My Soul to Take, Page 2

  Several voices nearby spoke in a gentle babble. A dozen men and women were huddled to the right of him, at the far end of the room. They stood with their noses close to the glass like students on a class field trip to the aquarium. About half of them wore lab coats like his, but none was dressed like a soldier. None had a gun. One of the men was speaking English with a heavy Asian accent, his voice too low to hear. They were so absorbed, they did not notice him.

  Carlos suddenly didn’t care who they were—he cared only what they were looking at.

  He took three confident strides to the glass, and his reflection melted from sight as he stared down. Thirty feet below, he saw what looked like a makeshift autopsy room, six rolling metal tables arranged in two uneven rows of three. The space was a giant stage, and he stood in its balcony.

  On every table lay a body. Nude. Uncovered. The bodies lay in tight fetal balls, as if they fought the cold even in death. Clenched fists were raised to their faces. Two of the bodies were very small. Children.

  “… If it was airborne …” a woman’s voice said, soft as cotton.

  “… Within such an isolated infection area …” murmured the man with the Asian accent.

  Carlos’s chest quaked. His heart was a boulder ramming his ribs. The room below swayed, and he leaned on the glass to keep his balance. The cryptic call to his father had not been a joke or a lie. The Maricao tourist’s story had not been a paranoid fantasy. His terrible new knowledge guided his eyes … and he saw her.

  Her bright white hair, prematurely gray since she’d been in her forties, was braided in ordered cornrows that curled around her ears like a schoolgirl’s.

  But everything else was wrong.

  Her brown skin had been leached of pigment like the walls outside, chalky and pale. And she had aged twenty years since he’d seen her at Christmas, leathery skin hanging from brittle bones. She looked like a … husk. She might have been a hundred years old. The child in him mouthed her name, his lips pressed to the cold glass.

  Carlos Harris knew his mother’s corpse on sight.

  PLAGUE

  And the blood shall be to you for a token

  upon the houses were ye are:

  and when I see the blood, I will pass over you,

  and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you,

  when I smite the land of Egypt.

  —Exodus 12:13

  Where’s my keys and ride?

  Lemme give my map a shout.

  This party’s gettin’ tired.

  This dream is all played out.

  —Phoenix,

  “Time 2 Go”

  One

  Paso Robles, California

  One Week Later

  Phoenix was recovering from her steep morning run as the black Mercedes SUV approached on her path, bouncing along the dusty, unpaved road from her house half a mile up the hill. The SUV had been spotless ten minutes before, when she’d told the driver to turn left at the vineyard on the corner and follow the road. Now it was coated with the white dust swirling behind its massive tires.

  The Mercedes was a hydro, at least, but it was still a portrait of privilege. When so many children in Los Angeles didn’t have food or medicine, the L.A. County plates told Phoenix that the driver lived in an oblivious world. She knew that world: hell, she had owned that world, once. Some people just hadn’t figured out how bad it was yet.

  Phoenix smiled when the SUV stopped beside her and a tinted window slid down. The young man driving shut off the music playing loudly from the speakers—“Gotta Fly,” she noticed. Old-school. As she’d suspected, the driver was a fan. Or a reporter.

  “Phoenix Smalls?” the driver said. He had a sheepish, youthful grin. “I didn’t recognize you with your hair like that.”

  While her mother was undergoing chemo, Phoenix had shaved off most of her own hair in solidarity, and they’d both played dress-up with wigs. After Mom died, she’d kept her head shaved to hold on to her memory, and because she liked her altered appearance. Dark peach fuzz. Rebirth, as her name had always promised her.

  “Harris,” Phoenix corrected the man. She’d been married to Carlos Harris for a decade, but most people still knew her by the stage name she had kept to honor her father.

  “I apologize, Mrs. Harris,” the young man said. He was black, with a stylishly thin mustache, his scalp shaved nearly as close as hers. He wore a small earring with a dangling gold cross. She might have thought he was handsome, back when she noticed a stranger’s looks. “When I asked you where your house was, why didn’t you tell me who …?”

  He had asked for directions when his vehicle was still shiny. He hadn’t recognized her because he’d barely looked at her, his grim eyes somewhere faraway.

  “That wasn’t what you asked. But yes, I’m Phoenix Harris. And that was my house.”

  She had known he wouldn’t get past the gate. She had relented and put up the fence when Carlos pointed out how many people came looking for her house each year. Most sojourners left flowers or gifts like crafts or poems without knocking, but a few were clearly unhinged. The day Carlos persuaded her to put up the fence, he’d found something in a shoe box on their front porch that he’d never described—and she didn’t want to know about. The horrified look on his face had been enough.

  A white pickup truck rumbled past them in the opposite lane. Phoenix didn’t recognize the driver, who waved when he passed. His radio blared with the farm report and news of more drought. Phoenix hoped he was headed higher into the hills, or to see the Kinseys.

  “If you’re a reporter, call my manager,” Phoenix said.

  “All due respect, Mrs. Harris, but your manager doesn’t return her calls.”

  Phoenix’s cousin sent her new emails about phone messages each day, but Phoenix ignored most of them. When Carlos was in town, she barely bothered to check her email once a week. Now, she was on a constant lookout for news from him. Her wristphone buzzed when new messages arrived, but this morning, so far, only silence.

  “Not her fault,” Phoenix said. “I don’t do interviews. It’s all in my book, Joplin’s Ghost. The rest is just for me, my head, and my family. Sorry.”

  The SUV’s engine purred, docile as the expression on John Wright’s face. “I’m not a journalist,” the man said. “More like a producer.”

  He was about twenty, but looked closer to twelve despite his mustache. No surprise there: youth was the engine that powered music. She’d dropped her first album at his age. Younger.

  Phoenix frowned, shoving her hands into the pockets of her light jacket. Now that she had stopped running and her skin was cooling, she noticed the bite in the fall air. Meteorologists were predicting another cold, dry winter to lay waste to her neighbors’ vineyards.

  Phoenix resumed her walk up the hill, toward home. “Wrong answer,” she said. “I’m not performing anymore. You might have heard.”

  “What about Port-au-Prince?”

  “That was different,” she said, still walking. She had come out of retirement six years earlier, almost as soon as she quit, for a free concert in Port-au-Prince to help rebuild Haiti after the earthquake. “That was to save lives.”

  “This is to save lives too, Mrs. Harris,” he called. “Hear me out for ten minutes?”

  Phoenix stopped walking. Only the empty house sat ahead, full of waiting. Her son, Marcus, was at his friend Ronny’s for the weekend, riding horses and playing his GamePort.

  Phoenix turned back to the idling SUV. “The answer is definitely no,” she said. “But what’s your name?”

  “I’m John Wright. I work for—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Phoenix said gently. Her voice was firmest when it was soft. “But I’m honored for the invitation, Mr. Wright. I’m sorry you wasted your drive from L.A. Come on up to the house. I’ll get us some tea, maybe fix you a bite. At least you’ll have a story.”

  “Want a ride?” he said, his grin suddenly hopeful.

  Phoenix shook her head, wav
ing behind her.

  She would make it home the way she did every morning, walking on her own.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later, John Wright climbed out of the waiting SUV to greet her with the polite pat on her upper arm that had replaced the handshake, especially in the cities. Swine flu and its descendants had spawned distaste for hand-to-hand contact, and talk of the deadly new infections sealed the custom. Phoenix patted his arm in return, adding a tender squeeze for emphasis. Sorry I’m such a hermit.

  Phoenix hadn’t understood hermits until she’d become one; now she was addicted to quiet. For her, the noise had begun when her father was shot dead backstage at her first major concert, and it had never relented until she stopped performing. Prince had warned her years ago: When you get to the top of the mountain, you’ll see. There’s nothing up there. Sarge’s death had dimmed the bright lights of her ride early on. Sometimes what waited on the mountaintop was far worse than nothing.

  “I can’t thank you enough, ma’am,” the young man said, reaching for his briefcase on his passenger seat before he climbed out and closed the vehicle’s door. She noticed the embossed gold CWH insignia stamped across the case’s leather, and a globe logo she recognized.

  Suddenly nervous, Phoenix hugged her arms across her chest. She planted herself in Wright’s path. “Does this have something to do with my husband?” she said.

  Wright looked confused. “Your husband? No, ma’am.”

  If he was lying, it was too late to undo it now. She had literally led him to their doorstep. She forced herself to relax, uncrossing her arms. “‘Ma’am’ makes me sound too damn old,” she said. “I’m just Phoenix. Follow me.”

  “Can’t thank you enough, Phoenix. My employer is a big fan.”

  Like most visitors, John surveyed her ranch house’s exterior with surprise. The front yard was dry, the grass brown and thirsty. Phoenix suspected that many of her neighbors watered their lawns, but Phoenix wouldn’t waste water on grass even if it were legal. She used her water ration for the garden, where she needed it. She and Carlos had talked about laying down concrete or arranging stones, but so far their yard was only dying.

  John Wright followed Phoenix as she climbed the wooden front porch steps, past the porch swing for two and its cushion that needed washing. The house was three thousand square feet but looked much smaller from the outside; sun-faded and modest. The porch and roof were visibly in need of repairs that neither she nor Carlos had interest in. The cracking antique wooden wagon wheel leaning beside the living room picture window was a holdover from the original owners, making her house look like a cheesy western motel. She and Carlos had laughed about it.

  Phoenix opened her door, which was unlocked. The door could use paint, she noticed.

  John Wright froze in the doorway, looking alarmed.

  “Not what you were expecting?” Phoenix said.

  “It’s not that,” John Wright said, and his voice had changed, deepening. “I was just thinking: are you alone? And you’re inviting a stranger into your house?”

  Now he sounded like Carlos. She couldn’t dare tell Carlos that she’d invited a stranger to the house while he was gone. Carlos had enough to worry about without thinking she was crazy.

  Phoenix’s mind flashed an imaginary headline: MUSIC STAR MURDERED IN HER HOME BY STALKER. She became aware of how close John Wright stood to her, how he was six feet of wiry, lean muscle. Maybe she’d been lulled by his boyish face, or the cross dangling from his ear. Maybe she’d thought she was protected from bad news because Carlos was already in so deep. Maybe she should have peeked inside the unspeakable box Carlos had found on their porch the day he insisted they fence off the world.

  “I’m also a security consultant for my employer,” Wright said. “I’ll only come in if you promise me you’ll never invite someone like me into your house again.”

  “Someone like you?” Phoenix said.

  He handed her a business card and a photo ID. Both identified him as the Public Relations Director of Clarion World Health Corporation, headquartered in London, New York, and Johannesburg. In his photograph, he wore his hair in short dreads the way Carlos did.

  “Damn, you’re in PR?” Phoenix said. “That’s worse than a producer.”

  John Wright didn’t smile. “I’m someone you don’t know,” he lectured her while she glanced at his identification. “No background check. No staff. You don’t even have a dog?”

  “We did. She died.” She handed back his ID and business card, convinced. “Are you coming in or not? You’re letting out all my heat.”

  John Wright shook his head ruefully, but he walked inside. “I don’t mean to sound like your father, but—” He bit off his words, mortified. He knew about Sarge, of course. Sarge’s murder had been a question on Jeopardy!, back in the day.

  “Shame you’re not trying. You sound just like him,” Phoenix said. She closed the door behind him. Talking about Sarge didn’t cut as deeply as it had when she still heard the gunshots in her sleep, but the pain was always there. “And you’re right. I shouldn’t trust you, but I do. People say I’m psychic, so maybe I’m believing my own hype. But trust me at my word: I will slap myself before this ever happens again. Satisfied?”

  “I can work with that,” John Wright said. “Just want to be sure you understand the value of what you’re protecting, Phoenix. That you know who and what you are.”

  His eyes went to her house, her walls, her floors, sponging up everything in sight.

  He was eager to tell the story.

  Two

  When she returned from the kitchen, Phoenix found John Wright in her dining room, mesmerized by the walls.

  Phoenix’s family rarely ate at the stately Tuscan cypress dining room table, so Carlos and Marcus had surprised her for her thirty-fifth birthday by transforming the space into her trophy room. The walls were a museum of gold and platinum records, concert photos, and framed newspaper and magazine headlines. Phoenix no longer knew that cocky girl in the photos. She hadn’t wanted to wilt the proud grins on the faces of her two favorite guys, but those memories made her lose her appetite.

  John Wright was standing so close to the framed CD jewel case from her Joplin album that a puff of his breath might have knocked it from the wall.

  “Let’s stay in the living room,” Phoenix said. She raised the serving tray she had brought. “Tea’s from Madagascar, but the bread is homemade. Multigrain honey cranberry.”

  “Wow,” Wright said, his eyes still traveling the biography on her walls.

  Phoenix cut his pilgrimage short, tugging the back of his suit jacket, pulling him away. “Don’t want the bread to get cold,” she said.

  In the living room, Wright squirted his hands with the sanitizing-lotion dispenser on her coffee table without being asked, caution or good manners. She gave him his mug of tea and a plate of lightly toasted bread, still warm from the oven. Sitting across from him on the sofa, she relaxed with her first sip of Madagascar red.

  John Wright crossed his legs in his crisp, dark corporate slacks. His shoes shone like black glass. PR flack or not, she congratulated herself on her instinct to invite Wright inside. For five whole minutes, she hadn’t worried about Carlos. She would give Wright thirty minutes, ask him to leave, and begin worrying again. A thirty-minute break from worry was a gift.

  Her living room was more tasteful than the exterior, overly crammed with African and Asian tables and masks that had decorated her pop star’s mansion in Beverly Hills. Phoenix and Carlos didn’t own a television set, so the living room looked like a library, with shelves stubbornly filled with books even though she and Carlos both read more e-books than paper books nowadays. But e-books didn’t smell like books, or add dignity to a room.

  “You said a ghost helped you write that music?” Wright said. “Scott Joplin’s?”

  After a decade of reverence and ridicule, Phoenix couldn’t answer that question again in this lifetime. She’d written her book, wh
ich had exhausted her, and now she didn’t like to talk about Scott Joplin, even to Carlos. She felt like a widow, although her encounters seemed to fade into fantasy as years passed. Some days, it was easy to believe that there had never been a ghost, just like her critics had always said.

  “Next subject, please,” Phoenix said, barely hanging on to her smile.

  Wright looked embarrassed. “I only ask because it shows the profound power of your music. Your appeal defies easy understanding.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small vial filled with a translucent red liquid that looked like strawberry Kool-Aid. “Have you heard about Glow?” John Wright said.

  Phoenix scooted away from Wright, although her eyes were bewitched by the vial. The Department of Homeland Security had warned about terrorist ties to Glow in national press conferences, before the droughts stole the newscasts. Before the new flu deaths.

  “Glow is illegal,” Phoenix said.

  Wright stood the vial upright on her table. Sunlight from the window speared the liquid, making the tabletop shimmer in violet red beneath it. “In the United States and Europe, yes,” Wright said. “Only because it defies easy understanding. It’s legal in thirty African nations, throughout the Middle East and Israel, and in China. Soon? Here, too. We’re working on the FDA. But we can’t wait. Glow cures diseases, including one much worse than the flu. You can help Clarion get a step ahead of the pandemic.”

  The word pandemic made her wonder about Carlos. Phoenix suddenly realized that Wright looked familiar despite his haircut. John Jamal Wright. His photo should have told her sooner. Carlos would kill her when he got home, if he made it back.

  “We’ve seen you on the news,” Phoenix said carefully. “And not in the good way.”

  “To the FBI, Martin Luther King was a communist,” Wright said, shrugging. “Change is a tough business. Health corps thrive on the sick, not the healed. They don’t want us to succeed.” He sounded twice his age.