The Sleepless Stars Read online

  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.”

  Chapter 11

  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?”

  “No. Of course not.” I pulled away in horror at the thought.

  “Are you sure? Really sure?” He arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “Walk me through it. Every second leading up to his death.”

  “I’m not going to do that. Why should I?” Now I saw where Leo had inherited his sadism. My father’s death was the single most painful event of my life, and Daniel wanted me to relive it for his entertainment?

  “Because it will help me give you the answers you seek. I have a theory, but I need more information. Tell me about your father’s death.”

  I walked faster, moving ahead of him so he couldn’t see my face. The breeze was scented with wildflowers that reminded me of the honeysuckle that grew wild outside the bedroom window of my childhood home. The only home I knew—until my father died and I lost it.

  Everything changed when I lost him.

  Blinking back tears at the memory, I brushed my hair back from my face and turned to Daniel. “What do you want to know?”

  Chapter 12

  “TELL ME MORE about this Brother Tyrone,” Ryder asked Grey. “Would he have the resources to build a lab like this one? Does he have a background in science? He doesn’t sound like your typical bioterrorist.”

  “That’s the problem. What is a typical bioterrorist?” Grey’s gaze remained locked on the expanse of dark forest across the water. “I sure as hell don’t know, and I’ve been doing this for years.” His phone rang. “Yeah? Where? Okay, I’m on my way. No, wait—I think I have a local who can help with that.” He hung up and turned to Ryder. “My guys think they may have located them. I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  Instead of answering, Grey spun to his left, heading away from the river and the crime scene toward a black Tahoe parked a block up. Ryder followed.

  “If there’s a terrorist threat in my city, you need to tell me. I can call for backup.”

  Grey’s expression was one of dismissal. “Right. As if I’d trust your department for backup.”

  “You said you had a local who could help. What did you mean?”

  They reached the driver’s door. Grey paused, assessing Ryder. “You were in the Army, right? Early days in Afghanistan?”

  “Yeah.” Easy enough for a
Fed to access Ryder’s military record.

  “Back when everyone else was in Iraq, it was pretty much just you guys and the DEA chasing Bin Laden in and out of caves and dirt holes.” Ryder remained silent. “I need a guy like that now. We’ve tracked Tyrone’s men to an abandoned mine not far from here.”

  “Up Cambria Mountain?” It was the mountain across the river, home to several abandoned mining operations. Meant to be posted off-limits, but all the locals, including Ryder’s family, hunted there.

  “Yeah, that’s the place. My guys are going to meet us there, do a little recon. Someone who knows the terrain might be helpful.”

  Ryder hesitated.

  Grey opened his door. “If you want to walk away from this, cover your ass, that’s fine with me. As far as I’m concerned, we never met.”

  Ryder knew he was being played. But he also wanted in on the Fed’s operation. At the very least, he could learn more about what the Feds knew, see if this Brother Tyrone was behind the fatal insomnia, maybe get a lead that would help Rossi. Not like he had any other leads to follow. “I’m in.”

  As he climbed into the Tahoe’s passenger seat, Ryder sent Price a text letting him know that he was with Grey and asking him to see if he could find out anything on this Brother Tyrone.

  Grey must have studied a map, because while he didn’t take the back roads that Ryder would have chosen, he also didn’t need directions or his nav system to get them to the nearest bridge. Of course, it helped that nine twenty on Christmas night meant no traffic.

  “Tell me more about Brother Tyrone,” Ryder asked. “And this reincarnated Sons of Adam group. Why haven’t they shown up on law enforcement’s radar?”

  “Tyrone’s smart, cunning.” Grey tapped the side of his head with his pointer finger. “Never been arrested. Not even charged. Usually, by the time anyone figures out the Sons of Adam might be involved in an event, they’re in the wind.”

  “They’re not taking public credit?” Unusual for a terrorist group—usually, it was all about public perception, instilling fear that anyone, anywhere was vulnerable and could be their next target. Of course, that same publicity was also often what got them caught.

  “No. Makes them all the more insidious. Take their last target. Small coal town in West Virginia. Population ninety-one percent Caucasian, one hundred percent below the poverty line. People lost the land that had been in their families for generations to the mines and their mountaintop removal. Lost their health after the mining polluted the water—after all, where else you going to dump the top third of a mountain and all the pollution it takes to dig it apart? Lost everything. Least, that’s what they thought. Until Brother Tyrone came to town and they lost their souls.”

  “What happened?” If nothing else, Grey was a good storyteller.

  The metal grill of the bridge vibrated beneath their tires. “Property around town began to get bought up. A bunch of Somali refugees—a dozen or so families—pooled their resources, thought West Virginia would be a good place to start over, rebuild, enjoy their newfound freedom. And for a while everything was good. The Somalis reopened the local grocery so people didn’t have to drive thirty miles over a mountain just to use their food stamps. Their women began a craft cooperative, selling handmade jewelry and whatnot on the Internet and invited local women to join in.”

  They reached the end of the bridge. Instead of continuing straight through the tunnel that ran beneath the mountain and headed south to the turnpike, Ryder pointed Grey to the off-ramp heading east and a township road that would take them up the backside of the mountain, where they were less likely to be spotted.

  The road narrowed from four lanes to two almost immediately. To their left, a thick growth of trees obscured the view of the river. To the right, the road hugged the curves of the mountain jutting up above them.

  “Then Tyrone and his people showed up,” Grey continued his story. “Suddenly, folks were boycotting the Somali store, the craft cooperative’s website was hacked, folks were disgruntled that foreigners were making money off their hard times. Talk of terrorists hiding out—where better than beautiful West Virginia with its hospitality and good-natured Christian folk, after all? Rumors that the Somalis were planning something, something big.”

  “Did they run them out of town?”

  Grey glanced up. “You could say that. It started with little things. Vandalizing the store and the rooms above it that the Somalis used as their mosque. Catcalls and stalking the women if they went out without a man. Sabotaging vehicles. But then...then they targeted the children. Masked men stopped the school bus one morning, made the Somali children get off and the others watch as they tore the head scarves from the girls and made them all lie down in the dirt. Then the men urinated on them.”

  Ryder sat up so fast his seat belt ratcheted in protest. “What the hell were they thinking? To do that to children?”

  “None older than twelve, mind you. These were families working for the American dream. They’d lost everything back home and just wanted a chance to start over where they could live in peace. They weren’t jihadists, they weren’t extremist, they weren’t fanatics. They were families.”

  “Why haven’t I heard about this?” Hate crimes would be under federal jurisdiction. And he couldn’t imagine the media not having a field day with a story like that.

  “Are you kidding? We didn’t even hear about it until later—that’s how terrorized everyone was. Either they agreed with Tyrone and were complicit, or they were too damned scared to make themselves a target. We only learned about it after the Somalis gathered in their store for a meeting about what to do, and the good people of the town, those fine, upstanding churchgoing folks, decided to light the building on fire.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No. Thank God. Someone called in a warning, and everyone got out. The building was leveled, nothing salvageable. Sheriff’s department wasn’t even going to call us, but a state arson investigator who’d dealt with other church fires that were hate crimes did. By the time we got there, the Somalis were long gone. So was Tyrone. No one would even mention them—the families or the Sons. As if it never happened. As if it was a coincidence they started listening to Tyrone’s preaching about standing up for what was theirs and how might makes right and whatever other bullshit rhetoric he used to ignite their rage.”

  “You think he did that here, that his followers blew up that lab?” Ryder wasn’t sure the logic actually worked, but that might be because he knew more than Grey did about what really happened in the lab.

  “Yes. And I think the Sons might have taken Lazaretto and Rossi.”

  “Why? If Tyrone’s people were trying to stop a drug lab and didn’t care who they killed, why would they kidnap two doctors who had nothing to do with the lab?”

  “What if destroying the lab was just to hide their tracks? What if Tyrone wanted the doctors all along—maybe this time he’s trying his hand at something really big.”

  “Rossi wouldn’t be of any use to him. She’s an ER doctor, not a lab researcher.”

  “Maybe she’s collateral damage. Maybe Tyrone will use her to get Lazaretto to do what he wants. My research says Lazaretto has worked on some pretty scary stuff—things that kill you in the worst way possible, something called prions. There’s no cure, no treatment. Maybe Tyrone’s decided it’s time to up his game and go for a full-blown apocalypse? If God isn’t bringing the End Times fast enough, maybe he’s decided to speed things up a bit.”

  Ryder let that soak in. It might explain why Rossi and the kids had been targeted—some kind of trial run? A test to see if whatever Lazaretto had done to make the fatal insomnia contagious worked?

  “What if,” he said in a hushed voice, playing into Grey’s conspiracy theory, “Lazaretto wasn’t an unwilling victim? What if he’s been working with Tyrone all along?”

  Grey nodded, hunched over the steering wheel, chin jutting out. “Maybe. If you’d seen and heard how Tyrone twists minds—norma
l, ordinary people turned into rampaging vigilantes. If anyone could pull this off, it’s him. He’s a charismatic devil. Believe me.”

  “If you’re right...we can’t take any chances. Not with something like this.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Slow down,” Ryder instructed. “There’s a logging road we can use. Trees are dense enough, and the ridge line juts out so we won’t be spotted.”

  He directed Grey onto a narrow gravel logging road heading up the mountain. There was a gate guarding it, but it was open—from the rust pattern and snow piled up against it, it’d been that way for some time.

  “Who do you think Tyrone and the Sons of Adam are targeting? What’s their plan?” Ryder continued his fishing expedition. All of the children infected with the fatal insomnia came from Kingston Tower, a low-income housing project. Other than that, he didn’t think they had anything in common.

  Grey shrugged. “Wish I knew. Like I said, they target anyone who they see as encroaching on their idea of what this country should be—as long as they’re too weak to fight back. Way he operates, under the radar, I think the last thing Tyrone wants is open warfare.”

  “Hence the bioterrorism.”

  “Exactly. You asked before what a typical bioterrorist looked like. Fact is, they hide in the shadows. That’s their strength, their way of maximizing the terror while minimizing their own risk. Think of the anthrax attacks after 9/11. Or that synagogue whose congregation was poisoned after someone coated their prayer books with a caustic chemical.”

  “Great. A passive-aggressive homespun terrorist who thinks he has God on his side.” Ryder did not like the thought of dealing with that combination of smart and crazy. Bioterrorism made it too easy to kill from a distance—not to mention the collateral damage, like the mail clerks and secretaries who’d opened the anthrax letters.