A Cure for Madness (16 page)

I shot him a look and typed in
Seattle.

Password incorrect.

“Um . . . New York City?” I said, typing it in. I had often dreamed of living in New York—the New York of the movies, anyway. I’d imagined myself sitting in some artsy loft apartment with brick walls, writing the Great American Novel on my laptop and drinking red wine out of long-stemmed glasses.

Password incorrect.

“Oh, come on! There are a hundred places I want to live!” I tried Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Montreal, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Bangkok, and Tuscany, but none of them were correct.

And then it hit me.

“Ohhhhh,” I breathed. “Of course.”

“What?” Kenneth and Wes asked at the same time.

“It’s not serious,” I said, staring down at the keyboard. “It’s just something Latasha and I joked about once.” I typed in
Albany
.

“Albany, New York?” Kenneth asked.

“Australia,” I said.

“Why would you want to live there?”

I couldn’t think of a convincing lie, so I told the truth. “It’s as far away from here as you can get.”

Neither Kenneth nor Wes said anything. I clicked “Enter.”

The treasure box opened, and a screen popped up with a short message from Latasha. It read
This explains a lot. Be careful.

“What explains a lot?” Kenneth said from over my shoulder.

“There’s a file,” I said, pointing to a tiny paper-clip icon beside her message. I clicked on it, and a document opened up on my screen. No one spoke.

Across the first page was a gray watermark that read “CLASSIFIED.” The letterhead read “Department of Defense.”

“That looks like something we shouldn’t be seeing,” Kenneth said.

Wes’s breathing grew ragged.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I need a smoke,” he said.

“Hang on,” Kenneth said. He got up and left the room, then came back a moment later. He handed Wes a nicotine patch. “That’s the best I can do right now. We can make a smoke run later.”

“You’re a doctor,” I pointed out. “Why do you have patches?”

“My ex decided to quit during our divorce. Not a good combination. I found some of her patches in my things after we moved.”

We turned our attention back to the document on the screen as Wes slapped the patch on his chest. “This is so fucked up,” he muttered. “I gotta get outta here.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” I said sharply.

He stood up.

“Hey. Where do you think you’re going?”

“I just need some space,” he said. “I get fidgety.”

My father had once told me that Wes needed massive amounts of sleep and hated crowds. Did Kenneth and I count as a crowd?

“You know, I’ve got some books upstairs in the library if you want to check them out,” Kenneth said.

“You have a library in here? That’s cool, man.”

“C’mon, I’ll show you.” Kenneth led Wes up the staircase.

I watched them go, then moved my computer to the living room. I sat cross-legged on the sofa and scrolled through the document.

I hardly noticed Kenneth coming back down the stairs.

“Maisie’s asleep and Wes is reading. He’s in the guest room with a stack of books.” He sat next to me. “So . . . what is it?”

A growing sense of dread spread through my stomach. For the simple crime of accessing this document, let alone sending it to someone outside of the NSA, Latasha could go to prison for treason. She had taken an enormous risk, which meant that she was very, very serious.

“It’s from the Department of Defense. According to this, there was a breach at a government facility outside Clarkeston that was working on a biological weapons project called Project Amherst, and the project has been shut down,” I said slowly. “That has to be the lab we visited. I thought they were finding a cure for something like Ebola! Not
developing
biological weapons! Why would they test something like that on U.S. soil, especially where there are people around? Are they crazy?”

“They used to do it all the time, back during the Cold War,” Kenneth said, a look of deep concentration on his face. “I remember reading an article about some of the experiments they did—light bulbs filled with pathogens placed on the rails of the New York City subway, for example. And they would burst balloons filled with who knows what over major cities to track how the pathogens spread.”

I drew back. “Are you serious?”

He nodded. “But it supposedly ended in the seventies. The U.S. and most other major countries signed a treaty to not use or test biological weapons anymore. Russia signed the treaty, too, but apparently there was still evidence of their program in the mid-nineties; some of the scientists working on it defected to the U.S.”

“So if Russia didn’t stop, chances are the U.S. didn’t stop either,” I said. “They just pretended they did.”

“I don’t know,” Kenneth said. “It would be a hell of a job to move something like that underground. And we don’t know for sure that’s what this report is even referring to. But Project Amherst . . . that’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”

“Damn right it is.”

“Why would Latasha send this to you?”

Why indeed? I shook my head. “I don’t know. I told her about the lab and asked her to look into it, but that’s because I wanted to find Wes. She must have found this instead. But it’s more proof that something screwy is going on. It says right here that there was a breach. Kenneth . . . I think they were developing Gaspereau as a biological weapon.”

I got up and paced the room. “Do you have a flash drive?” He nodded and retrieved one from his office.

“Why else would they shut the project down, if not because of a breach?” I said as I downloaded the document onto the flash drive.

“I don’t know, but does it matter? Let’s say all of this is true. What—if anything—are we supposed to do about it? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make Gaspereau go away.”

“Maybe not. But it sure explains a hell of a lot. If the government created the pathogen that causes Gaspereau, then they’ll be desperate to find a cure before anyone can point a finger at them. Hence the quarantine and the National Guard. And if they think Wes can help them develop a cure . . .”

“Then they’ll stop at nothing to find him,” Kenneth finished for me.

“Maybe Hansen isn’t such a lone ranger after all.” I cast a nervous glance up the stairs. I stood. “We should go.”

“Go where? If they’re looking for Wes, there won’t be an easy way out.”

“I don’t know where!” I burst out. “I just need to get him out of here.”

Kenneth regarded me silently for a moment and then said, “Stay the night. We’re all exhausted, and we’re not going to make good decisions. Get some sleep, recharge, and we’ll figure out a plan in the morning before I have to go back in to work. Keep in mind that the safest place for you might be right here.”

“I don’t want to wait until morning. I want to get out of here now! I hate this place!”

“There are worse places to be stuck, you know.” He sounded wounded.

“I doubt that,” I muttered.

“Christ, Clare. Do you even know what you sound like? You’ve hated Clarkeston ever since I met you. Maybe it’s not the big city, but it’s your home. You belong here.”

“Screw you,” I shot back. “You think that because we had a one-night stand almost a decade ago, you have some special insight into my life? You don’t know anything about me.”

“I don’t think
you
know much about you either,” he said, his eyes flashing. “I don’t get it. What exactly are you running from, Clare? Parents who loved you? A brother who’s different? Life in a small town? Why are you always so desperate to get away?”

“Don’t be so self-righteous,” I spat. “The only reason
you
moved back to this hellhole is because your wife left you.”

He gave me a single furious look before stalking over to the tall windows lining the far wall. He rested his hands against the wide windowsill and leaned his forehead against the glass. The window fogged up from his breath.

Shame crowded out my anger. As I watched him against the window, I regretted more than my harsh words. What was I doing? Kenneth had only ever been good to me. And yet I was still pushing him away.

“Kenneth, I—”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Just . . . stop. You’re right; that’s why I moved back. And you’re right—I don’t know you, not anymore. But I can’t help it. A part of me is glad you can’t leave. I want you to stay. I want you to
want
to stay.”

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, he was watching me. He didn’t move, just stood there. Waited.

I stared at the pattern in the carpet. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t push him away, not this time. Something wonderful was standing right in front of me, and for once in my life I wasn’t going to let fear chase me from it.

“I
don’t
want to stay,” I said. “And maybe I don’t have a good excuse. I don’t know what it is about this place, other than I have a lot of bad memories and not very many good ones. Being here is toxic for me.” His face twisted with pain, so I rushed on. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want
you
. I do.”

I’d taken the plunge; now I held my breath. His face softened, but his eyebrows lifted in skepticism. Still he said nothing, so I continued.

“In the hospital, after I said I was sorry, you asked me which part I regretted,” I said, moving closer. “The truth is . . . I regretted leaving you. Not giving us a chance. That’s it. I know things have changed and we’re different people now. But I’m willing to give us a chance.”

His eyes stayed trained on me, as though he had no idea whether I was going to hit him or kiss him.

I kissed him. At first, his lips didn’t move, but then his arms tightened around me and he crushed his lips against mine. His touch and his smell and his taste swirled around me.

His lips found my neck, right above the collarbone. I moaned and pressed myself into him, threading my fingers through his hair. His hands slid down my back and scooped me up, and my legs wrapped around his waist. In two strides, he had me pressed against the wall.

His hands were frantic, as though he wanted to touch all of me at once. I pulled him closer to me with my legs and felt him stiffen in response. His hand slid inside my shirt and cupped my breast. A whimper of pleasure floated from my lips.

“Wait,” I murmured, remembering. “What about Wes and Maisie?”

“Right. There’s a lock on the bedroom door.” He buried his face in my neck and said, “God, you feel so good.” He let me down, and we ran up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Hang on,” he said, as I moved to pull him down onto the bed. He left the room for a moment, and I quickly did a mental inventory. When was the last time I’d showered? Shaved?

He crept back into the room and closed the door. “They’re both asleep.” He came toward me, a shy smile spreading across his face. He lowered himself on top of me, taking his weight on his arms. For what seemed like a long while, I just drank him in—the flecks of light in his dark eyes, the faint scar on his chin, the way his shoulder muscles moved when he shifted position.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said. Then his eyes sparkled. He lowered himself so his head was hovering over my thighs, and nibbled at them through my jeans. He came up a few inches and lifted my shirt so he could kiss my stomach, just below my waistband. I squirmed pleasantly and let out a soft groan.

Wordlessly, he slid my jeans off. I sat up and tugged my shirt over my head, then started to take off my bra.

“Let me do that,” he said. He scooted closer to me and gathered me in his arms. He kissed my collarbone, then the tops of my breasts, while behind me his hands were busy with the clasp. “Victory,” he murmured as the bra fell open and he slid the straps down my arms. Then his mouth closed around one of my nipples, and I was done with foreplay.

“You don’t get to stay clothed,” I said with a wink, pushing him down on the bed and straddling him as I undid his belt. I removed pants, boxers, and socks in one fell swoop, then climbed on top of him, pausing just long enough for him to slip on a condom. My hands dug into his chest as he entered me, and we both held still for a beat, savoring the moment. Then, eyes locked, our hips began to move in the dance we’d only just begun.

With every thrust he held me closer, his hands locked firmly on my hips. Finally, I felt him spasm under me and cry out, his neck arched and his fingers gripping me even tighter.

I smiled at him and slid off, preparing to curl up beside him.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, flipping me onto my back. Then he kissed his way down my body, stopping between my legs. I moaned and squirmed and begged him not to stop. He didn’t, not until my whole body convulsed and I fell back onto the pillows.

“That was . . .” I started, but couldn’t find the words.

“Even better than last time?” he offered.

“Mm-hm. You’ve learned some new tricks.”

“So have you. You’re a lot more . . . aggressive, maybe? In a good way. A
very
good way.”

“Call it a boost in confidence,” I said, leaning my head on his chest.

“Hang on,” he said, getting up and disappearing into the en-suite bathroom. He returned a moment later with a warm washcloth, which he handed to me. We cleaned each other up and then crawled under the covers, our skin still pressed against each other.

“Kenneth?” I asked, after a few blissful moments of silence.

“Mmm?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you. About why I left.” Part of me didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to ruin the moment. But he deserved the truth.

He rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow, studying me. “What is it?”

“Do you remember Myles Davidson?”

He frowned. “Yeah. The mayor’s kid, right?”

“Right. Before I . . . before you and I slept together, I went out with him. Once.”

“I remember that, vaguely,” he said, his forehead wrinkling. “You were excited about the date. I was jealous, but then nothing really came of it.”