Michael Palmer - Fatal

Lights off, they cautiously followed the streambed through the rolling outline of what one day was to have been the golf course. Behind them, toward the lake, there was only darkness.

"How are we doing?" Nikki asked softly, her cheek still pressed against Matt's back.

"Well, I think we're going to make it out of this place," he said, mopping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. "The question now is: Where to from here?"

"Boston," she said firmly. "Take us to Boston."

With one eye on the rearview mirror, Matt Rode the nearly dry streambed into the forest, where it merged with a running brook. He paralleled the brook for nearly a mile before they heard traffic noises. The two-lane road was one Matt didn't know well, and in fact, they headed south for several minutes before he realized his misjudgment and turned around. By then, despite wearing Matt's jacket, Nikki's teeth were chattering. He offered his socks to cover her bare feet, but she insisted he push on until he was certain they were out of danger.

She was absolutely beat, but hung on gamely for almost twenty miles more until Matt felt it was reasonably safe to stop. At a Target store they picked up a hairbrush, some toiletries and clothes for both of them, and sneakers for Nikki, and at the Sunoco station next door they got gas and a road map. From there they found a back road that paralleled the highway, and headed north.

A few miles past the Target store they spotted a railroad car diner dropped, it seemed, in the middle of no place. Nikki had changed at the store into jeans and a flannel hunting shirt, with a red bandanna tied loosely around her neck. Her lips were dry and cracked, and there was a lattice of healing scratches across her face. Dark shadows enveloped her eyes. Still, there was a gentle beauty and intelligence about her that Matt found totally appealing. The few occasions over the past year that he had been with a woman he had been so totally disinterested and distracted that at times he was actually embarrassed to the point of apologizing. The fullness in his throat and his keenness to learn more about Nikki Solari were as threatening as they were exciting, as bewildering as they were pleasant. His memories of Ginny were no less vivid than they ever had been. But over just two days, he knew that something inside him had changed.

Is it that enough time has passed? he wondered. Or is it this one woman?

"You all right?" he asked.

"I'm not ready for the obits, if that's what you mean, but I might be a candidate for the comics. This is totally unreal. Matt, we've got to go to the police or… or the FBI. Isn't kidnapping a federal offense?"

"It is, yes," he replied. "I have no idea what it would be like trying to bring charges against a police chief, even as two physicians sharing the same story. Despite losing to us tonight, Grimes is far from dumb. He's a killer, and now he's desperate. I'm sure he'll come up with some sort of countercharges, like maybe I kidnapped you and then brainwashed you with drugs or something. Weirder things have happened."

"What else can we do?"

"I don't know. For the moment I really want to move against the mine before they have a chance to empty that dump. Now that they've lost both of us, that might be the direction they go in. If we suddenly get embroiled in charges and countercharges with Grimes and some police department or FBI office, I think we might end up losing. Besides, once we come out into the open, Grimes has another shot at us both."

"I guess I understand. So, then, now what?"

"I don't know. Connect with some family or friends or… or maybe a lawyer. Tell them what happened. Form some kind of strategy. Then maybe go see the police. I'd really like to come up with some approach to dealing with the mine people before we make any other move."

"Okay. I'm not sure I agree, but I am sure you just saved my life. For now we do it your way, starting with my boss."

"Great, and then maybe my uncle, Hal Sawyer, the pathologist. Some way, somehow, we'll get to the police. I promise."

Nikki ordered black coffee and anything that was greasy and hot. Matt went for the chili. After the waitress had left, Nikki shared the stunning details of Kathy Wilson's illness and death.

"Her condition was all Grimes wanted to know about," she said. "He never explained why. All he kept asking was, 'Who else knows about her? Who else knows about her?'"

It was astonishing for Matt to hear the description of Kathy's facial nodules and mental deterioration. Nikki could just as easily have been speaking of Darryl Teague or Teddy Rideout. But there was a problem. Kathy Wilson had never worked at or near any facility of the Belinda Coal and Coke Company, and had left home to follow her destiny in music nearly nine years ago.

"Are you sure she hasn't been back to Belinda since she left?" Matt asked.

"Maybe before she and I met she had, or maybe for a day or two here and there when she and the band were on the road."

"But nothing extended."

"I don't believe so."

"And what did you tell Grimes at the church?"

"I can't seem to remember the details of anything he and I spoke about."

"That's understandable. With the sort of concussion you suffered it could be weeks or months before you recall some recent things — or even never."

"Up at that… that cabin, he just kept hammering away at the same thing, asking who else knew about Kathy's condition besides me. He seemed especially interested in what I had told you."

"I'll bet he was."

It was Matt's turn to share what he knew, including his ill-fated trip into the mountain with Lewis and his subsequent treatment of Lewis's collapsed lung. When he finished, Nikki merely shook her head and shrugged.

"It doesn't sound like any toxic syndrome I know of," she said. "But I suppose it's possible."

"What could it be, then? Three people from the same town with such a bizarre syndrome, coupled with a nearby toxic waste dump that has a river running right through it."

"Maybe you're right," Nikki said pensively, "maybe the ground-water is contaminated from the dump, and maybe Kathy somehow did get exposed. The gun on the wall is certainly smoking. But it all still sounds a little shaky to me."

"If she really never worked at the mine, groundwater contamination's got to be it."

"I'm curious. What did the pathology of those two miners' brains show?"

"My uncle, Hal Sawyer, is the ME and actually did the posts. He reported that the lumps were standard issue neurofibromas, and that both men's brains were grossly normal, so he didn't bother doing a microscopic."

"I don't blame him," she said, "but a number of devastating central-nervous-system conditions have brains that look fairly or totally normal on gross inspection. Maybe we'll learn something from Kathy's microscopic,"

"You did one?"

"My boss, Joe Keller, did. I insisted on it. I've never done well with loose ends, even tiny ones."

"I'll be anxious to hear what he found. Maybe he can order some sort of toxicology on the tissue. I'm still certain the mine is at the bottom of all this."

"You'll get no argument from me," Nikki said, draining the last of her second cup. "Besides, who am I to question the clinical acumen of a doctor who saves his patients' lives with unrolled condoms?"

The Starlight Motel in Red Wolf, Pennsylvania, was just the sort of place Matt hoped to find. It was a mom-and-pop operation, far from any main drag. Room 212 was on the second floor in the rear, overlooking a small pond. He gathered their things and helped Nikki up the stairs. The room held the must of years of service, plus a hint of smoke. Nikki went into the bathroom and emerged wearing a pair of thin sweats and a Champion-logo T. Bracing herself against the wall, she pulled down one side of the bedcovers and crumpled onto her side, breathing heavily.