"Without a professional makeup kit, that's the best way to imitate scabs and drying blood."
They joined headlights moving south on Highway 1. Despite his impatience, Cavanaugh stayed exactly at the speed limit. The dashboard clock showed 10:40. Needing to be at the rendezvous site as quickly as possible, they'd already lost twenty minutes.
Prescott finished stirring the mixture and reached into his jacket, pulling out a gray metal tube. Cavanaugh tensed. "Is that…"
"The hormone?" Prescott nodded. "You were right. I didn't use it on you at the beach because the breeze would have blown it away from you. If I twist the cap, there's a safety delay of twenty seconds. Then the pressurized contents are released." "You plan to use it at the rendezvous?"
"Position us so the wind's at our backs."
"Suppose that's not possible. If I get a whiff of that stuff, I won't be able to help you. Or what if Grace and her partner react the way the Rangers did in Florida? Instead of running, they might fire in panic. Jamie might get shot."
Prescott didn't respond.
"No," Cavanaugh said.
"But-"
"Put it on the seat."
Prescott stared at him.
"Do it," Cavanaugh said. "Leave it there."
Prescott put the tube on the seat.
"Because of that stuff, for the first time I understand what fear is," Cavanaugh said. "Is there a neutralizer?" He hoped the question seemed casual.
"Of course. Otherwise, even with the safety delay, the weapon might affect whoever triggers it."
"The antidote doesn't take away fear?"
"Only the fear the hormone causes."
"I want you to give it to me," Cavanaugh said.
"I can't."
"Why?"
"I don't have the antidote with me," Prescott said. "But even if I could give it to you, it wouldn't make a difference right now."
"What are you talking about?"
"You'd still be afraid for your wife. Once you love somebody, you start fearing something might happen to that person. Fortunately, that's one fear I've managed to avoid. Now you'll get to find out."
"Find out?"
"What it takes to be brave."
2
They passed Carmel, moving farther south, the headlights of traffic dwindling until there were only occasional vehicles as they reached the mostly unpopulated area around Point Lobos.
Soon, through the shadows of trees, Cavanaugh saw the lights of isolated houses. "What's this place?"
"Carmel Highlands. It's a small community of houses on a bluff above the ocean."
Cavanaugh saw a road on the right leading into it. Headlights piercing the shadows, he steered onto the road and parked among the trees.
He shut off the headlights. "I couldn't do this earlier because there was too much traffic. A policeman might have seen your face and stopped us."
Cavanaugh took the plastic spoon, dug it into the mixture in the bowl, and smeared the red-tinted corn syrup across the left side of Prescott's mouth, onto his left cheek and temple, and like a gash across his shaved skull. Exposed to the air, the mixture had started to coagulate, making Prescott look as if blood had thickened on his face.
When Cavanaugh switched the headlights back on, the glow from the dashboard allowed him to study the effect. "It looks like you belong in the emergency ward."
"But I can smell the corn syrup."
"By the time you're close enough to Grace for her to smell it, she'll be dead."
"I have to be sure."
"What do you mean?"
"Do it for real."
"I don't know what you're-"
"Cut me," Prescott said.
"What?"
"My scalp. Scalp wounds are terrific bleeders. The coppery smell will disguise the corn syrup."
"Jesus," Cavanaugh said.
"Do it." Prescott flinched as Cavanaugh raised the Emerson knife.
Cavanaugh could only imagine the control Prescott needed in order to remain still while he cut a two-inch slit across the top of Prescott's forehead.
Blood streamed.
Cavanaugh wiped the side of the knife over Prescott's face and the drying mixture.
Prescott now looked like the living dead.
"Hold out your hands," Cavanaugh said.
The hands shook as Cavanaugh twisted duct tape around Prescott's wrists. Inserting the Emerson knife between Prescott's wrists, Cavanaugh carefully cut the inside of the tape in front and back. He made the tape look intact from a distance but weakened it so that Prescott would have no trouble snapping it.
"Okay?" Cavanaugh asked.
Prescott tested the tape on his wrists, almost pulling it apart. His breathing trembled when he inhaled. "Okay."
Cavanaugh reversed direction and returned to Highway 1, continuing south. On the right, the moon cast a glow over the ocean. On the left, there were only occasional lights in the mountains. Except for the Taurus, the road was deserted.
"Around the next turn," Prescott said, his voice strained.
"You know this area fairly well."
"When I started losing weight, I avoided crowds until my appearance was sufficiently changed. I spent a lot of time hiking around here."
As Cavanaugh rounded the curve, the Taurus's headlights revealed the historic site marker. He steered to the left onto a bumpy dirt lane that went up through murky trees.
The lane reached a moonlit meadow, then zigzagged up through more trees. A few times, furrows in the lane caused the Taurus's underside to bump across stones and dirt. Overhead, branches blocked the moonlit sky. Bushes scraped the car.
"Soon there'll be another meadow," Prescott said. "The chapel's built against a slope on the opposite side. Not that there's much to see." Prescott's breathing was more rapid and strident. "Except for a little tower with a cross on top, everything's collapsed."
"Count to three slowly as you inhale."
"What?"
"Hold your breath for three counts. Then exhale for three counts. Keep doing that. It'll help. Now slump down before they see you. Pretend you're unconscious."
Pale even in the darkness, Prescott obeyed.
Cavanaugh listened to the exaggerated, measured pattern of Prescott's breathing. Simultaneously, he felt each jounce of the car along the lane as if it were the lurching of his heart. He turned a sharp corner and emerged from the dark trees into another meadow, this one illuminated not only by moonlight but also by the sudden glare of headlights where Prescott had said the chapel would be.
"Damn it, she's here ahead of us," Cavanaugh said.
3
He didn't slow, didn't react as if he was alarmed, just kept following the lane, heading toward the headlights. "Ready?" he asked Prescott on the floor.
"It's a little late to say I want to back out."
"Five minutes from now, you'll be safe. I'll have my wife, and you'll be free."
"That trick with the future tense did wonders for me when you were rescuing me from the warehouse," Prescott said. "Yes. Five minutes from now, you'll have your wife, and I'll be free."
Hearing Prescott say it, Cavanaugh felt some of the magic of the words. "Let's see if you're as good an actor as you are a biochemist."
"And let's see"-Prescott held his breath for three beats-"if you're as good a protector as you promised to be."
The Taurus came closer to the headlights. Grace stood on crutches next to a car whose popularity and hence ability to blend made it a favorite among security specialists: a Mercury Sable. Behind the vehicle, the cross on the chapel's tower caught the glare of Cavanaugh's headlights. Collapsed walls lay below it.