The Immortalists(75)

After his last blowup with Raj, years ago, Daniel found solace in work. But he can do that no longer: this time, when he thinks of the office, he feels strangled. He will only be able to keep his job if he relinquishes his power, which lies in his ability to make decisions. And if he does that – if he chooses job over integrity, security over free will – he’ll be just as much a pawn as Raj claimed.

His cell phone rings from the bedroom. Daniel walks upstairs. When he sees the number on the screen, he yanks the phone so abruptly that the charger comes out of the socket.

‘Eddie?’ he asks.

‘Daniel. I’m calling with an update on the case. You wanted me to keep you appraised.’

‘Yes?’

Eddie’s voice is heavy, strained. ‘We’ve cleared her of charges.’

Daniel drops down onto the bed. He presses the phone to his ear, the cord trailing like a tail. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Look, it’s’ – Eddie exhales – ‘it’s a very gray area. How can you prove she killed these people when she never touched them, never even urged them, not in so many words? I’ve spent the past six months trying to pin this woman down. When I came to you, we’d almost closed the case. But I thought there might be one thing I was missing: some shred of evidence only you knew. And you did what you could. You were honest. It just wasn’t enough.’

‘What’s enough? Five more suicides? Twenty?’ Daniel’s voice splits on the last syllable, something that hasn’t happened since boyhood. ‘I thought you said she isn’t registered. Can’t you get her that way?’

‘Yeah, she’s not registered. But she’s barely making any money. The bureau thinks it’s a waste of time. Besides, she’s an old lady. She won’t be around much longer.’

‘What does that matter? You look at people who have done horrible things, despicable things, it doesn’t matter how late you get justice. The point is you get justice.’

‘Easy, Daniel,’ Eddie says, and Daniel’s ears become hot. ‘I wanted this as badly as you. But you have to let it go.’

‘Eddie,’ says Daniel. ‘Today is my day.’

‘Your day?’

‘The date she gave me. The date she said I would die.’

This is Daniel’s last card. He never thought he would share it with Eddie, but he is desperate to make the agent reconsider.

‘Oh, Daniel.’ Eddie sighs. ‘Don’t go there. You’ll only torture yourself, and for what?’

Daniel is silent. Outside the window, he sees a delicate, crystalline flurry. The snowflakes are so weightless he can’t tell whether they’re drifting toward the sky or the ground.

‘Take care of yourself, okay?’ Eddie presses. ‘The best thing you can do today is take care of yourself.’

‘You’re right,’ says Daniel, wooden. ‘I understand. And I appreciate everything you’ve done.’

When they hang up, Daniel hurls the phone at the wall. It breaks into two pieces with a dull crack. He leaves them on the floor and walks downstairs to the study. Mira has already stripped Ruby’s bed, put the linens in the laundry machine, and turned the futon back into a couch. She even vacuumed the floor – a thoughtful gesture, but one that makes it feel even more like Ruby was never here.

Daniel sits down at his desk and pulls up the FBI’s Most Wanted. Bruna Costello has been removed from the Seeking Information page. When he plugs her name into the Search bar, a short line of text appears: Your search did not match any documents.

Daniel leans back in the desk chair and spins, bringing his hands to his face. He returns to the same memory he has many times before – the last time he spoke to Simon. Simon called from the hospital, though Daniel didn’t know that at the time. ‘I’m sick,’ he said. Daniel was stunned; it took a moment for him to identify Simon’s voice, which was both more mature and more fragile than it had ever been before. Though he didn’t let on, Daniel felt as much relief as he did resentment. In Simon’s voice, he heard the siren song of family – how it pulls you despite all sense; how it forces you to discard your convictions, your righteous selfhood, in favor of profound dependence.

If Simon had made the slightest apology, Daniel would have forgiven him. But Simon didn’t. He did not, in fact, say very much at all. He asked how Daniel was doing, as though this were a casual phone call between brothers who had not been estranged for years. Daniel didn’t know whether something was truly wrong or whether Simon was simply being Simon: self-centered, evasive. Perhaps he decided to call Daniel as thoughtlessly as he’d decided to go to San Francisco.

‘Simon?’ Daniel asked. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

But he knew that his voice was cold, and Simon soon hung up.

Is there anything I can do?

He can’t save Simon and Klara. They belong to the past. But perhaps he can change the future. The irony is impeccable: on the very day that Bruna Costello prophesied his death, he can find her and force her to confess how she took advantage of them. And then he’ll make sure she never does it again.

Daniel stops spinning. He removes his hands from his face, blinking in the study’s artificial light. Then he hunches over the keyboard and tries to remember phrases from the FBI posting. There was a photo of a cream and brown trailer, a string of aliases. And the name of a village in Ohio – something Milton – he read Paradise Lost in college and was struck by the word when he read it. East Milton? No: West Milton. He Googles the phrase. Links to an elementary school and a library appear, as well as a map, West Milton outlined in red and shaped like Italy without the heel. He clicks on Images and sees a quaint downtown, storefronts hung with the American flag. One picture shows a small waterfall beside a set of stairs. When Daniel clicks on it, he’s routed to a message board.