Харлан Кобен - Run Away

But now the cult was done with him. Perhaps. That was one of the things Dee Dee didn’t know yet — why she wanted him to wait. Whoever was hiring him was communicating through her. So perhaps she had come to the Truth Council when he dropped her off. Perhaps the Truth or one of his advisors had said, “No, we are done.”

And suppose they wanted to completely tie up any loose ends.

Ash was professional. He would never talk. That was part of what you got for your money.

But maybe the cult leaders didn’t know that about him.

Maybe they figured that under normal circumstances, they’d be more trusting, but because Ash and Dee Dee knew each other — had a special connection even — the Vartages felt more exposed.

The simplest solution to the problem? The smart play for Vartage and his sons?

Kill Ash. Bury him in the woods. Get rid of his car.

If Ash was the cult leader, that was what he would do.

A door on the other side of the room opened. Guard One lowered his gaze as a woman Ash guessed was in her early fifties entered the room. She was tall and imposing and unlike everyone else he’d seen in the compound, she held her head high, chest out, shoulders back. She wore the gray uniform, but there were red stripes on her sleeves, like something in the military. Against all the drab gray, the stripes stood out like neon lights in the dark.

“Why are you here?” she asked him.

“Just dropping off a friend.”

She glanced over his shoulder at the guard. As if he felt her gaze, he looked up, semi-wincing. This woman wasn’t the Truth or part of their trinity, but whoever she was, she clearly outranked this guy.

Guard One stood at attention. “As I informed you, Mother Adiona.”

“Adiona?”

She turned to Ash. “You recognize the reference?”

He nodded. “Adiona was a Roman goddess.”

“That’s correct.”

He’d loved mythology as a kid. He tried to remember the details. “Adiona was the goddess of returning children home safely or something. She was paired with another goddess.”

“Abeona,” she said. “I’m surprised you know this.”

“Yeah, I’m full of surprises. So you’re named after a myth?”

“Exactly.” She smiled widely. “Do you know why?”

“I bet you’ll tell me.”

“All gods are myths. Norse, Roman, Greek, Indian, Judeo-Christian, pagan, whatever. For centuries people bowed to them, sacrificed for them, spent their lives following them. And it was all lies. How sad, don’t you think? How pathetic. To spend your life deluded like that.”

“Maybe,” Ash said.

“Maybe?”

“If you don’t know any better, maybe it’s okay.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

He said nothing.

“Gods are lies. Only the Truth prevails. Do you know why all religions eventually crash and burn? Because they aren’t the Truth. Unlike these myths, the Truth has always been there.”

Ash tried not to roll his eyes.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Ash.”

“Ash what?”

“Just Ash.”

“How do you know Holly?”

He said nothing.

“You may know her as Dee Dee.”

He still said nothing.

“You pulled up with her, Ash. You dropped her off.”

“Okay.”

“Where were you two?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I already have. I need to see if she is telling the truth.”

Ash stood there. Mother Adiona moved closer to him. She gave him a mischievous smile and said, “Do you know what your Dee Dee is doing right now?”

“No.”

“She’s naked. On all fours. One man behind her. One man in front of her.”

She smiled some more. She wanted him to react. He wouldn’t.

“Well? What do you think of that, Ash?”

“I’m wondering about the third man.”

“Pardon?”

“You know. Truth, Volunteer, Visitor. So if one is having her from behind and the other one is in the front, where is the third?”

She still smiled. “You’ve been played for a fool, Ash.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“She offers her favors to many men. But not you, Ash.”

He made a face. “Did you really just call them ‘favors’?”

“This is wounding you deeply, I know. You love her.”

“Very insightful. Can I go back to my car now?”

“Where were you two?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Her nod was barely discernible. But it was enough. Guard One stepped forward. There was a baton in his hand. Two things happened simultaneously. One, Ash recognized that the baton was a cattle prod or stun baton of some kind. Two, the prod touched down on his back.

Then all thought closed down in a tsunami of pain.

Ash collapsed to that hardwood floor, writhing like a fish on a dock. The electricity shooting through him hit everything. It paralyzed the circuitry from his brain. It singed his nerve endings. It made his muscles spasm.

He started foaming at the mouth.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even really think.

There was panic in the woman’s voice. “I... What setting did you have that on?”

“Highest.”

“Are you serious? That will kill him.”

“Then we might as well get it over with.”

Ash saw the end of the baton heading for him again. He wanted to move, needed to move, but the electricity coursing through him had short-circuited any commands involving muscle control.

When the baton touched down again, this time on his chest, Ash felt his heart explode.

Then there was only darkness.

No change.

Simon was so tired of hearing that. His chair was pulled up right next to Ingrid’s bed. He held her hand. He stared at her face, watching her breathe. Ingrid always slept on her back, just like this, so that coma looked amazingly like sleep, which may seem obvious or perhaps not. You expect a coma to look different, don’t you? Sure there were tubes and noises and Ingrid liked wearing spaghetti-strap silk negligees to bed, which of course he loved too. He loved the coil of her body, the broad shoulders, the prominent collarbone.

No change.

This was purgatory, neither heaven nor hell. There were some who argued that purgatory was the worst — the suspended, the unknown, the wear and tear of the endless wait. Simon understood that sentiment, but for now he was okay with purgatory. If Ingrid’s condition darkened in even the slightest way, he’d lose it completely. He was self-aware enough to realize that he was hanging on by a fraying thread now. If he got bad news, if something more went wrong with Ingrid...

No change.

So block.

Right, pretend she was asleep. He kept staring at her face, the cheekbones so sharp the surgeons down the hall could use them as scalpels, the lips he’d gently kissed before he sat down, hoping to get some kind of reaction out of them because even when Ingrid was deep in sleep, her lips would react instinctively, in some small way at the very least, to his kiss.

But not now.

He flashed back to the last time he’d watched her as she slept — on their honeymoon in Antigua, days after they’d officially tied the knot. Simon had woken up before sunrise, Ingrid sprawled next to him on her back, like right now, like always. Her eyes were closed, of course, her breathing even, and so Simon just stared, marveling at the fact that this was how he’d wake up every day from now — next to this wondrous woman who was now his life partner.

He had watched her like this for only ten, maybe fifteen seconds, when without opening her eyes or moving at all, Ingrid said, “Cut that out, it’s creepy.”

He smiled at the memory, sitting now at her bedside with her still yet warm hand in his. Yes, warm. Alive. Blood flowing through. Ingrid didn’t feel shrunken or sick or dying. She was just asleep and soon she’d wake up.