Pines

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then how can I trust—”

  He held up a hand, his black eyes crinkling. “Better to listen right now.”

  “Are you with the government?”

  “No, but again, who I am isn’t important. It’s what I have to offer you.”

  “Ethan is alive?”

  “Yes.”

  Her throat tightened, but she held herself together.

  “Where is he?” She could only whisper.

  Pilcher shook his head. “I could sit here and tell you everything, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Experience.”

  “You won’t tell me where my husband is?”

  “No, and if you ask me again, I’ll get up, walk out that door, and you’ll never see me again, which means you’ll never see Ethan again.”

  “Is he hurt?” She could feel a compacted mass of emotion beginning to loosen behind her sternum.

  “He’s fine.”

  “Do you want money? I can—”

  “Ethan isn’t being ransomed. This has nothing to do with money, Theresa.” Pilcher scooted forward, now sitting on the edge of the chair and staring at her through those piercing black eyes whose intensity suggested a massive intellect behind them. “I am extending to you and your son a one-time offer.”

  Pilcher reached into the inner pocket of his coat, carefully removed a pair of half-inch glass vials containing a clear liquid, and set them on the coffee table. They’d been plugged with tiny corks.

  “What’s that?” Theresa asked.

  “A reunion.”

  “A reunion?”

  “With your husband.”

  “This is a joke—”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is all I can give you.”

  “Well, it doesn’t mean anything to me. And you expect me to—what?—drink that down, just see what happens?”

  “You’re welcome to refuse, Theresa.”

  “What’s in the vials?”

  “A short-acting, powerful sedative.”

  “And when I wake up, I’m magically back with Ethan?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but generally speaking, yes.”

  Pilcher turned his head, glanced toward the front windows, and then refocused his gaze on Theresa.

  “It will be light soon,” he said. “I need your answer.”

  She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes.

  “I’m in no condition to be making a decision like this.”

  “But you must.”

  Theresa pushed against her legs and came slowly to her feet.

  “That could be poison,” she said, pointing at the table.

  “Why do you think I’d want to hurt you?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe Ethan got mixed up in something.”

  “If I wanted to kill you, Theresa...” He stopped himself. “You strike me as a person adept at reading others. What does your gut tell you? That I’m lying?”

  She walked over to the mantel, stood there studying the family portrait they had made last year—Ethan and Ben in white Polo shirts, Theresa in a white summer dress, everyone’s skin Photoshopped to perfection and features sharp under the studio lighting. At the time, they’d laughed at how cheesy and staged it had all turned out, but now, standing here in the predawn stillness of her living room, being offered a chance to see him again, the photo of the three of them brought out a lump in the back of her throat.

  “What you’re doing,” she said, her eyes still fixed on her husband, “if it’s fake...is as cruel as it gets. Offering a grieving widow a chance to see her husband again.”

  She looked at Pilcher.

  “Is this real?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I want to believe you,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I want to so badly.”

  “I understand it’s a leap of faith,” he said.

  “You come tonight,” she said, “of all nights. When I’m tired and drunk and filled to bursting with thoughts of him. I would guess that’s not by accident.”

  Pilcher reached out and lifted one of the vials.

  Held it up.

  She watched him.

  She took a breath in and let it out.

  Then she started walking across the living room toward the staircase.

  “Where are you going?” Pilcher asked.

  “To get my son.”

  “You’ll do it then? You’ll come with me?”

  She stopped at the base of the stairs and looked back at Pilcher across the living room. “If I do this,” she said, “will we have our old life back?”

  Pilcher said, “What do you mean by ‘old life’? This house? This city? Your friends?”

  Theresa nodded.

  “If you and Ben choose to come with me, nothing will ever be the same. You will not see this house again. So in that sense, no.”

  “But I’ll be with Ethan. Our family will be together.”

  “Yes.”

  She started up the stairs to wake her son. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe the emotion, but it felt so surreal. The air electric. There was a part of her screaming in the back of her mind what a fool she was. That no sane person would even consider such a proposition. But as she reached the second floor and moved down the hall toward Ben’s room, she acknowledged that she wasn’t sane, wasn’t operating on the basis of logic or reason. She was broken and lonely, and beyond everything else, she missed her husband so much that even the uncertain possibility of a life with him—with their family reunited—might be worth signing everything else away.

  Theresa sat down on Ben’s bed and shook his shoulder.

  The boy stirred.

  “Ben,” she said. “Wake up.”

  He yawned and rubbed his eyes. She helped him to sit up.

  “It’s still dark,” he said.

  “I know. I have a surprise for you.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s a man downstairs. His name is Mr. Pilcher. He’s going to take us to Daddy.”

  She could see Ben’s face glowing in the soft illumination of the nightlight beside his bed.

  Her words had hit him like a blast of sunlight, the fog of sleep fast dissolving away, an alertness crystallizing in his eyes.

  “Daddy’s alive?” he asked.

  She didn’t even know if she fully believed.

  What had Pilcher called it?

  A leap of faith.

  “Yes. Daddy’s alive. Come on. We need to get you dressed.”

  * * *

  Theresa and Ben sat down across from Pilcher.

  The man smiled at the young boy, extended his hand, and said, “My name is David. And you are?”

  “Ben.”

  They shook hands.

  “How old are you, Ben?”

  “Seven.”

  “Oh, very good. Your mother explained to you why I’m here?”

  “She said you were going to take us to my daddy.”

  “That’s right.” Pilcher picked up the tiny glass vials and handed them to Theresa. “It’s time,” he said. “Go ahead and pull out the stoppers. You have nothing to fear, either of you. It will take forty-five seconds once you’ve swallowed it. The effect will be sudden but not unpleasant. Give Ben the vial containing the smaller dose and then take yours.”

  She pinched the cork between her fingernails and uncapped the vials.

  A potent waft of some foreign chemical escaped into the air.

  Smelling it somehow made it real, jarred her out of the fugue state that had controlled her for the last several hours.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Pilcher asked.

  What the hell was she thinking? Ethan would kill her. If it was only her, maybe, but how could she risk her son?

  “What’s wrong,
Mama?”

  “We’re not doing this,” she said, putting the caps back in the vials and setting them on the coffee table.

  Pilcher stared at her across the table. “You’re absolutely sure about this?”

  “Yes. I...I just can’t.”

  “I understand.” Pilcher gathered up the vials.

  As he stood, Theresa looked at Ben, tears shimmering in the boy’s eyes. “You go on up to bed.”

  “But I want to see Daddy.”

  “We’ll talk about this later. Go on.” Theresa turned back to Pilcher. “I’m sorry—”

  The word stuck in her throat.

  Pilcher held a clear oxygen mask to his face with a thin supply tube snaking down into his jacket. In his other hand, he held a small aerosol canister.

  She said, “No, please—”

  A blast of fine mist exploded out of the nozzle.

  Theresa tried not to breathe, but already she could taste it on the tip of her tongue—liquid metal tinged with sweetness. The mist clung to her skin. She felt her pores ingesting it. It was in her mouth, far colder than room temperature, like a line of liquid nitrogen trailing down her throat.

  She wrapped her arms around Ben and tried to stand, but she had no legs.

  The dishwasher had stopped and the house stood absolutely silent save for the rain drumming on the roof.

  Pilcher said, “You’re going to serve a more valuable purpose than you could ever conceive of.”

  Theresa tried to ask him what he meant, but her mouth seemed to freeze.

  All the color drained from the room—everything disintegrating into varying shades of gray—and she could feel an unstoppable heaviness tugging her eyelids down.

  Already, Ben’s little body had gone slack, his torso fallen across her lap, and she stared up at Pilcher, who was now smiling down at her through the oxygen mask and fading toward darkness along with everything else.

  Pilcher took a walkie-talkie out of his coat and spoke into the receiver.

  “Arnold, Pam, I’m ready for you.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Ethan, I need you to relax. Do you hear me? Stop struggling.”

  Through the fog, Ethan recognized the voice—the psychiatrist.

  He fought to open his eyes, but the effort produced only slits of light.

  Jenkins peered down at him through those wire-rimmed glasses, and Ethan tried to move his arms again, but they were either broken or locked down.

  “Your wrists have been handcuffed to the railing on your bed,” Jenkins said. “Sheriff’s orders. Don’t be alarmed, but you’re having a severe dissociative episode.”

  Ethan opened his mouth, instantly felt the dryness of his tongue and lips like they’d been scorched by a desert heat.

  “What does that mean?” Ethan asked.

  “It means you’re having a breakdown in memory, awareness, even identity. The real concern here is that the car accident triggered it and that you’re having these symptoms because your brain is bleeding. They’re getting ready to roll you into surgery. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I don’t consent,” Ethan said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t consent to surgery. I want to be transported to a hospital in Boise.”

  “It’s too risky. You could die before you got there.”

  “I want out of this town right now.”

  Jenkins vanished.

  A blinding light bore down on Ethan’s face from overhead.

  He heard Jenkins’s voice. “Nurse, calm him down, please.”

  “This?”

  “No, that one.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Ethan said.

  He felt Jenkins pat his hand.

  “No one’s saying you are. It’s just that your mind is broken, and we need to fix it.”

  Nurse Pam leaned over into Ethan’s field of vision.

  Beautiful, smiling, something comforting about her presence, and maybe it was just rote familiarity, but Ethan clung to it nonetheless.

  “My goodness, Mr. Burke, you look simply awful. Let’s see if we can’t make you just a pinch more comfortable, OK?”

  The needle was goliath, the biggest Ethan had ever seen, its end dripping silver beads of whatever drug the syringe contained.

  “What’s in there?” Ethan asked.

  “Just a little something to steady those jangled nerves.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Hold still now.”

  She tapped the antecubital vein on the underside of his right arm, Ethan straining so hard against the steel bracelets he could feel his fingers turning numb.

  “I don’t want it.”

  Nurse Pam looked up, and then leaned in so close to Ethan’s face he could feel her eyelashes splay across his when she blinked. He smelled her lipstick and, at close range, could see the pure emerald clarity of her eyes.

  “You hold still, Mr. Burke”—she smiled—“or I’ll jam this motherfucker straight to the bone.”

  The words chilled him, Ethan squirming even harder, the handcuff chains rattling against the railing.

  “Don’t you touch me,” he seethed.

  “Oh, so you want to play it this way?” the nurse asked. “OK.” Her smile never fading, she altered her grip on the syringe, now holding it like a knife, and before Ethan realized her intention, she stabbed the needle into the sidewall of his gluteus maximus, the needle buried to the syringe.

  The spearing pain lingered as the nurse strolled back across the room to the psychiatrist.

  “You didn’t hit a vein?” Jenkins asked.

  “He was moving too much.”

  “So how long before he’s under?”

  “Fifteen tops. Are they ready for him in the OR?”

  “Yeah, roll him out.” Jenkins directed his last comment to Ethan as he backpedaled toward the door: “I’ll be by to look in on you after they finish the cutting and pasting. Good luck, Ethan. We’re gonna get you all fixed up.”

  “I don’t consent,” Ethan said with as much force as he could muster, but Jenkins was already out of the room.

  Through his swollen eyes, Ethan tracked Nurse Pam’s movement around to the head of his gurney. She grasped the railing, and the gurney began to move, one of the front wheels squeaking as it wobbled across the linoleum.

  “Why aren’t you respecting my wishes?” Ethan asked, struggling to control his voice, trying for a softer approach.

  She made no response, just continued to roll him out of the room and into the corridor, which stood as empty and quiet as ever.

  Ethan lifted his head, saw the nurses’ station approaching.

  Every door they passed was closed, not a shred of light filtering out from under any of them.

  “There’s no one else on this floor, is there?” Ethan asked.

  The nurse whistled a tune to the rhythm of the squeaky wheel.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, and there was a note of desperation in his voice that wasn’t staged, which sourced straight from the wellspring of terror that was mounting steadily, moment by moment, in the pit of his stomach.

  He stared up at her—a strange angle from his prone position on the gurney that showed the underside of her chin, her lips, her nose, the ceiling panels, and long fluorescent lightbulbs scrolling past.

  “Pam,” he said. “Please. Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening.”

  She wouldn’t even look down at him.

  On the other side of the nurses’ station, she released the gurney, let it roll itself to a stop, and walked on toward a pair of double doors at the terminus of the corridor.

  Ethan glanced at the signage above them.

  SURGICAL

  One of the doors swung open, and a man emerged wearing blue scrubs, his hands already covered in latex gloves.

  A face mask hid everything but a pair of calm, intense eyes that matched the color of his scrubs almost perfectly.

  He said to the nurse in a soft, quiet voice
, “Why is he still awake?”

  “He was struggling too much. I couldn’t hit a vein.”

  The surgeon cut a glance toward Ethan.

  “All right, keep him here until he’s under. How much longer do you think?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  He gave a curt nod and then headed back toward the operating room, shouldering forcefully through the doors, his body language aggressive, angry.

  “Hey!” Ethan called after him. “I want to talk to you!”

  In the several seconds the doors were open, Ethan took in an eyeful of the OR...

  An operating table in the center of the room flanked by large, bright lights.

  Beside it, a metal cart on wheels bearing an array of surgical implements.

  Everything laid out clean and shiny on sterilized cloth.

  Scalpels of every size.

  Bone saws.

  Forceps.

  Instruments Ethan couldn’t name but which resembled power tools.

  A second before the doors swung back together, Ethan watched the surgeon stop beside the cart and unsheathe a drill from its holster.

  He looked at Ethan as he squeezed the trigger several times, the high-pitched squeal of the motor filling the OR.

  Ethan’s chest heaved under his hospital gown and he could feel the bass drum thump of his accelerating pulse rate. He glanced back toward the nurses’ station, caught a glimpse of Pam disappearing around the corner.

  For a moment, he was alone on the corridor.

  No sound but the clink of scalpels and surgical equipment on the other side of those double doors. The patter of the nurse’s fading footsteps. The hum of a fluorescent bulb directly above him.

  A mad thought—what if he was crazy? What if the surgeon in that OR opened him up and actually fixed him? Would all of this disappear? Would he lose this identity? Become another man in a world where his wife and son did not exist?

  He managed to sit up.

  His head woozy, unwieldy, but that could’ve been from the beating administered by Sheriff Pope.

  Ethan stared down at his wrists, both of them cuffed to the metal railing of the gurney.

  He tugged against the bracelets, the chains going taut, his hands turning purple.

  Excruciating.

  He eased the tension and then jerked back hard enough for the steel edges of the bracelets to dig into his wrists. On his left, it broke skin, blood sprinkling on the sheet.