If I have to feel this way, I have to focus it on something other than the box and stay focused until the effect of the chocolates wears off. What?
But with her mind clear, the answer is also clear. She bounces to her desk and powers up her iPad. The emails she sends from her senatorial account are encrypted, and that’s a good thing. She writes to Norris Ridgewick.
Norris: You said that on your trip to Derry you met with “the local constabulary.” The detective in charge of investigating Ryan’s death was Ward Mitchell. Did you meet him? And if you did, did you trust him?
She sends the email to the down-below and walks back and forth through her suite (which doesn’t take long), pulling restlessly at her ponytail. She can’t seem to sit still, not in her current state. She reaches out for Gareth Winston, like she did for the Chinese in their spoke, and finds him. He is on his computer. Writing an email. She can’t see it but she knows that’s what it is. There’s a word in his mind that she gets clear, although she doesn’t know what it means. The word is sombra.
Norris may not reply for an hour or more, she thinks, and Mom used to say a watched pot never boils.
She decides to walk (maybe even run) the outer rim—anything to burn off this wild and dangerous energy. She puts on shorts and a tee-shirt with CASTLE ROCK OLD HOME DAYS on the front, and is just lacing up her sneakers when her laptop chimes with incoming mail. She leaps across the room like Supergirl and settles in front of the screen. The message is brief, to the point, and totally Yankee.
Hey Gwendy,
Met Mitchell, talked to him, wouldn’t trust him as far as I could sling a piano. He couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Want me to take a trip to Derry and go at him a little harder? Happy to do it. By the way—any idea what got your Ryan haring off to Derry in the first place?
Norris
She wishes she could answer that question, but she can’t. Her best guess is that someone told Ryan they had dirt on Magowan, or dirt on her. Either might have gotten him to take a ride north. Did it make any difference? Of course not. No matter what the pretext, Ryan remains dead.
As for sending Norris up to Derry … no. Norris isn’t the man for that job. She believes the flash she had when she took Gareth’s hand was a true insight. She believes that she saw Gareth in one of the two old cars that were in Derry on the day Ryan died. She believes Ryan may have been killed in an effort to derail her Senatorial campaign. And she believes that her house was burned after certain men—perhaps driving perfectly maintained old cars—searched it for the button box, came up empty, and reached the logical conclusion: she has it with her in space. Sending Norris to Derry might only succeed in getting him killed.
Without the special chocolates lighting up her brain, she would have doubted this scenario. No, she thinks, I wouldn’t have been able to think of it in the first place, I would have been too addled. With that brain-booster onboard, however, she doesn’t doubt it. Not one tiny bit. She wonders if Gareth started agitating for a tourist run into space after she didn’t drop out of the race against Magowan. No, probably not until after she was elected and got on the Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee.
“Someone was really thinking ahead,” Gwendy mutters to herself. Her hands are clenching and unclenching. Each clench is hard enough to make her short nails dig into the soft meat of her palms. “Someone was really planning ahead.” Then, for no reason at all, she says, “Sombra sombra sombra.” She’ll hunt for it on the Net, but she has something else to do first, far more important.
She sits down and sends an email to Deputy CIA Director Charlotte Morgan.
Charlotte—I have reason to believe that my husband may have been murdered in an effort to get me to drop out of the Senate race in 2020. I also think it has to do with the item I am carrying. I suspect that Gareth Winston knows about the item, and he may have the code that opens the safety box containing the item. How that happened is a long story for another time. What I want from you is what’s known as a “black bag job,” and it has to happen immediately. The detective in the Derry PD who supposedly investigated Ryan’s death is named Ward Mitchell. I think he knows more than he’s telling. My friend Norris Ridgewick (ex-police, sharp as a knifeblade) concurs. I want you to send a team to collar Detective Mitchell, sequester him, and persuade him to talk by any means necessary. I believe someone is trying to stop me before I can dispose of the item under my care, and perhaps (likely!) take possession of it. I believe that someone is Gareth Winston, and if he has the code to the safe box, the only thing standing in his way is an electronic Mesa wall safe. It’s the kind hotels use, and a third-rate burglar could crack it. You know what the stakes are—remember the Pyramid? I understand that my chief suspect is a fabulously wealthy man, but he may not be in charge. Whoever is, they’re thinking years ahead, and that scares me. Don’t even consider that this is paranoia. It’s not. Grab Ward Mitchell and shake him til he rattles. Let me hear back from you immediately, Charlotte.
Gwendy
She pauses, then adds a P.S.: Does the word “sombra” mean anything to you?
Gwendy could check that for herself, but now that her two important emails have been sent, she finds herself looking at the closet again, and thinking about the button box. She wonders if she could concentrate on Gareth Winston having a heart attack and make it happen by pressing the red button. You wonder, Gwendolyn? Is that all? She voices a humorless bark of laughter. There’s no wondering about it, she knows she could. Only there might be collateral damage. What if the station’s electrical system shorted out? Or a high-pressure oxy line went blooey?
She comes out of these thoughts to realize she’s no longer at her desk. No, she’s at the closet. She’s opened it, she’s pushed aside the spare suit, and she’s reaching for the safe’s keypad. In fact she’s already pushed the first number of its simplistic four-digit combination. Gwendy puts one hand over her mouth. With the other she pushes the CANCEL button and closes the closet door.
She decides she’ll go for that run after all.
30
GWENDY BLOWS BY A couple of sweatpant-wearing, AirPod-equipped Chinese women halfway around the rim. They give her a startled look but return her wave. Kathy Lundgren hadn’t been exaggerating earlier when she’d boasted about running a two-minute mile. Not by much, anyway. Gwendy hasn’t gone for an actual run in over a decade, but it feels as if she’s nearly flying. When she gets back to her suite in Spoke 3 her shirt is damp with sweat and she’s breathing hard, but she feels more like her old self. She still feels the siren call of the button box when she passes the closet door, but it’s not the imperative it was before. More like simple longing. An ache. Sort of like the one she feels for Ryan. It’s awful to think of the button box and her dead husband in the same category, but that seems to be the case. Gwendy’s glad to feel better again but knows it will come at a cost; she’s already starting to lose her crystal clarity of thought. Soon the fog will descend again, and maybe thicker than ever.
The message light is flashing on her laptop. She enters the password that will transform the gibberish of letters and symbols into words (delighted she doesn’t have to use the little red notebook to refresh her memory). The message is from Charlotte, and it’s entirely satisfying.