Nightmare City Part 15

The double looked at Karen Lee as she cried. "You should call the police," he told her.

She shook her head. "He has friends on the police force. He has friends everywhere. A lot of them. Powerful people. I don't know who to trust."

Tom's double nodded. "You can trust me," he said. "Once I write the story, once it's public, he won't be able to do anything to you. If he does, everyone will know it's him. Who is he? What is he trying to keep secret?"

Karen Lee stared at the doppelganger, her eyes bright through the tears. Tom could see she desperately wanted to speak, to tell the truth. She forced the words out.

"He was the one who sold drugs to the team," she said. "I'm his receptionist and a.s.sistant. I saw everything. The coach-Coach Petrie-he would come to him after hours at the office. He brought him cash, and the doctor gave him hypodermics full of steroids. And pills to take, too. He told me if I told anyone about it, I would go to prison, the same as him. So I was scared. I kept my mouth shut. I kept it secret for three years. But then-then when I heard about your story in the school newspaper, I realized I'd been wrong. I should've told at the start. I shouldn't have stood by and let it happen. I told him: They're going to catch us eventually. We should do the right thing. We should tell the truth. Maybe that way the law won't be so hard on us. But he . . . he got upset. And then he came here. Threatened me . . ."

Watching Karen Lee-watching the doppelganger-Tom felt his heart sinking inside him. He knew what was going to happen next, what they would both say next. He remembered. He even remembered the shock he felt the first time he heard it. He didn't want to hear it again. He didn't want to be here anymore.

But he stayed where he was. He stood and listened. He had looked too hard for the answers to run away from them now.

"Who was this?" said Tom's double. "Who sold the players the drugs? Who threatened you like this?"

Karen Lee, still crying, whispered the name: "Dr. Cameron."

The next moment was beyond belief. Tom saw it happen with his own eyes and still couldn't take it in, couldn't get his mind to grasp it.

"Dr. Cameron," said Karen Lee-and Tom's double straightened in surprise. Dr. Cameron? Marie's father! The double began to step back . . . and then stopped. No, he didn't stop. He froze. He froze completely in mid-step, his foot half lifted off the floor. Before Tom fully comprehended what he was seeing, his gaze shifted to Karen Lee and he saw that she, too, had gone utterly motionless. She was standing unblinking, with her lips still parted on the name of Marie's father.

Tom looked around him. The apartment was silent. It was not an ordinary silence. It was complete. Nothing disturbed it. The refrigerator wasn't humming. There were no voices from other apartments or from outside. The air itself seemed to have stopped moving entirely.

Tom stared at Karen Lee. He stared at his double. He moved to his double and looked right into his face-right into his own face-and yet the doppelganger did not budge. Quickly, Tom went around him. He went to the gla.s.s doors that led out onto the balcony. He looked through.

The rain was motionless in the sky. It streaked the air but didn't fall. Stupefied, Tom looked down the hill. He saw the cars on the town's main street. They were no longer moving either. Beyond that, he saw the ocean, saw that the Pacific itself had ceased all motion. Its waves did not rise and fall but were frozen at their crests, reaching up toward the low clouds, which likewise did not so much as shift in the sky.

His eyes wide, Tom spun back to the scene in the apartment. It was just as it had been. Tom's double stepping back in shock. Karen Lee locked in the instant after she had spoken. A scene so uncanny, it filled Tom with a sense of helplessness, not to mention fear. A million explanations began to form in his mind, but each trailed off unfinished. Because nothing explained it. It was impossible.

Tom glanced out the gla.s.s doors again. The rain still hung midair, forever falling from motionless clouds onto a still ocean. But something was different. Something had changed. It took Tom a moment, but then he realized what it was.

The sky was darker now than it had been a moment before. The whole scene was darker. The light had faded. And as Tom stood there staring at the bizarrely motionless view, the scene grew even darker still.

He faced the apartment again and, yes, here, too, the light was going out. It was as if night was falling. Every second that pa.s.sed, the frozen world turned a deeper gray. Soon, Tom realized, very soon, all the light would be gone. There would be blackness.

Tom took a slow, hesitant step away from the gla.s.s doors, back toward his own frozen double. Now, finally, an idea was beginning to take shape in his mind, the beginning of an explanation. Maybe this, he thought-this frozen moment-was the place where his memory ended. He'd heard that happened to people sometimes when they were in an accident or got injured-or got shot. The memory of the trauma was erased. The shock was too much to bear and the brain shut down. Maybe this was that moment. Maybe, in fighting his way to the school, he had unlocked everything that remained in his memory, and this was as far as he could go.

He had come this far through the dangerous world of his imagination, but he had reached the end. The darkness was falling now because there was nothing after this. Only blackness. Unconsciousness. Coma-endless coma until his heart stopped and his life was over.

Unless . . .

Unless what? What could he do? Moment by moment, the apartment grew even darker. Already it seemed a sort of dusk had settled over the scene. When the darkness was complete there would be nowhere else to go, nothing to think about . . . nothing.

Tom lifted his hand uncertainly. It was growing dim in front of him. He himself was fading into the darkness. Slowly, tentatively, he reached out toward his double. He extended his hand toward the doppelganger's shoulder and then-then, holding his breath, he pushed it through.

As if it were made of smoke, his hand seemed to dissipate and vanish in front of Tom's eyes. It went right into the double's shoulder, and Tom gave a groan as he felt the beginning of that horrible nothingness again, that sensation of atomizing he had felt out in the hall.

And yet maybe there was a chance, just a chance, that that was exactly what could save him.

An even deeper darkness than evening now folded over the scene. Tom knew his wounded mind could not remember anymore.

But what if, he thought-what if instead of remembering, I could relive it?

It might work. It might. If he could enter his doppelganger before the darkness fell-lose himself in his double as he had for that one second out in the hall-maybe he could relive the events that had plunged him into this coma-world in the first place. Somewhere in his brain those events were recorded, after all, even if his memory couldn't access them. But if he could become his memory, then maybe he could force himself to face the thoughts and feelings and events-the suffering-that had brought him here, and that were keeping him from making his way back into the light of life.

It was a frightening prospect. He knew if he went through with it, the Tom he was now would vanish. If he entered into the doppelganger, if he became one with his memory, he would no longer know that he was in a coma. He would no longer know that this was his imagination. He would be back in the life that had brought him here, and he would no longer know what was going to happen next.

He was going to have to relive the worst moments of his life-the last moments of his life-as if they were happening for the first time. It was the only way he could overcome his mind's resistance and discover the whole truth.

He was going to have to see it with his own eyes.

The double stood frozen. Karen Lee stood frozen. The world stood frozen. And night fell steadily. The darkness was almost complete.

Tom had to choose-and fast. He had to decide right now which he wanted more, the painless comfort of unconsciousness or the agony of knowing.

It's like the Bible says, he remembered Lisa telling him. Find the truth-and the truth will set you free.

Well, he answered in his mind, the truth is what I'm here for.

And as the darkness fell around him, he stepped forward boldly. He walked into the body of his doppelganger. Directly into nothingness. Directly into the moment of his own destruction.

Dr. Cameron," said Karen Lee.

Tom was so shocked by the words he took a step backward.

"Dr. Cameron? But that's not poss-" he started to say. He had been about to protest that it couldn't be true, it couldn't have been Dr. Cameron who had sold the drugs to the football players. It couldn't have been Marie's decent, sophisticated, well-spoken father-the man who served on so many boards of so many charities, the man who had his picture taken with so many powerful, famous people. He couldn't be the one who had exchanged injections and pills for fistfuls of cash. Who had come here and threatened Karen Lee and violently torn her apartment to pieces.

But the protest died in his mouth. He knew deep down that Karen Lee was telling the truth. Dr. Cameron's guilt would explain a lot. It would explain what Marie had been saying to Gordon in the gym. She and her father had been trying to make a friend of Tom so they could convince him to stop looking for the rest of the story about the championship Tigers. They thought if Tom liked Dr. Cameron enough-and if he thought he had a chance to win Marie-they might be able to convince him to leave the story alone, to keep Dr. Cameron's guilt out of the newspaper.

Oh, come on, baby, he could imagine Marie saying to him. In that same irresistible coaxing tone she had used on Gordon. Just do it for me.

Tom took a deep breath. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. There was a recorder function on it. He pressed the b.u.t.ton. He held the phone out toward Karen Lee.

"Miss Lee," he said. "Tell me the story. Tell me the whole story from the beginning."

Karen Lee's tears were subsiding. "All right," she said with a weary nod. "I can't keep it secret anymore."

Twenty minutes later Tom had it all, the whole story recorded on his phone.

Dr. Cameron-Karen Lee told him-loved being an important man. He loved being appointed to boards, loved having his picture taken with politicians and celebrities. But that way of life cost a lot of money, more money than he made in his medical practice. So he had begun making risky investments in the stock market, hoping the large returns would allow him to live at that high level that made him feel important.

When the market suddenly dropped, his money dried up. Dr. Cameron went into debt, deep into debt. But instead of cutting back on his spending, instead of sacrificing his wealthy life and his pride, he began to borrow-to borrow a lot-from the banks, at first, and then, when the banks wouldn't lend him any more, from loan sharks, mobster thugs from Nevada who charged insanely high interest and demanded to be paid every week or else.

The further into debt Dr. Cameron went, the more risks he took in the market, hoping to hit it big and get free from the mobsters' clutches. The more risks he took, the deeper into debt he went: a vicious cycle. Soon the thugs were threatening him-threatening his wife-threatening his children. If he couldn't pay back the money, they said, he would have to pay them back in other ways: by supplying them with prescription drugs that they could resell on the black market.

So now the respectable doctor had become a criminal, a drug dealer.

Dr. Cameron was desperate to get out, desperate to get free of his troubles. And he thought he saw a way. Coach Petrie was one of his patients. The doctor suggested he could help the Tigers play better, ensure they would start winning. He said he could give them a chance to make it all the way to the Open Division and take the state trophy. Coach decided it was worth a try. He was soon visiting the doctor's office more and more often, buying more and more of the illegal performance enhancers that gave his players extra size and strength. The Tigers started winning-against all odds, against all expectations-and Dr. Cameron started using his drug profits to bet on the final outcome of the championship with the bookies in Vegas. The odds against the Tigers at that early stage were enormous. If the Tigers won it all, the bookies would have to pay off big. Dr. Cameron could get out of debt at last.

It was no wonder Dr. Cameron was so frightened his story would come out. If his role in the Tigers' corruption became public, all his criminal dealings would be exposed. Not only would he be sent to prison for a long time, but there'd be some very angry thugs in Nevada, tough guys who felt he'd ripped them off by rigging the big game without telling them.

His life-his honor, his importance, his friendships with governors and mayors and celebrities-it would all come crashing down in ruin and disgrace.

Karen Lee had been on hand as much of this tragedy unfolded. She had witnessed some of it and overheard some, and Dr. Cameron, in his misery, had even confided some of it to her. But she'd been afraid to tell anyone-afraid she would get in trouble herself and afraid of the lengths to which Dr. Cameron would go to silence her. She had kept her secrets for three years-right up until she had read Tom's story in the paper. Then the quiet promptings of her conscience had grown louder and she could no longer resist them. Before calling Tom, she had tried to convince Dr. Cameron to come forward with the truth himself. But he had refused-and then, later, he had come to her apartment and tried to terrorize her into keeping her long silence.

As Tom walked out of apartment 6B, he realized he was walking into a world of trouble. The Sentinel story about the Tigers' drug use had already caused a firestorm of controversy. If he and Lisa ran this additional story about Dr. Cameron's involvement, the turmoil would grow tenfold. They would not only be accusing one of the most important men in town of breaking the law. They'd be uncovering a world of corruption and drug deals that could have repercussions through the whole city, maybe the whole state. A lot of people-Dr. Cameron, Coach Petrie, and all their important friends and supporters-would do anything they could to stop Tom and Lisa, to shut them up and shut them down.

So Tom knew he needed to act fast. Once the story was in the newspaper, once everyone knew the truth, Dr. Cameron wouldn't dare attack Karen Lee again. And any important friends he had would probably turn tail and run instead of helping him. They wouldn't want to risk getting in trouble themselves.

Tom's heart was beating hard as he rode the elevator down to the lobby. Thoughts were crowding into his mind. He had to call Lisa. They had to get to work as quickly as they could. Write the story, put the paper out before anyone could stop them.

Marie will never forgive me, he thought. She will hate me forever.

He tried to push the idea out of his mind. What difference did it make whether Marie hated him or not? All her affection for him had been a lie anyway. He couldn't lose a girl he'd never really had.

But even as he told himself that, the image of her face came to him. That amazingly pretty face he had loved since he was a little kid. The idea that she might hate him forever hurt-it hurt more than he wanted to admit. And he had a feeling it was going to hurt for a long, long time to come.

The elevator stopped. The door opened. Tom stepped out into the lobby. The receptionist with the stern face flashed a brief smile at him from behind her desk.

"Have a nice day," she said without much feeling.

Tom nodded and walked out of the building.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle now. Tom's Mustang was parked across the street. He got into it, turned on the engine, turned on the windshield wipers. As the wipers swept the rain off the gla.s.s, he dug his phone out of his pocket again. He called up Lisa's name on his speed dial.

But before he could press the Call b.u.t.ton, the phone rang. The readout lit up: Marie Cameron.

Tom stared at the name for only a second. Then he answered.

"It's me, Tom," she said.

The sweet, soft voice seemed to pierce through him. "Marie." Her name came out of him in a low murmur. This was probably the last time she would ever speak to him, he realized.

"I need to talk to you, Tom," she said. "It's important."

Holding the phone to his ear, Tom looked out the windshield at the street in front of him, looked through the air gray with rain. "Go ahead," he said.

"Not on the phone. We have to meet. It's about . . . it's about my dad."

"Your dad?"

"Yes. And about the football team. My dad was the one who . . . Look, I don't want to say it on the phone. Please . . ."

Tom was quiet a moment, surprised. This was a twist. It didn't make sense. If Marie had been flirting with him to keep him from finding out the truth, why was she telling it to him straight out like this? "I already know about that," he said. "And listen, I'm sorry. I wish I could keep quiet about it."

"Keep quiet?" said Marie, sounding startled. "No, no, you can't keep quiet. Of course not. You have to write about it in the paper. But you can't write about it until you know the whole story. The real story."

Now Tom was just plain confused. "What do you mean?"

"It's not what you think, Tom. It's totally different than what it sounds like. Believe me. You have to meet me. Somewhere secret. I don't want my father to know. Or Gordon."

"Gordon? What's he got to do with it?"

"Tom," said Marie-and again, her voice seemed to go right into him. "I promise I'll tell you everything if you just meet me."

Tom only hesitated another moment. What could he do? He had to meet her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn't know the whole story. Before he did anything else, he had to find out all the facts.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Where do you want to meet?"

"Up on Cold Water Mountain," Marie answered. "No one goes there since the fire. Meet me at the monastery."

It was a ten-minute drive to the trailhead. Half an hour's hike up into the hills. Soon Tom was moving through the part of the woods that had been destroyed last summer by the Independence Fire. The blaze had started after a bunch of kids set off some fireworks near the trail. The dry summer brush had been torched, and the flames had swept through the woods for nearly three days before the firemen had finally managed to put the fire out. It had left behind a h.e.l.lish landscape: a whole forest of twisted, blackened trees, their gnarled branches stunted, their broken silhouettes twisted against the boiling, cloud-covered sky.

The rain had stopped, but the light was failing. Evening was spreading across the mountainside like a gray stain. Tendrils of mist twined among the spooky, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, coal-black corpses that had once been living trees.

Tom's footsteps were the only noises in the deserted place. They were eerily loud as he made his way along the trail, under the gnarled branches. It was not long before the charred timbers of the monastery roof became visible over the ridge. A few more steps and the rest of the retreat came into view.

Santa Maria had been a retreat for Catholic monks who wanted to get away from the world and contemplate G.o.d. Most of the monks came up from the main monastery building in the town below, but others came from around the country, too, to see the artwork here and to appreciate the beautiful views of the mountainside and the ocean. The place had actually been kind of famous for a while. But it was just a ruin now. Jagged, fire-blackened walls stood against the backdrop of the distant sea. There were piles of toppled bricks. A stone chimney still standing lopsided under a burned oak. Remnants of rooms with one or two walls remaining. Pieces of furniture-tables, chairs-burned and broken, lying in the dirt under the burned, broken trees as if they were part of the forest as well.

Just beyond the building site, there was a huge table of rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. It formed a sort of natural balcony, beyond which Tom could see the town spread out among the trees below, and the ocean, endless and dark blue under the churning gray sky. The monks had often come out onto this rock at the end of the day to watch the sunset.

Tom scanned the scene. Silent now. Motionless.

He called out, "Marie?"