CHAPTER 4 #2
Inside, the air is only slightly warmer than outside. Tessa exits and turns slowly, taking in the concrete walls, storage cabinets, workbench, and second interior door.
“You brought me to an abandoned avalanche station.”
“Yes.”
“Does it have heat?”
“Sometimes.”
“Water?”
“Yes.”
“Phone?”
“No.”
She meets my eyes.
“There is radio equipment,” I add.
“Can I contact June?”
“No.”
The brief lift in her expression disappears.
I open the rear panel and remove supplies. “Not until I know which frequencies are watched.”
“You keep turning my sister into a future privilege.”
“I am keeping her from becoming a current target.”
“She is already a target.”
“Yes.”
Tessa steps closer. She reaches only to the upper part of my chest, but the difference in size does nothing to reduce the pressure in the space.
“You do not get to agree with me as if that settles it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The repetition makes her angrier. Good. Anger is movement. She will need movement to cross the next hours.
I unlock the interior door and turn on the emergency lights. The station contains a central monitoring room, narrow kitchen, two sleeping rooms, storage, and a lower maintenance level. Dust covers some surfaces, but I stocked the location four months ago.
Tessa enters behind me. The lock engages automatically when the exterior door closes. She hears it. Her body turns. I reach past the control panel and disable the internal lock sequence.
One by one, the doors release.
Tessa watches.
“The exterior remains secured,” I say. “Interior doors stay open.”
“You expect credit?”
“No.”
I put bottled water and food on the kitchen counter. Clean clothing goes on a chair. The smallest set belongs to Iris, though I do not say her name.
Tessa walks to the window. Snow moves across the glass in pale streams.
Her posture changes now that she has stopped. Shoulders lowering, then tightening again when she notices. One hand reaches for the edge of the sill and misses it by an inch before correcting.
The panic has arrived. She controls it by examining the room.
“How many exits?”
“Three.”
“Show me.”
I do. Main service bay. Rear equipment door. Lower maintenance tunnel. The tunnel is partly blocked in winter but passable. I give her the keys to the rear door. She closes her fingers around them.
Not trust.
A tool.
When we return to the kitchen, she points toward my side.
“Sit.”
“I need to check the perimeter.”
“You need to stop bleeding before you collapse while checking it.”
“I will not collapse.”
“Fine. Before you become increasingly irritating from blood loss.”
I remove the jacket and lift my shirt enough to inspect the wound. The cut is shallow, reopened rather than new. It needs cleaning and perhaps two sutures. Tessa sees the scar beneath it.
Recognition settles across her face again. Eight years collapse into the room.
She approaches more slowly than she did in the office. “That is the same wound.”
“The scar is.”
“Who treated the newer one?”
“I did.”
“That was my second guess.”
She washes her hands, finds gloves in the kit, and arranges supplies on the counter. Her movements become more certain as the task becomes familiar.
“Sit.”
I sit. She cleans the cut. Pain comes sharp and clean. Her fingers are steady.
“You said your name was Daniel,” she says.
“It was close.”
“To what?”
I do not answer. She looks up at me.
The loose strands of her hair frame her face. Up close, the scar beneath her chin is narrow and pale. There are faint shadows beneath her eyes. She smells of cold air, antiseptic, and coffee that dried hours ago.
“What do they call you now?” she asks.
“Rook.”
“That is not a name.”
“No.”
“What is your name?”
I keep the answer where it has remained for eight years. Behind teeth. Beneath orders. Inside records marked deceased.
“Not yet.”
Tessa turns back to the wound. Her touch becomes more impersonal. She places two sutures. Covers them. Removes the gloves. Then she steps away.
“Your accounts are already inaccessible,” I tell her. “Your employee credentials will be suspended once the death entry is confirmed. Your apartment will become a controlled location. Your vehicle is gone. Your phone is gone.”
She looks toward the narrow window.
“June will identify the body.”
“No.”
“Someone will ask her.”
“The remains are damaged. Dental comparison will be prepared.”
“Prepared.”
“Yes.”
She folds her arms across herself. The gray coat is still on. Melted snow has dried in darker patches. The certificate creates a slight rectangular shape beneath the fabric.
“What happens to my job?”
“I don’t know.”
“My apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
“My patients’ families?”
“You do not have patients.”
The instant the words leave, I know they are wrong. Tessa meets my eyes.
“The families whose cases I investigate are not mine,” she says. “The dead are not mine. But they expect me to arrive when I say I will. They expect their names to be spelled correctly. They expect someone to remember why a pair of shoes matters.”
I remain silent.
“You saved my pulse,” she continues. “You did not save any of that.”
“I know.”
“No, you understand it as information.”
Her distinction is accurate enough to wound. She reaches into her coat and removes the death certificate. The paper has been folded once. She opens it on the counter between us.
Her name sits above tomorrow’s date.
“You took everything this document says I was,” she says.
“I kept it from becoming physically true.”
“And that makes the rest acceptable?”
“No.”
“Then stop saying it like survival ends the argument.”
I look down at the certificate. A man in my profession learns to reduce outcomes. Breathing or not. Threat or not. Exit or not. Tessa lives in what remains after the simple categories fail.
I thought keeping her alive would be the difficult part. It may be the only part I understand. She folds the certificate again.
“You didn’t save my life,” she says. “You took it from me.”