The house was gone as well. Even much of the foundation had collapsed and what hadn"t was unstable, leaving a hazardous sight. After the fire marshal and the insurance company adjuster finished their investigation, they had turned the property over to Alex. At the city"s insistence Alex had hired a company to haul away the debris and fill in the hole.
Since then, whenever he walked up the street to his grandfather"s place, the journey felt dreamlike. Even standing there staring at the open gap in the neighborhood, at the smoothed-over lot, he couldn"t believe it. His mind filled in the empty hole with a ghostlike memory of the home. It seemed impossible that it was all gone-both his grandfather and the house where Alex had been raised for the last half of his childhood.
In the weeks that followed, that wasn"t all that felt dreamlike. Alex at times wondered if it was possible that he had imagined Jax.
In the beginning, under the choking weight of grief, he hadn"t thought a lot about her. He lost himself in the routine of his daily workouts. All he could really think about was Ben. He had real issues to deal with and there was no one else to handle things, no one else to help him.
But over time, nagging thoughts of Jax returned. With his mother in a mental inst.i.tution it was only too easy to imagine that he was falling prey to the same sort of delusional madness that had overcome her. It sometimes felt like that madness was lurking just out of sight, ready to smother him, too.
He tried hard to keep such fears in perspective, tried hard not to give them any power over him, tried hard not to let his imagination get the best of him. Yes, his mother was sick, but that didn"t mean that the same thing would happen to him.
His mother hadn"t spoken since his birthday, when she had told him to run and hide, when she had warned him about a different kind of human who broke people"s necks. He worried at times that he"d somehow built upon his mother"s strange words to come up with Jax and her story-created a delusion of his own.
On one hand he knew that it wasn"t possible that he could have imagined Jax, but on the other hand it often seemed easier to believe that he had dreamed her up, much the way he did the scenes he loved painting. He knew, though, that such thoughts were most likely born of his dejection that she had never tried to contact him again. He was just beating himself up over having driven her away, just feeling sorry for himself.
For a time his desire to believe Jax"s story had been bolstered when he had spotted a popular science magazine in the store. On the cover had been a star field strewn with galaxies. The headline read "Our universe and multiplicity theory; maybe we"re not alone."
That night Alex sat in his quiet house and carefully read the series of articles revolving around the possibility of other universes beyond what was called the "Light Horizon," the term used in Big Bang cosmology to describe the edge of the observable universe, the farthest distance astronomers could see. Since the light beyond the Light Horizon had not yet arrived to be seen, it was not known how large the universe actually was or what, if anything, might be beyond it.
Astrophysicists speculated how the universe, made up of s.p.a.ce, time, and matter, might be able to bend back on itself through wormholes so that the most distant parts of the universe would be but a step away. They went further to talk about how the universe itself might not be singular, not everything there was, and that there might be others out beyond. Through theories that touched on black holes, white holes, dark matter, dark energy, the nonlinear oddities of the s.p.a.ce-time continuum, string theory and superstring theory which suggested as many as ten dimensions, it was hoped that physicists would eventually be able to come to understand if and how other universes existed beyond our own.
Some astrophysicists postulated that the universe was like a bubble, and the events that created the bubble of the universe created others, a whole ma.s.s of them, each bubble a separate universe sparking into existence, growing, and expanding in a larger ma.s.s of universe bubbles. Other scientists believed that the universe was in fact like a sheet of time, s.p.a.ce, and matter-four dimensions-floating in a greater void of a fifth dimension along with other universes, other four-dimensional sheets of time, matter, and s.p.a.ce.
These physicists believed that there were dimensions beyond the four familiar dimensions, and that these additional dimensions were membranes that when they touched threw matter into the four dimensions we know. In other words, created universes that floated in this fifth dimension.
They even proposed that these other dimensions might be gateways between the universes.
Alex couldn"t help wonder if Jax had come from one of those places. Perhaps she wasn"t so much from another world as she was from another universe and had traveled through a gateway of other dimensions. While it gave him chills to ponder the possibilities, he felt in his heart that it was nothing more than daydreaming, a mere hook upon which to hang his hope that she was real and that she had been telling him the truth.
He needed her to be telling him the truth, or his entire impression of her, what he thought of her-her intelligence, her pa.s.sion for life, her presence-would crumble. He didn"t want to believe she was from another world. How could he believe such a story?
But if she was lying to him that would be worse.
Alex felt trapped in that dilemma, not wanting to believe her story, yet not wanting her to end up being nothing more than a scheming con artist, a liar.
But Jax was gone. He didn"t really have any reason to hope that she would return. Alex knew that he"d missed his chance to ever find out more, to ever solve the riddle.
By the time he"d finished reading, it was dark in the house beyond the single lamp beside his chair. He felt not only alone but lonely in that enveloping darkness. The information in the articles hadn"t convinced him of anything, as he had hoped. In fact, in an odd way it only left him feeling more convinced of the impossibility of it all. It seemed to him that the physicists were seducing themselves into ever more grand, fantastical theories. The science, if it really was science and not the projection of wishes, was beyond him.
As the rhythm of life demanded his attention he increasingly lost interest in the magazine articles. He had real life to deal with.
A week after finally cremating his grandfather, Alex had gone back to painting. At first it had seemed like it was only something to do to try to fill the emptiness. The world felt so quiet, so dead, so sad. It had never seemed that way before. He had talked to Ben almost every day. In many ways it was Ben who had made the world all the more alive for him.
As time wore on, Alex found that painting at least took his mind to other places, other worlds, and helped him forget his grief. He was alone most of the time, gone into those worlds that came to life on his canvases, and that suited him.
He supposed that he could at least find some solace in the fact that Ben had led a full life. He had relished every day he"d had. That was more than most people ever did. A lot of people merely marked time until a holiday, until they could go on vacation, until they could retire, always waiting for their life to begin. Ben never waited. He had lived each day.
After a few weeks, when Alex thought that maybe enough time had pa.s.sed, he had called Mr. Martin to see if he would consider taking some paintings for the gallery. Mr. Martin was apologetic but said that he didn"t feel comfortable doing so. The man was insistent. Alex saw no point in pushing. It was the way it was.
Rather than dwelling on the problem, Alex decided that he needed to find a solution, so he made the rounds of galleries where he thought he would feel comfortable showing his work. He finally managed to find one down in the old market district that agreed to take on a few smaller pieces. The shops were less expensive there, but they drew a variety of people and within a week the gallery had managed to sell a small painting for nine hundred dollars. The gallery had been pleased and asked Alex to bring in a few more paintings, one or two a little larger, so they could try to sell some of his more expensive work.
Before the month was out Alex had also contacted Lancaster, Buckman, Fenton, the law firm in Boston, and asked if they could see to transferring the t.i.tle to the land to his name. They a.s.sured him that they could handle it and in fact, according to the stipulations in the will, they were the only law firm legally allowed to handle anything to do with the land.
It also turned out that there were hefty legal fees involved if he wanted to take t.i.tle to the land, but considering the money he had from the six paintings that had been defaced at Mr. Martin"s gallery and the settlement check for his grandfather"s house due from the insurance company, Alex would have no problem handling the legal fees. The land would be his and the matter would be settled.
He hadn"t yet decided if he wanted to sell the land, but he figured that he had the rest of his life to decide. Mr. Fenton from the law firm a.s.sured Alex that he could sell the land to the Daggett Trust at any point should he decide to do so. Alex asked if Mr. Fenton thought they could afford to pay fair market value for so much land. The man went out of his way to a.s.sure Alex that the Daggett Trust was well funded and would be able to handle such a purchase without any difficulty.
If Alex died without ever deciding to sell, and if he had no heir, the land would revert to the conservation group without them having to pay a penny, so in a way it made sense to sell the land, because then the money would be his no matter what happened. But, on the other hand, if he died he wouldn"t be able to spend money from the grave.
Mr. Fenton told him that the Daggett Trust had made inquiries, hoping for Alex"s decision on selling sooner rather than later. Something about it riled Alex and made him come to a decision. He asked Mr. Fenton to tell the people at the trust that he was taking t.i.tle and had every intention of keeping the land. The lawyer had then gone to great lengths to make certain that Alex understood the restrictions to the deed, and that any violation would result in him losing the land, even after he had t.i.tle. Alex had a.s.sured the man that he understood.
Alex was looking forward to the transfer of t.i.tle being completed. He wanted to spend some time alone in the woods painting. He was warming to the idea of such a vast place being his, of having a world to explore and call his own.
As he sat in his studio listening to the rain beat against the window, he realized that after nearly a month he was finally starting to feel better, to get beyond his grief, to again find satisfaction in his work and at least a little quiet pleasure in life. He had a new gallery that wanted his work, and he was starting to think about a trip to Maine to begin to explore the wilderness and fill his mind with impressions to paint.
It felt like things were getting back to normal. Things were moving forward. In a sense, it felt like a new beginning, like his life could at last really begin.
Jax, as well, was becoming a distant-if haunting-memory. Whatever the real story with her was, she hadn"t made any attempt to contact him again. The more time that pa.s.sed the more his hopes faded. If she was real, if her story was for real, she surely would have done something by now. She would have contacted him, sent a message . . . something.
He couldn"t be sure that she hadn"t been involved in some scheme with people trying to con him. He didn"t think that was true, but the possibility existed and it troubled him.
He"d seen no evidence of otherworldly people. In fact, he didn"t like to dwell on her revelations because the whole idea was seeming more absurd with each pa.s.sing day and he didn"t like to think of Jax in such an unflattering light. He didn"t like to think of her as playing a part in a con game, but neither did he like to think of her being a wacko who imagined she was from a different planet. Having a mentally ill mother was more than enough craziness for Alex.
In the end he didn"t know what to think, so he tried to put thoughts of Jax aside and devote himself to his painting.
Outside, in the blackness, lightning ignited in staccato flashes, giving ghostly form to the glistening trees. When the wind blew and the lightning strobed and flickered, it made the branches seem to move in abrupt fits, almost as if the trees were staggering through the inky blackness. At times the rain pattering against the window became heavy, turning the soft sound to a low roar. As the night wore on, the rain at times came down in curtains that swept over the house as if trying to beat it down and wash it away.
The storm suited Alex as he painted mountains with clouds stealing in among the towering peaks. The thunder brought nature in to him in a visceral way as he worked on the gloom in the forest beneath towering clouds.
Near midnight the doorbell rang.
ALEX FROZE FOR A MOMENT, brush in hand, as the echo of the bell slowly died out. His first thought was to wonder if it was possible that it could be Jax.
He quickly discounted the notion. It was foolish to think it was her. But then he realized that if by any chance it was her it would be even more foolish to keep her standing out in the rain.
He stuck the brush in the jar of water on the table to the side of his easel and wiped his hands on a towel while rolling back his chair. As he stood a reflection caught his eye. He glanced briefly in the mirror across the room to rake back his disorderly hair. He didn"t take the time to do any more to clean up, fearing that if it was Jax she might leave before he got to the door.
The only lights on in the house were the ones in his studio. As he ran down the dark hall, his way was lit sufficiently by the flickering flashes of lightning, so he didn"t pause to fumble for switches and instead rounded the turn into the dark living room without slowing. Thunder following each crackling bolt of lightning rumbled through the structure of the house. The rain outside rattled against the windows. In the living room the flashes of lightning coming in the tall window threw a glaring slash of light across the hardwood floor.
Alex stopped before the door. His heart didn"t. Hope kept it racing.
When he took a quick look through the peephole he saw what he hadn"t at all expected.
Bethany stood near the porch light, just in under the overhang and out of the rain. She was alone.
Standing in the dark living room, Alex"s heart sank. It wasn"t Jax after all. He let out a heavy sigh.
He hadn"t talked to Bethany in weeks. After Jax had warned him that a different kind of human was tracking him through his phone, he"d smashed it and thrown it in a dumpster at a convenience store. At the time it had made sense.
He bought a generic phone from a rack inside the store. It had a different telephone number, of course, so he left the new number with his new gallery and a couple of other places that might need to get ahold of him, like Lancaster, Buckman, Fenton. The simple phone was enough to serve his needs. Not one for long phone conversations, he hadn"t yet even had to buy more minutes.
In the case of Bethany, having a new number had been an advantage; she couldn"t call him or send him text messages. He had thought that if she couldn"t contact him she would soon forget about him and move on with her life. Apparently, he had been wrong about that.
He could see through the peephole that she was wearing a slinky silver dress cut rather low. The dress was designed to make clear what lay beneath. In Bethany"s case that was near perfection. She was a gorgeous woman, but that was all and it just wasn"t enough for Alex. There was no substance to support the looks. There was nothing about her that inspired Alex to desire her. She seemed to be a living example of the saying that looks weren"t everything.
The only lights on in the house were those in his back studio. The rest of the place was dark. The thought occurred to him that he could simply not answer the door and pretend he wasn"t home.
But that would be cowardly, and worse, dishonest.
Since he really didn"t want to start up another conversation with her-or worse, get in an argument-he decided he would state his feelings briefly, but clearly. Tell her the truth but keep it short and to the point.
Alex pulled open the door to face her.
As soon as he did, before he could open his mouth to say a word, Bethany lifted her arm, pointed a gun at his chest, and pulled the trigger.
BEFORE ALEX WAS ABLE TO DODGE more than a few inches to the side, the gun went off.
At the same time that he heard the bang, it felt like a bolt of lightning slammed into him. Instant, overwhelming pain drove out a scream.
Every muscle in his body abruptly went rigid. It was all so sudden that he couldn"t make sense of what was happening. He knew he"d been hit, but he couldn"t tell where. Paralyzed by a shock of enormous force clamping down on him, his body wouldn"t respond to his wishes.
Alex toppled backward. Try as he might, he couldn"t even lift an arm to break his fall. Somehow, it didn"t seem to matter.
As he fell back he saw twin coils of fine wire unspool from the gun.
It wasn"t a regular gun, he realized, but a Taser. As he shuddered under the grip of the pain, it seemed that it might as well have been a regular gun. He was surprised that, despite the agony that made his body unresponsive, his mind worked.
Bethany stepped into the room to stand over him.
Alex could hear himself screaming in unendurable agony, but he could do nothing other than endure it.
He"d had time to move only inches before she"d pulled the trigger. One of the steel darts had stuck in his left pectoral muscle. At the same time the other dart, going lower by design in order to spread the electrical charge through the largest muscle ma.s.s, had firmly lodged in his lower abdomen. All his muscles had cramped iron stiff with all-consuming pain. It felt like a mountain was crushing him.
Regular stun guns caused pain. Because he had no control of his body, he knew that it wasn"t one of those older models, but one of the newer Shaped Pulse generators. The way they interrupted muscle control in addition to causing pain was enough to take down an angry bull. He could hear the snapping, clicking sound of the electrical discharges.
There was nothing he wanted more than for the torment to stop.
After a five-second eternity, it finally did.
When the voltage abruptly cut off, the pain also vanished. When it did, Alex lay on his back, panting, trying to recover not just from the physical ordeal but the sudden shock of it. Mere moments ago he had been absorbed in painting the quiet beauty of a forest scene. Now he was flat on his back, disoriented, trying to catch his breath, and scared out of his wits.
He knew that a Taser could deliver countless. .h.i.ts. He moved his arms a little just to make sure he could, but not enough to look threatening. At that point, he didn"t know what Bethany was capable of. He saw that she still had her finger on the trigger. With the darts already stuck in him, she had but to pull the trigger to deliver another charge. Until he decided what to do, he thought it best to do nothing and let her think he wasn"t going to put up a fight.
Glaring flashes of lightning illuminated her figure standing over him. When the bright flashes flickered out and the rumble of thunder died away, only the faint light of the streetlamp off through the rain beyond the open door softly lit the curving edge of her figure.
"h.e.l.lo, Alex," she said in a silky voice.
Alex thought that she looked remarkably calm. She looked like she had complete control and knew it.
"Bethany, what do you think . . ."
Two big men stepped out of the dark night and through the open doorway into his living room. A few cracks of lightning backlit wisps of vapor, like mist rising into the humid night air off the heat of their hulking forms.
Alex didn"t recognize the men, but they certainly looked like a nightmare come out of such a night. He noticed that, despite the rain, none of the three was wet.
"Now, Alex," Bethany said, "if you know what"s good for you, you"ll be a good boy and not cause me any trouble-you"ve already caused me enough. If you"re good, I think you will find this far more pleasurable than you ever imagined." She flashed him a self-satisfied smile. "And I bet you have imagined it often enough."
Alex couldn"t make sense of what she was talking about. He wondered if a Taser could scramble a person"s mind. He didn"t think so. Everything else seemed ordered and logical. Up was up, down was down. He recognized her. It was only what she said that didn"t fit into any context.
Bethany glanced briefly at the men. "Get him into a bedroom."
Alex couldn"t imagine what in the world Bethany and the two men intended to do with him. But whatever they intended, he had no illusions that it was going to be anything other than bad. He wondered if Bethany, in her anger over his rejection of her, had hired a couple of thugs to beat him senseless.
He wondered if it could be something worse than a beating. He wondered if she intended for them to murder him.
Such a vendetta carried to the point of violence would be absurd, but people did absurd things all the time.
Ben had taught him that you had to consider any attacker as having deadly intent, because once you were dead it was too late to wish you had defended yourself. Alex knew that if he was to survive he was going to have to use his head. He knew that he couldn"t afford to wait and hope for an opening.
He was going to have to make his own opening before things got any worse. He could not afford to be restrained.
The men stooped over him at a steep angle to lift him up. Alex feigned limp, groggy compliance. When Bethany glanced briefly toward the back bedroom, he acted.
In a sudden and violent burst of motion Alex whipped an arm around one man"s head and used their off-balance weight to pull them both the rest of the way over. In the same instant that he clamped his forearm around the man"s neck he grabbed his own wrist to lock his arms tight together and flexed his fist back, bulging the muscle in his forearm against the side of the man"s neck, making the muscle hard in order to help shock the carotid artery.
He knew, though, that he wouldn"t have the several seconds needed to bring the move to a lethal conclusion, so instead, as they plunged backward toward the floor, he planted his foot to break his fall. As the three of them came crashing down Alex added all his muscle to the man"s falling weight, bringing the man"s head down over his knee as if it were an anvil.
The man"s neck snapped over with a loud pop. His muscular bulk immediately went limp, sprawling atop Alex"s legs as they both hit the floor. The second man rolled and sprang to his feet.
Bethany spun back and pulled the trigger.
Alex instantly went rigid again as the voltage from the Taser hit him. He screamed under the agony of overpowering pain as his muscles shuddered uncontrollably. The man"s dead weight lay sprawled over his legs, but even without the weight it would have been impossible for Alex to move his arms or legs the way he wanted, impossible to do anything. Despite monumental effort, his muscles would not respond. The electrical charge was in control of his body.
Bethany stepped close. He expected her to launch into an enraged lecture at the least. Instead, she appeared calm, as if she were accustomed to administering agony.
When the timed voltage from the gun abruptly halted, Alex sagged with a moaning sigh of relief.
Bethany gestured to the man with her. He understood and lifted the dead weight of the other man to get him off the coils of wire. Once clear, he let go of the man, allowing him to slump to the side. It wasn"t hard to tell that the man was dead. From the corner of his eye, Alex watched, gauging the distance to the one still alive.
Alex had thought that the steel darts would pull out in the brief but violent battle. He was wrong. They were stuck fast.
When the dead man had been moved out of the way and safely off the wires, Bethany squatted down beside Alex. Her blond hair, lit by lightning, slipped forward over her shoulders.
"If you want to cause me trouble, Alex, I can keep pulling this trigger all night long. Is that what you"d like?"