be forgotten or erased by the madness that took root on this property.
“Charley?”
Cole’s here. As usual, he looks like a menswear model amid the horror.
“Zoey,” she says.
“What?”
“The woman I saved. Her name’s Zoey Long. We take care of her. We figure it out.”
Cole nods.
“That means we don’t drug her and leave her on the side of the road and make the world think she’s crazy.”
“I get it,” Cole says.
Steadying her voice as much as she can, she points one dusty finger toward the expanse of pits before them. “We learn their names, too. Every last one. And we let their families know. Or so help me God I’m never doing this again.”
Cole turns to survey the awful sweep of the barn’s freshly opened floor.
He’s hesitating.
She’s waiting. She’ll wait for hours if she has to.
“Deal,” he finally whispers.
The men standing guard outside the barn part before her like she’s the president, clearing a path to the Black Hawk, where Luke stands waiting for her next to the open door. Zoey Long’s already inside, wrapped in a blanket, watching her approach. She looks alert, present inside her skin, and that fills Charlotte with relief.
Cole wants them airborne as soon as possible. She can hear him giving orders to the response team members behind her, telling them to scrub all evidence they’ve been there, including removing the third truck they found left on the property, the one in which the slain victim presumably died. Luke’s helping her into the Black Hawk when she hears one of the ground team guys ask Cole, “What’s the cover story?”
Cole says, “This time we’re not using one.”
For a second, she thinks that means Graydon Pharmaceuticals is about to out itself to the world as a freelance hunter of serial killers. But that can’t be it, and she’s too tired to figure out what else it might be. Inside the helicopter, she settles onto the bench seat. Luke sits down next to her as the door slides shut next to him. He slips her headphones on, puts on a set himself. He’s explaining how they’re going to make a refueling stop on the way back to Kansas Command, but she’s not paying much attention. She’s just spotted something outside.
The Black Hawk is lifting off above the parched landscape of Marjorie Payne’s ranch when their angle shifts and the bright-orange sunlight reflecting off the windows of Cole’s personal helicopter leaves the glass. Now she can see inside the passenger compartment, where a familiar face is watching the Black Hawk rise into the dawn.
It’s been six months since she’s heard his voice, even longer since she’s laid eyes on him. Once she called him Dr. Thorpe; then, when they became more comfortable with each other, Dylan. Then, after he tricked her into taking a drug that could have killed her, he became a nameless monster until his real name was revealed to her. Noah Turlington.
Luke falls silent when he realizes what she’s seen.
When she looks to him for an explanation, he says, “Yeah, there’s also that.”
And Charley realizes she might not be too tired for anger after all.
42
Lebanon, Kansas
“Sit,” Charlotte says.
Noah Turlington obeys.
Leave it to Cole to lace the grounds around his top-secret command center with paved walking trails and little clusters of benches shaded by sycamore trees like the one she’s sitting under now. While most of the vast farmland next to the airstrip is just empty fields, these landscape ornamentations around the hangar and the main house will mislead unwanted visitors into believing this place is a corporate retreat dropped in the middle of America’s rural heart. Although with Cole’s levels of security, she has trouble imagining unwanted visitors getting anywhere near here.
Noah’s windbreaker is more suited to the cool breeze kissing the property than the heavy woolen blanket Charlotte wears over her shoulders. But ever since they finished her examination in the infirmary, she’s been clutching it for security, not warmth.
Luke offered to attend this uncomfortable sit-down with her, and while she appreciated the gesture, she needs to do this one alone.
“He says you helped,” she finally says.
“Cole said this?”
“No, Santa Claus.”
“I see. So we’re going to do sarcasm.”
“Dr. Turlington, it will be a very long time before I’m interested in what you think of my tone.”
Noah bows his head and clears his throat. What he cleared it for, she’s not quite sure, because he doesn’t say anything further. Maybe he realizes he overstepped and got this meeting off on the wrong foot.