She felt a sudden sting and then a prolonged, searing burn. Her whole body went rigid and then shuddered with convulsions as thirty thousand volts flooded through her.
The world went blood red and then velvet black. Dez tried to scream, she tried to fight, but all she could do was fall.
She heard JT calling her name from a million miles away.
She heard someone yell, “Catch her!”
She heard her own twisted scream.
She felt her head hit something. The counter, the floor—she couldn’t tell—but it opened a big dark hole in the world and Dez Fox fell into it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
GREEN GATES 55-PLUS COMMUNITY
Trout shoved the pistol into the waistband of his jeans. He stood in front of Volker, looking down at the doctor with undisguised contempt. “Listen to me you piece of shit. We’re going back to Stebbins. If one person is infected, if one single person dies because of what you did, I’ll make sure every newspaper in the world runs this story with you as the villain. ”
Volker leaned back from Trout’s intensity, but there was some defiance in his blue eyes. “You were there to report on a man being killed by pumping poison into his veins, Mr. Trout. You profit from such stories. The public loves to read of such things. Should I believe that you’re naïve enough to think that we are not all monsters? Each in our own way. ”
“Save that crap for a jury, asshole. ”
“Or is it that you’re so arrogant,” Volker continued, “that you believe that your moral worldview supersedes all others? Can you tell me that you would not have executed Homer Gibbon, or even tortured him a little, knowing what you know of the horrors he inflicted on women and children?”
“Yeah, sure, I might have even enjoyed waterboarding the fucker,” snarled Trout. “That’s not the point. I wouldn’t have risked using radioactive water to do it, though. There’s revenge, and there’s primal satisfaction, and then there’s risking the health and wellbeing of others just to satisfy your own bloodlust. Don’t try to put me on the same playing field as you, Volker. As far as I see it, with the destructive potential of what you shot in Gibbon, you are every bit as bad as Gibbon. You’re every inch the monster he is. ”
Trout’s blood roared in his ears.
Volker shook his head and turned away.
“I hope you rot in hell,” Trout whispered.
Then he turned and ran for the door. Goat lingered a moment longer, staring at Volker but unable to express the horrors that screamed in his head. He spat on the floor in front of the doctor, then followed Trout.
The Explorer roared down the lane, burning through the rainwater to leave skid marks on the asphalt. Trout and Goat both had their cell phones out, punching numbers as fast as they could.
* * *
In the wreck of a Stebbins County police cruiser, lost under a seat amid a jumble of spent shell casings, Dez Fox’s cell phone began ringing. The ringtone was from a Dwight Yoakum tune. The phone rang four times and then went to voice mail.
Dez’s message was: “You got the machine. Leave a message and a number. If I don’t call back, your message wasn’t interesting. ”
When Trout heard the call go to voice mail, his heart juddered in his chest. “Come on, Dez … come on. ”
At the beep, he said, “Dez, I need you to call me back right away. ” He paused, trying to word a message that she wouldn’t immediately delete. “I got a reliable tip that someone infected with a dangerous disease is in town. Call me now!”
He clicked off and tried JT. Straight to voice mail. He left a similar message, hung up, and called Marcia.
The phone rang three times. Four … and then she answered.
“Marcia!”
“Oh … Christ … Billy…” she said. Her voice was weak and she was breathing too fast and too hard. It sounded like she was having sex. “Billy … God…”
“Marcia, what’s wrong? What’s going on there?”
“Billy … I tried calling 9-1-1. They … they didn’t answer…”
“Marcia!”