“Yeah,” Roddy whispered to himself, quickly pulling out his phone. No signal, no surprise. Of course the military blocked it here. Still, cell signals were different from GPS, which explained why, when Waggs used Nola’s phone to track her to various hospitals, it showed visits to three different patients in the past few weeks—all three with traumatic brain injuries. Otherwise, the patients had nothing in common. For Waggs and Zig, it was the one unanswered question: Why was Nola talking to people with brain injuries?
Naturally, Waggs tried going back further—there were plenty of places Nola drove in the past few months—but when Nola had come here, her cell signal faded a few blocks away, just past a Cracker Barrel off the highway. At the time, Waggs made a mental note, thinking Nola didn’t seem like a Cracker Barrel type, but that was the end of it.
As a result, Waggs couldn’t possibly know that instead of taking three car trips to three different patients, Nola had actually visited four. Roddy, though, thanks to the Mopar system, knew exactly where it was: right here, at Fairfax Manor. Patient zero. The very first person Nola came to see.
“Up and at ’em,” Odessa announced, giving the door a shove. She didn’t wait for a reply. Roddy knew there wouldn’t be one.
The room was dated, painted a tranquil blue-green with laminate wood floors, making it feel more like a nineties Pottery Barn catalog than a hospital suite. On the wall was a framed and faded poster with neon video game lettering that read, Good Health Is Contagious!
Roddy didn’t notice any of it. Trailing behind the nurse, he craned his neck at the unconscious man whose mouth sagged open like an empty Christmas stocking.
Propped up in his hospital bed, he had gray hair that needed a buzz, a pitted face, and a faded scar that split his bottom lip in a zigzag, from where it’d been torn open years ago.
“He looks old for liking Def Leppard,” Roddy said.
“Def Leppard’s old,” Odessa clarified. The song was still playing on a nearby sound dock, punctuated by a choir of beeps and buzzing from the respiratory monitor and various other machines, including a tracheostomy tube in the man’s throat and a PEG feeding tube in his stomach. His legs were wrapped in compression stockings to prevent an embolism. His face was gaunt from losing at least twenty-five pounds, making him nearly unrecognizable—key word being nearly.
The air in the room grew heavy, and Roddy felt a gash, a widening cut, like something was splitting him open. He recognized the man instantly. He remembered him, or at least a younger version of him, from that night all those years ago. Back then, the man’s hair was less gray, and he certainly didn’t have the zigzag scar, but, for Roddy, there was no forgetting that night, squinting down from the top of the stairs as the doorbell rang and this stranger stepped into their house—to take Nola away.
At the foot of the hospital bed, his name was written in faded black marker on a strip of white surgical tape.
Royall Barker
“Royall,” Roddy whispered, not even realizing he was saying it out loud. The closest thing Nola ever had to a father.
He was supposed to be dead. Two years ago, Nola uncovered him running a corrupt military unit. When he tried to kill her, she shot him in the head. Everyone said he was dead. And yet, here he was, hidden away, mouth agape, feeding tube pumping, as “Pour Some Sugar on Me” played on eternal repeat.
Nola, that’s what you discovered, isn’t it? Roddy realized, snapping the last pieces into place.
For a moment, Roddy stood there, rewinding, trying to make sense of why the military would hide the truth about Royall, much less help him. Were they trying to protect him—or simply keep a lid on whatever embarrassing military secrets were still rolling around in his head?
As the rewind picked up speed, Roddy replayed the past two years, trying to picture Nola’s reaction when she realized Royall was alive. Did someone tell her? Or could she feel it? Something that big . . . you’d feel it, wouldn’t you?