RIEL SITS IN silence as Rosenfeld flips through the stack of photos several times, studying them.
“See this?” he says finally, pointing to a small route sign in the distance behind what looks like it could be a guardhouse. “I wasn’t sure from what Lang said, but now I am: these pictures are of the WSRF.”
“What’s the WSRF?”
“The Watuck Soldier Research Facility,” he says, then motions to his folders. “Based on what Lang told me when she called, I had it narrowed down to there and one other place. She said she was going to send the pictures, but then there was my accident. And, not that I wanted to after that, but I never heard from her again. Anyway, that route is near the WSRF.”
“But I don’t understand. If Hope Lang took these pictures, wouldn’t she know where she was when she took them? Why did she need you to tell her?”
“I never said she took these pictures,” Rosenfeld says. “Maybe she was tight-lipped, but I got the sense that she really didn’t know what she had.”
“Oh,” Riel says, feeling like she knows less and less somehow the more she learns. “And what exactly is the WSRF?”
“It’s a research facility that was officially shuttered a few years ago. Meaning only that it’s up and running and in private hands. Compass Industries—this shit is all they do. They create whole shell corporations for the express purpose of running a facility like that when they want to do real fucked-up studies. Then when they’re done with their fucked-up studies, the shell folds up and disappears. It’s like none of it ever happened. Definitely nowhere to lodge a complaint, no one to stop, no one to sue.”
“What kind of fucked-up studies?”
“All kinds.” Rosenfeld holds her stare. “That’s why they want it away from the official government dime. No accountability, no oversight from those other pesky aboveboard government agencies. Like remember those tests they did in the sixties with LSD?”
“LSD?” Riel asks.
Rosenfeld shakes his head, disgusted. “See, like it never happened. The army wanted to see if they could use LSD on enemy soldiers in combat,” he says. “But to do that, they needed live human subjects to test because it’s hard to extrapolate a totally internal psychological experience from, you know, rats. So the army research division rounded up a bunch of people they thought wouldn’t be missed, wouldn’t be listened to. People died, others had psychotic breaks, permanent ones. And they got caught. Upper-level military went to jail, and strict oversight of military testing was put into place. Military testing. A private company, on the other hand? Especially if they keep it all off the books? They’ve got a hell of a lot more leeway, so if you want to be left alone—”
“You outsource it.”
Rosenfeld smiles, genuinely pleased. “Now you’re catching on,” he says. “Companies like North Point . . .”
“North Point?”
“It’s one of those Compass Industries shells I was talking about,” he says, ticking his head in the direction of the folders. “North Point did some messed-up shit trying to figure out how to use PTSD as a weapon. Which, you know, means that you’ve got to give people PTSD first.” Rosenfeld goes back to studying the pictures, pauses on one, and puts his face in close. “But North Point is gone now. Like it never was. See, look at this. This is a telltale sign of something suspect.” He’s holding a finger to the grainy image of the construction buckets.
“Plaster or something, right?” Riel asks. “Construction is a telltale sign?”
“Plaster? No, no, it’s a close-up.” He peers at it again. “They’re drug vials. I guarantee you the WSRF never had FDA authorization for a study using them. They’d never met the standards. So they just do it and pretend they aren’t. If your results are never meant to be public anyway, you can do that.”
Riel has the most awful feeling now that this is why she was so intent on coming here herself, despite the risk. That she needed to hear this.
“What kind of drugs?” Riel asks. Her voice is small as she braces herself.
Rosenfeld squints at the pictures again. “It’s hard to make out the name on the vials,” he says. “But I’m pretty sure it’s a kind of morphine.”
“DO YOU KNOW how she died yet?” Riel’s aunt had asked in the hospital. The doctor was nice and young, with a nervous smile and a tentative way about him that seemed to draw the ire of Riel’s aunt.
“A drug overdose,” he said. He was standing right in front of Riel, but she heard him as though he was very far away. “Sorry, I thought someone told you.”
“We know that,” her aunt said. “What kind of drugs?” Because for her aunt, there were good drugs and there were bad, shameful drugs. She wanted to know if she should be mentioning this unpleasantness with her niece to her friends and coworkers. Or if she should be keeping this whole thing to herself.
“An opiate, we believe,” he said uneasily.
“An opiate?” Her aunt’s words were shellacked in judgment. “Could you be more specific?”
“We need the report to be sure,” the doctor said. “But it seems likely it was morphine.”
Riel’s aunt had turned to face Riel. “Morphine?” As if she had been the one to take it and not Kelsey. “God, what was wrong with her?”
“YOU OKAY?” ROSENFELD asks. How long has he been talking? Riel hasn’t been listening. “I could be wrong, too. All of this is mostly a guess. I mean, I’m not usually wrong, but you never . . . Does all this mean something to you? Because you got really pale all of a sudden, and I really can’t have you passing out in here, so . . .”
“Yeah, it means something.” Riel nods. “Something terrible.”
May 15
This is not the way it was supposed to turn out. It’s not at all what I planned. I lie awake at night now, trying not to let my faith be shaken. I try to rededicate myself to the cause. My own loss has changed nothing. But it is not easy to bear. Rage and sadness are confusing twins.
But I know what I must do now, more than ever: finish what I started. That is the way to make something out of this loss. To not let it be in vain.
I still hold the gift I was given. I must honor that by keeping my own promises. Making sure that the guilty pay. An eternity in fire.
WYLIE
WE SPRINT BACK TOWARD THE AMERICAN LEGION HALL. OSHIRO NEEDS HELP, now. There was blood on the side of his chest—but he was still breathing. He is still alive.
When we pound back inside the lobby, the janitor is still there, headphones still on. He doesn’t hear us come in, and jumps when I rush over and grab him with both hands.
“Call the police! And an ambulance!” I shout. “Someone’s been hurt!”
“What?” He looks around, confused. “What do you mean? Where?”
“A man was shot in his car. In the parking lot!” I shout again. “Call an ambulance. Right now! I think he might be dying!” My breath catches on that word: “dying.” Oshiro could end up dead because he was trying to help me.
“Oh, jeez.” The janitor finally startles to life, digging in his pocket for a flip phone. He peers through the glass doors to the parking lot. “Which car is it?”
“The red one,” I say. “Parked right next to that white van.”
“What van?” he asks. “I don’t see any van.”
And he’s right. When I look, the van is gone.
ONCE WE’RE SURE the ambulance is on its way, Gideon and I slip out and rush back to our car. By that time, the lobby is filled with worried members of The Collective. I hear the janitor call out after us, “Hey, where are you going?”
But we don’t turn back, don’t slow down. We can’t stay. If the police find me here—outside of Newton in violation of my bail conditions—I will be sent back to jail. Not to mention that whoever shot Oshiro must also be after us. But if that’s true, why didn’t they shoot us when we were standing out there in the open next to the car? And did they find us because of Gideon’s phone? Or were they following us from the start? Because I ha
ve no doubt Oshiro was shot because of us. Because of me. And he was so worried about helping in the first place. I bend over as I open the car door, afraid I might be sick right there in the parking lot.
“Come on,” Gideon says. “We have to go.”
We pull out of the Legion Hall parking lot and park in an out-of-sight spot down the street. We can see the emergency vehicles arrive from here, but are far enough away that no one will see us. Soon there are lights flashing, people rushing everywhere. Then they are working on Oshiro so frantically. At least when they finally move him, it’s more calmly, toward the ambulance. Like they have things under control. Oshiro is stable, hopefully. And, hopefully, he will stay that way.
“Do you think Oshiro will be okay?” I ask Gideon. Because I have no clear instinct about whether he will survive.
Gideon turns to look at me. “The truth?” he asks.
“I guess,” I say, though I am not sure I am ready.
“No,” he says. “I don’t think any of this is going to be okay.”
MRS. PORTER’S HOME is a fifteen-minute drive from the Legion Hall, in a much more run-down part of Framingham. We debated going back home, but as bad as I feel about what happened to Oshiro, our dad still needs us to find him. Now more than ever. Which means we need to find Sophie-Ann. I feel more sure than ever that she’s the person who called.
As we head down the twisty roads, the houses get closer together and more beat-up. Still, I keep hoping that things will start feeling better. That I will start feeling better. And I do sense that we are headed in the right direction, literally and figuratively. But right, of course, is not the same as comfortable. Or safe.
EndOfDays and The Collective are working with Quentin somehow still? Or maybe Quentin is EndOfDays? This is not the first time the possibility has occurred to me. But it still doesn’t feel exactly right. I wish now I had asked what the “regular guy” looked like. For all I know he is Quentin. I just have to hope that we will find Sophie-Ann at Mrs. Porter’s and that she will have my dad’s phone, along with some real answers to go with it.
More than once, I feel Gideon consider saying something the closer we get to Mrs. Porter’s. And more than once, he decides against it. He doesn’t speak until we have almost arrived.
“That EndOfDays blog is . . .” Gideon hesitates. “I’ve read it, you know. And it’s just, whoever wrote it, it’s really bad.”
I close my eyes and take a breath. I don’t want the details. They will just make this harder. But Gideon needs to tell me. I can feel that he does. “Bad how exactly?”
“At first, the guy was all like, ‘shepherds of the peace’ and whatever. He didn’t love scientific research like Dad’s, and he did mention Dad specifically. But then after the camp happened, it was like he snapped. Started calling what he was doing ‘the reckoning.’ He went from a little out there to full-on homicidal. The ‘shepherds of the peace’ were gone, replaced by ‘soldiers of God.’”
“Soldiers?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound very spiritual.”
“I don’t think it is,” Gideon says. “Whatever this guy really cares about, I don’t think it has anything to do with God.”
MRS. PORTER’S MAILBOX is rusted and pitched way to the side. Not exactly welcoming as Gideon and I pull into the driveway. Still, I am relieved to finally arrive. Maybe it will stop my gut churning—I have been trying to convince myself that how bad I feel doesn’t necessarily reflect the severity of Oshiro’s condition. But living in denial isn’t all that easy when you’re an Outlier.
Mrs. Porter’s driveway comes to a stop some distance short of the house—no garage, no clear place to park. To the left is a miniature windmill plunked there, like it was stolen from a miniature golf course. In between, in the middle of the yard, is a large pile of discarded mattresses, furniture, clothes, and a few broken-down bed frames, stacked high in a bonfire of despair. Mrs. Porter’s is not a happy place. I can read that much loud and clear.
“Should we have a signal or something?” Gideon asks. “You know, if one of us thinks that something is off once we’re inside? I guess you, mostly. You would definitely know before me.”
I turn and look at him. “Something is off,” I say. “That’s pretty obvious already.”
Gideon takes a deep breath and looks back up at the house. “Yeah, but a sign would make me feel better. How about ‘pancakes’?”
“‘Pancakes’?” I ask. Gideon is obviously new to this world of subtlety and intrigue. “How about ‘It’s hot in here’ or ‘I feel really hot,’ something like that?”
Gideon nods, relieved. “Hot. Got it. Sounds good.”
ON MRS. PORTER’S sloped front steps, we stand under the small circle of light cast down by a single bulb. It feels weirdly cold there in that spot, like one of those suspect patches in the ocean that hints at a threat—a shark, a riptide. I’d swim the other way if I had a choice. But Mrs. Porter is our only link to Sophie-Ann. And Sophie-Ann is our only link to our dad’s phone. And that phone is still our only link to him.
He needs us more with each passing minute, too. I can feel it.
I ring the doorbell and am surprised when it actually chimes.
A second later, there is the dead bolt thudding open, a chain inside dropping. When the door finally cracks open, it sounds like it’s being broken into pieces. Mrs. Porter won’t be happy to see us there. I know nothing about her, and yet I feel completely sure of this fact.
Sure enough: “Get off my steps!” comes an angry voice before a face has even come into view. “Whichever girl you’re here to see, you aren’t seeing her! It’s late, so shoo!”
Mrs. Porter is late middle age, in high-waisted pale blue jeans that highlight a spectacular paunch, stiff blond hair cut like a helmet. And this barking is her go-to tactic—strike first, ask questions later. And it works for her most of the time. Mrs. Porter is a bully—a big, scared bully. I’ve got to come out hard and strong, knock her off balance.
“Let us in, or we’ll report you,” I say calmly, staring her right in the eye. I don’t need to know exactly what she’s done to feel sure she’s done plenty.
Her lip curls. “What do you want?”
Notably not: Report me for what? Because even she’s got something in mind.
“We need to find Sophie-Ann,” I say. “She has something that belongs to us.”
“Ha,” she says, but with a weird flatness, and then without another word, Mrs. Porter turns and walks toward the back of the house. She doesn’t tell us to follow. But she did leave the door hanging open, which is probably as much of an invitation as we’re going to get.
INSIDE, THE HOUSE smells so strongly of body odor that I have to breathe through my mouth not to gag. We follow in the direction Mrs. Porter disappeared. Walking tentatively, keeping an eye out. Because Mrs. Porter isn’t the only threat in this house. I feel sure of that. The only question is whether she is leading us to them.
We finally catch up to Mrs. Porter in the kitchen, grease-stained, with yellowish-beige wallpaper, unwashed dishes in the sink, and open packages of food everywhere. Mice and insects probably also. I make a point of not looking too closely. Mrs. Porter is at the stove, an ancient, rusted appliance, lighting a gas burner with a match. She sets a pot of water on top of it.
“So, Sophie-Ann . . . ,” I begin.
Mrs. Porter turns back from the stove and crosses her arms. “She’s not here,” she says. Already this is a lie. No, not a lie—just absurdly incomplete.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “And like I said, if you don’t tell us the truth, we’ll report you.”
“Yeah, report me for what?” Mrs. Porter snaps. Crap, I knew that making the same threat twice could be pushing my luck.
“You make the girls you foster go to religious meetings,” I blurt out. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. Comes to mind and then right out of my mouth. Before I’ve fully considered the consequences.
“Oh please.” She laughs, and, like,
for real she finds this funny. She’s relieved, too, which means that whatever she’s really done is much, much worse. “I don’t even go to church. Never have.”
“Um, The Collective?” Gideon says.
“Who told you about that?” She glares from Gideon to me and back again. “You just came from there? Jennifer and Grace are over there tonight, aren’t they?”
Damn it. I don’t want to get Jennifer and Grace in trouble. I wasn’t thinking.
“We were there this morning,” I say, praying that I sound convincing. “It was the new guy who leads the meetings who told us. He told us that Sophie-Ann lived here.”
“Him. He’s not right, that one. Not right at all.” She huffs in disgust. “Anyway, that’s not a religion. It’s a group of like-minded people.”
“Call it what you want. We can let social services sort it out,” I say. “Or tell us where Sophie-Ann is. Our dad is missing, and we think that Sophie-Ann has his phone.”
Mrs. Porter smirks viciously. “Well then, I’d say you’re screwed.” She looks over to see if her water has boiled yet. When she turns back, she is much calmer, more composed, almost like she’s enjoying this now. “Sophie-Ann is dead.”
I feel nauseous, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might burst. No, no, no. She was all we had.
“What happened?” Gideon asks.
“She was hit by a car over in Watuck,” Mrs. Porter says. She flicks off the stove like she’s changed her mind about whatever she was making.
Not an accident. Not an accident. Not an accident.
“When?” I ask. “Where?”
“Couple days ago,” she says, then points a crooked finger my way. She’s more defiant now that the cat is out of the bag. “And before you get any ideas, I reported all this, just like I was supposed to. My guess is Sophie-Ann got wasted at some party, couldn’t see straight, and stumbled into the road. These aren’t some sweet schoolgirls, you know. They’re like stray dogs. They come, they eat some food, sleep, then they go. All of ’em, Sophie-Ann, Lethe, Teresa, they’re—”