“Hi, there,” he says, trying to cover his disappointment. “I’m sorry. Where’s Sunny tonight?”
Maria fiddles with her order pad and pen.
“She didn’t say anything to you?”
“Say what? Where is she?”
Maria takes a short breath and lets it out. “She’s gone.”
Bron gets a stabbing pang in his gut. “What do you mean, gone?”
“Quit. Left. Walked out last night.”
Bron thinks back twenty-four hours. He was working late at the school. He and Vern split a microwave pizza in the break room. Then he went right back to the motel.
“Wait,” says Bron, “I don’t understand. She just… left? Without saying anything?” Now his heart is pounding.
“She looked upset. Said she didn’t have time to explain. She picked up her tips and her paycheck and split.”
At this point, Bron is practically jumping out of his skin. His mind is spinning. What’s going on? Did he say something? Did he not say something? Did something happen? Why would she just take off like that? In one swift move, he slides out of the booth. Maria backs up to avoid getting bowled over.
“Where does she live? Where does she live?” Bron is almost out the door already and has to stop to catch Maria’s answer.
“About five miles outside of town—Alba Road. I think she was just renting. Let me know if you find out anything—”
Bron doesn’t hear a word after “Alba Road.”
With all this frantic energy, he could probably run the five miles in about fifteen minutes. That’s nuts. He needs directions. He needs a ride. The street is empty. Hold on. He sees headlight beams.
A pickup truck is coming slowly around a corner the next street down. Bron starts jogging and waving his arms.
He knows that truck. He knows that driver.
Chapter 34
GRANDPA’S EYES aren’t what they used to be, so after dark, he takes it slow. But that’s okay with Bron. Gives him time to scan the shoulder of the road as they go. But for what? Footprints? Blood? Breadcrumbs?
After about ten minutes, the truck headlights bounce off a battered sign marking Alba Road. Not far from the intersection is a small stucco bungalow—the only building for a hundred yards. This has to be it.
Grandpa pulls to a stop. “¿Debería esperar? Should I wait, Señor Tyler?”
“No. I don’t want her to think I brought a posse. I’m good.”
As Grandpa makes a swerving U-turn, Bron walks across the sand and low scrub grass to the house. The porch light is on, but everything else is dark. He knocks on the front door. Nothing.
He walks quickly around the house, pressing his face against the windows, one by one. No sounds. No movement.
Back at the front door, Bron tries the knob. Locked. He looks under the mat and in a clay planter. No key. Just as he’s about to put his elbow through a window, he notices a magnetic sticker on the metal mailbox. It’s from Verde Repairs. NO JOB TOO SMALL it says—in English and in Spanish. Bron peels it off.
He slips the thin sticker in against the strike plate of the doorjamb and wiggles it until he feels a slight give. Old school, but it works. He’s in. He flips the light switch just inside the door.
“Sunny? It’s Tyler. You here?”
He moves quickly through the living room, kitchen, and bedroom, flicking lights on as he goes. Deserted.
The rooms are bare except for some IKEA-style furniture. The bed is made—not perfect, but neat. No signs of a struggle, as they say on the cop shows. He slides the bedroom closet door open. Empty—except for one white blouse and one black skirt.
He checks the medicine cabinet. Contact lens solution, toothpaste, aspirin—the usual. Not much in the refrigerator—just a carton of orange juice, some cottage cheese, and a couple of beers.
Bron pulls open the kitchen drawers and finds some plastic flatware and paper napkins.
And then… he feels something. Something that doesn’t quite fit. Tucked under a cheese grater and a pair of oven mitts is an eight by ten manila envelope, the kind with a metal clasp at the top.
Bron opens the clasp. Pulls out the contents. And feels his heart thud through his chest.
Chapter 35
HE’S LOOKING at a stack of identical black-and-white glossy photos. They’re headshots—the standard calling card for models and actors. A dozen copies.
The name printed in script at the bottom of the photo is “Sunny Lynn Aberday.”
His stomach freezes.
Of course it’s her, but somehow not her. The hair is shorter and straighter, with some serious studio styling—and her freckles are missing. Photoshopped clean off. To the right of the full-face photo are two smaller head-to-toe shots in color—one showing her in a red bikini, the other in a flower-print sundress. Girl-next-door gorgeous. On the back are her vital stats: hair color, eye color, height, weight, measurements. The rest of the résumé is brief.
She studied theater at Buffalo State. Took a few acting classes in New York. She was “Juror #4” in an episode of Law & Order, “Earth Human” in the finale of Battlestar Galactica, and “Zumba Girl” in a sit-com pilot called Atlantic Motion.
Special Skills: Horseback riding, skiing, motorcycles.
Bron feels a burning adrenaline rush that starts in his chest and courses down his arms. He whips the pile of photos against the wall with everything he’s got. The headshots scatter and flutter to the floor. For a few moments, the room is raining Sunny.
Bron is furious. With her. With himself. His mind spins back through every interaction, every conversation. How easily he got led along. But was he any better? After all, he asked Crane to write him a life. He just didn’t know how it would feel to lose it.
He shoves the back door open and kicks over two empty garbage cans. As he turns back toward the house, he catches a glint of chrome. Tucked into a corner next to some garden tools is a Yamaha dirt bike, key still in the ignition.
Bron hasn’t ridden anything with two wheels since he was sixteen. He hops onto the saddle and turns the key. No juice. He puts his foot on the starter pedal and shoves down hard. The engine sputters, then dies. He tries again. This time it fires up.
He gives the bike some gas and takes off, nearly knocking over a rain barrel as he swings around the house and swerves onto the road, heading farther away from town—out into the empty desert.
He’s really cranking now. He squints his eyes and clenches his mouth tight as all kinds of airborne critters collide with his face. The road is pitch black, except for the bouncing white arc of his headlight beam.
He doesn’t know where he’s going—just knows that he has to keep moving and looking for answers. Looking for her. Forty miles per hour on the speedometer. Then fifty…
His head is buzzing with a thousand thoughts. Suddenly, he sees—
BAM!
Chapter 36
IT HAPPENS in the blink of an eye. And I’m watching it in HD.
Daisy screams.
Bron’s bike jolts to the side and flips. For a second everything is a blur—then totally still.
Now the night-vision sensors are picking up two heat signatures about twenty feet from the road. One is the bike engine. The other is Bron. Neither is moving.
A few of the minions jump up from their stations.
“Stop!” Daisy yells. “Stay right where you are!”
She looks at me and grabs a set of keys off a table. “Let’s go!”
We run out the back and hop into a Jeep. Daisy gets behind the wheel—as if I had a choice.
Before I can buckle my seat belt, she spins the Jeep around. I almost fly out the side. We bounce like crazy over ruts and rocks all the way to the main road. As soon as Daisy feels pavement under the tires, she floors it.
The techs back at the hangar are feeding directions into her Bluetooth as we go—but it’s not like there are a lot of roads out here to choose from. We make two turns and then it’s a straight shot to the scene. She counts down the
distance as we approach: “One mile… half mile… two hundred yards!”
She brakes hard and yanks the Jeep onto the shoulder. In the middle of the road, just in front of Bron’s skid marks, is a crushed armadillo. Gross.
Daisy slams the shift lever into park and jumps out. She gets to Bron in about two seconds. I click the high beams to light them up. Bron is moving! He sits up slowly and Daisy grabs his arm. She helps him to his feet. In the headlight beams, I can see a patch of blood on his forehead. His shirt is shredded. But he’s walking and talking. He’s in one piece. The sand dune behind him must have made one hell of an airbag.
Chapter 37
WEIRD. I’M flashing back to my first meeting with Daisy—the one where she laid down the rules.
Rule number one: No contact with Tyler Bron.
Consider that rule busted.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Anything broken?”
“I’m fine,” Bron says evenly. He shakes off Daisy’s help.
“Where the hell were you going?” she asks.
“What?” he says coldly. “You mean it’s not in your mission plan?”
All of a sudden he’s right up in my face—madder than I’ve ever seen anybody. But controlled. Really, tightly controlled.
“She really sucked me in. And you were just stringing me along… like some kind of puppet!”
“You should sit down,” says Daisy. “Take it easy for a minute.”
But he’s not done. I take a step back. I’m worried that he’s going to uncork a punch. But he stays at a low burn, which almost makes it worse.
“You know, I had a life. And it wasn’t a terrible life. And maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to change it. It’s my fault. I can see it now for what it was. At least I knew what was real and what wasn’t. This was all a big mistake.”
He looks straight at me and points. “Starting with you.”
Before I can say anything, he hops in the Jeep. He puts it into gear and takes off—back the way he was heading. Somewhere in the general direction of civilization.
Daisy and I are standing in the middle of the road like idiots. That’s when I lose it.
“DAMN IT!”
I’m shouting at myself, at Daisy, at the whole stinking desert. “I just blew everything. How the hell did this happen? I just threw away my last chance! I blew it!”
Daisy is calm—and in no mood for any of my shit.
“Hey. Shakespeare,” she says, “this is not about you.”
She walks back down the incline to where the Yamaha is lying in the sand. As she pushes it up the slope, I grab the handlebars and tug it the rest of the way onto the shoulder.
Bent fender. Dented exhaust pipe. Cracked headlight lens. It could have been a lot worse.
Daisy swings her leg over the saddle and kick-starts the bike on the first try. She wheels it around and points it back toward the hangar. Bron is long gone.
“Well?” she says. “Don’t just stand there. Climb on.”
I straddle the seat from the back, inching my way forward, trying my best to give Daisy some room up front. But the seat was not exactly built for two. No matter how I maneuver, my crotch is crowding her rear end and my knees are pressing up against her thighs. I try gripping the sides of the seat for support as she takes off, but that lasts for about two seconds. My survival instinct takes over and I lock my hands around her middle, my chin pressed against her back. At this point, we’re melded into one crazy rolling Kama Sutra position.
“Hold tighter,” she yells over the engine noise, “I promise I won’t press charges.”
I clench my hands together and tuck my arms in close, just under her rib cage—the no-man’s-land between her belly button and her breasts.
“Is this thing safe?” I shout into her ear.
“Beats walking!” she shouts back.
Where have I heard that before?
Chapter 38
PRINCIPAL DELGADO is looking out his office window when the angels of doom arrive. The plain gray sedan with government plates pulls into a visitor parking spot behind the school.
This is it.
Two State Department of Education administrators emerge from the car, with expressions as sober as their suits. Eric Baynes is the lead—a DOE lifer. Ellie Cabot, the one carrying the thick binder, is a trainee. She’s here to observe. To learn the procedure. To see exactly what notifications and documents are required to shut down a school for good.
The minute they walk into the building, there’s a disturbance in the hive. By the time Delgado’s office door shuts behind them, secretaries are whispering to teachers and teachers are whispering to other teachers—and kids are picking up the vibrations. The rumors are true. The executioners are here.
A few eighth-grade boys volunteer to let the air out of their tires.
But one kid has a better idea…
Chapter 39
GONZALO PLANTS himself strategically in an alcove near Delgado’s reception area—the area where you sit when you get called to the principal’s office. He checks his pocket to make sure everything is ready. He’s worked on this for a long time, thinking it through, just waiting for the day to come.
Kids pass back and forth—but with a different energy than usual. A lot of glances toward the office and murmurs behind cupped hands. Only the youngest kids are oblivious, zipping along with overloaded backpacks at their usual Road Runner pace.
Gonzalo has a bead on Delgado’s door. When he sees it open, he makes his move. In one glance he sizes up the situation and chooses his target.
“Send those reports along as soon as they’re finalized and we’ll be in touch.”
Baynes is talking to Delgado, who has his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up.
“No problem,” says Delgado, eyes down.
Baynes brushes past Gonzalo, but Ellie Cabot runs right into him. Gonzalo makes sure of it. He connects with her hip, almost causing her to drop her binder. Now she’s even more flustered than before. She looks down as Gonzalo stumbles backward, selling it hard.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry—are you all right?” she says.
Delgado is on his way back into his office. He turns around.
“No problem, Señora,” Gonzalo says, recovering nicely, “but since you’re here…” He reaches into his pocket and whips out a folded piece of paper—hand-lettered and illustrated.
“I’d like to invite you to our school science demonstration,” he says. He thrusts the paper up at her, giving her no choice. She takes it, keeping her other hand tight around the binder.
“Time and coordinates are right there at the bottom.”
Baynes turns around to see what’s going on. What’s this kid doing—trying to sell raffle tickets?
“Cabot—let’s go!” says Baynes.
Ellie reads the invitation as she walks. Gonzalo matches her step for step, looking right up into her face.
“Please,” he says, “you won’t be sorry. It will be spectacular.”
She stops. “Thank you…?” She waits for a name.
“Gonzalo. Gonzalo Martino Alvarez.”
“Thank you, Gonzalo. I… we… will try. We will.” She catches Delgado’s eye. He gives her a thin smile.
Ellie tucks the paper into the side pocket of her suit jacket and hurries out the door to catch up with her supervisor.
In his heart, Gonzalo knows he chose his target well. Just from her expression, he can tell that Ellie Cabot is a woman who really, really hates her job.
Chapter 40
IF YOU asked Tyler Bron to say what he missed the most about home, it wouldn’t be central air-conditioning or fresh fruit or even his boxed set of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
It would be this: He’s standing in a construction hangar the size of two football fields. He owns it.
Like everybody else in sight, he’s wearing a unisex 3M cleanroom suit.
Scattered around the massive space are huge platforms supporting several works in progress. Technic
ians swarm over an assortment of gleaming space-bound devices. A chorus of electronic beeps blends with light metallic tapping and the vvrrip-vvrrip of precision torque wrenches.
Standing in the center of it all, Bron is looking up at a nearly completed six-ton communications satellite. Parts of the device are still shrouded in protective foil or shrink-wrapped in plastic.
Bron’s presence adds a new level of intensity to the hum. A foreman spots him from the platform and waves him up to survey his latest five-hundred-million-dollar baby.
“Come on aboard! She’s just about ready to fly!”
Bron ascends a metal ladder step by step, being careful not to let his white booties slip off the treads.
The satellite is nearly twenty feet long and fifteen across—about half the size of a city bus. Hardened titanium encases miles of delicate wiring and integrated circuitry. Curved surfaces gleam with shiny gold Mylar blanketing. Dark solar panels are folded close to the sides like bat wings.
Bron leans into a hatch on the central module as his foreman waves a Maglite beam around the interior.
“Reaction control?” asks Bron.
“Perfect.”
“What about the RF multiplexer?”
The foreman winces slightly. “The whole repeater needs some tweaks.”
“How long?”
“Forty-eight hours, tops.”
Problems or not, the language feels good to Bron. Cool. Precise. Real.
In fact, for the whole week he’s been back, he’s been wallowing happily in data streams and digital readouts. He wakes to a hundred business emails a day and taps himself to sleep on his laptop.
He tries not to think about her. And mostly, it’s working.
As Bron descends the ladder, he moves past a stout woman on an aluminum scaffold, her eyes focused on a long, curved panel in front of her. Slowly, meticulously, she peels a stencil backing to reveal the final numeral in the satellite’s official designation: BRON-14
She looks over as he passes.
“Good to have you back, Mr. Bron.”