Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(36)

“Possibly, yes.”

“Fifteen years I’ve been in AA, I’ve seen folks detox from all kinds of shit. Guys so nuts they’ll meet you for lunch and apologize for the warlock who followed them into the restaurant. None of those folks had it as together as she does right now.”

“Charley,” Kayla says, “we’ve got a more pressing issue to discuss.”

“What in Christ’s name could that be?” Marty asks.

“Your car, Charley. The SUV you were driving when the bikers ran you off the road. If it’s close to this crime scene, then—”

“Maybe he got rid of it,” Charlotte answers.

“How?”

“I don’t know. He blew up their damn storehouse. Maybe he threw my car on the pile. I don’t even know who this guy really is, much less what he’s capable of.”

“You really think this guy was just carrying around the kind of explosives that could trigger a blast like that?”

“Or he used whatever he found on-site. Maybe he found something with all those weapons that he used as an explosive.”

“You think he has that kind of training?” Marty asks.

“He said he was going to take care of eight bikers. Take care of them. On his own. And he said it like it was nothing. And it looks like he did.”

“And the Briffel kid?” Marty asks, a catch in his voice.

They fall silent. She wonders if, like her, they’re both imagining Jason dying of thirst on the floor of her kitchen.

“There’s no way,” Charlotte says.

“No way what?” Kayla asks.

“There’s no way Dylan did that to those bikers and just left Jason there.”

“Maybe he threw Jason on the pile along with your car,” Marty offers.

“That’s a big maybe,” Kayla whispers.

“He said he’d take care of him. No maybe about it.”

Charley could be imagining it, but Kayla’s expression seems to have changed, softened a bit, become less skeptical. She wonders if that’s going to be the key; that with each passing minute she doesn’t change her story, or lose her grip on the details, or do any of the other things that suggest someone suffering from a delusion or advancing a lie, Kayla will come to believe her.

“I want you to see a doctor,” Kayla says. “If you won’t come into the city, I’ll find one in Modesto or Fresno. But you need to—”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I’m not talking about a psychiatrist, Charley. I’m talking about an internist. You were given a strange drug. You need to have blood work done. Get your vitals checked. Everything.”

“I don’t feel sick.”

“You don’t know what you are because you don’t know what’s in these pills! It might not be a good thing that your bruises from the car wreck are healing so fast. There could be something wrong with your blood. Maybe it’s not clotting properly. There’s just too much you don’t know about this drug right now, and the only way to learn is to put yourself at this psycho’s mercy again.”

“What’s some random doctor going to be able to tell me about the effects of a drug that shouldn’t exist? Unless I tell them about the drug. Which would be reckless.”

“So you’re not interested in finding out how this drug really works?” Kayla asks.

“Oh, I am,” she says.

Marty stiffens, studies her closely.

“In the field,” Charlotte says.

“I’m sorry.” Kayla’s voice is a strained whisper. “The field?”

“A test. Look at it this way. You’ll get to find out if I’m delusional or not.”

“And how exactly are you going to conduct this test?”

“Jason was a trigger. That’s how Dylan described him. Zypraxon is a drug that converts fear into strength, but it needs a trigger. A strong one.”

“It converts your fear into strength,” Kayla adds. “If we believe this story that you’re the only one to take it and live.”

“Right. So to do another test, I need another trigger.”

She thinks back to those terrifying moments before the drug took effect. Knowing someone else was in the house wasn’t enough. Otherwise she would’ve torn the toilet paper dispenser off the wall while she was peeing. Knowing someone was approaching her from behind wasn’t enough, either. Otherwise the Diet Coke can she’d been holding as she stood at the sink would’ve exploded in her grip. Was it the stark terror of finding herself face-to-face with Jason? Or was it being attacked?

Maybe it was all of it in combination—a destination she can reach after mounting a staircase of increasing fear. There’s only one way to find out for sure.

Marty clears his throat. “Why don’t I just try to run over you with my car and see if you end up tearing the grill off with one hand?”

“I’m open. But the first time the bikers surrounded me during the drive home, it wasn’t enough to trigger me. It was Jason breaking into my house and attacking me when I tried to run that did it. So I’m thinking we’ll need to find something . . . similarly terrifying.”

“Are you in favor of this, Marty?”

“Guess that depends on what kind of trigger we’re talking about.”