofia's backyard. Suddenly, Dara ceased to care.

Instead of sneaking up the alley, she drove right up to Ms. Fourakis' house. Sunglasses on, check. They weren't much, but it felt like they protected her. Enough that she got out of the car in front of everybody. Keys in hand, she headed purposefully for the door. She was a magnet. The moment they realized who she was they rushed toward her.

Mentally, she brushed them away. Physically, she pushed up to the door. They trailed her, crushing behind her in a way they never would have dared in front of the sheriff's house. It was hard to ignore being touched by so many strangers at once. Feeling them breathe and move behind her like a single-bodied beast.

She refused to look back. Instead, she knocked on the door. Lightly, at first, then harder. Realistically, she knew no one would answer. If someone did, it probably wouldn't be Cade.

But she was tired. Tired of hiding and running and fighting to just
be
. There was something wrong with the world when she had to break out of her own house in the morning.

No one answered.

Dara steeled herself with a deep breath, then turned around. A mural of faces blurred in front of her. She couldn't even pick out their individual voices anymore. They were a wall to scale. A gate to jump. Squaring herself off, she put her head down and pushed through them.

They moved—to be honest, she was surprised. But they did, parting for her as she strode back to her car. More predictably, they swarmed around when she got back inside. Like they hadn't heard about her wild ride just a couple of hours ago—didn't they realize she wasn't fooling around anymore?

Throwing the car into gear, she slammed her hand on the horn. With the high-pitched blare clearing the way, she pulled onto the street, and didn't bother with her signal at the corner.

 

Sheriff Porter stood in the station parking lot to give the latest update. After thirty-six hours, he was a little punchy, and probably the wrong guy for the job. But he wanted to do it; throw these guys some meat and send them off to look for leads in cities other than his.

The prepared statement was short, and he didn't pretend he wasn't reading from it. If they wanted theatrics, they'd have to get them somewhere else. Every few lines, he'd raise his head. Another act, pretending like he cared if they got it all down.

“With information gathered from many sources, and the cooperation of concerned citizens, we believe we have identified our John Doe. The state lab will be conducting DNA tests, and we expect results in the coming weeks. Because John Doe is a minor, we're declining to name him at this time.

“However, we can give you a brief sketch of what we believe to be the facts at this time. In the spring of 1999, we believe John Doe's parents sold their possessions and abandoned their home in Ohio. It appears they decided to move into the Beaver Creek Wilderness Area of Daniel Boone National Forest.

“At this time, we can't comment on their motives for doing so. Nor can we comment on their current whereabouts. We do not believe they will be found alive, nor do we believe they were the victims of foul play.”

Stopping for a sip of water, Sheriff Porter peered into the cameras. He saw slices of his own face, reflected in black glass over and over. He wondered if they could see how tired he was. If they realized he could drop on the spot, if they'd just pack up and leave. Probably not. The folks with the cameras never slept.

After clearing his throat, Sheriff Porter shook the statement and picked up where he left off. “John Doe has given us no reason to discount his version of events. As incredible as it sounds, it is our belief that he spent the majority of his life in Daniel Boone National Forest, unaware of the civilized world just outside its borders.

“The courts will assign him a legal guardian sometime this week. We'll finish our investigation, confirming his identity. However, at this point, CHFS will take over. This is a case for the family courts, and we ask that you let the system do its job.”

It was standard to thank people for coming to a presser. Even more standard to open it up to questions. Sheriff Porter no longer cared about standard. He tipped his hat to them, and stepped down without a backward glance.

They squalled their protest, but the nice thing about the station door was that it cut down on outside noise considerably.

 

The shadowy figure above Dara's bed reached out to touch her. Shaking her, not gently, it leaned closer. Listerine wafted across her face. With another shove, the creature pushed her over and said, “Lord Greystoke is in the backyard.”

Squinting, Dara struggled to sit up. Flailing one hand, she shoved Lia. Slow to process, Dara took in the glowing numbers on her clock and the alcoholic stench of her sister's breath. Then she forced one eye open a little wider. Peering at Lia, Dara asked, “Who?”

Disgusted, Lia walked away. “Don't you ever read?”

“Meh meh meh ever
read
?” Dara repeated under her breath, annoyed.

Throwing her covers aside, she tugged her cami down to cover her belly and padded toward the window. Thinking twice about the outfit and the fact that there were still footprints all over her front lawn, she pulled on her robe. Then she lifted the shades.

There, in the bluish haze of their security lights, stood Cade. Wrapped tight in someone else's peacoat, he looked strange and formal. The only reason she knew it was really him was because of his hair. Bound with a black band, his dreads streamed down his back in a tight column. His face was bare, heart-shaped, and his dark brows framed a thoughtful expression.

A thin light appeared, then stretched across the yard. It swept over him. Raising a hand, he shrank, but he didn't retreat.

Dara's heart pounded. Taking the stairs two at a time, she practically skidded into the kitchen. To her relief, it was Lia at the back door and not one of their parents. Pressing past Lia, Dara turned back and said, “Flip the inside lights before we get in trouble, will you?”

“You're welcome for turning off the alarm,” Lia replied.

Then she doused the kitchen overhead, and the yard was mostly shadowed again. The security lights would blink off as soon as people stopped moving near them. Plotting her path carefully, Dara hurried across the wet grass. She trailed her hand along the fence. More than a couple sneak-in-sneak-out party nights told her she was far enough from the sensor here.

Shivering, she did wish she'd put on shoes. As she drew closer to Cade, she asked, “How did you get here?”

Cade looked to the rooflines. It took Dara a moment to realize what he meant. When she did, her mouth dropped open. How many calls had her dad's office gotten about intruders on the roof? she wondered. Turning back to Cade, she caught his arms, squeezing them gently. “Are you okay?”

“I wanted to see you again.”

Dara led him beneath the willow tree then gently pushed him almost against the trunk. It was a good place to hide from the lights. And from the prying looks of any neighbors or parents (or random, rabid journalists) that might wander by. The thin, new leaves didn't offer much cover. It was the elegant fall of branches, instead, that shielded them.

“I tried to see you this morning. The station was overrun, your house, too.”

“It wasn't a good day,” Cade replied.

The hurt in his voice wounded her. It shone in his eyes, even the way he held his head. Dara wanted to rush up to cover him, wrap him in her arms, and take him somewhere safe. Wherever that was. If it even existed.

Gingerly, she trailed her nails against his hands, up his wrists. When she spoke again, it was gently. Quietly, as if the air was too delicate to break with too much sound. “Do you feel that?” she asked.

Adam's apple bobbing, Cade said, “Yes.”

“I feel it, too.”

Night whispered around them. Wind through trees, and the soft kiss of cars rolling by in the dark. Far at the other end of town, a train whistle lowed. Its plaintive cry echoed, mourned by the sweet cry of new spring frogs.

Tracing her thumbs against the tender curve of his wrists, Dara dropped her gaze. She was afraid if she looked up that she would kiss him. That wasn't going to comfort him; that would be for her. Selfish and greedy, when he needed something more than that. Still, his current wrapped around her. He was heat lightning, racing along her skin. Tingling on her lips.

“Dara,” he murmured.

She felt him lean closer. If he were more experienced, he might have known how to nudge her into looking up. That he could sway his hip and bump against hers. Or if he slipped his hard, worn hands up to her throat, he could have tipped her chin back and kissed her anyway.

“I wish I could make this better,” Dara said. She threaded her fingers through his and took a step back. “I'm going to try. I'll talk to my mom. She's better with working outside the system. I don't want you to go away. I don't want . . .”

Cade started to protest. Then suddenly, instead, he seemed to solidify. He wouldn't let her look away, but he didn't chase this time. His hands in her hands, they hung together. Knotted between them. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Confused, Dara shook her head. “I see you. I see Cade.”

It seemed that wasn't the answer he sought. His features smoothed, making him strange and flat. The lightning died, no longer passing between them. He let his hands slip away, and he said, “I have to go.”

“Wait, I don't— What are you really asking me? You're standing here, and you're amazing. And confusing. And broken, god, you look so broken. I want to fix that. I want to . . . I want to kiss you, and I want you to kiss me back, and I want you to stay. When I looked out the window, I hoped it would be you.”

He kissed her, quick and hard. It rasped across her mouth, a taste of need and desperation that evaporated when he pulled away.

“Wait,” Dara said, catching his shoulder. “At least let me drive you home.”

Cade ducked from beneath her grasp. Firm, certain, he turned to face her, backing toward the alley. Smooth, unreadable, his expression didn't change. It was tender, but resolved. Stoic, even. And when he stepped into full darkness, he faded away completely.

Cold rushed in, taking the place of his hands. His presence. His everything, once rushing to surround her—it bled away. She felt like the only person in the world.

The last person.