Gary Braver - Elixir

Silence.

"Vince, look I'm sorry. Tell Antoine we'll pay everybody back their deposits. That's no problem. They'll get their money back. Please tell him everybody will get what they're owed."

"Money's not the issue."

"What is?"

"Longevity."

"Sure, of course. I know, I've lost that too, believe me. Jesus, the son-of-a-bitch. But, you know… what can I say?"

"Nothing," Vince said. "Not a fucking thing."

And he clicked off, leaving Quentin standing there in a raw winter wind as cold as eternity.

If Jenny caught the evening news, she would be hysterical. So Wendy drove to a pay phone on highway 87 outside of Lake Placid to avoid leaving records at the cottage. Chris would have gone, but his face might be recognized. He was already thinking like a fugitive.

With the snow it would be two hours before Wendy returned. Meanwhile, Chris removed the trunk containing the Elixir to a small chamber in the cellar where Wendy's parents had stored wine. The room was locked and well insulated. The thermometer read 20 degrees, which was fine, since Elixir could be kept frozen indefinitely without decomposition. The two-liter container he left in the refrigerator upstairs because freezing would split the container. The rest was kept in two hundred-and-twelve ampules fixed with rubber septums for injection needles. Because tabulone was highly active in low concentrations, Chris estimated that he had enough Elixir to keep a single rhesus monkey stable for two thousand years.

A little after two, Wendy returned wrung out. She had reached Jenny.

"What did you tell her?" Chris asked.

"That the police reports were wrong, that you were framed for Betsy's murder."

"How did she take it?"

"How do you think she took it? She was shocked, confused, and horrified," Wendy explained.

"Does she know we're here?"

"Yes." Wendy was so weary that she leaned against the fireplace mantel to keep from slipping to the floor. Her face was colorless with defeat. "I told her we took off when you suspected a plot to get you too." Her voice sounded like a flat recording. "When she finally calmed down she offered to help us."

Chris nodded, thinking how Jenny might be able to do that. "Did you tell her why?" he asked cautiously.

"No, I did not tell her about Elixir." Even her exhaustion could not mask the sarcasm in her voice.

"You did the right thing," Chris said, knowing how hollow that sounded. She didn't care a damn about keeping the stuff secret.

Wendy pushed away from the wall. She wanted to go to bed. "So, what are we going to do?" She asked. "They found your snorkle stuff in the locker room."

"That was planted. It was a setup. I was halfway to Providence at the time."

"And what evidence?"

Chris took her by the shoulders. "Jesus, Wendy, you don't think I killed her, do you?"

For a split second, she appeared to struggle with her answer. "No, but the police do."

"I can't document where I was until later in the day." He had driven straight to Providence and breakfasted on complimentary donuts and coffee in the hotel lobby, then settled in a corner of the deserted bar to look over the seminar material undisturbed. He had spoken to no one, and left no receipts. He had no evidence; nobody could place him there that early.

"Then you have no alibi. It's your word against theirs."

He took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and pulled her to him. Wendy lay limply against his chest. It was like cuddling somebody who had died. For a long moment Chris held his wife, thinking that this might be the first time in seventeen years that Wendy had ever regretted her marriage to him.

Over the next three days, the crash slipped from lead story. When the weather cleared the NTSB dispatched helicopters and a coast guard vessel to search for bodies and debris.

The mood in the cottage varied from abrasive silence to panic. On some level Wendy blamed Chris for the upheaval of their lives, irrational as she knew that was. Because she had opposed Elixir from the beginning, the latest twist only served as proof that the project was a curse. For seven years Chris had chased Nature to her hiding place, and now they were stuck in these godforsaken woods, exiled from their old lives and the ordinary world. And it had happened at the peak of renewed joy for her. But she resolved that, no matter what, they would fight this, for she would not bring up her baby in hiding.

Chris spent the next few days listing lawyers' names from telephone directories and doing chores. He chopped and split wood. There was an old chainsaw in the cellar, but he feared the noise would draw attention.

Wendy, meanwhile, did the food shopping at a supermarket in Lake Placid. She wore a ski cap and sunglasses even though nobody would know her. But it struck her how even the most mundane chore was fraught with anxiety that somebody would look into her face and recognize an accessory to murder.

She paid for everything in cash which Chris had withdrawn from accounts before they left-over $17,000. They had been listed as dead, so Wendy began to think of herself as nonexistent-a woman with no credit cards, checks, social security number. Or name. It was almost funny. She was a blank of herself.

Luckily, there was plenty of clothing at the cottage. And the utilities had been paid through June by a trust fund, again untraceable. The propane tank was over half full. They could survive for several weeks if need be, though Chris promised to contact a lawyer by week's end, then turn themselves over to the police.

But that wouldn't happen. Thursday night after Adam was down, they watched the evening news. The lead story was the crash of Eastern flight 219 once again. But this time it was not Chris's photo on the screen but a family portrait, and not theirs.

"…Relatives of the Foleys claimed that they were hoping to fly to Puerto Rico on standby. Authorities now believe that Thomas and Karen Foley had purchased their airline tickets for themselves and their young daughter, Tara, from Christopher Bacon."

The Foley family photo was replaced by that of Chris.

"According to authorities, security cameras captured Bacon talking to Foley and his wife…" In jerky black-and-white Chris could be seen huddled with the Foleys, then disappearing into the crowd.

"Meanwhile, friends and relatives have not heard from the Foleys. Nor is there any trace of them in Puerto Rico, leaving investigators to conclude that they were aboard flight 219 to San Juan, and the Bacons were not.

"In a bizarre twist to the story, an all-points bulletin has been issued for Christopher Bacon and his author wife in the death of Betsy Watkins and now the more serious charge of sabotage. According to the NTSB, preliminary analyses of debris show evidence more consistent with a bomb than lightning. Quoting an unnamed spokesman from Darby Pharmaceuticals, the FBI said that Bacon not only had the expertise to construct such a bomb but had apparently stolen the necessary chemicals…"

"Quentin!" Chris shouted. "He set us up."

Wendy let out a cry of despair. On the screen was a photo of Wendy and Chris from a Darby Christmas party two years ago.

"As for the whereabouts of the Bacons, police are not saying much about leads. However, the FBI has entered the case placing the Bacons on the Ten Most Wanted List…"

"My God," Chris said. "How much worse can it get?"

Ross Darby leaned toward the president. "Ron, he didn't do it. He wasn't the type."

"That's not what they're telling me at the Bureau. They're saying he planted a bomb to fake his own death."

Ross and the president were sitting alone in the Oval Office on facing sofas. Of all the visits he had made here over the years, this was the first time Ross did not feel the august thrill of history.