No Hope for Gomez! (14 page)

Part four

33.

Blog entry: Over the next couple of weeks our relationship strengthened. We became more comfortable around each other and eventually managed to relax enough to enjoy our time together. Dr. Hargrove visited my apartment (she liked it!) and my store (no comment…) and she introduced me to her friends.

Her work at the clinic continued uninterrupted. No one assumed we were at the party together or had even cared. It turned out that test subjects were a dime a dozen and nobody knew who I was.

Which suited us fine.

Blog entry: Hicks returned to normal. His gums stopped bleeding and his skin cleared up. His pathological fear of all things unpunctual remained, of course, as did his plethora of other phobias, but by and large, he was doing better.

We kept the store clean and tidy and we opened up on time. We had some customers in and even some sellers. I think some of the stuff I bought might’ve been actual antiques, but I couldn’t be bothered to find out.

Although I did feel watched from time to time, I never noticed any martial artists hanging around, nor anyone who looked in any way threatening. I kept vigilant, though, I wasn’t going to have my pressure points fondled unexpectedly.

Most days I worked on my blogs and perused the site about picking up girls. I didn’t need the advice anymore, but it was still an interesting read.

Blog entry: When our first month anniversary came up, I found myself wondering about my love life.

You’d think that a doctor would be better in bed.

Not that Dr. Hargrove wasn’t good. She was terrific. Incredible, in fact. So far, though, she hadn’t done anything
special
. Anything I hadn’t seen before. Somehow I expected a person who’d devoted her life to understanding the human body to, well, know a few tricks.

As I pondered this, I remembered she wasn’t actually a doctor. She was only a research assistant. Maybe she’d learn the tricks later.

Couldn’t wait. 

Blog entry: Dr. Hargrove and I spent our weekends traveling and during the week we’d meet up in the evenings. We alternated doing the shopping and cooking, and after dinner we’d read the papers or take a walk. Often we’d check out the stalker places. They were always nice and empty.

Around nine each evening we ended up on the couch and had some tea while watching TV. One evening I had a brilliant idea. When Dr. Hargrove asked me, “Do you want some tea, dear?” I growled back, “Make your own damn tea, woman!”

She shot me a surprised look. “I
am
making my own damn tea,” she huffed. “I just offered to make you some too.”

“Stop whining about the tea,” I said, “and leave me alone!”

You see, girls like drama.

“Gomez!” She sounded hurt. “Why are you doing this?”

“No reason,” I said. “I don’t care, do what you want. Just ignore me like you always do.”

I didn’t want Dr. Hargrove to get bored with me, just because there wasn’t enough drama in our relationship. So drama she’d have. In droves.

I zapped channels, paying her no attention. She left the room and returned ten minutes later, eyes puffy and red, carrying two cups of tea.

“Just in case you changed your mind,” she said, “I made you some tea.”

“Oh, what’s the use,” I sighed. “I can’t hide it any longer; I’m in love with your sister!”

“What?” She almost dropped the cups.

“It just happened,” I said. “We didn’t plan for it, we didn’t want it to happen, it just did.”

“What sister?”

“Both your sisters, actually. You see, they’re so much prettier and skinner than you, and they can jump higher.”

Dr. Hargrove stared at me. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Gomez! Please, stop it!”

“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “It just happened. Over and over and over again.”

She was devastated “Gomez, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t
have
any sisters!”

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said, “I didn’t want this to come between us. They mean nothing to me, I promise. Let’s forget this ever happened and get back together. What do you say?”

They like the drama so very much.

“We were apart?” she said. “When were we apart?”

But they
love
the sickly sweet romance.

“Honey, it feels like we were never apart, and it feels like we were apart forever.”

That should tide her over till next Tuesday.

34.

Blog entry: It felt weird visiting Dr. Hargrove at the clinic.

Even though that’s where we’d met, going to the clinic somehow felt wrong. It felt a bit like French kissing an old lady; all the right moves, but in totally the wrong places.

No idea why.

We weren’t doing anything wrong, exactly. In fact, what we did at the clinic was probably the only part of our relationship that
wasn’t
wrong. Still, I’d sit there, answering Dr. Hargrove’s questions, feeling guilty. Especially when Dr. Hargrove answered a question for me. She’d say something like, ‘You looked a bit flushed last time’, or, ‘I noticed your pee turned deep yellow again last night’, and that’d make me very uncomfortable.

Dr. Hargrove was fine with it, though. You’d never tell from her demeanor at the clinic that we knew each other intimately. Sometimes, she could be hard as nails. Had to be all that medical training.

Blog entry: More things were weird today. My predecessor wasn’t in. I sat out in the waiting room for all of five minutes when Dr. Hargrove called me in. I waited for my predecessor to exit her office, but he didn’t. In all the months of the trial, he’d never skipped a session before. 

I asked Dr. Hargrove, “No Tommy today?”

“Who?” She gave me a look.

“Fat guy, comes in before me. Sometimes your assistants chase him around the office a bit. Wild eyes, beard, looks like a Tommy.”

“You mean Mr. Ferguson?”

“Could be. Maybe. He’s not in today?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

Dr. Hargrove started on her form questions and my discomfort quickly made me forget about Tommy. I’m not sure I even noticed his absence the next few visits. It wasn’t until something peculiar happened that I was reminded of him again. Dr. Hargrove and I were sitting at the dinner table in my apartment and I was scanning the paper for the cartoons. Suddenly I came across a familiar face.

“Isn’t that Tommy?” I handed Dr. Hargrove the obituaries, tapping the only entry expensive enough to carry a photo.

She looked it over, nodded, then went back to reading her own paper.

“It’s Mr. Ferguson,” I explained, “the fat guy from your trial.”

“Ah,” she said, “I thought he looked familiar.” She checked the photo again. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose it is.”

“And he’s dead!”

Dr. Hargrove nodded. “Yup.”

“But,” I said, surprised at her meager response, “he was in your trial, doesn’t that bother you?”

“Not at all.” She looked up, read my face, then took my hand. “Oh,” she said, “I think I know what you’re getting at. There’s really no need to worry. Mr. Ferguson had already missed so many treatments, we had to take his data from the models. His death won’t influence my results. Luckily I made the test sets large enough so I could safely discard one or two subjects without jeopardizing the entire trial.”

“But don’t you think this is significant?”

“What is?”

“The fact that he just died like that!”

“Why?”

“Why??”

Dr. Hargrove donned a sympathetic smile. “Look, Gomez,” she said. “I don’t know what to tell you. People die every day. Even people we hardly know.”

Blog entry: Dr. Hargrove failed to share my worry. Didn’t even grasp the
nature
of my worry. I tried again.

“He was in your trial, and now he’s dead. Just like Joseph Miller.”

“Is that what’s got you so upset?” Dr. Hargrove seemed surprised.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Well, yeah, just a little!”

“I assure you, Gomez, our experiment had nothing to do with that. We’re not testing anything remotely dangerous.”

I was getting tired of that line. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. “Look,” I said, “you’re doing this trial to find unexpected side effects, aren’t you? You’re not expecting people to die, but they do. That seems like a pretty big side effect to ignore!”

Dr. Hargrove closed her eyes with a sigh. “Gomez,” she said, “I don’t expect you to understand, and you don’t have to, but I need you to trust me. Okay? Can you do that?” She gave me a sad smile. “Can you do that one thing for me?”

Blog entry: I couldn’t.

Of course I couldn’t. I also couldn’t
tell
her that I couldn’t. I didn’t want to make another mistake, start another fight, but at the same time I didn’t want to be involved with someone who might be killing me, or was associated with people who, unbeknownst to her, were killing me, or even people who thought they were doing me a huge favor and that everything in the world was brilliantly fine, while they were accidentally killing me.

It was time to take matters into my own hands.

I might really be in danger. It was as if a veil had finally been lifted from my eyes. I had to get away, go into hiding until I figured out once and for all what was going on and who knew about it.

I should’ve done this a long time ago. Looking back, my infatuation with Dr. Hargrove was probably what stopped me, which, in turn, might be down to the trial drugs.

What if Tommy and Joseph had thought Dr. Hargrove was
their
girlfriend? What if the three of us had been taking some weird aphrodisiac that made us hang around the poisoning she-devil like a couple of lovesick puppies?

It seemed unlikely. It seemed all wrong. But logic dictated I should run until I was sure. If I didn’t, that’d mean some drug was messing up my head. I had no choice but to go, it was the only way to prove I believed in Dr. Hargrove’s innocence.

35.

Blog entry: Next morning, while Dr. Hargrove was still sleeping, I packed a quick bag (couple of pairs of underwear, some socks (pre-matched), pants, a jumper, my laptop).

I didn’t want to take too much. I had to operate under the assumption that they
were
out to get me (even if I hoped they weren’t). If I didn’t, I might as well stay and let whatever was about to happen, happen. So I took just enough to get by. This would give me a head start. If Dr. Hargrove woke up alone in my apartment, my closets ransacked and my personal belongings gone, she’d realize I was on the run. They’d come after me immediately. As it was, Dr. Hargrove would find my closets only partly ransacked, if she even noticed at all. Most likely she’d assume I’d gone to work really early and really well dressed.

We had no clear schedule of when we slept at her place or mine, so it could be days before she was sure I’d gone. Precious time I needed to get the (non-existing) proof I needed (didn’t need) to be safe (which I already was).

Things were getting complicated.

Blog entry: Sneaked into the kitchen, grabbed some bread and a bottle of water, pulled the front door closed behind me.

The journey was long and arduous, especially as I wanted to stay completely out of sight. THEY could be staking out my place, waiting for me to bolt. I kept to the shadows. To the nooks and crannies. I scuttled from doorway to doorway, crept from hiding place to hiding place. I didn’t take a break until I’d been on the road for several hours. In my haste, I’d forgotten about breakfast, so I ate some bread and drank from my water bottle, careful to leave enough for later. Then I went on my way again.

It was a long and difficult trek, the hours crept by slowly, but I reminded myself that every step took me closer to safety.

Blog entry: When I was far enough to feel a little safe, I dug out my cell and called Detective Moran. It was still early and the call went straight to voice mail. My first idea had been to hide out at the store, ask Moran for round the clock protection. I quickly realized there were too many problems with that little scenario.

Never mind that the city would never spring for such expensive treatment for someone who wasn’t in identifiable danger. Never mind that Moran wasn’t actually working the Miller case, but was instead assigned to wrapping up the Norton case. What worried me was that, even if I managed to get the protection, the clinic people would find a way to get to me and make me dead. They’d done it to Joseph. They’d done it to Norton – and he’d
known
something was up.

I’d seen the movies. The cops sat outside in their car, talking banter and drinking coffee from oversized Styrofoam cups, meanwhile the Balaclava-Man entered the building from the back and killed everyone inside.

Not for me. No thank you.

So police protection was out. At least until I gathered enough evidence to have them relocate me.

I left a quick message for Moran. Told him my suspicions (the clinic was testing a dangerous drug and getting rid of test subjects who wanted to spoil their models by dying all over the place), and I told him I’d be lying low for a while, gathering proof.

Blog entry: Thought about adding something – how to contact me, where I’d be hiding – then decided against it. The fewer people knew, the better. For all I knew there was a leak in the police department itself. I hung up and continued my journey.

Blog entry: I moved as stealthily as possible. Didn’t even let unsuspecting passers-by see me – any and all information could lead back to me. It was difficult, it was damn near impossible, it meant moving very, very slowly and backtracking a lot, but I did it. It was close to noon when I finally arrived at my destination.

Grimy, dusty, cranky, I knocked on the door. I wasn’t even sure the guy was still living there. We hadn’t spoken in a while.

Heard nothing for a few long moments, was beginning to think my journey had been in vain, then a sleepy face peeked through a crack in the door.

“Whadaya want?”

“I have to hide out at your place. They’re after me.”

“Hide out? Here?”

“Yeah, sorry man. I have nowhere else to go.”

The door opened a little. I moved to go in. “Thanks,” I said, “I won’t forget this.” But the door didn’t open all the way. The guy’s bulk blocked my entry.

“What about your friends,” he asked, “can’t you stay with them?”

“Well, I could, but it would be too ob–”

“And your family?”

“Sure, but in this case–”

“Or the police, that’s where people usually go when someone’s after them. Why don’t you go talk to them?”

“I don’t think they’d be–”

“And your landlord, what about him? Or your business manager? Or your doctor?”

“Look, I can’t stand out here in the hallway discussing this. Just let me in and we can–”

“Your shop,” he continued undeterred, “you could hide out there. Or you could visit your high school basketball coach, he’s sure to put you up. Or you could stay in the park, at a hotel, at youth hostel.”

“Damn it, Warren! Just let me in!” I kicked at his door. “I don’t have time for this! If Dr. Hargrove comes wandering down this hallway, I’m done for!” I glared at him. “I’ll be dead and it’ll be on your head!”

Warren shrugged. “I’ll let you in, Gomez,” he said, “of course I will. Just as soon as you admit that, out of all those excellent options, you chose my place simply because you
want
to stay here.”

I hardly had the time to roll my eyes. “Sure,” I hissed. “You have a great place, Warren. I’d hide out here even if it wasn’t the closest and most illogical place for me to go. Even if it wasn’t the last damn place on earth they’d look.” I gave him a hard stare. “Satisfied?”

Warren rubbed his chin. He’d spotted the sarcasm but seemed unsure where it came from or where it was headed. He relented. “Okay,” he said. “That’ll do, I guess.” A smile broke across his face. “Come on in, room-buddy! Make yourself at home!”