Making a beeline to the fifth-floor labs, Caleb is on my heels. Getting cameras placed here was the hardest part of my covert operation with the entrenched agents. I think Number One found them prior to her murderous rage. Just one more reason to do away with us all. Broken glass, expensive equipment, and a stuffed animal litter the floor of the lab. I take steadying breaths.
Shoving a refrigerated cabinet to the side, I pull the electrical panel off, the computer drive I placed inside it is gone. I lean my head against the wall and groan. Caleb starts to ask me questions quietly, but I shut him out. One more betrayal. She stabbed me in the back when I was six and now she must have found my hiding spots again. From a young age, she was there watching. In the shadows, offering bits and pieces of affection. Encouraging me to hide myself. My true self. The day the world ended here; her monstrous acts shouldn’t have shocked me. I shouldn’t be doubting what I witnessed that day. She was never what she appeared to be.
It’s in this moment that I understand that telling the agents I’ve had contact with is a priority. Giving them what I’ve found so far for proof. They need to understand that too many people stand to lose their lives if the secrets from Camp Carroll are exposed and that’s exactly what I need to do. For Eden and anyone else in Number One or one of her incarnation’s way.
26. EDEN
Matt’s been quiet. Melancholy. Blaine, Matt, and I are driving to my hometown today. Almost against my will. Blaine thinks it’ll be therapeutic, a closure of sorts. I think it’ll make me more anxious and embarrassed about where I come from.
“Are you okay?” I rub my hand down Matt’s well-muscled back. Blaine opted for the backseat, so he could catch a nap. Matt dips his chin down and then gives me a fake smile. “We don’t have to do this today. We could head back and wake Caleb and Hutton up. Do something more fun… like crash a funeral.” I try to get a real smile from him and it’s a no go.
“Sorry.” He squeezes my hand and keeps hold of it, resting it on his thigh. “I just have a lot on my mind.” I want to know what that might be, but if it’s case related, he can’t tell me anyway.
“All the more reason to blow off this hometown visit. There isn’t much to see. Cows, fields… maybe a meth lab.” I bite my fist and look out at the passing fields and small farmsteads. It all looks so bleak to me. None of this feels like ‘home.’ Home is a tiny house with Anna and her cat. Home is a city neighborhood with the churn of constant noise, not the ominous heavy silence punctuated with animal noises. I don’t want to be here.
“We’re almost there. Do you have memories with Embry in town at all?” he asks as he adjusts his sunglasses and then takes my hand back.
We didn’t get to go many places other than school. As we pass a rundown service station and then turn onto a county road that will lead us past Clive’s trailer, I remember something. Each summer, Embry and I would join one of the followers selling some vegetables at a stand on the edge of town. “There! Could you stop?” I point to the neon green painted stand. It looks like it’s been painted since I last saw it. It’s still got ‘watermelen’s’ printed on it-having misspelled the fruit always made me giggle. Sinda said I could paint an ‘o’ over the last e in the word, but it would make Mr. Weingarten feel stupid.
“Here at the stand?” He pulls the truck into the dirt lot next to the structure. Two other vehicles are parked nearby. Blaine wakes up and mumbles, “Where are we?”
“The big town of Sussex.” I climb out of the SUV and both men follow me. A mix of tomatoes, sweet corn, watermelon, and cucumbers sit in bins in the circular structure of the stand. In the middle are two older people. I recognize Mr. Weingarten immediately. He leans on his cane and loudly proclaims that the tomatoes were a hearty crop this year to the woman in front of him.
My heart leaps. He knows me and he knew my brother. For years we helped sell at this stand. Maybe this will convince Matt and Blaine. Matt grabs my hand, and we wait for the other customers to move, in order to speak to the elderly couple. “Good afternoon,” Matt says to them.
“Mr. Weingarten?” I lean into the stand and the worn wood bites into my knees. Please, please recognize me.
“Hi, young lady.” It’s been too long, how could he?
Blaine waves his hands to get mosquitos to leave him alone. Then he wanders a few feet away to have a cigarette. At least the smoke should shield him. I wish he’d quit again.
I smile at Mr. Weingarten and tell myself it’s no reason to get emotional. The odds that he’d remember me on sight were low. “I used to live in the area,” I say to him.
More customers walk up, and I move back and let them pay for their produce. Matt gives me a sympathetic look. We wave Blaine over to leave, when Mr. Weingarten says loudly, “Who did you say you were?”
Turning back slightly I say, “Eden Davis. It’s been a long time.” My sad smile is plastered on my face. “My brother Embry and I came and worked with you in the summer sometimes.”
“Ah.” He nods at me, but no recognition is evident on his face. He bends forward and pulls a decrepit looking photo album with pages coming loose out from under the stand where he keeps his cash box. “Looky here,” he calls out and waves us over.
I step back to the stand, with Matt and Blaine in tow. “What’s that?”
He pages through the book and stops, pulling a polaroid picture from one of the sticky pages. He holds it out to us. In it, Sinda, Embry, and I are sitting on the front of the stand each of us full of watermelon juices and grinning. My heart stops and I can’t stop the whimper that escapes my lips. My brother… proof finally of my brother. Matt tucks me into his side and takes the picture from Mr. Weingarten’s weathered hand.
Blaine swears under his breath next to me. “That’s him?” He points to Embry sitting with his knees up and leaning towards me. Happy. Alive. My little brother.
“Yes, yes, that’s my little brother.” A happy gasp of a cry escapes me. Replaced quickly with a fresh wave of grief over his loss. I hold the picture to my chest. “Can I keep it?”
He nods. “Sure, got a couple more.” He taps the book and I almost wipe out trying to look at those, too. Different summers. He has one of just Embry and I holding up a watermelon together, and another where I have nasty bruising on my arm and Embry and I aren’t smiling. We’re standing close to one another and holding each other’s hands. I remember that one. Sinda wasn’t with us. She no longer came around. We only volunteered one day and then mom didn’t bring us back because Mr. Weingarten demanded to know why we were bruised.
Matt asks for the other pictures and then purchases almost half the stand of fruit and vegetables in gratitude. We haul them into the back of the SUV. “What are you going to do with all this?” I ask him.
“I don’t care. Some food shelf will gladly have it.” He shakes Mr. Weingarten’s hand and I impulsively give Mr. Weingarten a hug. He was always so kind. Feeding us when we were here, treating us like we mattered, and confronting mom.
“Thank you. This probably won’t make sense but thank you for the time we spent with you.” I wipe at my cheek. “Embry always loved watermelon.”
“’Member him eating a whole one on his own,” Mr. Weingarten half shouts. “He always asked to live in my stand, and it wasn’t until later I figured it wasn’t cuz of those melons. Was it?”
I’m too choked up to answer and just nod as I cry. Matt thanks him again and he and Blaine both shake his hand all over again. I’m certain that Matt left a generous tip for him, too.
