Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

Not as far as she’d thought. Daniel was a runner – couldn’t he have left the truck? Well, she could use a run herself, but he’d probably be on his way back before she could get there.

“And you don’t know what time he left?”

“Didn’t see him. It was before nine, though.”

It had been more than an hour. Doubtless he’d return soon. She’d wait her turn.

It was good that Daniel was taking an interest in the practice. Maybe some of what she and Kevin had been trying to tell him had sunk in a little. She didn’t actually want him to have to live in fear, but it was the best option. Fear would keep him alive.

She waved her thanks to Arnie, then headed back to the house to finish the laundry, furry entourage in tow.

An hour later, she was in clean clothes for the first time in several days, and it felt fantastic. She put the outfit she’d been wearing in the washing machine, happy at the thought of having her whole wardrobe smelling nice again. She put in another thirty minutes on her memory project; at least she remembered her notations twelve hours later. She was trying to do things chronologically as best she could, though her numbering system was based on severity. It might have made things more confusing than they should be, but she didn’t want to reorganize it all now.

This morning she worked terrorist events number fifteen and three – an attempted subway bombing and a stolen biological weapon – trying to think of any names that had come up in context. The terrorist and Russian profiteers on number fifteen had been dealt with, so it was probably nothing to do with them. She noted it down anyway. NY was too obvious an abbreviation, so she used MB for Manhattan-Bronx; the 1 train had been the target. TT for the faction behind it, KV for Kalasha Valleys, VR for the Russian who sold them the materials. A few outsiders who had aided and abetted: RP, FD, BB.

Number three had a few loose ends, as she remembered, but those had been turned over to the CIA. She looked at her letters: J, I-P for Jammu, India, on the border of Pakistan. TP; the Tacoma Plague, they’d called it. It had been developed by a known terrorist cell from the notes of an American scientist, lifted from a lab near Seattle. The splinter cell, FA, was involved in events T10 and T13 as well. The department had still been helping the CIA procure information about the remnants of the cell back when she’d been “fired.” She wondered if the CIA had ever shut it down completely. Kevin had been busy enough in Mexico that he probably couldn’t give her the answer. She noted down initials for a few connected names. DH was the American scientist the formula was stolen from, and OM was a member of the terrorist cell whom she’d interrogated. She thought there was another American involved somehow – not a participant in the event. Or had that name been related to number four? She only remembered the name was short, clipped-sounding… did it start with a P?

She’d never been allowed to keep any notes, of course, so there was nothing to refer back to. It was frustrating. Enough so that she gave up and decided to look for lunch. The Pop-Tart hadn’t exactly been filling.

As she walked into the great room, she could hear the low rumble of an engine pulling up outside, then the grinding sound of heavy tires on the gravel. Finally.

Habit had her checking out the door to make sure it was Daniel. Just as she peeked out, the engine noise cut off. A dusty white older-model Toyota truck with an equally aged and dusty camper shell was parked where they’d left the sedan last night, and Daniel was getting out of the driver’s seat. Einstein jumped out the car door after him.

Even as she was admiring the vehicle’s ordinary exterior – perfect for blending in – a slow creeping sensation started to inch up her back, raising bumps on her skin as it moved. She froze, wide eyes darting around like a startled rabbit trying to suss out the direction danger was coming from. What had her subconscious noticed that she had not?

She zeroed in on the paper bag cradled in Daniel’s left arm. As she watched, he pulled the front seat forward and grabbed another bag. Einstein danced happily around his legs. Khan and the Rottweiler ran down the porch steps to join in.

She felt the blood drain out of her face, leaving a dizzy sensation behind.

And then the second of shock passed, and she was in motion. She charged after the dogs, feeling the blood pulse back into her bruised cheeks.

“Hey, Alex,” Daniel called cheerfully. “There are a few more bags in the back, if you’re feeling -” He stopped abruptly when he processed her expression. “What’s happened? Kevin -”

“Where did you go?” She spit the words through her teeth.

He blinked once. “I just ran out to that town we passed on our way in. Childress.”

Her hands balled into fists.

“I took the dog,” he offered. “Nothing happened.”

She pressed one fist to her mouth, winced, and tried to calm herself. It wasn’t his fault. He just didn’t understand. She and Kevin should have advised him better. It was her own misstep for assuming some of that guidance had happened while she’d been asleep in the car. But if Kevin hadn’t been prepping Daniel for his new life, then what had they been talking about for all those hours?

“Did anyone see y-of course they did. You bought things. How many people saw you?”

He blinked again. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You went into town?” A deep voice rumbled behind her.

Daniel shifted his gaze to a point over her head. “Yeah – I mean, you guys were pretty short on groceries. I just wanted to get some nonfrozen stuff, you know? You seemed busy…”

She turned to look at Arnie. His face was impassive, but she knew it well enough now to see little breaks in the façade – stress marks around his eyes, one slightly more prominent vein in his forehead.

“Do you have a way to contact Kevin?” she asked him.

“You mean Joe?”

“Probably. Daniel’s brother.”

“Nope.”

“What did I do?” Daniel asked pleadingly.

She sighed as she turned back to him. “Do you remember when Kevin said that no one around here had ever seen his face? Well… now they have.”

Daniel’s color started to ebb as he processed that. “But… I used a fake name. I – I said I was just passing through.”

“How many people did you talk to?”

“Just the cashier at the grocery store and the one at the -”

“How many places did you go into?”

“Three…”

She and Arnie exchanged a glance – horrified on her part, more inscrutable on his.

“Kevin left me money for things I might need – I assumed he meant stuff like eggs and milk,” Daniel offered.

“He meant fake IDs,” Alex snapped.

The rest of Daniel’s color vanished, and his mouth fell open.

They stared at him for a long moment.

Daniel took a deep breath, visibly centering himself.

“Okay,” he said. “I screwed up. Can we take the groceries in before you tell me how bad? It only adds waste to my mistake if the perishables spoil in the truck.”

Lips pressed into a tight line – ignoring the irritating glob of superglue – Alex nodded once and went around to the back of the truck to help unload. She saw all the bags inside the camper and felt the blood behind her bruises again.

Of course, on top of going into the closest town, he would have bought enough food to feed an army. And if there was any other thing that would make him more memorable, he’d probably done that, too.

In ominous silence, Alex and Arnie brought all the bags in and put them on the counter. Daniel worked back and forth between the cupboards and the fridge, sorting each item into the right spot. Alex might have thought that he wasn’t taking this seriously enough except for the fact that his color kept changing; though his expression was steady, his cheeks and neck would suddenly flush, and then he’d go white again.