Even after it was empty he couldn’t let it go. He sat on the couch for a long time, turning the empty thing in one hand while he typed nonsense words and strings of numbers and every Bowie lyric he could think of.
The wind picked up, setting the back door to knock against the frame like a cranky child. Finally he set aside the laptop and walked to the kitchen. He started to close the door but instead opened it wider. The cold breeze felt good against his face. It was 6:00 a.m., still an hour before dawn, but the blanket of clouds had begun to thin. The huge tree, still bulky with leaves, held back a charcoal gray sky.
He sensed someone behind him and turned. She leaned in the kitchen doorway, her arms folded across her chest. She was dressed for warmer weather: a white wife-beater T-shirt, khaki shorts, bare feet. Her skin shone, a glaze of dark raspberry.
“Hey, Jo,” he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked into the living room. She looked at the laptop.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been trying to violate your privacy. Haven’t had much luck, though.”
She tilted her head and smiled.
He said, “So what’s the password, Jo?”
And then he knew. As surely as if she’d spoken it aloud.
He sat down and put the computer on his knees. He was such an idiot. There was only one possible password. And if it didn’t open the laptop he’d chuck the thing out the window.
He typed three letters-SOS-and tapped return.
The password dialog box blinked away, and a screen full of icons replaced it.
“Switchcreek Orphan Society,” he said. Jo pursed her lips, silently laughing.
He opened a folder on the hard drive just to see if he could. “You care to tell me where you left your suicide note?”
She shook her head. He didn’t know whether that meant she hadn’t left one or didn’t want him to read it.
“I can look at this later,” he said. “Right now I want to-”
He noticed a folder on the desktop named “RM” and forgot what he was going to say. He clicked on it and saw a long list of word processor documents, spreadsheets, scanned images, as well as a dozen subfolders. The names “Rhonda” and “Mapes” and “RM” were on most of them. He clicked on a folder at random-Tema2007-then opened an image named MedFund2007Page01.tiff. It was a scan of a complicated form from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency-some kind of payment for medical services. Dr. Fraelich’s name was near the top, and he wasn’t surprised to see Rhonda’s name right after it. The dollar amount was for over a million dollars-$1,100,022.00 to be exact. And there were a dozen more forms just in this one folder.
If he was going to understand what the form meant he’d have to go through all these documents, look for any notes from Jo herself. But he was pretty sure it wouldn’t paint Rhonda in a positive light.
He shook his head, amazed. “How much did you have on her, Jo?” He looked up and she was walking away from him, toward the back door. He set aside the laptop and hurried after her.
She walked out into the backyard. Her hand trailed across the trunk of the huge oak, but she didn’t glance up. He almost caught up to her as she entered the trees at the edge of the yard.
The faint light from the sky vanished. She was only a few feet ahead of him, but he could barely see her pale T-shirt against her dark shoulders. They went uphill, Jo moving quickly and noiselessly, Pax stumbling over roots and rocks, cursing, jogging to catch up with his hands held out in front of him to warn him of tree trunks.
After ten, fifteen minutes they stepped out into a clearing like a basin of moonlight.
Jo turned to look at him. Her eyes gleamed. Her shirt seemed to glow.
He looked around. The path continued on the other side of the clearing, heading back down into the valley, toward the Whitmer farm and the Co-op.
At the high edge of the clearing was a makeshift bench made from three logs. Jo sat down and held out a hand. He sat next to her and she warmed his hand in hers. They stared out at the silvery grass, the dark woods. He knew she was a figment of his imagination, a chemical dream like all the other vintage-prompted hallucinations. He didn’t care.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She said nothing. That was all right. The heat of her skin against his was enough.
Above them the gray sky took on indigo hues. Color seeped into the air, painted the grass with faint greens and yellows, rusted the leaves at the edge of the clearing.
Jo looked at him, then looked back at the bushes behind her. He followed her gaze but didn’t see anything. He stood, stared up the slope into the trees. They were still a half hour’s hike from the top of Mount Clyburn.
“I don’t know what you want me to see,” he said to her. He moved behind the bench, still peering into the woods, and his foot came down on something round and hard.
He reached down into the long grass and picked up a metal flashlight streaked with mud. Jo’s flashlight, he decided. He clicked the button, and the light snapped on. After months in the woods, the batteries were still good.
She looked up at him over her shoulder, her gaze steady. She’d come here that night, he realized. She’d left the house after the girls were in bed, then made her way up to this place, following the flashlight. She’d sat on this bench, waiting.
And this is where she died.
He clicked off the light and came around to the front of the bench and kneeled in front of her, instantly wetting his knees.
“Who was here, Jo? Who did you meet? Was it the reverend?”
She gazed down at him with oil-black eyes. Then she smiled-a very un-beta smile that summoned the girl she’d been-and then rapped her knuckles against his forehead: tock, tock. Figure it out, knucklehead.
He stood up, looked back the way they’d come, then at the path that led down to the farm, the Co-op. This clearing was the halfway point. He started down the slope, then realized that Jo wasn’t following.
He looked back. She sat on the bench, her eyes on him. She was going no farther.
He lifted a hand. He knew that she wasn’t really there, but he was nevertheless reluctant to leave her behind. Yet again.
She nodded toward the woods behind him. Finally he turned and started down.
Chapter 21
“MAYOR?” ESTHER SAID. “A couple of them stormtroopers to see you.” The charlie woman looked nervous. Until a few days ago she’d been just the elementary school’s cook, and then Rhonda had promoted her to administrative assistant to the mayor. Mostly that meant answering the phones.
“Just a second, Esther,” Rhonda said. She loaded another ream of paper into the photocopier and slammed the door. Full circle, she thought. Here it was the crack o’ dawn and she was working the copy machine like she’d never stopped being church secretary. Harlan never used to write his sermons until the last minute-couldn’t even tell her the scripture he’d be using until Saturday night-so she used to have to come in early on Sundays to type up the programs and run them off.
Rhonda had commandeered the elementary school for her quarantine headquarters because it had the most phones, computers, and photocopiers-and because nobody was using it. School had been canceled because almost all the teachers lived outside of Switchcreek. She’d have to do something about that, eventually. Idle children equaled insane parents.
Rhonda picked up one of the finished copies and turned to Doctor Fraelich, who was tapping at a computer. “You’re sure Dr. Preisswerk got this to the newspaper?” Rhonda asked.
“Eric met with them yesterday-it’s definitely going out this morning.” The doctor looked haggard from lack of sleep. Well, join the club, Rhonda thought.
“Let ’em in,” Rhonda said to Esther. The woman moved aside and two National Guard soldiers in breathing masks stepped into the room. Rhonda thought she recognized the lead one as an assistant to Colonel Duveen, but she wasn’t sure.