“Kate isn’t an idiot.”
“You told her you were investigating her?” There was heat in Pilcher’s words.
“You think she wouldn’t have immediately assumed that?”
“We’ll never know now, will we?”
“David—”
“Will we?”
“I know her. You don’t.”
Pam said, “So you told her we were onto her, and she said, ‘Great, here’s what’s going on.’ ”
“I told her that she was under suspicion, and that I could protect her.”
“Played up those old feelings, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, might not be the worst approach. So what’d you learn?”
“She says the last time she saw Alyssa was on Main Street the night she died. They parted ways. Alyssa was still alive.”
“What else?”
“She has no idea what’s beyond the fence. Asked me repeatedly.”
“Then why is she running around in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. But I have a chance to find out.”
“When?”
“Tonight. But I need my chip taken out.”
Pilcher looked at Pam, back to Ethan.
“Not possible.”
“Her note explicitly said, ‘No chip or don’t bother coming.’ ”
“So just tell her you took it out.”
“You think they won’t check?”
“We can make an incision in the back of your leg. They’ll never know the difference.”
“What if they have some other way of finding out?”
“Like what?”
“Fuck if I know, but if there’s a microchip in my leg tonight, I’m staying home.”
“I made that mistake with Alyssa. Let her go dark. If she’d been chipped, we’d already know where she went. Where she was killed. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“I can handle myself,” Ethan said. “You’ve both seen that. Firsthand.”
“Maybe we aren’t as concerned,” Pam said, “with your safety as we are with your loyalty.”
Ethan turned in his chair.
He’d fought this woman once in the basement of the hospital. She’d come at him with a syringe, and he’d crashed into her at full speed, driven her face into a concrete wall. He relived that moment now like the memory of a good meal, wishing he could experience it again.
“She raises a point, Ethan,” Pilcher said.
“And what point is that? You don’t trust me?”
“You’re doing great, but it’s still early times. Lots to prove.”
“I want the chip out, or I don’t go. It’s that simple.”
Pilcher’s voice assumed a harder edge.
“You will be in my office crack of dawn tomorrow with a full report. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“And now I have to threaten you.”
“With what will happen to my family if I should decide to run or otherwise misbehave? Can’t I just imagine the worst and assume you’ll deliver? What I really need is to have a word with you in private.” Ethan glanced at Pam. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
When the door had closed behind her, Ethan said, “I’d like to get a better picture of who your daughter was.”
“Why?”
“The more I know her, the better chance I’ll have of finding out what happened to her.”
“I think we know what happened to her, Ethan.”
“I was down in her quarters yesterday. There were flowers and cards all around her door. A real outpouring. But I was wondering—did she have any enemies in the mountain? I mean, she was the boss’s daughter.”
Ethan thought Pilcher might erupt at this intrusion into his privacy and grief.
But instead, Pilcher leaned back in his chair and said, almost wistfully, “Alyssa was the last person to trade on her status. She could’ve lived in this suite with me in luxury, done whatever she wanted. But she insisted on keeping spartan living quarters and she took assignments just like everyone else. Never once sought out preferential treatment because of who she was. And everyone knew. And it made everyone love her even more.”
“Did you two get along?”
“Yes.”
“What did Alyssa think about all this?”
“All what?”
“The town. The surveillance. Everything.”
“Early on, after we all came out of suspension, she had her idealistic moments.”
“You mean she didn’t agree with how you ran Wayward Pines?”
“Right. But by the time she hit twenty, she’d begun to really mature. She understood the reasons behind the cameras and the fêtes. The fence and the secrets.”
“How did she become a spy?”
“Her request. The assignment came up. There were a lot of volunteers. We had a big fight about it. I didn’t want her to do it. She was just twenty-four. So bright. So many other things she could’ve contributed to that wouldn’t have put her in danger. But she stood here and said to me several months ago, ‘I’m the best candidate for this mission, Daddy. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.’ ”
“So you let her go.”
“As you’ll find with your son soon enough, letting go is the hardest, greatest thing we can do for them.”
“Thank you,” Ethan said. “I feel like I know her a little bit now.”
“I wish you’d really gotten the chance. She was something else.”
Halfway to the doors, Ethan stopped, glanced back at Pilcher.
“Mind if I ask one more prying question?”
Pilcher smiled sadly. “Sure. Why stop now?”
“Alyssa’s mother. Where is she?”
It was like something broke inside the man’s face. He looked suddenly old, as if the underpinnings had been washed away.
Ethan instantly regretted asking.
The air was sucked out of the room.
Pilcher said, “Out of everyone who went into suspension, nine people never woke up on the other side. Elisabeth was one of those nine. Now I’ve lost my daughter too. Hug your family tonight, Ethan. Hold them tight.”
The OR was down on Level 2, and the surgeon was waiting for them.
He was a roundish man with a bowed back and awkwardness of movement, as if his bones had atrophied after years of living in this mountain, and too little exposure to sunlight. His white coat dropped to his wing tips and he was already wearing a surgical mask.
As Ethan and Pam entered, the doctor looked up from a sink that ran steaming tap water.
He washed his hands furiously.
Didn’t introduce himself.
Just said, “Take off your pants and lie on your stomach on the table.”
Ethan looked at Pam. “You’re staying for this?”
“You honestly think I’d pass up a chance to watch you get cut?”
Ethan sat down on a stool and began to pull off his boots.
Everything had been prepped.
Spread out on blue surgical cloth on a tray beside the operating table: a scalpel, tweezers, forceps, sutures, needle, scissors, needle holder, gauze, iodine, and a small, unlabeled bottle.