Lyle searched the motel room one last time for clues, anything at all that might tell him what to do next. He found nothing. It had been scraped clean other than the apple and countdown clock. He left the room, then carried the woman who had fallen outside to the motel office and put her on a couch. Her name tag read becky. Her laptop, still running, displayed a Gwen Stefani YouTube video on a loop.
Lyle looked around the office, scoured the front desk for some clue or insight. Not a ton to offer. Nothing telltale in Becky’s backpack or the little zip pack on the back of her bicycle that leaned against the couch. No clue planted on the coffee table.
“Ah,” Lyle said. On the tiny screen of the cordless phone, he could see the most recent calls in and out and when they’d taken place. It appeared that Becky had placed two calls right about the time that they’d first arrived at the motel. Both were to a phone number in the 415 area code. Lyle jotted down the number. He took Becky’s cell phone, a spanking new iPhone. He made sure the phone was turned on.
He picked up the landline and discovered a dial tone but also static. It was half working. He dialed 911. More static. The communications system was down here.
On the counter, on a piece of scrap paper, Becky had made a doodle, a little drawing. It was quite impressive. It was a pencil sketch of a woman. It was her, Jackie.
Lyle found a phone book and the address for a medical clinic, the closest thing here to a hospital. It was only a few blocks away. A few minutes later, he’d pulled out of the Days Inn lot in the Miata. Jerry was in the backseat, covered in the flower bed comforter, so he wouldn’t fall off the seat. Eleanor was belted into the front seat, a pillow behind her head.
At first blush, this town at two thirty in the morning looked no different from any other early morning at this time. Dead quiet. Behind the clinic counter, the all-night nurse, comatose, had her face planted on her iPad. Could Lyle read her mind, he’d have seen it delighted by a video of her son hitting a line drive up the middle in his recent Little League game. Inside her head, it was on constant loop.
Lyle let himself into the rooms behind the counter and found the medical supplies. He took a saline pouch and a needle kit and some first aid stuff and returned to the Miata. If need be, the hydration system could be used to sustain someone left in a stasis state. He found smelling salts. He was walking to the car when he ran back in and found the defibrillator. He stood with it staring at Jerry and Eleanor. Then he decided it would do more harm than good. He couldn’t just start experimenting.
Having gotten this far, Lyle felt totally helpless. How the hell was he going to reverse this condition? How was he going to stop whatever was going to happen in four hours and change?
Jackie must have left him a clue. What was it?
He started driving, thinking he might go look for help. He wound up back at the weigh station where they’d been questioned on the way in. The woman in the booth had fallen to the side, propped up against the glass, eerily, her eyes still pointed at her phone, which sat on her open palm on the desk. On the screen, a frozen shot of a regular gag from a late-night show where an adorable animated dog spewed expletives.
Lyle wondered if it made sense to keep driving, try to get help. How long would he have to go to find someone?
“Why here? Why Hawthorne?” he asked aloud. Then he answered his question: “She’s here and her operation is here. She brought us here.”
Lyle reached into his back pocket and he looked at the receipts he’d pulled from Jackie’s recycling bin. One was for the hotel, where they’d been. Another from a diner. Another from what looked like some outdoor store. Then a receipt for an electric-car charging station, and one from a 7-Eleven. Lyle looked at all of them. He looked at the receipts again. What was nagging at him?
The 7-Eleven receipt.
It was a receipt for a comb and steel wool.
What bell did that ring?
Steamboat again. Hadn’t he tried to create static electricity using items like these?
Had this woman bought the same thing? Or was she toying with him, sending him these little in-jokes, clues. He remembered seeing the 7-Eleven not far from the motel. He gunned the Miata, muttering to himself, becoming more aware of the little signs of a world at a standstill: lights flickering, the eerie sign of a woman at a gas pump, slumped beside her car, a dog wandering the street. At the 7-Eleven, Lyle walked inside, causing a bell to jingle at the door. This did nothing to stir the attention of the guy sitting behind the counter, face-planted on his iPad. Inside his head played a highly amusing video loop of a famous actress being caught on camera stealing a purse from a major department store. The man smiled. So hilarious.
Lyle went to the freezer and took out some ice. He returned and laid the man on the floor, placing his jacket beneath his head and gently lifting his head to put the ice under his neck. The cold would help slow the man’s metabolism and retain his brain function. Lyle walked to the section with personal supplies, like aspirin and toothpaste and combs. He leafed through the $1.99 combs. Would Jackie be leaving him a clue? Nothing. He went to the cleaning supplies and found the steel wool. A few pieces hung next to the sponges. He leafed through them for anything unusual. Nothing. Frustrated, he threw them to the ground. He walked to the corner of the store and he looked up at the camera that scoped the inside of the place.
“What do you want, Jackie?” He spread his arms out to the sides. “Where are you?”
He couldn’t be sure she was watching. He couldn’t be sure she wasn’t. He pulled out Becky’s phone, thought about dialing the phone number he’d found in the motel office. He strongly suspected he’d get Jackie. He stared at the phone.
Then he stared at the receipts again.
He ran back to the Miata and drove two blocks away to the diner. Another all-night place. Another employee slumped on the counter. Coffee spilled everyplace, when the poor chump fell over on the shitty, ancient counter sipping coffee and watching a fishing tutorial on his phone. Lyle looked again at the receipt that had caught his attention. It said: Delivery.
Jackie had gotten delivery from this place. Lyle started pulling out drawers and looking frantically for a ledger of take-out orders, or customers. It didn’t take long to find it. There were several recent delivery orders for J.B. at Google, and an address listed in scrawl. It was 85209 Deer Valley Road.
In a drawer under the register, Lyle found an old-school atlas with detailed maps of the local surroundings. It would take him fifteen minutes to find the place where Jackie Badger took food deliveries.
“Just about ready, Alex. How do I look?” Jackie stood before her gaunt, near-death colleague, still in stasis. “I hate wearing lipstick. I think it’s sexist and he shouldn’t be able to expect I’m always going to dress up like this. Every once in a while, right?”
Her insanity notwithstanding, she looked stunning: a black cocktail dress, tight around her petite figure, short hair combed straight down. Taser in her hand. “Dressed to maim.” She smiled. “Then lovingly heal.
“He and I can put the world on pause together, and then watch it like New Year’s Eve.”
She looked at the video feed from Washington, D.C.; the media was going nuts there, talking about how the Million Gun March was just a few hours away. Police had amassed in force. It looked like Tiananmen Square was about to break out. Jackie thought how proud Lyle would be after he came to his senses.
She dialed Becky’s phone number.