She led Nest around the intake desk and down the hallway toward the elevator. Nest followed reluctantly, still trying to sort out the reason for her discomfort. Was Ariel responsible? Was the tatterdemalion trying to communicate with her in some way?
As they reached the elevator doors, a tall, lean, mostly balding black man walked through a doorway from further down the hall and came toward them.
“Ray!” Della Jerkins called out to him at once, “Come over here and meet Nest Freemark. Nest is an old friend of John’s, come by to say hello.”
The black man strolled up, grinning broadly. “We talking about John Ross, the man with no past? I didn’t think he had any old friends. Does he know about this, Nest, about you being his old friend? Or are you here to surprise him with the news?”
He held out his hand and Nest took it. “Ray Hapgood,” he introduced himself. “Very pleased to meet you, and welcome to Seattle.”
“Ray, you take “.lest on dawn and get her some coffee, will you? Introduce her to Stef and Carole and whoever, and keep her company until John gets back,” Della was already looking over her shoulder at the lobby entrance as the elevator doors opened. “I got to get back out front and keep an eye on things. Go on now.”
She gave Nest a smile and a wave and walked away. The doors closed, leaving Nest alone with Ray Hapgood.
“What brings you to Seattle, Nest?” he asked, smiling.
She hesitated. “I was thinking of transferring schools,” she said, inventing a lie to suit the situation.
He nodded. “Lot of good schools in Washington. You’d like it out here. So tell me. You know John a long time? I meant what I said; he never talks about his past, never mentions anything about it.”
“I don’t know him all that well, actually.” She glanced up at the floor numbers on the reader board. “Mostly, my mother knows him. Knew him. She’s dead. I didn’t know him until a few years ago, when he came to visit. For a few days, that’s all.”
She was talking too much, giving up too much, but her uneasiness was increasing with every passing moment. She was beginning to hear voices-vague whispers that might be coming from her, but might also be coming from someone else.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that. About your mother.” Ray Hapgood seemed genuinely embarrassed. “Has she been gone a long time?”
Nest suddenly felt trapped in the elevator. She thought that if she didn’t get out right away, right this instant, she might start to scream. She was racked with shivers and her .skin was crawling and her breathing was coming much too quickly. “She’s. been dead since I was little,” she managed.
The elevator doors opened, and she burst through in a near panic, feeling stupid and frightened and confused all at the same time. Ray Hapgood followed, leaking at her funnily, “I don’t like close places,” she lied.
Oh, he mouthed silently, nodded, and gave her a reassuring smile.
They were in a basement room filled with long, multipurpose tables and folding chairs, a coffee machine, shelves with dishes, anal storage cabinets. There were mingled smells of cooking and musty dampness, and she could hear a furnace cranking away from behind a closed door at the back of the room. Fluorescent lighting from low-hung fixtures cast a brilliant white glare over the whale of the windowless enclosure, giving it a harsh, unnatural brightness. Al young man sat alone at a table to one side, poring through a sheaf of papers. Two women sat together at another table close to the coffee machine, talking in low voices. The women looked up as Nest appeared with Ray Hapgood. One was middleaged and unremarkable, with short blond hair and a kind face. The other was probably not yet thirty and strikingly beautiful. Nest knew at once that she was Stefanie Winslow.
“Ladies,” Ray greeted, steering Nest toward their table. “Say hello to Nest Freemark, an old friend of John’s. Nest, this is Carole Price, our director of operations here at Flesh Start, and Stefanie Winslow, the boss’s press secretary and all-around troubleshooter.”