Chapter 12
As soon as Mathilda was out of earshot, Rory crouched next to Lincoln and spoke in a low voice. “Lincoln, don’t say a word, just listen. Everyone here thinks I’m you, and you’re me. I told them that so they wouldn’t mess with us, before I knew they were trustworthy.
“Our plane went down in the jungle. This is a research camp for scientists and they’ve been letting us stay here. Now that you’re awake, we can figure out a different plan. But for now, can you just go along with this one? I don’t want them to think we lied to them.”
He especially didn’t want Mathilda to think that. If he was lucky, he’d get a chance to explain it to her privately. But he could already hear excited voices outside the tent, and knew they didn’t have much time.
Lincoln closed his eyes wearily. Then opened them again, and frowned. “Safe?”
“Safe? More or less, I think. It was touch and go for a bit. I was injured in the crash too.” He showed off his bandage.
“You were knocked into a coma. There’s a woman here who used to be a doctor and she’s been treating you.
She really hit the nail on the head, so to speak, with the timing of—” He broke off.
Maybe he shouldn’t talk about their bet about the end of Lincoln’s coma.
“Not us. Kit?”
“Right, the med kit. It’s safe, I promise.” He didn’t mention that he knew what was inside it now.
Lincoln closed his eyes again, and his forehead furrowed.
“Are you in pain?” Rory asked him. “Does something hurt? They couldn’t find any other injuries, but there’s no scanning equipment out here, no X-rays or—”
“Shhhh. Head.” Lincoln put his hand to his head.
“Right. Sorry. I shouldn’t have overloaded you with so much information right out of the gate.
Take some breaths. Collect yourself. A bunch more people are about to come in here and ask you some questions.
Can you remember what I said? You’re Rory and I’m Lincoln.
Just for the time being, until we work this through.
We’ll talk more later after everyone’s gone. Got it?”
Lincoln didn’t get a chance to answer before Sasha and Mathilda burst into the tent. Rory stepped back so Sasha could examine him. He tried to stay close, but Sasha shooed him away so she could get some privacy for her patient.
Crossing his fingers and hoping for the best, Rory joined Mathilda near the tent entrance.
“How does he seem so far?” she whispered. “It must be so strange to wake up in a completely different place with total strangers. I’m so glad you were there with him. Did he say anything?”
“Not much.” He frowned as he realized that Lincoln hadn’t said much other than “Rory,” and that was because he’d asked him to say it.
He’d figured that framing “Rory” as a request to repeat after him would explain why Lincoln had called him that—an on-the-spot improvised plan, but the best he could come up with.
But other than that one word, Rory himself had done most of the talking. Lincoln had said “safe,” and “head,” and that was about it. He had no idea if his boss had grasped anything Rory had said to him.
“I think his head was still hurting,” he told Mathilda. “But that’s about all he had to say. He was probably disoriented.”
Maybe he could keep using that explanation if Lincoln insisted he was Lincoln, not Rory. Or maybe he’d just give up the whole charade, admit he’d lied, and take his lumps.
“Quick question.” Mathilda edged closer to him and asked in a low murmur, “Were you about to kiss me? Before Rory woke up?”
He looked down at her upturned face. Her eyes were such a clear blue, like a morning swim in the Pacific.
Her hair had dried in chaotic waves. She’d wrapped herself in a thick oversized hoodie that probably belonged to one of the guys in the camp.
She looked like she’d just stepped off a surfboard, and yes, absolutely, he’d been about to kiss her.
But it would have been a mistake, because he was currently living a lie. So it was a good thing he hadn’t.
“It was a sleeping beauty kind of thing,” he said, aiming for light humor. “We kiss, he wakes up.”
She held his gaze, searching his face. He wasn’t sure what she saw there, or what she was looking for. Whatever it was, she didn’t seem to find it, because she turned her attention to the cot where Sasha was tending to Lincoln.
“What will you do now that Rory’s awake?” she asked.
He’d been thinking about that. It all depended on Lincoln. He was the boss, after all. If he wanted to get checked out at a hospital, that was what they would do. “I think it’ll depend on how quickly he gets his strength back, and what Sasha thinks we should do.”
She nodded. “Look, I know I’ve been giving you a hard time about the whole cold-hearted CEO thing, but you’ve been very kind to your pilot. I owe you an apology.”
“Oh, no, that’s really not necessary.” Not to mention awkward…he was the one who should be apologizing for lying to her ever since he’d met her.
“It is. You could have left your pilot alone here with us. You’re probably missing business deals and investment opportunities and board meetings and who knows what.
You’re actually putting his needs ahead of your own, and all I’ve been doing is teasing you and making assumptions. So I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
He realized that she was saying all this because she thought he and Lincoln were going to leave. She wanted to make things “right” before that happened.
So did he. But could he? What if Lincoln wanted to continue the ruse for his own safety?
He might not ever be able to tell Mathilda the truth.
In fact, he might never see her again. The fact they’d even crossed paths to begin with was a complete twist of fate.
When would it ever happen again? He lived in Silver Lake, California, she lived in the jungle. He liked to fly, she liked birds.
Okay, that was pretty similar, in a way.
If only he could have more time to get to know Mathilda, with all her quirks and opinions. He found her outrageously attractive, even when she was watching him with that serious expression, her hand extended as part of her apology.
Just then, Sasha rose to her feet and came toward them. Her expression was so grave that Rory’s heart sank. Lincoln must have revealed the truth before he could do so himself. He was busted. He’d probably look like an asshole for trying to pretend he was a billionaire.
“I’m afraid he’s going to need some time,” said Sasha. “I gave him a basic cognitive exam and his answers were…odd, shall we say.”
“Odd? What does that mean?” Rory’s heart was beating hard against his rib cage.
“Well, when I asked him his name, he said he didn’t know. Then he said he wasn’t supposed to say. Very confused, to say the least. I asked him the year, and he said it was next year.”
“Next year?”
“Yes, in fact he gave a very specific date. May twentieth of next year. He seemed very sure of that.”
That date must be very important to Lincoln for some reason. Rory filed it away in his brain.
“Did he say anything else?”
“I asked if he remembered what happened. It’s not unusual to have no memory of a traumatic event, but sometimes patients remember something.
At first he kept saying “kit” over and over again.
I asked if he wanted a Kit-Kat, but he said no.
Then he started getting paranoid. He said people will come after him.
I asked who he was talking about, and he muttered something about industrial espionage.
I asked who was spying on him, just playing along.
He said he couldn’t say any more, that it wouldn’t be safe.
” She shook her head. “I mean, what industrial spy would want to go after a pilot? Seems quite delusional. But it can take coma victims a while to sort out reality from whatever they experienced while unconscious. It’s really pretty fascinating.
There’s so much we still don’t understand about how the brain works, and how it repairs itself. ”
“Has he ever talked like that before?” Mathilda asked Rory. Her hands were tucked into her back pockets now. “Paranoid, like that?”
Rory took refuge in the disconnected billionaire act. “Not that I know of. We didn’t talk about things like that. He’s just my pilot.”
“Right.” Mathilda turned back to Sasha. “So what do you recommend? Should he go to the hospital in Hilo?”
“It would probably be a good idea to get him examined. Physically, I see no reason why he couldn’t travel. I asked if he was hungry and yes, he is. I’m not going to remove his Foley yet because I’m not sure he’s up for walking around just yet. He fell back asleep while we were talking.”
“Poor guy.” Mathilda shook her head sadly. “I’ll go get him some food. Sasha, what would be best for him?”
“Simple is best. I killed a chicken yesterday, so there’s that broth already simmering. Add some rice to that and it’s good to go.”
Rory startled at the realization that the flock of chickens that randomly roamed the encampment were actually a food source.
Mathilda caught his reaction and smirked. “Your city boy roots are showing,” she murmured. Then, “I’ll bring him some soup. Or should I wait until he wakes up again?”
“Just bring it. He’s hungry enough, the smell will probably wake him.” Sasha smiled quizzically at Mathilda. “You seem to have developed a bit of an attachment to the poor fellow.”
“Just trying to be a good human. I feel bad for him. It’s sort of a metaphor for injustice, you know? The hard-working pilot takes the brunt of the crash while the billionaire walks out barely injured.”
“Hey.” Just as a reminder, Rory lifted his bandaged arm in the air. “This still hurts, you know.”
“Awww. I hope it doesn’t interfere with your golf game.” She made a little face at him. Apparently they were back to their previous dynamic of teasing, which he much preferred to an unnecessary apology.
“Now now, kids.” Sasha made a show of shepherding them out of the tent. “No bickering near my patient.”
Rory let himself be guided outside. He needed a moment to himself anyway.
As Mathilda hurried across the clearing toward the community yurt, he went the opposite way, into the jungle.
He made his way past a “walking tree,” the hala that put out stilt-like roots that created the illusion that they were on a slow stroll through the jungle.
Finally, when all the human sounds from the encampment had died away, he stopped and gazed up at the fringed coconut fronds towering above his head.
The jungle sounds quickly engulfed him. A distant rooster crow, the noisy chatter of the myna birds, the invisible scurrying of a rat in the coconut palms.
If Lincoln was right about the industrial espionage, that could explain the drone. Maybe it had nothing to do with his half-sister’s lawsuit. Maybe there was some international corporate conflict at play here, possibly involving that mysterious crystal.
If that was the case, they probably wouldn’t stop at the crash site. It wouldn’t take long for them to locate the nearest group of humans, the most likely place for Lincoln to have taken refuge. In fact, he was surprised they hadn’t already.
Maybe they had, and were already spying on the camp.
He hadn’t seen any drones nearby, but a spy drone would be more difficult to detect.
Or maybe there was a satellite focused on them at this very moment.
The encampment was tiny, and surrounded by soaring palms and thick jungle growth, but a spy satellite would no doubt be able to spot them.
In his uneducated opinion, there hadn’t been enough time for anyone to organize and launch a boots-on-the-ground kind of operation. But was that coming next? If so, what should he do about it? Warn the group, obviously. Flee the camp?
If only Lincoln could share a little more detail about what was going on. If there even was anything nefarious happening; it could be nothing but the fever dream of a coma victim.
But the drone was real. He couldn’t forget that.
Just then, the sound of a quiet footstep caught his attention.
Someone else was here in the jungle with him. He held his breath so he wouldn’t make a sound, and listened.
Another footfall. A muffled curse. A slap, probably at a mosquito.
If this was some kind of stealth invasion, they weren’t being very stealthy about it.
Rory silently crouched behind a giant lacy tree fern and waited for the intruder to get close. If he got a look at him, he might be able to determine if he was a threat or not.
Finally the man moved into view, shoving aside the thick foliage of a ti plant and stumbling onto the path. He wore head-to-toe jungle camouflage attire and thick-soled boots, and a mosquito head-net that made him impossible to identify. One hand grasped a machete with a sharp, gleaming edge.
That was enough for Rory. When the intruder passed in front of the tree fern, Rory stuck out his foot and tripped him up.
The man pitched forward and landed with a hard thud flat on his face.
He lost his grip on his machete, which spiraled into the weeds.
Rory burst onto the path and pounced on his back.
He struggled to pitch Rory off, to get back on his feet, or at least hands and knees, but Rory dug his knees into his shoulders until the man groaned with pain.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can’t…say,” the man gasped. “Important. Legal.”
Sure. Whatever. Rory leaned to the right so he could reach the machete. Just as he grabbed it, the man managed to roll out from under him. Rory sprang to his feet and brandished the machete at him.
“Walk. Slowly and carefully. Go.”
The intruder raised his hands and did as he was told.
They headed for the camp, while Rory made his decision. He didn’t have the right to put these kind scientists in danger. It was time for him to tell the truth so they could all decide what to do about this suddenly very real threat.