Run Away(79)

He realized now that he was having these imaginary conversations with Ingrid all the time, running what he’d learned by her and seeing the reaction, even holding back the obvious question he wanted to ask her, the one that he and Elena danced around, the one that had been gnawing on him since this whole genealogy angle raised its ugly head.

He threw the backpack over one shoulder. “Sam? You ready?”

They headed down the elevator and grabbed a passing taxi. The driver, like pretty much every taxi driver in New York City, talked quietly into an earpiece in a foreign language Simon could not detect. That was old news, of course, everyone was used to that, but Simon wondered about the ridiculously strong family bonds of such people. As much as he loved Ingrid (and even had imaginary conversations with her), he couldn’t imagine a situation in which he could stay on the phone and talk to her or anyone else for hours on end. Who were these drivers talking to all day? How much must they be loved to have someone (or “someones” plural) who wanted to share that much news with them?

“Mom had a setback,” Simon said to his son, “but she’s better now.”

He explained. Sam bit down on his lip and listened. When they arrived at the hospital, Simon said, “Go up and sit with your mom. I’ll meet you up there in a bit.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to run an errand.”

Sam stared at him.

“What?”

“You let Mom get shot.”

Simon opened his mouth to defend himself, but then he stopped.

“You should have protected her.”

“I know,” Simon said. “I’m sorry.”

Simon moved away from his son then, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. He flashed back to that moment. He saw Luther aiming the gun. He saw himself ducking out of the way so that the bullet hit Ingrid instead of him.

What a chickenshit.

But was that what happened?

Had he really ducked out of the way? He didn’t know. He didn’t think that “memory” was real, but…Stepping back, trying to be objective, he realized that he hadn’t seen any of that, that guilt and time were replacing real memories with ones that would forever wound him.

Could he have done more? Could he have stepped in the way of the bullet?

Maybe.

Part of him recognized that this thought was unfair. It had all happened so fast. There was no time to react. But that didn’t change the reality. He should have done more. He should have pushed Ingrid away. He should have jumped in front of her.

“You should have protected her…”

He headed into Shovlin Pavilion and took the elevator to the eleventh floor. The receptionist led him down the corridor to the lab. A lab technician named Randy Spratt greeted him with a latex-gloved handshake.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t do this through proper channels,” Spratt bristled.

Simon opened up the backpack and handed him the three plastic bags of toothbrushes. He had originally planned on bringing just Paige’s toothbrush, but somewhere along the way he decided that if he was going to travel down this dark, dank road, he might as well travel all the way.

“I need to know if I’m their father.” Simon pointed to the yellow toothbrush that had been Paige’s. “This one is the priority.”

Simon didn’t like doing this, of course. It wasn’t a question of trust, Simon told himself. It was a question of reassurance.

Then again, Simon also realized that was a big fat rationalization.

Didn’t matter.

“You said you could rush the results,” Simon said.

Spratt nodded. “Give me three days.”

“No good.”

“Pardon?”

Simon reached into the backpack and pulled out the wad of cash.

“I don’t understand.”

“This is ten thousand dollars in cash. Get me the results by the end of the day, and I’ll give you ten more.”





Chapter

Twenty-Seven



The Truth was dying.

At least it looked that way to Ash from the foot of his bed.

Casper Vartage’s sons stood on either side of the bed, two devastated sentinels guarding their father in his final days. Sorrow emanated from them. You could feel the grief. Ash didn’t know the brothers’ real names—he wasn’t sure anyone did—nor did he remember or care which one was the Visitor and which the Volunteer.

Dee Dee stood next to Ash, hands clasped, eyes lowered as though in prayer. The two brothers did the same. In the corner, two gray-uniformed women quietly sobbed in unison, almost as if they’d been ordered to provide a soundtrack for the scene.

Only the Truth kept his eyes open and up. He lay in the middle of the bed adorned in some kind of white tunic. His gray beard was long, so too his hair. He looked like a Renaissance depiction of God, like the creation panel in the Sistine Chapel that Ash had first seen in a book in the school library. That image always fascinated him, the idea of God touching Adam, as though hitting the On switch for mankind.

God in that mural had been muscular and strong. The Truth was not. He was decaying almost in real time. But his smile was still radiant, his eyes otherworldly as they met Ash’s. For a moment, maybe longer, Ash understood what was happening in this place. The Truth was tweaking him with just his gaze. The old man’s charisma, even as he lay sick in this bed, was almost supernatural.