“It was 3:17 in the morning. I know because there’s a clock on the wall.” He pointed weakly to the clock.
Skylar still couldn’t process what she was hearing. “So what have you been doing since then?”
“I have been lying here, thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Birds. Lots and lots of birds. I thought about belted kingfishers. And green-winged teals. And common terns. And hermit thrushes. And swallow-tailed kites. And blue-winged warblers. I remembered how beautiful they sound. And how much better they make me feel. Birds don’t use expressions. They never expect me to interpret what they mean, so I never feel confused or embarrassed around them. I could hear them so clearly in my mind it was like I was actually hearing them. Do you ever do that, imagine something so clearly that it almost seems like it’s real?”
“Yes, I do.” She thought of Jacob. Then tried very hard not to. Skylar took a moment to consider that for the last seventeen hours, Eddie had managed to remain perfectly still while imagining birdcalls and nothing else. Zen Buddhists spent a lifetime in pursuit of such focus. “Incredible.”
Eddie smiled ever so slightly. “You were right, you know.”
Skylar didn’t follow. “About what?”
“That if I spent enough time outside Harmony House, I would lie, because everyone lies sometimes. Even you.”
She was astonished. “What did you lie about?”
“I let the doctors think I couldn’t answer them when I could have. It was a lie of omission.”
“I don’t know that I’d say you were lying. I’d say that you were acting, like the policeman who pretended to have a heart attack to help us.”
“He was still lying.” Eddie glanced around them, looking more like his old self. “I don’t like this room, Skylar. I don’t like the way it sounds. There are too many hard surfaces. I like my room in Harmony House much better. And I really don’t like the needle in my arm, or the adhesive stuck to my skin. It’s itchy and uncomfortable.”
All at once, she couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face again. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He studied her. “You’re crying.”
She nodded. “Happy tears.”
“I don’t know how to cry happy tears. Do you think you can teach me?”
“I’ll do my best.” Skylar did not actually intend to hold his hand at that particular moment. It just happened. She reached out and gently placed her hand in his. It would have been a completely natural gesture, were Eddie anyone else. But he was not anyone else. He was more special than anyone she’d ever known. Skylar was just about to apologize when she realized Eddie had not withdrawn his hand from hers. In fact, he had not flinched at all. He was letting her hold his hand. “Wow.”
He didn’t know what she was referring to. “Why did you say that?”
She was staring at their hands. “We’re holding hands.”
“I’ve never held hands with anyone before.”
“That’s why I said wow.” This was the most physical contact Eddie had ever voluntarily had in his life. It was powerful. And utterly pure. It was something she had always hoped would happen with her little brother, Christopher, but it never did. Skylar could not stop staring at their clasped hands. Which she soon regretted, because Eddie pulled his back.
He seemed lost in his own world. “I did not let them have the echo box, Skylar.”
She took a deep breath before she answered. “I saw them take it from you. There was nothing you could do to stop them.”
He looked at her with absolute sincerity. “You are wrong, Skylar. There was something I could do.”
He said it with such conviction that she almost gave him the benefit of the doubt. “What?”
His eyes darted around the room for a moment, as he hesitated. “This is just another one of those things that you’re going to have to trust me on.”
She couldn’t help but smile at his imitation of her. “I can do that.” There was a light knock on the door. Skylar quickly leaned down to Eddie. “I don’t want you to talk to anyone else. Do you think you can keep acting for a little while longer?”
“I can do that.” He said it just like she had. He smiled briefly, then turned his blank gaze toward the ceiling, just as the door opened.
Ziggler poked his head in. “Dr. Drummond, pardon the interruption, but there’s someone who would like to speak with you.”
Skylar stepped out of Eddie’s room to come face-to-face with a man she recognized from watching the news. His name was Senator Corbin Davis. As the shorter agent made introductions, she struggled to connect the dots. What the hell is he doing here?
The senator turned to the agent. “I would like to speak to Ms. Drummond—excuse me, Dr. Drummond—privately.” The agent led them into the patient room adjacent to Eddie’s, which was vacant. The agent left them alone.
Davis studied her admiringly, just as most men did upon first meeting Skylar. “You’ve had quite a couple days.”
“Yes, I have.”
He paused meaningfully. “I’m sorry about what happened to Jacob Hendrix.”
“So am I.”
He nodded. “The man Homeland Security believes to be responsible for his murder was found dead early this morning.”
She bluntly asked, “How?”
“An explosion. It appears to have been an accident.”
“That’s what they said about Jacob.”
He nodded again, sounding almost apologetic. “We get it right eventually.”
“Nothing will ever make this right.” She paused, increasingly curious as to why the senator was there. “What’s going to happen to Fenton?”
“New York City Police have opened an investigation into his involvement in the crime, but it’s unlikely anything will come of it.” He did not take his eyes away from hers, but she didn’t flinch. “The echo box. It doesn’t work. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
No, as a matter of fact, she’d had no idea. It was working just fine last time she heard it, but she was not about to let the senator know that.
“It was quite clever making Fenton believe the technology was functional.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. Why do they think it doesn’t work? Is this what Eddie was referring to? What did he do? “Am I still under arrest?”
“No, you are not. You’re free to go.”
Skylar now believed she understood why the man was here. Damage control. They were concerned about what she was going to do. Which meant there was an opportunity. “What about Eddie?”
“He will be returned to Harmony House.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“You don’t.”
“Then why are we talking, Senator?”
“Because you could.” He proceeded to outline a scenario that had been carefully scripted for him. The plan put more than a slight smile across her face.
CHAPTER 110
Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 29, 8:31 a.m.
The senior and most respected doctor on the grounds of Harmony House, Dr. Marcus Fenton, glanced out his office window the next morning. After spending much of the previous day at what was left of Michael Barnes’s residence, answering a repetitive litany of questions from a battery of Homeland Security agents and a pesky New York City detective, Fenton had decided to arrive in the office bright and early. Harmony House was his home. His sanctuary.
At least for the moment.
He watched as a limousine pulled up to the security gate at the facility’s main entrance, which was now being manned by one of several temporary security personnel employed by a third party with the proper government clearance. The firm, Oak Ridge Security, was the smallest of several competitors, but had been given a particularly strong endorsement from Senator Corbin Davis, whom Fenton had wanted to appease. He had assumed Davis had personal knowledge of the firm. That assumption could not have been further from the truth, but Fenton would never know. Due to the death of Michael Barnes and the still-unexplained disappearance of the rest of his security staff, Oak Ridge had been hired on an emergency basis twenty-four hours ago to provide the security needs for Harmony House until a more permanent solution could be worked out.