The Sleepless Stars (7 page)

AFTER DEVON HUNG
up with Ryder, he continued pacing his father’s bedroom, a nervous energy making him feel as if he were caged. He should be out there, doing something, not sitting around here where he was...helpless.

He glanced at Angela, her face vacant as if she was simply gone. He hated this part of things, hated watching her when she was inside someone else. It was creepy, like what she’d look like when she really was dead.

Louise, however, was fascinated, dancing from monitor to monitor, making certain the video captured every minute. “Look at these theta spikes,” she exclaimed in excitement. “See how they’re synchronizing? Amazing.”

Devon couldn’t take it anymore. He strode to the door. “Flynn, you stand guard. No one comes in unless it’s me or Ryder.”

“What about Esme?” It was clear that if she had to watch over anyone, she’d prefer it to be Esme.

“I’m going to check on her and take care of some loose ends. Call me if anything happens.”

Flynn nodded her understanding, and Devon left, a feeling of relief washing over him as soon as the door shut on the view of Angela and his father.

He trusted Angela; she’d do everything she could to save Esme. But Daniel? The man was the devil incarnate. He hated that their only plan depended on him.

Unless he could devise a plan B. He slipped through the tunnels quickly, skirting their familiar shadows until he arrived at the makeshift dormitory where the children and their families had cots set up. Ozzie looked up from Esme’s cot, where he covered her small body like a blanket, thumped his tail, and blinked at Devon as if to say, “What took you so long?”

“Sorry, bud,” Devon said, soothing Esme’s hair and grimacing at the fever that burned through her. He couldn’t deny himself a moment to lean down and plant a kiss on her forehead.

This was what he’d worked so hard to avoid his entire life. Ten years ago, when he left Esme and her mother to protect them from the gang who’d targeted him, he thought that was the hard part, the painful part that about tore his heart in half. It’d hurt, more than getting gunned down would have, but that’s what a man did: he stood for what was his and protected them with everything he had.

But now that Jess was gone and Esme was back in his life...he raised his eyes heavenward, appreciating the cosmic irony. The man who’d built a life on having no ties, no soft spots enemies could exploit, now lived his life for the greatest vulnerability of all.

A tiny noise interrupted his reverie. A woman politely clearing her throat. Veronica Lee, the mother of the first patient Angela had diagnosed with the artificial fatal insomnia, Randolph Lee. “Mr. Price?”

“How’s Randolph?” Devon asked the mother, following her gaze to where an older man and woman sat on a cot with their backs to the concrete wall and a small boy stretched out across their laps.

“Same as the others. We’ll be lucky if they sleep more than an hour at a time.” Veronica was in her mid-twenties, pretty despite the anguish that creased her face—if she’d smiled, she’d be beautiful. She turned her back on the sight of her son and parents to face Devon. “Who did this, Mr. Price? Why would they want to hurt our children? We have no money, we pose no threat. I cannot understand how any human can be so heartless.”

Who says they’re human, Devon thought. He didn’t believe in spooks or supernatural creatures; his time spent with the Russians had shown him that he didn’t need to. There were way too many men—and a few women—willing to sacrifice their humanity in the name of glory, power, vengeance, or even a quick fix.

“You will find them.” Veronica made it a statement, not a question. She squeezed Devon’s arm, her rhinestone-studded nails glittering in the dim light. “I know that. But,” her hand fell away from his body, “I feel so helpless. We all do. How can we help? Please.”

Devon glanced around the large space, realized that the eyes of most of the parents and grandparents were on him. They needed more than guidance, they needed a mission. Something to focus on besides their dying children.

“I need all my resources to find the men behind this.” He raised his voice slightly so it would carry past Veronica. Resources? Who was he kidding? His resources included a middle-aged neurologist, a dying ER doctor, a teenage sociopath, a renegade cop, and a Labrador retriever. Still, the parents nodded, anxious to believe.

God help him, Devon fed that belief. He stood. “I need you to organize and prepare for a possible siege. We’ve plenty of food, but I need a list of other supplies that we’ll need: clothing, that kind of thing.”

He trailed off uncertainly—he had no idea what kids this age needed. He’d never been a parent before. But Veronica nodded. “Toys and books, maybe some music? We should organize cleaning, cooking, chores like that, as well.”

“Exactly. Just remember, we only have this section of rooms secured. Don’t try to go past the orange doors.” They were locked, and only he, Flynn, and Angela had keys.

“Yes, of course.” Then she frowned, lowered her voice as she leaned closer. “We are safe here, aren’t we? They won’t come after us, not down here. We won’t need to fight.”

He hoped not. Sent a prayer to any deity on duty to prevent that. “No,” he said, injecting as much confidence as possible into his voice. “Don’t you worry about that. That’s my job.”

Her nod was so forceful it almost turned into a bow. “Thank you, Mr. Price.” And she left to return to the other parents.

Devon called Ozzie to him. The Lab lumbered off the bed, moving slowly and not disturbing Esme.

“It’s going to be okay,” Devon promised Esme. Because that’s what a man did; he changed the world, fought the monsters, went to hell and back, if that’s what it took to protect his own.

He and Ozzie left the dormitory. He wasn’t sure why the lights in the hallway made his eyes water—they were the red ones to help you see in the dark, weren’t bright at all. But still the tunnel around him blurred, and he had to rely on the dog to keep him upright until he blinked his vision clear again.

Did nothing for the barbwire garroting his heart, but he knew the only cure for that would be to see Esme safe and healthy.

“This way,” he told the dog who followed at Devon’s knee. Ozzie was trained as a Seeing Eye dog but had also proven useful as a tracker. “You’re not going to like it. There’s a lot of blood.”

They arrived at their destination: the small dental clinic where Dr. Tommaso Lazaretto had taken his own life rather than risk Angela touching his memories.

Flynn had disposed of the body in the Good Sam incinerator, but first she’d stripped Tommaso, in case his clothing offered any leads. Other than the label of a good tailor in Milan, it hadn’t; the only useful items were Tommaso’s hospital ID and a cell phone. The phone was encrypted, but Devon had couriered it to one of his old Russian mob contacts; it would take time to crack, though.

Time Devon didn’t have. He needed to track Tommaso’s movements. He already knew the doctor and his cohorts had been living in the warehouse lab that exploded, so that was out. But between Ozzie’s nose and the hospital ID, he hoped to expand his knowledge of where else the not-so-good doctor had been and any other accomplices he might have encountered.

He didn’t want to overwhelm Ozzie with the blood that still stenched the room, so he left the dog in the hallway and went inside to collect the doctor’s clothing. Each of the tunnel’s sections were designed like compartments on a submarine, with steel doors that were airtight and locked.

The underground shelter was large enough to house several hundred people and had been built during the Cold War as an evacuation point for the state government in case of nuclear disaster. Daniel had upgraded many of its functions, adding state-of-the-art air filtration and water reclamation, geothermal energy, modern medical supplies, food, and enough weapons and ammo to invade a third world country. More evidence that he’d known something bad was coming. Devon couldn’t help but wonder who exactly Daniel would have invited to join him in his nuclear wonderland underground city.

Not Devon, that was certain.

Inside the dentistry clinic, he steered clear of the ribbons and puddles of congealing blood centered around the exam chair. Awful way to go, biting your own tongue off and drowning in your own blood. But no less awful than the fate Tommaso had planned for Angela and the children he’d infected with fatal insomnia. Devon’s only regret was that the man had taken the coward’s way out, killing himself before they could get the information they needed from him.

He gathered the pile of clothing Flynn had left on the counter and returned to Ozzie, sealing the door behind him. He held the clothing out to Ozzie, letting the dog nose it, soak in the scents.

Tommaso had had a job at Good Sam, pretending to assist Louise Mehta while actually there to keep an eye on the patients he’d infected. Even though the lab with Tommaso’s extracurricular research was destroyed, there was a chance he’d kept notes while at work at Good Sam. If they weren’t on his cell phone, maybe there was a copy somewhere else.

Devon clipped Tommaso’s ID to his shirt, not that he looked anything like the Italian doctor, but that seldom mattered. All that counted was the appearance of fitting in. If people expected to see an ID, you wore one prominently displayed—few would look closer.

He attached Ozzie’s harness with its service-dog label—another all-access pass, he’d found.

“Ready?” he asked the dog. Ozzie thumped his tail eagerly. “Okay, let’s nail these bastards.”

DANIEL AND I
rode deeper into the woods. I somehow managed to stay on the horse, although it was definitely taking more of my concentration than I expected. I wanted to get the answers I came for and leave again, but Daniel had no intention of making it easy.

“You need me to stay in control, coherent enough to answer your questions, don’t you?” he asked in an almost musing tone. “If you could grab the answers yourself, you would have taken the PXA formula directly from Leo’s memory.”

“We already had it. I was simply verifying it,” I answered. It was impossible to lie, not here, mind-to-mind, but I could hedge the truth.

Daniel saw right through me. “But not from Leo, right? What’s stopping you, Dr. Rossi? If I had your power—” His smile was wolfish as his face lit up with the possibilities. “I’d mind-fuck every adversary I had.”

I lowered my face, pretended to be adjusting the reins. None of the others had ever so fully comprehended the situation—they’d all been focused on one last dying thought or wish. Not Daniel. He’d known I was coming, had been ready and waiting for me—but to what end? Nothing I did here could help him, and as soon as I left, he’d be dead.

“That’s what it is, right?” he persisted. “Mental rape and pillage. When you leave, you’ll take my memories, just as you’ve taken Leo’s.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can see them—well, not really seeing, not hearing either... It’s as if they’re cobwebs brushing against me, here and gone again. But I know my own son. And now he’s inside you.”

Despite the sun streaming through the trees, I shivered. Did the fact that Daniel could sense Leo’s memories in my consciousness mean my mind was breaking down? Maybe I soon would no longer be me at all, just a random hodgepodge of whoever’s memory rose to the surface?

No. I could control it. I had to.

Daniel’s laugh was cruel. “You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you? Poor girl—too bad you didn’t absorb any of Leo’s strength of will. That boy never let anything stand in his way. But you, you’re a blade of grass, waiting to be trampled and broken.”

“Tell me what I need to know.”

“Why should I? You’ll just leave and I’ll be alone again, waiting to die.”

Maybe he didn’t realize that my leaving would hasten his death. It gave me the slightest edge. “Then I’ll leave now.”

“No. I don’t believe you will. You’re obviously desperate—which means you’re not here to save yourself, but others. It’s started, hasn’t it? Were the children the first? How many have died?”

“You knew?” Fury burned through me, and I jerked upright so fast the horse startled. I hauled the reins in before it could bolt then realized it was time for me to show Daniel who really had the power here. I closed my eyes for a moment and focused my will. When I opened them, both horses had vanished, leaving Daniel and me standing across from each other in a clearing in the woods.

“Nicely done,” he said with a smirk. “My turn.” He gave a lazy wave of his hand, and we were suddenly on a cliff overlooking a churning sapphire sea, waves taller than houses breaking on the rocks below.

“Tell me what you know,” I demanded, squaring off against him. “Who’s behind the fatal insomnia?”

“I don’t need to tell you anything.” He held up a hand as I began to protest. “But I will. If you stay here with me a while longer. A few minutes of your time in exchange for the answers you want.”

Time inside someone’s mind moved at a different pace than time in the world outside. With Jacob, it’d felt like we’d spent days together, but it had only been a few minutes. So, as much as I wanted to take what I needed and flee, I nodded my agreement.

“Very good, then.” He took my arm in his and led me along a path following the cliff’s edge. “I didn’t know anything about fatal insomnia specifically, but when I saw what they wanted Leo to produce, I realized what their motives were. An excellent profit-generating scheme. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.”

“Profit? Children are dying. Including your own granddaughter, Esme. Now, tell me why.”

“I told you why: profit.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then tell me who and how.”

“Not so fast. First, you tell me about your family.”

“My family? Why do you want to know about them?”

“Let’s start with your father. She said it started before puberty.”

“Who said? I don’t understand.”

He waved away my questions. “You were twelve when your father had his car crash. You watched him die. Did you touch him? Of course you did—but did you touch him like you’re touching me now? Are his memories alive inside you?”