And then there was the woman. I didn’t know if she was a nurse or a doctor or a researcher, but I had to try and find her. Maybe she would help me. She must still be around somewhere. Nathaniel had told me that there was a small team. There must have been others that I hadn’t seen yet.
Nathaniel. I had almost forgotten.
I flashed back to the night before and how he stood there with that wild white energy dancing around him, the same energy I saw around Kate and Dr. Mortimer. The energy that surrounded Ty when he was with me.
I must have misread it. I had been doing that a lot lately. I had totally misread Jack all those months, thinking he was my friend. No way did Nathaniel have those kinds of feelings for me. I had to be wrong.
I wasn’t sure I could trust my new
gift
. It might end up causing me more harm than good.
I downed a second cup of coffee and finished eating, grabbing the extra muffin and putting it on the desk for later. I put the tray outside the door.
It was just past one. I changed, grabbed the coat, and headed back out the door.
CHAPTER 9
The rain continued to fall steadily, but I didn’t care. I walked along the edge of the water slowly, looking at everything. Not seeing Jesse made my heart ache, but I fought to keep my focus and studied the layout of the island.
The property was enormous. As I looked at the house from the shore, I saw that it was even larger than I realized. There was a tennis court on the side, as well as a smaller structure next to it that looked like a guest house.
I took a few breaths and gathered up my courage. I didn’t want to bump into anyone, especially Nathaniel, but I had to explore the area, had to find out everything I could. I followed a small cobbled path that headed up between the houses.
First I wandered around the outside of the main house, peeking through all the windows. There was no one around. I saw the dining room and the library and another large living room in the back of the house with French doors, overlooking a giant rose garden. I walked to the side of the house and found the kitchen. It also had a small door to the outside, with a path that led over to the guest house.
Something about it made me nervous. I noticed I was breathing hard as I walked up to it. I quietly tiptoed around the sides to the windows, but all the shades were drawn. I couldn’t see a thing. After a minute, I ran down the path, and past the flooded-out tennis court. I wondered if it ever stopped raining here long enough to play anything other than water polo.
I found the soccer field. It looked professional, completely chalked with two regulation-size goalposts on either side. The drainage system must have been state-of-the-art as well because I didn’t see one puddle on the neatly trimmed grass. It was impressive.
I figured Jack must have spent his spare time out on the field, practicing.
I walked back to the shore, away from the buildings, trudging through the sand and driftwood and rocks. It was really raining now, the wind stronger. Everything was a variation of gray. The sky, the water, the rain. But the more I moved, the warmer I felt. I kept walking and before long, I made my way to the very tip of the island.
I stared out at the vast open water in front of me, the whitecaps churning out in the Sound, the waves crashing loudly into the shore. There weren’t any islands in this direction and with the storm, the water looked mean. Darker clouds were in the distance, heading our way, blowing in from the Pacific.
I found a beaten up log and sat down, thinking about home and how much I missed it. The smell of the trees, the views of the late autumn mountains, already thick with snow.
And Ty.
As I thought about him, I felt even sadder. I hoped Kate had gotten in touch with him and that he didn’t think I was a flake. I liked Ty. I liked him a lot. And it hurt to think that he might believe that I had just blown him off.
Heavy drops fell on my face. The storm was becoming serious as it pushed up on the land and into me. It was time to head back to the house.
As I turned around, I glanced over at the grassy hill behind the beach. It was being whipped in the wind, looking like an ocean of grass.
And that’s when I saw it.
Half buried in the weeds.
My escape.
CHAPTER 10
It wasn’t that far from the shore, but it had been completely hidden in the tall grasses. If it hadn’t been for the intense wind, I would have walked right by it.
An old kayak.
My heart beat uncontrollably as I looked to make sure no one else was around. I raced up to it, running my fingers over the cold fiberglass.
I couldn’t believe it. A sea kayak stuck in the grass, beaten up and abandoned and flipped upside down. The hull was barely noticeable and full of sand and dirt. It looked like it could have been out in the weeds for years.
I wasn’t sure, but I was betting Nathaniel and his staff had no idea that it was out here. It was too old and neglected for his taste. I checked over the entire hull to make sure there were no puncture marks, no holes. It seemed solid.
I turned it over and my excitement grew when I saw an old paddle inside.
Someone was looking out for me.
“Thank you,” I whispered into the wind, and felt hope for the first time since the kidnapping.
I was confident that I could do it, paddle those miles across the strait, over to that island I could see out the bedroom window. There had to be someone there who would help me.
It would be better to go at night, even though the thought of being out on the water in the dark frightened me, bringing up those icy memories never submerged too far below my consciousness. But Nathaniel terrified me even more. There was no choice. If I had any chance of making it across, I had to make a run for it at night so I wouldn’t be spotted.
I looked up at the sky. I would have to wait until the storm passed.
I turned the kayak back over and pushed it up a little farther into the weeds, making sure it was again out of sight. On the shore, I collected a few sticks of driftwood and stacked them in a small pile in the sand to mark the spot where I had to turn up off the beach when I returned.
It was a miracle that I had found it. I couldn’t wait to tell Jesse.
I headed back to the house, thinking of what I would need to bring for my escape. My rain jacket, a little water, maybe one of Simon’s muffins. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could do it. I could cross the long stretch of open water and escape from Nathaniel.
CHAPTER 11
There was a knock on the door at eight. I opened it, expecting Simon and I was startled when I saw that it was someone else.
“Hello, Abby,” he said. “My name is Phil.”
He was taller and heavier than Simon and wore glasses.
“Dr. Mortimer is expecting you to join him in the library this evening,” he said coldly.
“I’ll be down in a minute or two. I can find my way.”
I pulled out some jeans and a button-down shirt. It still gave me the creeps, wearing clothes that someone else had picked out, but I did my best not to think about it. It wasn’t like I had a choice.
My hair was still a mess from the walk in the rain earlier. As I ran a brush through the tangles, I thought about how the room was full of all my favorite things and how Nathaniel must have been expecting me to stay a while. A long while. On the plus side, that probably meant he didn’t have immediate plans to kill me.
I opened the door and walked downstairs.
I didn’t have any trouble finding the library but when I got there, I lingered in the doorway for a moment. The lamps were dimmed and it was darker than it had been the night before. Most of the light in the room came from the fire, the glow of the flames moving around the walls and ceiling.
Nathaniel was sitting in the same chair, perfectly still, like a snake in hibernation. I tried to catch my breath. Just the sight of him gave me goose bumps.
He suddenly stood up, aware that I was there.
“Abby,” he said, smiling, his eyes finding me. “Please, come in.”
He was wearing his usual attire, everything black, well-made, tailored. As I walked over, I noticed his shoes were long and thin, a style that was popular among European soccer coaches.
His energy was dark, but stagnant. He wasn’t agitated in the least, wasn’t upset, which made me think that no one knew about my discovery of the kayak earlier.
“Thank you for joining me this evening. Looks like quite the stormy night out there.”
I entered the room and walked over to the chair that I had sat in the night before, staring at the large panes of glass being splattered by the rain.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What can I offer you?” he asked. “We are stocked now with Cherry Coke. We should have had that for you last night. My apologies. Would you like some now?”
I nodded. He poured me a large glass with ice cubes and walked over and handed it to me. I took it, not looking directly at him. He got himself a drink and sat down, crossing his legs.
“Before we begin, I want to know how your day was here at the house. Did you get a chance to explore the island?”
I nodded again.
“Good,” he said. “It appears that your adventure agreed with you. Your complexion looks healthier. There’s more color in your cheeks. You seem happier, more relaxed. I’m glad.”
I took a long drink of the soda and stared at the floor, hoping there wasn’t a subtle message in there somewhere. It was true. I was happier. Happy that I had seen Jesse. And happy that I found the kayak.
“I wanted to mention to you as well not to forget about the basement. There are quite a few activities down there that I’m sure will please you. A wide variety of entertainment. You may do whatever you wish in these next few days.”
“None of this is what I wish,” I said sharply.
“I am just asking you to be a little patient, that’s all. And in the meantime, I want you to consider this house your own.”
“I have a house,” I said. “Back in Oregon.”
He picked a piece of lint off his dark shirt.
“So when can I talk to Kate?” I asked.
“Remember that talking to Kate is contingent on these little chats down here in the evenings,” he said. “That you answer my questions to the best of your ability. That you don’t hold anything back.”
“Yeah, okay. So let’s say you’re happy with my answers. When can I talk to her?” I said.
“Soon.If the next few nights go well.”
I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go. What do you want to know?”
He smiled.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm for wanting to move this along, Abby. But don’t you want to know about my day? Aren’t you a little bit curious about what we are doing here, what we are discovering in the laboratory?”
“Sure,” I said. “What have you found out?”
I didn’t really care, but I didn’t mind killing some time listening to his rambling. I rather him do most of the talking anyway.
“Well, your tests have all come back and we’ve determined that you are perfectly normal,” he said. “And this is exciting news indeed. The serum I injected into you that night almost two years ago has not changed your chemistry one bit, although it does remain active in your system. This is good news. A foreign substance has been introduced into your body and it has been accepted. Your white blood cells have not tried to attack it, which is quite rare.”
I glared at him as he talked about me. It was hard not to feel like Frankenstein’s monster.
“Great,” I said.
“It really is great,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to introduce a foreign material into the human ecosystem and not have it attacked. It’s the most perplexing part of our study so far. We are very excited about this. Thrilled, actually.”
“So you’re saying that your serum is still in my body?”
“Indeed it is,” he said.
I was quiet for a moment, thinking about how Dr. Mortimer had assured me that Nathaniel was insane, that he was wrong in thinking he had saved my life.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s in my body. It’s not what saved me,” I said. “Whether you injected your magic potion into me or not has nothing to do with why I’m alive. Your brother, the real doctor, saved me. I wasn’t saved by some concoction you created in your lab.”
He took a sip from his drink.
“I appreciate what you’re saying. Really, I do, Abby. In fact, any scientist worth his weight is always a skeptic. So good. Good for you. I must confess I felt the same way at first. That’s why I needed to stay in Bend and continue to test it on other subjects.”
I held back my thoughts, didn’t say anything. Nathaniel was calling the innocent people he had killed “subjects.”
“Come now, Abby,” he said. “It was necessary.”
He must have read my face. It was too hard to hide my disgust.
“Trial and error is always necessary in order to gain any advancement in medicine,” he said.
“That’s a strange definition for murder,” I said. “Those were people you killed, just like me. Your ‘error’ cost them their lives.”
But he wasn’t listening. It was his turn not to care.
“I wanted you to know that we’re all working hard, very hard, to perfect this,” he said. “It’s going to change the world.”
“Okay, Nathaniel. Explain to me how exactly your serum is going to change the world.”
He stood up and started pacing slowly around the room. First walking over to the window and looking out at the rain, then making his way to the fireplace. He put his glass up on the mantle and clapped his hands together.
“Can you imagine what it will be like if doctors had more time to bring people back to life following traumatic medical episodes? The difference it would make if they had an extra hour to bring subjects back from death? Now, the serum is still in its embryotic form, of course. At this point, we can’t save everyone, can’t save patients suffering from diseases that have destroyed their bodies. It won’t work on them, not at this stage. But it can work on people like you, Abby. You’re living proof.”