Hear the Children Calling (23 page)

“Thank goodness for modern technology,” he said. “I told you not to give up hope.”

“But after all the tests,” Jill said, “and after trying Perganol and—”

“That doesn’t matter now,” the doctor said. “It was Neolamane that did the trick.”

“Great new discovery,” Jeff said. Suddenly, he turned to Jill, his eyes darkening. He frowned deeply and spoke in guttural tones that echoed through the sterile room. “Too bad Ryan won’t live to tell about it. . .”

Jill sat up with a gasp, jerking herself into wakefulness before her dream could turn into a nightmare. Shaking, she crawled over to the stove and poured herself another cup of coffee. Since she had only been asleep a short time, it was still warm, and it helped settle her nerves. As she sat against a tree sipping it, she went over the dream in her mind. Immediately, she understood the message that had been sent to her. LaMane—it was a pharmaceutical company, manufacturer of a fertility drug called Neolamane. It was this same drug that had helped Jill conceive after years of trying.

Was it possible that the drug had had some effect on the babies it produced?

“I have a lot of questions to ask,” Jill said out loud.

But whom could she ask? Whom could she trust? It was just a chance she had to take, but she had to find out everything she could about the drug. It would be hours until nightfall, and no amount of viewing through the telescope had produced the sight of a child. With a new lead to follow, Jill packed the car up again and headed back down the mountain. She would return
this evening, but in the meantime, she’d spend the day following up on the LaMane Center.

When she arrived back in Albuquerque, she headed into the campus in search of Maureen Provost Swanson. Perhaps the teacher had access to the school’s computers, where she might find some information. She left her car in the parking lot, everything locked safely in her trunk. If anyone had followed her here, she didn’t want to advertise her intentions by leaving the telescope and camping gear in plain sight.

Jill found Maureen in the teacher’s lounge, grabbing a quick lunch between classes. The woman smiled to greet her, waving her into the room.

“What happened?” Maureen asked eagerly. “Did you learn anything?”

“You were right about my being followed,” Jill said. “Someone broke into my room last night.”

Maureen gasped. A couple sitting at the opposite end of the table turned to look her way, then refocused their attentions on each other. Maureen lowered her voice and spoke again. “Was anything stolen?”

Jill shook her head. “He didn’t touch a thing. He was there for one reason only: to get rid of me, or at least to frighten the hell out of me.”

Jill related what had occurred, watching Maureen’s brown eyes grow rounder with each sentence.

“Thank God you’re all right,” Maureen said. “But what are you going to do now? Do you need a place to stay?”

“I’m as fine as I can be right now,” Jill answered. “As to my accommodations, those are being provided by Mother Nature. I’m setting up camp in the mountains, right above the LaMane Center. Bought myself a fancy telescope and a good supply of camping gear.”

Maureen grinned. “Good for you. But what brings you to the university?”

“I think I might have made a connection, at last,” Jill said. “LaMane is the name of a company that produces a fertility drug called Neolamane. I took it before conceiving Ryan. So I need an ‘in’ at your science
or math department, to ask if anyone knows about the drug.”

“I’ll do better than that,” Maureen said. “It just so happens that Steve teaches computer programming.”

When Jill was introduced to Steven Swanson, her immediate thought was that he looked like a young, slim Rod Steiger. But when he spoke, his mellifluous tones were more like Leonard Nimoy’s. He was more than happy to help her. When Maureen left them to return to her classes, he led Jill to an array of humming computers.

“This one is on a bulletin board,” he explained, sitting before a monitor. It was blank except for a blinking cursor. Steven punched in a code, and a menu began to scroll.

“Can you patch into the LaMane Center’s computer?”

“If they have one,” Steven said. “And if it is necessary. But first, this drug of which you spoke. Neolamane?”

“That’s correct.”

“Aha! Here it is.” He typed a few more letters, and an adjacent printer began to hum and click. Moments later, he pulled out a three-page report entitled “Neolamane—A five-year Market Study.”

“This is fantastic,” Jill said. “How can I thank you?”

“Just get your child back,” Steven said. “It will be the only thing to make my sister-in-law’s death worth something.”

Eager to know the contents of the printout, Jill thanked Steven again and hurried outside to find a place to sit. A beautiful pond attracted her, filled with mallards and surrounded by trees and benches. She sat on one of them and began to read.

What she found was so shocking that she had to go over the paper twice. Neolamane had turned out to be a pharmaceutical nightmare, almost a reincarnation of the Thalidomide scare, but on a different scale.

She realized now that her beloved Ryan had been brought into the world by the work of evil.

30

“D
ID YOU SEE THAT
?”

“What happened?”

“That crazy guy jumped right through that window.”

The crowd that had disembarked a flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth suddenly took notice of the mayhem in the souvenir boutique. The window was cracked in a pattern of rays as if a bullet had gone through it, but instead of a bullet, a body hung suspended in the glass. The legs dangled grotesquely, like a pair of pants set into a wall for display. They were soaked with blood, dripping from the belt down to the shoes, down to the floor.

People shoved and jostled to get a closer look, but one woman stood frozen in the midst of the crowd. They had not seen what Lillian had just witnessed. Somehow, they had seen only the aftermath of Stuart backing out of the window, and it had appeared he was jumping through it. In the instant that Lillian had screamed, the crowd had come out of a strange kind of mass hypnosis.

“Well, for God’s sake, get help,” someone yelled.

“I already called the police,” said Tito Puerto, the airport security guard on duty.

“Is he okay? Is he alive?”

Please let him be alive! How can I tell Beth her father is dead? And her grandfather! Oscar!

“Oscar,” Lillian screamed. She pushed through the crowd, crying out her husband’s name.

Gasps and cries of shock rang through the lobby as the bystanders wondered if it had been her husband who had acted so insanely. Up to now, no one had gone near the window. There was an underlying fear among the travelers, something keeping them back. But Lillian was beyond fear now. Oscar and Stuart had been hurt. She had to help them.

She reached out and touched Stuart’s leg.

With a resounding
thunk
the lower half of Stuart’s body fell to the floor. He had been bisected at the waist.

Lillian doubled over and began to retch. Screams raced through the crowd, cries of dismay rose up from children as their mothers quickly turned them away from the sight. There were shouts, the wail of sirens, and at last a group of uniformed police officers appeared.

“It’s really bad, Chief Vermont,” Tito said, his Hispanic complexion having gone shades lighter.

The young guard had graduated from the police academy only a year ago, and he had never witnessed anything like this. Even Chief of Police Lou Vermont, a seasoned veteran with thirty years under his utility belt, stiffened in horror at the sight. He’d seen terrible accidents—mountain climbers at the bottom of ravines, skiers who had landed headfirst in shallow snow—but nothing, nothing so nightmarish.

Still, he had to take control.

“George, get something to cover him up,” he ordered, his voice taking on a steady, professional tone. He turned to the crowd and barked like the marine sergeant he’d once been: “All right, clear out. There’s nothing here to see.”

“What happened?” a woman in the crowd demanded.

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” the guard said.

Tito had found some garbage bags and helped George cover the remains.

The other half’s inside. The half with his head.

The woman who’d asked the question, tapped the chief’s shoulder. She pointed to Lillian, who was crouched down on the floor, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

“I think that’s his wife,” she said.

Lou nodded.

Tito, happy to get away from the gory sight, went to help her up. “Is that your husband?” he asked gently.

Lillian shook her head, staring at the floor with tear-filled eyes.

“She says it’s not her husband, Chief,” Tito said. “Who is it then, ma’am?”

Lillian could only muster the faintest squeak of a voice. “Son-in-law.”

“Sit her down and stay with her until help comes,” Lou said. He opened the door of the boutique and stepped inside. From the corner of his eye, he saw a face staring across the floor, the mouth agape in a silent scream. He wouldn’t look at it. Let the medical examiner’s people take care of it.

Lou sidled over to the remains, squinting as he threw another garbage bag over Stuart’s head. Now that the hideous thing was out of sight, he took a deep breath and went about his investigation. Within moments, he found Oscar’s body.

Lou got to his knees and pressed his ear against the man’s chest. There was only a thready whisper of a heartbeat. He jumped to his feet.

“Get that stretcher in here,” he cried. “We’ve got another one in here, but he’s alive. Heart attack.”

The cop named George took off.

“Is this the store-owner?” a police woman asked Lou.

“I guess so,” Lou said. “I’m still looking around.”

As they lifted the man onto a stretcher, Lou continued his investigation. The boutique was a shambles. Toy animals had been thrown in every direction, some crushed or ripped. When he heard a
wailing noise, he looked out to see the woman running to the stretcher.

“What in the name of God happened here?” he asked out loud.

Lou found the store-owner behind his counter. Four parallel lines of blood ran down the front of his shredded shirt. His head was thrown so far back it touched his spine, unhinged by a gaping, bleeding hole. Lou blinked and tried to understand what he was seeing. It couldn’t be possible, and yet . . .

“My God,” he said out loud, “he looks like he’s been mauled by a wildcat.”

There would be no way of knowing just what happened until the forensic team finished its work. Lou left the store to them and went out to start asking questions. One of his officers had already begun. He came to his senior partner, shaking his head.

“No one saw a thing,” he said. “They heard glass breaking and looked up to see the guy halfway into the window. No one even saw him take the jump.”

“How can you miss something like this?” Lou demanded. “That store looks like the end of the Third World War. And no one heard anything?”

The younger cop shook his head, as befuddled as his senior partner.

A few miles away, someone else was fighting confusion. With Dr. Adams gone now, Michael Colpan was better able to explain the strange feeling that had overcome him. He sat on the couch in his father’s office, still wearing his jacket.

“I was doing my homework,” he said. “Then all of a sudden I got this really bad pain in my stomach. It really hurt. And then I started hearing someone in my brain.”

Quietly, calmly, Ralph pressed for more information. “What—what exactly did your brain tell you?”

Michael cuddled closer. “I heard a kid’s voice. I think it was that little girl I told you about—the one
they made me burn, even though she wasn’t even mere at the clinic? But you know what’s weird? You want to hear what she called me?”

I don’t think I want to hear this. The barriers are breaking down. He’s making contact . . .

“What—what did she call you, Michael?”

“Peter,” the boy replied. “How come? My name is Michael.”

Ralph squeezed Michael tighter. “Michael, let’s go home,” he said, helping his son to his feet. “There’s something we have to do.”

“What’s the matter?” Michael sensed his father was terribly afraid of something.

“We have to get away from here,” Ralph said. “Don’t ask questions, Michael. Just trust me. Trust me, because
I am
your father and I love you.”

Michael frowned at him, wondering why he’d stressed the words “I am.” But he didn’t say a word as his father led him home.

Because it was Emalina’s day off, it was empty. Ralph left Michael in his room and went to retrieve two suitcases from his own bedroom closet. He opened one on his bed and took the other to Michael’s room.

“Just pack a few clothes and some toys and books,” he ordered. “And don’t forget a sweater.”

Michael just stood his ground. “Where are we going?”

“Away,” Ralph said. He looked terribly sad. “Michael, I’ve made a horrible mistake. I realized that after your mother disappeared, but now I’m trying to make up for it.”

“Make up for what?”

“Michael, there’s no time for questions,” Ralph snapped. He steadied himself. “Pack your things. I’ll explain everything later.” He turned to leave the room, but Michael stopped him with another question.

“How’re we going to get past the gates? You know they don’t let anyone out without a permit.”

A humorless smile cut across Ralph’s face. Here, at last, was something over which he had control.

“Did you forget I’m the one who designed that fence?” he asked. “I know exactly where to turn off the alarm.”

Michael nodded and went to his dresser. None of this made sense: not the frightening vision he’d had, not his father’s sudden weird behavior. But he trusted his Dad, and if there was some reason they had to run away, he’d go along. Within five minutes, he had packed up everything.

He met his father out at the car, his backpack hooked around his shoulders and his small suitcase held tightly. The night was moonless and filled with stars, the autumn air so chilly he could see his breath. Ralph took the suitcase and put it in the trunk with his own. Michael climbed into the passenger seat, and his father got behind the wheel. Ralph handed him a blue folder.