Flash Point

  Now Amy waited on a puke-yellow plastic chair—why were hospital chairs always such awful colors?—and thought about Rafe, about Violet, about Myra. About Gran, who had died looking joyous and with her beloved daughter’s name on her lips. Gran had really liked Rafe, and—

  A doctor came out of Rafe’s room, older than the rest of the medical staff, with kind eyes. “Ms. Kent? You can go in now for a few minutes.”

  Amy’s weariness vanished. She dashed into the room. Rafe, propped on pillows, smiled at her. Emotion almost swamped Amy, so much emotion that she couldn’t speak.

  “Hey, Amy, Kaylie,” Rafe said.

  Kaylie said, “You’re you again.”

  “Yeah. Being Julius Caesar was getting wearing.”

  “But they let you keep the toga.”

  Rafe laughed. His eyes were clear, although the skin beneath them sagged with exhaustion. Amy still couldn’t speak. He said, “Amy?”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  Kaylie said elaborately, “Excuse me, but I need to use the ladies’ room.” She left on exaggerated tiptoe.

  Amy finally choked out, “You’re completely OK?”

  “Yep. Brain working and everything.”

  “Rafe—” Then she was by his bedside, stooping to kiss him.

  He yanked his head to the side to avoid her kiss.

  Hurt, Amy straightened. Of course he didn’t want her to kiss him, not after the things she’d said, not after he knew she’d preferred Cai—Cai! How stupid had that been, she hadn’t known what Rafe was like, what Cai was like, what she herself was like, stupid to think Rafe would still—

  “Amy, my saliva,” Rafe said. “I can’t kiss you yet, but oh God I wish I could, Amy—”

  She knelt by his bed and put her arms around him and hoped Kaylie would not come back for a long time. Into Amy’s mind leapt a phantom: a gold coin, solid gold, like pirates used to bury, covered with seaweed and dirt but still shining on the palm of a bruised and sunburned hand.

  * * *

  When the night shift did eventually throw Amy and Kaylie out of the hospital, Kaylie decided to go peacefully. Rafe was all right. Besides, TLN had sent a limo for them, and Kaylie loved limos. It was Amy who made a fuss, refusing to go back to the Carillon Hotel. So some poor TLN flunky was awakened in the middle of the night to book them into a different hotel a block from the hospital.

  The next morning she slept until nine. Leaving Kaylie asleep, Amy went to the row of shops that were part of the hotel and bought a sexy sundress, sweater, underwear, and makeup. Then—the hell with it, let TLN pay—she added a lot more clothes and a rolling suitcase, charging everything to her room. She showered, dressed, and walked to the hospital, pulling along her new wardrobe in her new suitcase. The day turned warm, sweet with the scent of fresh-cut grass, and she took off the sweater.

  “Wow,” Rafe said, sitting up in his hospital bed with a lunch tray in front of him. “You look terrific.”

  “Can I kiss you yet?”

  “No. But you can—Mark!”

  Amy turned. Mark Meyer stood in the doorway, dressed in his iconic leather jacket, despite the heat. He came close to the hospital bed and studied Rafe. “You OK?”

  “I’m fine. Just your normal bout of mutating, brain-attacking, personality-altering virus.”

  Mark said somberly, “I didn’t know about the infected mammals.”

  Amy heard his faint emphasis on his first word. “Mark—are you saying that somebody did know?”

  “Stop.” Mark took a device from his jacket pocket, pressed a button, and began to move it around the room. Amy, fascinated, watched in silence. Finally Mark said, “No bugs. Talk.”

  Amy said, “Did Myra deliberately bring an infected squirrel to the island, to the tree with the cameras where Violet was told to go, so that the show would get footage of someone—”

  “I can’t prove anything.”

  “But do you think—”

  “Look, if you can’t prove anything, it’s like it never happened. In law, anyway. Do you understand, Amy? You fling accusations around Myra without any proof and it’s you that will go down. She has an entire legal team behind her. She also has a TV station. But the squirrel isn’t why I came here. I have something else for you.”

  Mark pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then he fished something from another pocket—maybe all those pockets were the reason for the leather jacket. This item at least Amy recognized: a tiny tape player. Mark set it on Rafe’s bed, turned it on, and adjusted the sound so that both Rafe and Amy had to lean close to hear.

  “Violet!” Myra’s voice said. “Call Amy now. Ask where she is. She’ll say in a stairwell. If she asks about Room 654 being safe, tell her that it’s not anymore. Tell her the militants took the room and there was a firefight that killed someone and nobody is there now.”

  Violet’s voice: “Did protesters take the room?”

  “Just do it!”

  “No. Not if you’re just sending Amy into more danger for your fucking show!”

  “I’m not, I promise you. She has a clear, safe passage out. Just do as you’re told or else it’s you who will be in danger and you know what I mean!” Click.

  Amy couldn’t speak.

  Finally Rafe said, “Play it again.”

  Mark did. In Amy’s mind rose clear images, like a movie, of the night of the hotel fire. She and Waverly in the stairwell, carrying Gran on the room-service cart. Amy’s call to 911, who told her about the “safer” room on the sixth floor. Then Violet’s call, full of concern for her, telling her to not go to Room 654. Where in actuality it was safe. Where she and Waverly and Rafe could have holed up with off-duty cops until the SWAT team took the building back. That was what Violet had prevented. Violet, her friend.

  Rafe watched her closely. He said nothing.

  Amy said to Mark, “How did you get this?”

  He waved his hand, as if even asking the question was dumb. “It’s an illegal recording, of course. I monitor Myra’s cell. I don’t trust her.”

  Rafe said, “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to give it to you.” He pulled off his latex gloves. “But if you tell anyone where you got it, I’ll deny it. My fingerprints are not on it. It’s not traceable to me.”

  Rafe said levelly, “And you’re willing to work for this person?”

  For the first time, emotion appeared on Mark’s face, gone in a moment. “I like my job. Most of the time, anyway. I want Myra gone, but I’m not deluding myself that you kids can accomplish that. This recording is illegal, you’d never get it admitted in any court. You could take it to James Taunton, but he backs Myra as long as he can stay in official ignorance of how she gets her ratings. No, that’s not fair—he is in ignorance, but only because he chooses not to ask questions. I work on other shows for TLN, better shows, and I want to go on doing that. The work suits me. I’m giving you this tape so you will quit.”

  Amy said hotly, “But she’ll just put others in the same danger!”

  Mark shrugged. “I can’t control the world. But I like you two. You’re both honest and smart, although not smart enough to take on Myra Townsend. You don’t have the resources or the experience or the ruthlessness. I just wanted to show you why you should get out of TLN while you can.”

  Mark strode out of the room, leaving the miniature tape recorder on Rafe’s bed tray beside the orange juice. Amy looked at it as if it were a bomb.

  “Amy—” Rafe said.

  “I need to see Violet. Now. Do you have a cell?”

  “No. They took everything electronic off the island, remember?”

  “OK, wait here. I’ll be right back.” Amy stood, looked down at Rafe, hesitated, and then bent and swiftly kissed the top of his head. Before he could react, she was out of the room and on her way to the nurses’ station. “May I make a phone call, please?”

  “Pay phone in the lobby,” said a cold-eyed nurse behind the desk. Probably she had heard about K
aylie’s threats of the night before. No help here.

  In the lobby she stopped three people before an elderly woman would consent to listen to her. The woman wore a fur cape despite the heat. She was accompanied by a man in uniform, who held one arm as she made her way slowly toward the front door. Her spine curved painfully forward.

  Amy said, “Please, ma’am, could I have fifty cents to make a phone call? I lost my purse and I’m just desperate!” She tried to sound young and near tears.

  The uniformed man said, “No soliciting in the hospital, miss. Move along!”

  “Wait,” the old woman said. She fumbled for her purse.

  It took a long time for her to find her change purse inside her purse, to bring out a few quarters, to hand them to Amy. Amy gushed her thanks, ignored the man’s hard scowl, and sprinted for the pay phone, praying it would work. No one used pay phones anymore.

  It did work. There was even a phone book.

  “Good morning, Carillon Hotel. How may I direct your call?”

  “I’d like to be connected to the room of a guest, please. Violet Sanderson. No, wait—”

  Myra had had them all register under fake names, to discourage the hate-mail crowd. What had Violet used? What? Amy couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember any of their aliases except her own and, bizarrely, Tommy’s. “I mean, please connect me to Insect Man’s room.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  The phone rang. Please let Tommy be there—

  “Hello?”

  “Tommy, it’s Amy.”

  “Hi, Amy.” And then, “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, Tommy, I’m not mad at you. But can I talk to Violet? It’s really important. Please go to her room and knock on the door and tell her to come to your room to talk to me on the phone. OK?”

  “OK. I’m glad you’re not mad at me. Cai said you are because him and me left the island without you. He said that Kaylie—”

  “I’m not mad at you! Just get Violet, OK?”

  “OK.”

  A long wait. Amy stared at the people crossing the lobby without really seeing any of them. What if Violet refused to come to the phone?

  She didn’t refuse. “Amy?”

  “The hospital cafeteria. In half an hour. Be there.” Amy hung up, unwilling to say more. Violet’s phone could be tapped.

  Was she being paranoid? No, she hadn’t been paranoid enough. But it had become so hard to tell what was real and what was not. That’s what the show had done to her, to all of them.

  Time to even the score.

  Thirty-seven

  WEDNESDAY

  IN THE NOISY cafeteria, Amy sat at a table in the corner and waited. She was hungry but had no money to buy food. She should have snagged something off Rafe’s tray.

  Violet appeared in twenty-two minutes. She looked terrible: haggard, with uncombed hair. She must have jumped straight into a cab on Portman Island. “Is Rafe—”

  “Like Rafe was ever your first concern.” But then Amy relented. “He’s fine. They’ll probably release him today. Violet, why did you do it?”

  “I told you on the island, I had no idea about the infected squirrel, I thought there would just be a bit of melodramatic acting and—”

  “Not on the island. The phone call during the hotel fire, telling me that everybody in Room 654 was dead and there was no safe place to go. When there was.”

  Violet went very still. A busboy clattered past with a cartful of dirty, rattling dishes. “How do you know about that?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I know. Why did you do it? Waverly and I could have been killed. People were shot during that hotel riot, and there was fire on the upper floors.”

  “I didn’t know how bad it was for you! I didn’t know until after it was all over, and Myra told me in that phone call that you had an easy, safe passage out!”

  That much was true. Amy studied Violet, trying to see beneath the surface. How could you ever be sure what anybody’s motives really were?

  She said quietly, “What hold does Myra have over you?”

  Violet didn’t even hesitate. She spoke like someone glad to unburden herself. “She has evidence that I was betting on the show. Through a friend of a friend. I already knew who behaved how, of course, from talking to all of you. That’s what the FBI was sniffing around after. It violates interstate commerce laws.”

  Amy blinked. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t that. “Did you win?”

  “One point three million dollars. I was going to start my own dance studio.”

  “‘Was’?”

  “Myra traced us. I thought I was being really careful but I guess not careful enough. She has recordings, film. She took back all the money and said if I do what she asks on the show, she won’t give any evidence to the FBI.”

  “Why does the FBI care about a stupid TV show?”

  “I told you, it violates some sort of interstate law.”

  Amy considered. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t believe Myra. I think she found out about your cheating and made up the FBI stuff to get you to cooperate. God, Violet, the whole country is falling apart! Do you think the FBI has time to worry about TV betting?”

  “But Waverly said some agents with ID came to ask her—”

  “She told me that too. But I’ll bet that Myra hired a few actors to pose as agents, to make her whole scam on you look more legitimate.”

  Violet leaned back in her cafeteria chair. A group of doctors in scrubs went past, carrying coffee and talking in low tones. Finally Violet said, “You’ve changed, One Two Three.”

  “And you never were what I thought you were. Come upstairs. You’re going to tell Rafe all this.”

  Violet looked unhappy, but she agreed. Kaylie had arrived and was sitting with Rafe. Amy surveyed her sister’s outfit: upscale and pulled together. Good. Amy said, “Kaylie, I need you to say absolutely nothing while Violet talks. I mean it, it’s really important, and I have something important for you to do afterward. Nothing at all, OK?”

  Kaylie glared at Violet but nodded sullenly, perhaps lured by the “something important to do.” Violet told Rafe her story. Kaylie, miraculously, didn’t interrupt. When Violet finished, Rafe took a sip of water and said to Amy as if Violet weren’t there, “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to do it. Myra will be here soon, I think.”

  Kaylie said, startled, “Myra?”

  “If Tommy’s hotel phone is bugged, which I suspect it is. Kaylie, I need you to do something really fast. Fenton Street is four blocks west of here. Beside the Tuileries Café is Nang’s Electronics, a high-end electronics store. Go down there and steal a microcam, anything with both visual and audio. Steal it quick. And don’t get caught.”

  Kaylie, Rafe, and Violet all stared at Amy. Then Kaylie said, “What have you done with my real sister?”

  Violet choked out, “I have some money and a credit card—”

  “No. This has to be untraced. Kaylie, go! We don’t have much time!”

  Kaylie sprinted from the room just as a nurse entered it to give Rafe a sponge bath. He argued, but lost. Violet and Amy were banished to a waiting room, where a boisterous family joked and laughed about finally taking home a patient named Horatio. Or maybe Horatio was their dog; it wasn’t clear. Beneath the din, Violet said quietly, “Are you going to throw me under the bus, Amy?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “I don’t see how you can confront Myra without implicating me. I wasn’t supposed to tell you anything, ever. Not that I don’t deserve being made a scapegoat.”

  “Too bad you don’t play chess, Violet.”

  “Chess? What the fuck does chess have to do with anything?”

  “By the third move the board can have 71,852 different configurations. There is always a huge choice of moves to make next.”

  Kaylie returned, carrying nothing. Disappointment lanced through Amy. But th
en Kaylie pulled something from her bra: an impossibly small something, round and metallic, connected by a thin wire to something only slightly larger.

  Violet, despite everything, smiled. “Now, I could never do that. Not wearing a thirty-four A.”

  “It’s video and sound,” Kaylie whispered, although she could have shouted and her words would still have been lost in the din about Horatio. “You just—”

  “Myra!” Amy said.

  “Hello,” Myra Townsend said. “It’s lovely to see so much support for Rafe. How is he?”

  She stood behind Kaylie, who kept her back to her. Over her shoulder Kaylie said, “I don’t want to talk to you!” and flounced into the ladies’ room. Amy saw why it had taken Myra this much time to arrive; she was impeccably dressed and groomed. Slim silk trousers, cream summer-weight jacket, makeup fresh and dewy under her blonde bob. The queen gliding regally across the chess board.

  Amy said cordially, “Rafe is fine. A nurse is with him, but we can go back into his room in just a minute.” What did Myra think that Amy knew?

  Everyone stood in awkward silence until the nurse came out of Rafe’s room. Violet rose and led the way back in. Amy and Myra followed, and then Kaylie from the ladies’. Myra began to gush over Rafe, who said nothing.

  “You’re looking so well! Rafe, it’s remarkable the way you—all of you—can take a situation gone horribly wrong and turn it into acts of bravery and heroism. It’s so inspirational for our viewers! I’ve authorized a bonus for all of you four, of course, twice as large as your previous one. And you, too, Kaylie, our newest heroine.”

  Kaylie lounged against the far wall. On the front of her shirt was a curious pin: a knot of silver chains, ends dangling at different lengths, like something Waverly might wear. In the middle of the chains, practically unnoticeable, was a small glass circle. Kaylie gave a tiny nod to Amy.

  They were live.

  Amy interrupted Myra. “We have something to say to you. We know you deliberately brought an infected squirrel, and maybe other animals as well, to the island to make the show scenario more dangerous and exciting.”

  Myra looked shocked. “Amy! That’s ridiculous! We would never put you participants at risk! Why that’s just—Amy!”