Tell No One

As this scene opens, Beck is about to see where the hyperlink will lead him. What he discovers will shock him like nothing else ever could….I checked the computer’s clock. It was hooked into some satellite that gave the exact time: 6:04.32 PM

Ten minutes and twenty-eight seconds to go.

To go to what?

The phones kept ringing. I tuned them out and drummed my fingers. Under ten minutes now. Okay, if there were going to be a change in the hyperlink, it would have probably happened by now. I put my hand on the mouse and took a deep breath.

My beeper went off.

I wasn’t on-call tonight. That meant it was either a mistake – something made far too often by the clinic night operators — or a personal call. It beeped again. Double beep. That meant an emergency. I looked at the display.

It was a call from Sheriff Lowell. It was marked “Urgent.”

Eight minutes.

I thought about it, but not for very long. Anything was better than stewing here with my own thoughts. I decided to call him back. I picked up the office phone, dialed nine to get an outside line, then the number on the LCD.

Lowell again knew who it was before he picked up. “Sorry to bother you, Doc.” Doc, he called me now. Like we were chums. “But I just have a quick question.”

I put my hand back on the mouse, moved the cursor over the hyperlink, and clicked. The web browser stirred to life.

“I’m listening,” I said.

The web browser was taking longer this time. No error message appeared.

“Does the name Sarah Goodhart mean anything to you?”

I almost dropped the phone.

“Doc?”

I pulled the receiver away and looked at it as though it’d just materialized in my hand. I gathered myself together a piece at a time. When I trusted my voice, I put the phone back to my ear. “Why do you ask?”

Something started coming up on the computer screen. I squinted. One of those sky cams actually. Or street cam, I guess you’d call this one. They had them all over the web now. I sometimes used the traffic ones, especially to check out the morning delay on the Washington Bridge.

“It’s a long story,” Lowell said.

I needed to buy time. “Then I’ll call you back.”

I hung up. Sarah Goodhart. The name meant something to me. It meant a lot.

What the hell was going on here?

The browser stopped loading. On the monitor, I saw a street scene. The rest of the page was blank. No banners or titles. I knew you could set it up so that you only grabbed a certain feed. That was what we had here.

I checked the computer clock. 6:12.18 PM

The camera was pointing down at a fairly busy street corner, from maybe fifteen feet off the ground. I didn’t know what corner it was or what city I was looking at. It was definitely a major city though. Pedestrians flowed mostly from right to left, heads down, shoulders slumped, briefcases in hand, downtrodden at the end of a work day, probably heading for a train or bus. On the far right, I could see the curb. The foot traffic came in waves, probably coordinated with the changing of a traffic light.

I frowned. Why had someone sent me this feed?

The clock read 6:14.21 PM. Less than a minute to go.

The feed was black and white. The way the shades of gray lit the worker-bees against the asphalt was almost artistic. A Bergman film maybe. Something like that. I kept my eyes glued to the screen and waited for the countdown as though it was New Year’s Eve. My pulse started speeding up. Ten, nine, eight….

Another tidal wave of humanity passed from right to left. I took my eyes off the clock. Four, three, two. I held my breath and waited. When I glanced at the clock again, it read: 6:15.02 PM

Nothing had happened – but then again, what had I expected?

The human tidal wave ebbed and once again, for a second or two, there was nobody in the picture. I settled back, sucking in air. A joke, I figured. A weird joke, sure. Sick even. But nonetheless—

And that was when someone stepped out from directly under the camera. It was as though the person had been hiding there the whole time.

I leaned forward.

It was a woman. That much I could see. Short hair, but definitely a woman. From my angle, I hadn’t been able to make out any faces so far. This was no different. At least, not at first.

The woman stopped. I stared at the top of her head, almost willing her to look up. She took another step. She was in the middle of the screen now. Someone else walked by. The woman stayed still. Then she turned around and slowly lifted her chin until she looked straight up into the camera.

My heart stopped.

I stuck a fist in my mouth and smothered a scream. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Tears filled my eyes and started spilling down my cheeks. I didn’t wipe them away.

I stared at her. She stared at me.

Another mass of pedestrians crossed the screen. Some of them bumped into her, but the woman didn’t move. Her gaze stayed locked on the camera. She lifted her hand up as though reaching toward me. My head spun. It was as though whatever tethered me to reality had been severed.

I was left floating helplessly.

She kept her hand raised. Slowly I managed to lift my hand. My fingers brushed the warm screen, trying to meet her halfway. More tears came. I gently caressed the woman’s face and felt my heart crumble and soar all at once.

“Elizabeth,” I whispered.

She stayed there for another second or two. Then she said something into the camera. I couldn’t hear her, of course, but I could read her lips.

“I’m sorry,” my dead wife mouthed

And then she walked away.