Wisdom Spring Read online

  Wisdom Spring

  By Andrew Cunningham

  Copyright ©2013 Andrew Cunningham

  All Rights Reserved

  Books by Andrew Cunningham

  Thrillers

  Wisdom Spring

  Deadly Shore

  “Lies” Mystery Series

  All Lies

  Fatal Lies

  Eden Rising Trilogy

  Eden Rising

  Eden Lost

  Eden's Legacy

  Arthur Macarthur Series of Children's Mysteries (as A.R. Cunningham)

  The Mysterious Stranger

  The Ghost Car

  The Creeping Sludge

  The Sky Prisoner

  The Ride of Doom

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to all the people who have shown their support of my writing by making my first book, Eden Rising, such a success. Three people deserve a special thanks: My father, who started me on my life-long love of books; My mother, who edited all of my papers in high school and really taught me how to write; And my wife, Charlotte. I’m not sure any of this would have happened without her constant love, support, and encouragement.

  To Scott

  1960-2003

  I think you’d approve

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A sneak peek at Andrew Cunningham's thriller,

  DEADLY SHORE

  Prologue

  Looking like a waterlogged waif in the periphery of my headlights, she couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall, and had no belongings that I could see. She was standing on the most deserted stretch of highway you could ever imagine, thumb out in a deflated sort of way. In the darkness and the rain, I almost missed her.

  It’s amazing really, how many things can go through your mind in just a few seconds. In the time it took me to put on my turn signal and pull over, I had already questioned the wisdom of picking her up, flashed to my father’s endless stories of hitchhiking in the early sixties as a teenager, and was presented with the sad realization that even if she turned out to be a whack-job, I really didn’t care. I no longer cared about much of anything. But I was oddly intrigued. How did she get to this god-forsaken spot? How long had she been standing there?

  I stopped the car and waited. Despite it being a major highway, there were few headlights or taillights in either direction. The only sounds were the clicking of the turn signal and the soft swishing of the windshield wipers. I switched off the turn signal. The competing rhythms were going to drive me even crazier than I already was—like two metronomes slightly out of sync. That was better. Without the competition, the windshield wipers were fairly quiet—the advantage of an expensive car.

  The passenger door opened and she got in. Close up, she appeared older than I thought in the brief splash of my headlights. Maybe her late-twenties. I was close about the height though. Five-one, at best. Her hair was blonde, but looked darker plastered to her head from the rain. Wearing only a thin windbreaker to protect her from the elements, her blouse, jeans, and sneakers were thoroughly soaked. She squished as she sat down on the leather seat.

  Mumbling an apology for getting my seat wet, along with a barely audible thank you for picking her up, that’s when I noticed the tears. Funny how I was able to see the difference between tears and rain. It wasn’t my business though, so I ignored it.

  Putting the car in gear, I asked, “Where are you headed?” again knowing that I really didn’t care.

  She was silent for a few seconds, then shook her head in resignation.

  “To Hell,” she answered.

  I smiled for the first time in weeks. Granted, it wasn’t much of one, but for the first time since the funeral, someone said something I could relate to.

  “I’ll take you,” I said. “I’m going that way myself.”

  Chapter 1

  The funeral was everything I expected it to be. Whispered condemnation accompanied by looks of hatred. There was no escaping it. I had to be there. After all, it was my daughter—the love of my life—lying there, looking like Snow White waiting to be awakened by the kiss of a prince. But there would be no prince. After the funeral would be the burial, and that would be the end of her. I would have preferred a cremation, with her ashes spread out under her favorite climbing tree, but her mother wanted it this way, and who was I to argue? I was a pariah. What I thought counted for nothing.

  My wife—well, soon to be ex-wife, I’m sure. She would be pushing the divorce through in record time—stayed as far from me as the limits of the chapel allowed, with a throng of friends and family protecting her from me. My only family was a brother in Alaska who I advised to stay home. And it wasn’t that I no longer had any friends; there were a couple left, but they were just wise enough not to be seen with me. Who wants to be associated in public with the man who killed his own daughter?

  I murdered her. Not intentionally, of course. The police never charged me. But it was I who gave her the shot that killed her, and it was I who went ahead against the advice of Karen’s doctors, my wife, and just about everyone else, and made the fatal decision to contact the doctor with the revolutionary cancer drug. Karen was dying anyway. Her doctors wouldn’t admit it—they said she had a chance of recovery, yet were always hazy with the percentages—but I knew it. I could feel the life very slowly seeping out of her little body. They said to be patient, but they were just hoping for a miracle they knew would never come. So how can you be patient in that kind of situation?

  Doctor Hill wasn’t a quack. He was just disliked—thoroughly disliked—by the medical community in this country. Despite being an American, he had chosen to do all of his research out of the country and had awarded the manufacturing contract of his cancer drug to a small Swiss company, angering the AMA and the massive pharmaceutical companies. As such, his drug, though wildly successful in the countries that allowed it, hadn’t yet been approved by the FDA. They said approval could take years. I couldn’t wait years. Karen couldn’t wait years. His treatment—a single drug, powerful, but with surprisingly few side-effects—could be taken with just about any other drug safely. “Just about” was the operative phrase.

  Because of his outsider status, he couldn’t work with Karen’s doctors or attend to Karen personally, but he had taken an interest in Karen’s case based on an email I sent him. I had read an article about him and knew that he was Karen’s last chance. We talked several times, and while he was confident that he could help her, he wa
rned me that any involvement on his part was illegal. If he were to administer the drug to Karen personally, he would be arrested. Doctor Hill explained that the only option would be for him to send me the drug and for me to administer it myself. I provided him with copies of all the paperwork available, which included the list of drugs that Karen was already taking. All the drugs minus one, that is.

  We were inundated with paperwork, and I thought I had gathered it all, but one of her drugs never made it on the list I gave Doctor Hill. THE drug. The one drug that reacted to his. He said that he asked me if she was taking it, but I was brain-dead. I don’t even remember him asking. It wasn’t his fault, although the courts certainly planned to make it his fault—if they could extradite him from whatever country he was now living in, which was doubtful. They would say he preyed on a distraught father. I suppose I could blame the healthcare system in general. But in reality, I gave her the shot that killed her, and I knew I would never be able to forget it. She was dead within minutes. I took away any minute chance she had of survival.

  After the funeral, I left. I packed a few items into the car, and just left. I had been let go the week before from my very lucrative job—it was too embarrassing to have me on the staff. I kept the one credit card that was in my name only, but gave my wife everything else; the house, the hefty bank account, all of our investments, and the second car. I wasn’t even sure I would be alive in a year. Thoughts of taking my own life at times consumed me. But I refrained.

  I did make two selfish decisions; in retrospect, important ones. I had a safe deposit box with almost a hundred thousand dollars in cash that no one knew about. It was money I was putting away in case the economy really tanked and cash became vital to our existence. I’m not totally sure why I didn’t tell my wife about it. Maybe I didn’t want to worry her. Or maybe I sensed that our marriage was on shaky ground and that somewhere down the line I might really need it. I couldn’t have imagined this. Needless to say, I didn’t reveal the existence of the box after Karen’s death, figuring it might be the only thing I’d have left to draw on if I decided to live. Normally, the vultures would have searched my assets beyond my established accounts and discovered the box, but given the circumstances and the fact that I seemed willing to relinquish everything but the clothes on my back, I don’t think they even looked.

  The second decision was taking my gun. It was a Sig Sauer .40, my pride and joy. Originally bought for home protection, I had come to value my Thursday nights at the gun range as—oddly enough—my “quiet time.” I could get lost in my shooting and totally escape the pressures of my work. I took it with me in my retreat, thinking I might need it down the line—not for self-defense, of course, but for a quick and easy end to my miserable life.

  So I left. There were no tears on my part. I had cried myself dry during the week following Karen’s death. There was nothing left, for now. I knew it would hit me again and again in the days … the years … to follow. But for now, there was nothing.

  *****

  Boston was in my rear view mirror as I headed south. I was in Connecticut before I allowed myself the thought that I had absolutely no idea where I was going. I had my credit card, all of the cash from the box, a couple of suitcases, and no place to go. I figured I’d never return to Boston, so if I landed someplace I liked I’d deposit the money there. If I decided to end it all, I’d send it to my brother. So I just drove. I stayed the night in a Hyatt somewhere outside of Baltimore—old habits died hard. No cheap dives for me—but it was wasted money; I barely knew where I was. Again, visions of suicide began to creep in, but the thought of a poor, unsuspecting chambermaid coming across my body in the morning prevented me from following through.

  It wasn’t until I saw the sign for I-20, near Florence, South Carolina, that I made yet another life-altering decision. I needed a friendly face and some peace and quiet. I needed to think without the noise of reporters, lawyers, ex-wives, and ex-friends. I needed to come to terms with all that had been thrust upon me. I needed to go to Alaska. My brother would give me the space I craved, and, when the time was right, the slap in the face that would allow me to jump-start my life.

  I had been to Alaska enough times to know how beautiful the summer can be, but it was still only May, and I wanted to let the Alaskan spring thaw complete its cycle, so I decided to take my time getting there. I had always loved to drive, so going the long route wouldn’t be a problem. After all, for the first time in my adult life, my calendar was clear. In fact, I no longer had a calendar. Time meant nothing to me.

  I spent that night in some medium-priced chain hotel off the highway in Georgia. It was only the second night of my banishment from my old life, and already my tastes were cheapening. Would my third night be spent in a seedy cottage motel, set back behind a hubcap stand owned by a cross-eyed family? If so, it would definitely be time to call it quits.

  I ate a late dinner in a nearby Denny’s. That was a first for me, as my preference had always tended to run toward the Capital Grille and such. But as I looked around me and saw all the happy faces of the kids out for a night on the town, I kind of wished that I had taken Karen to a Denny’s. We had wonderful times together, but I had to face the truth. I was a snob. I spoiled her rotten, but she never got to experience some of the things that “normal” American kids did. Sadly, she might have ended up being as much of a snob as her father. But I still wish she had had that chance.

  I spent an hour there, watching the families, barely touching my food. My insides were so knotted up I was having trouble breathing. The waitress asked me if there was something wrong with the food. I told her I just wasn’t hungry. I had her wrap it up, with the intention of eating it in my room when my stomach settled down. However, as I walked out the door, I stuffed it in a trash can.

  I couldn’t go on like this. Every waking moment was monopolized with thoughts of Karen. Was I wrong? Would she have lived using the conventional methods? No. There was no doubt in my mind at the time, so it did no good to second-guess it now. I could see it in the doctors’ eyes. No matter how often they told us to have faith, they knew what the ultimate result would be.

  I got in my car and hunted out a liquor store and bought a bottle of Scotch. Yet another first. Growing up, I had to endure both my parents getting drunk on a nightly basis. They weren’t mean drunks, just unhappy drunks. They never hit or yelled at my brother and me, they just quietly drank themselves into oblivion, dying within a year of each other when I was in college.

  A lot of people take on the habits of their parents, and my brother did for a few years, before finally sobering up and making something of his life. I went the opposite route. The thought of putting alcohol in my body made me angry, so alcohol was just something I didn’t drink, until that night in Georgia.

  Maybe I just wanted to see if it would help me forget. But really, is the death of your only child—your princess—something you can forget? I sat in my room, drinking from the bottle. Frankly, it was disgusting, but I kept going. However, I wasn’t forgetting. I was remembering to the point of agony. A third of the way into the bottle I ran for the bathroom and vomited. I stayed with my head in the toilet all night, throwing up again and again.

  I kept that room for another night. I was feeling so awful, I could barely move. I put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and stayed in bed all day. I ventured out again that evening and found a small pub-style restaurant. I was hungry, and tried to replace some of what I had lost from my system. But I was only half aware of where I was and what I was doing. I watched the captioned news on the TV above my table. It was all the same. It never changed. The Middle East was erupting once again; there was a manhunt for the murderer of four political staffers of a U.S. senator; our relations with Mexico had taken a turn for the worse; and I didn’t care.

  I was in my car the next morning driving west. I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror, or at least from the nose up. That was more than enough. I never considered myself handso
me by any means, but now I was almost zombie-like. The stress of the last year had left my once almond-colored hair with streaks of gray. Courtesy of my adventure with the bottle, my eyes were now red-rimmed and bloodshot. Who knows, maybe they were that way before my drinking binge, because I also had bags and dark circles under my eyes from months of sleepless nights. My stomach still felt some of the after-effects of my bout with the bottle. That, I could deal with. The guilt over Karen’s death I couldn’t. It’s all I could think about, and I was driving myself crazy. I desperately needed a diversion.

  That’s when I met Jess.

  I was somewhere west of Sweetwater, Texas. It had to be the ugliest, flattest piece of road I had ever been on. The only saving grace was that once it got dark, I didn’t have to look at it anymore. I wasn’t tired, so I just kept driving. It was well after midnight on that black, rainy night when I ran across her.

  *****

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Jess,” she mumbled, wiping away tears.

  “Short for Jessica?”

  “No, Mary.” She had come alive, sort of, enough to be sarcastic. “Sorry,” she said.

  I mustered up a smile of sorts. “That’s okay. I’m Jon.”

  I was trying to maintain my non-caring demeanor, but was losing the battle. Maybe it was too many days alone on the road. Maybe there was a part of me that still had a hint of life trying to burrow up through the sorrow. Whatever the reason, Jess intrigued me.

  “I’ve gotta ask. How is it you came to be standing by the side of the road in the middle of friggin’ Texas? There are no towns around there, no off-ramps, almost no dirt roads that I’ve seen. Just highway. Were you beamed there by a spaceship?”

  She smiled. It was a strange smile, as if I had just stumbled onto her secret.

  “I got picked up by a family in a truck stop outside Abilene.” I had to strain to hear her. “They decided they didn’t want me in their car anymore and just dropped me off on the side of the road.”