Final Epidemic by Earl Merkel Read Free Book Online Page A

Katie’s mother had kept after the divorce. Had they been aware of the real plan, at least two of the young women involved would not have been allowed out of their respective rooms for the balance of the decade.
    Hence Carly’s precise timetable, under which they would be back home in Arlington, Virginia, after three days of nonstop sun-and-sand, extreme partying on the Redneck Riviera. With, presumably, no one the wiser.
    Katie still felt guilty about the deception, though not as guilty as she had imagined she would. She had been nervous at first, particularly when Carly’s LeMans had crossed the state line into North Carolina. But once her initial anxiety had cooled, she had analyzed her situation with all the logic of her years and experience.
    I might as well enjoy myself now, Katie reasoned to herself philosophically. Because when Mom finds out about this, I’ll be grounded until I’m thirty.
    It was eerie, the way Deborah Stepanovich—she had dropped her married name, with an almost unseemly haste, after the divorce from Katie’s father—could divine events that involved her only child. Perhaps it was her trained legal mind—Deborah was a lawyer on the partner track at a D.C. firm that specialized in representing the interests of obscenely large multinational corporations, and as such, accustomed to all manner of deception. Perhaps it was simply the finely honed instincts of every working mother.
    Or maybe she’s just a witch, with a “w,” Katie told herself cattily, and bit off the thought as unworthy.
    But whatever the skill, talent or supernatural powerinvolved, there was no doubt in Katie’s mind that her mother would, ultimately, discover the truth. It was a thought that surprised Katie with its mixture of apprehension and satisfaction, in roughly equal proportions.
    The clashes were coming more and more frequently these days, and Katie admitted that it was usually her fault. She was tempted to attribute it to her parents’ divorce, a still-raw wound that all three of the concerned parties pretended bled but a bare trickle; but instinctively Katie knew the conflict had far more elemental roots. Frequently, she found herself driven to challenge her mother even in matters where, secretly, they might have agreed.
    It was as if someone else lived inside her, a malevolent being that automatically bristled at any suggestion, comment, observation or—especially—directive that came from Deborah. Invariably, Katie would respond, flint against her mother’s steel. Then the sparks would fly, ignite the tinder of two women living in close proximity and raise a firestorm that indiscriminately blistered both of them.
    The anger was automatic, virtually out of control, and in a very special way it frightened Katie—mainly because she could see the power she had to hurt her mother. But she could not stop, either. It was as if she were fiercely determined to prove that her mother had no answers, or at least not the right ones; at the same time, she was petrified at the prospect that this might be true.
    It would have been useful to talk about what she was experiencing, Katie told herself; but to whom? Her mother was out, definitely; even on the days when an uneasy peace prevailed, the subject matter involved was decidedly too incendiary. It was, Katie believed, virtually guaranteed to bring about a less-than-fruitful exchange of ideas. There were, of course, the guidance counselors at school—a prospect Katie immediately rejected; only dweebs and losers went to them with their concerns, which were invariably passed along to the relevant parental unit anyway.
    I wish I could have talked to Dad about it, Katie thought. In early June, she had spent two weeks with him in Chicago, where he was getting ready to work for a semester or so. But he made it pretty clear that it was never quite the right time to bring up anything about Mom—exactly like she does, when I’m with her.
    Katie stopped short, surprised at the