Hear the Children Calling (14 page)

Ralph had designed many buildings in his years at the center. The very building where he now worked, along with eight other architects, was his own creation, the first he constructed for Dr. Lincoln Adams. Now, as he sat contemplating a blank sheet, his pencil eraser pressed against his lower lip, he thought back to the first time he had met the doctor.

Lincoln Adams had gone to a lot of trouble to find the designer of a small theater in Silverton, Colorado. The building was unique in that, in addition to structural makeup usually found in theaters, it also boasted underground passageways that allowed the actors to perform mystifying illusions such as disappearance and bodily projection.

“You have ideas,” Adams had said, “qualities that I seek for an important project.”

Those were the doctor’s very first words to the architect. No “hello,” no introduction. Adams had always
been a man of few words, among adults. With the children, however, he was completely different. He really opened up to them, chattering away as he probed their minds and guided their powers. The children, Ralph thought, were very, very special.

It had been a child who had brought him, along with his wife, Risa, from their home in Silverton to this isolated mountain community in New Mexico. Adams had promised him an astronomical increase in salary, executive status, and all the benefits to go with it. But it was not until Michael’s arrival that he finally consented.

Adams had arrived at the Colpan house holding the hand of a big-eyed, freckle-faced little boy. Michael had run immediately to Risa, hugging her tightly and calling her Mommy. Risa looked over at the doctor with surprise, then knelt down to the child’s level and hugged him tightly. Michael returned the embrace with such intensity it seemed he was terrified to let go.

“He is the son you have always wanted,” Adams had said. “The son you shall have if you join me. I need your abilities, Ralph Colpan. Join me, and give your wife the child that God has denied her.”

There had been much discussion over the next days, many tears and arguments. Ralph had wondered if it was a legal adoption that Adams planned. Where had he gotten Michael from? But Risa was emphatic in her insistence that this child was meant to be theirs. All the while that Michael remained with them, he called them Mommy and Daddy as if he had been born to them. In the end, Ralph knew what he had to do. For Risa’s sake, he had to accept Adams’ offer, no matter what it entailed.

It wasn’t until a few months later that he realized what Adams had in store for Michael, and for the other children brought into the center. Though Ralph knew it was ethically wrong, the fact that the children never seemed to be hurt by their sessions in the clinic caused him to accept what was happening. And the realization that he had been part of something illegal for several
years now, without turning himself in to the proper authorities, quieted any protests he might have had.

Protests. He could hear Risa’s protests regarding Michael’s twice-a-week visits to the clinic.

“Can’t they leave him alone? Can’t he have a normal childhood?”

“He isn’t really normal, Risa.”

“He’s a ten-year-old boy!”

Ralph shook his head. Sad that his last full conversation with his wife had been an argument. She’d left for Santa Fe the next morning, nearly a month ago, and he hadn’t seen her since. Adams’ refusal to do anything about it had prompted Ralph’s decision to end his son’s torment. Someday, Michael would have to be told the truth. He was growing up, and soon he’d no longer be the innocent boy who accepted everything the adults around him said as unquestionable law. Ralph had seen the first signs of it at Michael’s last visit to the clinic.

But there was no time for such thoughts. The sky outside his window was glowing red-violet, and the setting sun meant Michael would be sitting on the roof of their house, watching for his father’s arrival from work. Ralph put his pencil down and left his blank paper. There was no need to lock his office door. Any important prints were taken the moment they were finished.

As he left the building and headed down the dusty road that bisected the community, Ralph removed a small penlight from his breast pocket and flicked it on and off. Moments later, a similar pattern occurred in the distance. Ralph laughed. He had sent the message, “I’m on my way,” in Morse code, and Michael had returned with “Emilina’s got dinner ready.”

Sure enough, he found the cook filling a huge bowl with noodles as he entered the house.

“You get that boy down from the roof,” the elderly Mexican woman ordered. “He went up there right after school today and has not been down since. His
head is too full of thoughts, Mr. Colpan. A niño like that should be playing in the sun . . .”

Ralph nodded wearily, thinking that Adams did not allow the children enough free time. He opened a door at the back of the kitchen and walked around a spiral staircase until he reached a dark storage room. The flick of a switch found a ladder, and he climbed up through a rectangular patch in the roof. He found Michael sitting near the chimney, his knees tucked under his chin. He looked very much like Risa, who had also had thick, wavy red hair. It was as if Adams hadn’t chosen him only for his ability as an architect, but for the fact his wife happened to resemble this orphan.

But he had learned in time that Michael was no orphan. He wished with all his heart that he could right the wrongs that had been done to the boy. Ralph loved Michael so much. He felt tears rising in his eyes, tears of frustration from not knowing what was to become of this brilliant, shy little boy.

He cleared his throat. “What’re you looking at, son?”

Michael stared off at the silhouettes of the nearby Rockies.

“I’m thinking,” he said simply. “Something weird’s happening in my mind, Dad. It’s been happening ever since Mom ran away, and I don’t know what it means.”

Your mother didn’t run away, Michael. They did something to her, crushed her attempt to escape this prison.

Michael turned suddenly to his father, his green eyes flashing.

“If Mom was dead,” he snapped, “I’d know it. I’d feel it. But I don’t feel anything at all.”

No matter how often Michael read his mind, Ralph could never get used to it. He stiffened a little to suppress a shudder.

“Maybe because there is nothing of her to feel, Michael,” Ralph said. “When she left the center, carrying those papers for delivery from the main post
office in Santa Fe, her return was expected by the end of the day. She dropped off the packages, but no one knows what became of her after that. If she had tried to run away . . .”

Michael’s small hands clenched into fists. The cool autumn air tousled his red curls, throwing them into a disarray.

“Someone betrayed her,” he seethed. “One of the mind-reader children was forced to tell where my mother really went. They make us do things like that, you know, Dad. They make us do bad things at the clinic. They are planning to use us for something horrible.”

Ralph had to turn away from his son to hide the stricken expression on his face. The words were far too mature for a ten-year-old, even one as brilliant as Michael. He rubbed his arms and listened to the echo of Michael’s words in his mind.

They are planning to use us for something horrible.

In his subconscious, there was a vague answer: And I am one who is helping them.

But Ralph never allowed it to surface, knowing that Michael could easily pick up his thoughts. He needn’t worry. Michael had returned his attention to the mountains.

“There’s someone out there, Dad,” he said. “I keep feeling that someone outside the center is very important to me.” He looked down at the red shingles on the roof, looking like a child about to make a confession. “Something weird happened to me the other day, Daddy,” he said. “I was playing on the swings outside the school, and I looked up into a window and saw a little girl with red hair like me. She was banging on the window and screaming, but when I went up into the classroom to find her, she was gone. Then, the other day when they were trying to get me to put that lady’s hand in the hot water?” He fell silent, waiting for encouragement.

“Yes?”

“The lady wasn’t there anymore, Dad. It was that
little girl again. I couldn’t let her hurt herself, I just couldn’t. I was so scared.” He turned and buried his face in Ralph’s muslin shirt.

Ralph patted his son’s back. “I know,” he said. “I’m trying to find a way to put a stop to all this.”

“I just wish I could find that little girl,” Michael said. “It’s like I should know her, but I don’t. And you know something? Laura says she feels someone from the outside calling her, too.”

“You know what you have been taught about the Outsiders,” Ralph reminded.

Michael nodded. “They hate us all. They don’t understand us and would have destroyed us all if Dr. Adams hadn’t built this shelter for us.”

“That’s right,” Ralph said.

Lies, all lies. Don’t think, he’ll hear you.

“Maybe it was Outsiders who took my mother,” Michael said thoughtfully.

Ralph struggled to swallow a lump that was forming in his throat.

“Maybe,” he rasped.

“I don’t think so, though,” Michael said. “But when I find this person who keeps entering my mind, I’ll find out.”

“You might,” Ralph agreed. He patted his son’s thin shoulder. No athlete, this boy. “Emilina sent me up here to tell you dinner is ready. We don’t want to keep her waiting.”

When they had descended into the storage room, Ralph put an arm around his son’s shoulders and leaned down to whisper to him, “These thoughts you’ve been having about someone entering your mind,” he said. “You must be sure to keep them to yourself. Tell your friend Laura this, too. Speaking out loud about things like that could be very dangerous.”

Before Michael had a chance to respond, Ralph threw open the door at the bottom of the spiral staircase and entered the kitchen.

20

O
RDER AND
L
OGIC
. T
HAT WAS THE WAY A SCIENTIST
was supposed to tackle any problem. One step at a time, trying out all possible leads until an answer was found.

Except that it was damned hard to be logical when your child’s life was at stake.

Still, Jill Sheldon had forced herself to go home after the incident in the supplies closet, to sit and think about all the information she had. Ken Safton was just another clue, and it didn’t take much effort to figure out what he was doing in Port Lincoln. No doubt he’d been assigned to keep an eye on her, setting up his practice on Long Island, a doctor inconspicuous among thousands of other doctors.

After finding the boy in the supplies closet, Jill had given up the idea of confronting Ronald Preminger. If he was involved in all of this, no doubt he’d already been warned about her investigation. She could imagine the conversation the two “doctors” had had over the phone with each other, discussing ways to curtail Jill’s search. She realized that Ken Safton had paid the teenager to frighten her, thinking it would stop her from continuing her investigation. Maybe she was in the dark about a lot of things, but they were downright stupid. Because the trick they had pulled in an attempt to frighten her had only rubbed away the last shadows of doubt she had that Ryan was alive.

She had dreamed all night, seeing Ryan playing happily, sometimes seeing his toys come to life to play with him. When the alarm woke her the next morning,
she lay staring at a beam of sunlight that stretched across her ceiling. In the night, in her dreams, another question had been answered.

Now she knew why they wanted Ryan.

“Because he can create hallucinations,” she whispered. “Because he can move things around without touching them.”

But acquiring an answer to the question had only created other questions. Just what were they going to do with Ryan? Just what had they done with him? Who were they?

Jill rolled out of bed, full of nervous energy. She wanted to find Ken Safton. She wanted to shake him, kick him, beat him, until he told her the truth about Ryan. But first, she had to find out how to approach him. She didn’t even know what kind of medicine he practiced.

“The chances of Ken Safton talking to me are zip,” she told her reflection as she washed her face and applied her makeup. “He’ll probably deny ever having lived in Wheaton, Michigan.”

And worse, if she did confront him, he’d get back to Ronald Preminger, who might see to it that Ryan was hurt. No, first she had to find out where Ken Safton was practicing and then, somehow, she had to get the information she needed.

Though she usually ate a good breakfast to get her through a hard day of work, she had no appetite this morning. She went into her room and took a scarf from her dresser drawer, wrapping it around her head. Outside in her car, she unhooked a pair of sunglasses from her visor and slipped them on. Satisfied she could not be recognized, Jill headed toward the local hospital. She had been able to get information on Craig Dylan through trickery. Now, she would try the same approach to find Ken Safton.

“Let’s hope this works,” she said as she pulled out of her space in the apartment complex driveway.

Just as she turned onto the road, another car pulled from the lot, moving in the same direction. Jill did not
even notice it until she stopped for a red light and happened to look into her rearview mirror. A cold chill brushed her skin.

It was the man from the airplane.

She thought of her broken desk and the boy in the closet. They were really keeping an eye on her, weren’t they?

“Well, forget that,” she said out loud, strength in her voice.

Jill watched for a gap in traffic, then sped quickly onto Jericho Turnpike, to the sounds of an angry truck horn. She accelerated, driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit. When she finally slowed and looked into the rearview mirror again, the car following her was not in sight. At least she could be certain no one would see her going to Shoreline Medical Center.

Early in the morning, long before visiting hours, it was very easy to find a place to park. When Jill entered the lobby, decorated with pumpkins and ghosts for Halloween, she was the only nonstaff person in sight. Nurses and interns, doctors and maintenance workers crisscrossed paths as they began a new shift. The receptionist, busy behind a computer terminal, seemed oblivious to Jill.