The Truth Of The Matter Part 18

"Ma'am . . . ," I said weakly.

"It's all right," she said softly. "I'm just going to go see who's at the door."

I let my hand fall back onto the thin blanket on top of me. I lay where I was and watched her move out of the room.

The pounding continued. I heard the woman call out, "All right, all right, I'm coming."

I heard Sport add his opinion with a short, sharp bark.

In the next several seconds as she crossed to her front door, my eyes traveled around the little room. It was bare, stark. Just the bed, the chair, a dresser with some framed photographs on it. No window. No pictures on the wall, just peeling old-fas.h.i.+oned wallpaper with purple flowers. There was a bowl of water on a small table by the woman's chair. There was a washcloth in the bowla"the cloth she'd been using to keep me cool. There was a bottle of aspirin and a couple of empty juice cartons on the floor too. I guess she'd been giving me aspirin and juice to keep me going.

About a million questions were flas.h.i.+ng through my mind. How long had I been here? Hours? Days? How long had I been feverish and hallucinating, lying helpless while this woman I'd never met sat beside me and cared for me? Had I said anything to her? Had I spoken in my sleep? Had I given myself away . . . ?

The pounding stopped. I heard the door open. I heard the woman's voice again, "Down, Sport," she said. Then she said, "Yes?"

"h.e.l.lo, ma'am," a man answered her. With a jolt of fear, I recognized the voice just a second before he said, "My name is Detective Rose. I'm with the police."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Rose

The words went through me like an electric shock. Rose! Here! Had the woman asked him to come? Had I revealed something in my fevered sleep that had caused her to call the police? Or maybe she just called them because I'd broken into her house. Or maybe she'd just seen my picture on the news and recognized me. All these possibilities crowded into my mind when I heard his voice.

But wait. Now I heard her answer him: "Yes, Detective? How can I help you?" So maybe she hadn't called him at all. I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to figure things out.

"I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am. A fugitive escaped from the police near here yesterday. We've been searching the woods for him, but our dogs seem to feel he took to the road and possibly came this way."

"A fugitive?" the woman said. "Oh, my."

"Yes, ma'am. I don't mean to frighten you, but he's a convicted murderer. Considered very dangerous."

"Well, I'm glad you don't mean to frighten me, but you're doing a very good job of it anyway."

I started to sit up in bed, but weakness overcame me and I fell back. I wasn't sure what I was planning anyway. I mean, I wanted to escape, but where could I go? I was wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and T-s.h.i.+rt. Even if I could endure the mountain cold in my underwear, there was no window to climb out of. If I tried to leave the room through the door, Rose would spot me in a second. Still, I couldn't just lie there and wait for the inevitable . . .

The conversation at the door went on. I gathered my strength and struggled to sit up again.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," said Rose. "Would you mind taking a look at this picture?"

"Sure. Is that him? Is that the fugitive?"

"Yes, it is. His name is Charlie West."

I waited for the woman to let out a shout of fear and recognition. I waited for her to say, "I know him! He's right in the next room, Detective!"

But all she said was, "Looks like a nice enough boy." Her voice was steady and calm.

"Yes, he does, ma'am," Rose answered. "Believe me, I know. He fooled me once too."

"You say he murdered someone?"

"His best friend. Stabbed him in the chest."

"Pretty cold."

"Yes, ma'am, it was."

As they talked, I managed to push my upper body off the mattress in slow, painful stages. I slid my feet over the edge to the floor. Now I was sitting up, trying to gather enough strength and willpower to get to my feet. I had no plan, but I figured: At least when Rose came for me, I could do my best to get away from him. I could put up some kind of fight, run as far as I could. I didn't think I would get very far, weak as I was, but it was better to try than to do nothing.

"So . . . ma'am?" Rose said, waiting for the woman's response to the photograph.

"Hmm?"

"The boy. West. Have you seen him? Have you seen anyone who looked like him pa.s.sing by the area?"

I froze where I was, sitting there, listening.

After a small pause, the woman answered, "No. No, sorry. I haven't seen anyone who looks like that. Don't recognize him at all."

"You're sure?"

The woman gave a little laugh. "We're pretty isolated here. If I saw a stranger, I'm sure I'd have noticed and remembered. You're welcome to come inside and look around if you think he might be hiding under the bed or something."

Desperate to get up, I held on to the bed frame and tried to stand.

But Rose answered her, "No, no, that won't be necessary. Here, let me give you my card. If you see anything, call that number, would you?"

"Sure. Be happy to."

"Meanwhile, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to take a look in your shed out there. Just to make sure he's not hiding on the property without your knowing it."

"Well, you go right ahead, Detective. Look anywhere you like."

"Thank you, ma'am. I'm sorry to bother you."

"No problem, Detective. You have a nice day now."

I heard the door shut. I continued to push off the bed frame until I reached my feet. But the minute I did, my legs gave out beneath me. I wilted to the floor.

A moment later, the woman was back with me. When she saw me lying on the floor, she let out a little noise of surprise and concern. She rushed to my side. Knelt down beside me. She caught me under the arms.

"Why . . . ?" I said.

"Ssh," she whispered urgently. "He's right outside. Keep your voice down or he'll hear you." She tried to get me back onto the bed. "Come on. I can't lift you by myself. You have to help."

I reached out blindly until I found the edge of the bed and grabbed hold of it. With me using all my effort and the woman pus.h.i.+ng at me, I finally managed to climb back up onto the mattress. Exhausted, I tumbled onto the bed and lay there, s.h.i.+vering, weak and cold. The woman pulled the cover over me. She sat on the edge of the bed beside me. She laid a hand on my shoulder to keep me still.

"Why did you . . . ?" I muttered again.

She lifted her finger to her lips. I fell silent.

We waited there together. We listened to the noises outside.

I could hear Rose moving out there, moving around the side of the house. I could hear his footsteps. I could hear him pulling open the shed door nearby. For a moment, I could even hear him banging around in the shed, searching for me.

A moment later, I heard the shed's big door close again.

Then I heard Rose say: "What do you think?"

Another man answered him, "Well, the dogs think he went in this direction for sure. But the trail's old and the roada"you know, there's been a lot of truck traffic, chemical stuff. It makes it confusing for them. They got pretty tentative about a half mile back. I don't know . . ."

"The lady of the house says she hasn't seen him."

"You believe her?"

There was a pause as if Rose was considering the question. Then he said, "Why would she lie? Why would she hide him?"

"Maybe he's in there, you know . . . with a gun or something. Maybe she was speaking under duress."

"Yeah, I thought of that . . . ," said Rose.

"You think we ought to go in? Search the house?"

There was another pause. Rose said, "It's gonna be dark soon. We're running out of time. West is smart. He knows we'll knock on doors. I think he's a lot more likely to stick to the woods, maybe head north, try to make Canada. Let's go back a ways and search the forest a little more while there's still some daylight left."

"You got it."

I heard their footsteps on the dirt drive. I heard their car doors open and thunk shut. Another second or two and the car's engine started. Then they were driving away, the tires crunching on the rocky ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

Margaret and Larry

I heard the woman breathe a sigh of relief above me. I guess I breathed a sigh myself. She patted my shoulder.

"You'll be safe for a little while, at least," she said.

She rose from the bed and sat down on the chair again, brus.h.i.+ng her hair wearily out of her face.

"Why did you help me?" I asked her. "Why did you tell Rose I wasn't here?"

She smiled, but she didn't answer. She just said, "You hungry at all? You must be."

The minute she asked the question, I realized: Yeah! I was hungry! I was very hungry. "I am, as a matter of fact."

"That's good. That's a good sign. I'll make you something to eat."

"I don't want to trouble you . . ."

She gave a sort of gentle laugh. "It's a bit late for that, sweetheart. You've been plenty of trouble already."

I laughed a little too. "Why did you?" I said. "Why did you lie to Rose? Why did you protect me?"

She still didn't answer. She handed me a juice box. "Here, drink this, get your strength up. You're going to need it."

"But . . ."

She stood up. "Let me go make you something to eat. Then we'll talk. My name is Margaret, by the way."

"Charlie," I said. "Charlie West."

She gave another smile, a wry smile this time. "So I've heard."

She went out of the room. I worked myself into a sitting position. I put the pillow up against the wall and propped my back against it. I stuck a straw in the juice box and sipped it. I could feel myself getting better, stronger, with every minute.

I could hear the womana"Margareta"moving around in the kitchen, pots and pans banging against each other. It was a comforting sound. It reminded me of being back at home, lying in bed in the morning, listening to my mom making breakfast before she called me to go to school.

I sipped the juice. I listened to the sounds. My mind drifted. After a while, I just sat there in the bed, the juice box forgotten in my hand. I gazed off into s.p.a.ce.

I was thinking about my dream. The dark garden maze. The dark figure standing at its center. I felt a stirring of excitement and revelation as the images came back to me. My free hand lifted slowly to my face, to my jaw. I felt through my skin to the place just behind my last molar. Yes. Yes, I remembered now. What the man said in the dreama"it was all true, all real.

After the jury found me guilty of Alex's murder, I had been put in a cell in the county jail. While I was there, someone had come to me . . . No, wait. It wasn't just any someone. It was Milton. Yes. It was Milton Onea"the technician from the bunker, the Asian guy who had had the controller that worked Milton Two. He had come to me in my cell, wearing a white coat. He was pretending to be a dentist. He had installed the device in my gumsa" the device the man in the maze had talked about. He had installed it just where I was touching now, just behind my teeth. It was a tiny computer. There was a pattern of taps I could make on it with my teetha"complicated and precise so I would never set the device off by accident. But once I did set the device off, it would release an experimental chemical into my mouth. When I swallowed it, the chemical would eliminate part of my memory.

So now I knew. I knew what had happened to me. I had been recruited by Waterman to infiltrate the Homelanders. Because of my closeness to Sherman, because of Sherman's conviction that I could be convinced to join him, because of my karate skills, because of my sure and certain commitment to American liberty, I had been a perfect candidate for the job. The rest I didn't remember yet, but I could guess. I must've succeeded in my task. I infiltrated the Homelanders as planned. But somehow, it had gone wrong. I had been caught. Captured. I had been strapped to the metal chair in that white room and tortured. And in order to protect Waterman and his friends, I had set off the device in my mouth and swallowed the chemical that made me forget a year of my life.