Hear the Children Calling (32 page)

“Jill? Jill Sheldon?”

For a moment, she didn’t recognize her old schoolmate. Then a big smile spread across her face. “Danny Emerson,” she cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Danny said.

“It—it would be hard to explain,” Jill said. “I’ve been waiting on a rental car and haven’t had any luck yet.”

Danny studied her for a moment. Was it only coincidence to find a friend here? A woman who had also lost a child when she was living in Wheaton, Michigan? He ventured a guess. “We’re both looking for our children, aren’t we?”

Jill gasped.

“I’m right, then,” Danny said. Jill moved the overnight bag she’d used for a pillow last night and Danny took a seat. “What do you know so far?”

Jill told him all that had happened, ending with the incident up on the mountains the previous night.

Danny whistled softly. “These people aren’t kidding around,” he said.

“We could have figured that out already,” Jill grumbled. “They kidnapped our children.”

“We’ll get them back, Jill,” Danny vowed. “Now that we aren’t alone, we’ll be stronger.”

Jill nodded in agreement. Danny Emerson had gone to school with her back in Wheaton, a member of the football team who had been taken in by a pro team. She wondered why he’d quit, and guessed it had something to do with Laura’s death. But she didn’t ask, realizing it was all a moot point now. Laura was no more dead than Ryan.

She stood up, stretching. Her muscles felt like frayed rubber bands. “I don’t know about you,” she
said, “but I can’t do a damned thing if I don’t have another cup of coffee. It’s my fourth this morning. We’ve got a big day ahead of us, so we’d better fortify ourselves and make some definite plans.”

“I’m all for that,” Danny said.

In the coffeeshop, Jill said, “You don’t know how happy I am that you’re here, Danny. But where’s Kate?”

Danny explained what had happened to the boys and how his wife had a breakdown.

“Two boys,” Jill cried. “Are they . . .” She paused for the right words, but Danny filled in.

“They aren’t like Laura,” Danny said. “Chris and Joey were born after Laura disappeared. By God’s hand, that is. I’m afraid I rushed Kate into taking that horrible drug because I was so anxious to have a child.”

Jill nodded, understanding. After four years of trying, she was an easy target for Ronald Preminger herself, although it had been Jeff who recommended that she see him.

“How we could have been so stupid—” she began.

“We weren’t stupid,” Danny said. “We were two young couples with a normal desire to have a family. And no matter what we say about Neolamane, it did give us our children. It was the lab people who took them away.”

Jill drank some coffee. “So, where do we start today?” she asked.

“I’ll give Kate a call,” Danny said. “She’s been trying to keep in contact with our daughter, to tell her I’m coming. If she was able to reach her, then we’ll have an idea where the children might be.”

“The pay phone is right across the hall,” Jill said. She opened her purse and handed him a roll of quarters. “Ten dollars ought to give you a few minutes.”

She wouldn’t listen to Danny’s protests about taking the money, so he got up and went to the pay phone. When he reached it, he instinctively began to dial his home number. Then, remembering where Kate really
was, he made a call to the hospital. A recorded voice asked for more money, and he deposited quarter after quarter until the call went through.

Kate’s voice was so clear that he knew she was wide awake, and probably had been for hours.

“Kate, you’re not going to believe this,” Danny said, “but Jill Sheldon is here. She says she got messages from her son the way you heard from Laura.”

“Thank God you’re not alone,” Kate said. “There’s safety in numbers, and I think you’re going to need to take all the precautions you can get. I reached Laura last night.”

“Where is she, Kate?” Danny asked anxiously.

“She isn’t exactly sure,” Kate said. “And I’m not certain I convinced her of our sincerity. But this morning I saw her again. She didn’t acknowledge me, but I saw a sign that might help. She’s in the mountains, Danny, near a place called St. Marta’s Ridge. At least she was an hour ago. Danny, she’s run away from the center. She’s stranded in those mountains with two little boys.”

“Keep trying her, Kate,” Danny urged. “I’m going to hang up now and get a map. I’ll call back in two hours, okay?”

“I love you, Danny,” Kate said. “Please, bring our baby girl home to me?”

“I won’t leave here without her,” Danny said. He hung up and went back to the coffeeshop. Jill had already paid the bill and was waiting at the door. Danny relayed Kate’s message.

“They ran away?” Jill gasped. “Now what do we do? How are we ever going to find them out there?”

“Kate says she thinks the children are near a place called St. Marta’s Ridge,” Danny reported. “Do you know where that is?”

Jill shook her head, then bent down to pull her map from the pocket of her overnight bag. Carrying it to a wooden bench, they spread it across their laps and studied the territory around Albuquerque.

Jill was the one to find it, and she pointed. “Look,
it’s right next to where the Balloon Festival is taking place,” she said. “I bet we could use that to our advantage.”

She told Danny about the festival taking place that day. Then she glanced at her watch. “It’s early still. If we hurry, we can get there while the balloonists are still setting up. I’m sure we can convince someone to give us the first ride. Once we’re up, we’ll have a good view. And this”—she took out her telescope—“will improve our view.”

“This,” Danny countered, stealthily opening his wallet to show it was stuffed with money, “will help us bribe one of the aeronauts.”

As they passed the shattered window of the boutique, curiosity got the better of Danny and he stopped to question the young security guard.

Tito shook his head. He had related this story many times over and still hadn’t gotten tired of the attention it brought him.

“Craziest thing I ever saw,” he said. “This guy had somehow jumped through the window, and it cut his body right in half.”

Jill shuddered and Danny felt something ice up in his big chest.

“There were two other guys inside,” Tito said. “One of them was dead, but the other one had had a heart attack. I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

“What in the name of God happened?” Danny asked.

“There was a woman here who said she was the dead guy’s mother-in-law,” Tito said. “She said some crazy people were after them, that they took their granddaughter. I don’t doubt it, if you just look at the place.”

Something about his words set off an alarm in Jill’s head.

“Someone took their child?” she asked. “Could you—could you possibly tell us the woman’s name?”

“Sure,” the young security guard said. “It’s been in all the papers. Lillian Blair.”

It didn’t ring a bell, so Jill pressed on. “How about her son-in-law?”

“Him?” Tito thought a moment. “I think his name was Morrison, or Morse. I’m pretty sure his first name was Stuart.”

“Stuart Morse,” Danny repeated.

“We aren’t alone, then,” Jill said.

They quickly thanked the guard for his information and went on their way. As they exited the airport into the clean, cool morning air, Jill had a stern reminder.

“Those people murdered our friend,” she said. “Hideously, and in view of witnesses. Yet no one seems to know what happened. It should give us pause and make us think what these creeps are capable of pulling off.”

They crossed the parking lot to where the rental cars were waiting. Jill’s was easy enough to find. Other than the one she’d brought back last night, it was the only car in this part of the lot. She realized how lucky she was to have it.

“We have to trick them,” Jill said. “We have to call the children to us, but in a way that they won’t be discovered until it’s too late. The LaMane people are still looking for my original rental, and we can’t let them find out we switched cars until we have those children on board a flight out of here, safe.”

Jill glanced across the parking lot at the spire of the airport chapel.

“I wish we had time to say a prayer,” she said. “I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

47

L
OU
V
ERMONT’S WIFE BLOCKED THE VIEW OF THE
television set, snapping the screen off and setting her hands on her ample hips. She wore a bright-red apron over her dress, decorated with a dozen child-size hand prints. It was the one she wore every Saturday when her grandchildren came to have dinner with her.

“You are not going to sit in front of the TV set,” she said. “Hilary and Davie are bringing the kids today. And Julie and Sam said they may come, too. You’ll be so tired you won’t be able to pay attention to them.”

Lou rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. How long had he been watching those films? He looked at his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock.

“You didn’t go to bed when you came home from night-shift duty,” Beatrice said, reading his mind. “That means you’ve been awake for almost twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t sleep,” Lou said, though he could have passed out right there in his blue La-Z-Boy. “This is one of the strangest cases I’ve ever come across. Somehow, those murders at the airport are connected to the LaMane Center, and I’m determined to find out.”

“You couldn’t possibly think straight without sleep,” Beatrice said. “Why don’t you go in the bedroom and lie down? You have a few hours before the kids will arrive.”

Lou nodded and pulled himself from his chair. Funny, he could command a whole department of
tough young men and women, but there was no doubt Beatrice was the real boss here at home. Not in a nagging way, though, but in a way that showed she loved him. He kissed her warmly, then shuffled off to bed.

But he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking of the films he’d been watching since he came home, the videos stolen from the center. Most of them involved experiments with animals—monkeys taught to press certain buttons for treats, for example. Since there was no cruelty involved, Lou couldn’t build a case on that alone. The last two films had been progressively stranger, though. There was a horse that managed to get itself up onto a balance beam to walk as stealthily as a cat. Lou swore he even heard it meow instead of whinny, but decided it was probably the poor quality of the tape. Stranger still was the line of G.I. Joe dolls that seemed to walk across a floor. Trick photography, no doubt, but why?

Somehow, Lou felt the answer lay in the sound of childish voices he always heard in the background. Whoever they were, they spoke little and very often pleaded not to be made to do something. Child abuse in that place was another possibility. But as long as the kids were off-camera, what could he prove? He had to get back to the center, get more information, even if it meant hauling Dr. Lincoln Adams in on some trumped-up charges.

Agitated, running on a fresh supply of adrenaline, Lou jumped from the bed. He was still fully clothed. He slipped his feet back into his black shoes and reached for his utility belt. Beatrice would scold him like a mother hen, but he couldn’t let this rest until the mystery was solved.

He went to the mirror that hung on the bedroom door, to make certain his uniform didn’t look rumpled. No matter what Beatrice thought, he couldn’t let go of this case. There were a couple of kids missing out there, and a young mother. Lou didn’t let himself think what a maniac like Lincoln Adams might do to Natalie Morse. He desperately needed more facts before
he could pursue the case, and he decided he’d defy visiting hours at the hospital to have another talk with Lillian Blair. Maybe today she would enlighten him as to her daughter’s involvement with Adams and how the doctor came to be in possession of her grandson. Somehow, he hoped, the information would also lead him to Natalie Morse’s whereabouts . . .

48

C
LUTCHING HER SUITCASE IN HER SMALL HAND
, K
ATE
boarded the elevator and pressed the button that would take her to Pediatrics. She had been both surprised and pleased when Dr. Wilson released her that morning, and all she could think of was getting downstairs to see her boys. Even Laura was forgotten at the moment. When the doors slid open, she went over to the nurses’ station.

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Emerson,” the nurse said, a green-eyed, red-haired girl who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. “Dr. Wilson told us you’d be down. I’m sure Chris and Joey will be happy to see you.”

“But I was told they aren’t aware of anything,” Kate said. Had there been any new developments?

The nurse smiled a little sheepishly. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I believe people in comas can sometimes hear, and I think the boys will be comforted to hear their mommy’s voice.”

Kate nodded, understanding. “Then take me to them.”

In the time she’d been upstairs, she hadn’t been allowed to visit her sons. No amount of information from either Danny or the doctors prepared her for the sight
of those two little bodies, in adjacent beds with high steel rails that looked like futuristic playpens. They looked so tiny. . . .

She rushed between the beds and reached either hand out to touch them. The children were being fed intravenously; Kate thought the tubes looked bigger than Joey’s arm. She wondered what Joey would do when he woke up. Probably ask a question. Probably dozens of questions.

Kate bit her trembling lip.

“Mrs. Emerson.”

The voice was deep, soothing. Kate turned to see Nicholas Somers, the head pediatrician.

“How are they doing?” Kate asked. “Has anything new happened?”

Dr. Somers shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. This case baffles me, Mrs. Emerson, and I’m not usually a man to admit to such a thing. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk with you. Dr. Wilson wouldn’t let anyone near you.” He noticed her bag. “Going home today?”

She nodded. “I wish my babies were coming with me. Dr. Somers, can you give me any bit of hope?”