Hear the Children Calling (38 page)

Dorothy spoke into the phone. “Danny, she doesn’t have Laura anymore.”

The two women hugged each other, praying the cutoff wasn’t caused by the child’s death.

But, in truth, it had been caused by the impact of the gondola on the rough ground, so swift that Jenny was thrown from her seat on the fuel tank. Michael flew backward with a scream. Though he tried to hold on fast to the rip line, the rapid vertical speed of their landing and the high winds caused him to lose his grip. He fell to the floor of the gondola, too. In a heap, thrown over one another as the gondola turned, the children watched in horror. They were being dragged across the field by a balloon in almost full sail.

“Oh, no!”

The three children barely registered the sound of the male voice. Max’s voice! Jolted out of his drugged sleep by the impact of their landing, he scrambled toward the ropes, climbing right over Michael. Because he was still light-headed, Max saw the ropes not as taut lines, but as sinewy waves. As the basket tumbled, his befuddled mind raced to find the right cable. He pulled one line, unsuccessfully. Another, then another . . .

And finally caught the rip line. With a jerk, he opened it and released the rest of the air in the balloon. The gondola slowed very gradually, finally coming to rest. Max turned off the burner, then collapsed against the side of the carriage. For a few moments, no one said a word, though the air was filled with the sounds of heavy gasping and the lowing of startled cows.

Then Tommy whined, “My arm! I think I broke my arm.”

Slowly, Max pulled himself to a sitting position. He studied the three children, bloodied and bruised but alive. There had been a woman, hadn’t there? He couldn’t quite remember.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Jenny whispered.

“Not on me,” Tommy cried. “Owwww! My arm!”

Michael breathed in deeply and felt a stabbing pain in his chest. Had he broken a rib? He looked at Jenny and saw blood trickling down her face. She rose unsteadily to her feet and stumbled out of the basket, retching.

“We’re alive,” Michael whispered.

Tommy kept on crying about his arm. But Jenny, finished being sick, turned to look at her friends. Michael was right. By some miracle, they were alive.

She burst into tears, sinking to the ground.

We’re alive! Can you hear me, Mommy? We’re alive.

Kate let out such a scream that even Danny heard it over the phone wires. She didn’t respond to her daughter.
Instead, she grabbed the phone and cried, “They’re alive! They’re okay, Danny.”

She heard strange noises and realized her big, strapping, former linebacker husband had burst into tears. She could imagine the scene in New Mexico. Hugging, kissing, tears. Now all they had to do was get the kids . . .

“But we don’t know where they are,” she said.

“Yes, we do,” Danny reported. “Lou Vermont, the sheriff, had a team of helicopters out. One of them’s landing right now.”

And in the field, Max and the children watched with relief as a team of paramedics came racing toward them. The children let themselves be taken to the helicopter, Michael and Tommy on stretchers. Jenny made no attempt to contact her mother again. She knew it would only be a matter of hours before they were reunited.

55

E
VEN THOUGH HIS YOUNG PATIENTS WEREN
’
T AWARE
of his presence, Dr. Nicholas Somers attended to them with as much loving care as he would give his own children. He examined Joey and Chris Emerson as he had done before, thoroughly and gently. No amount of research would solve the baffling mystery of their accident. Nicholas had concluded that they really hadn’t been electrocuted—none of the symptoms was present. The very fact they were alive made the doctor suspicious. He hated to say they were comatose, although it seemed that way. To Dr. Somers, the boys were in a very, very deep sleep.

He folded his stethoscope in half and stuck it in the pocket of his coat. The nurse stayed behind a few minutes to move the boys to another position, so that they would not get bedsores.

“They’re so beautiful,” Martha Parks said.

“I am not.”

Somers stopped in his tracks, his hand on the lever of the door.

“Doctor?” the nurse’s voice was tremulous.

“I am not be-yoo-ful,” Chris Emerson said. “Boys ain’t be-yoo-ful.”

Nicholas swung around so fast his shoes squeaked across the tile floor. He hurried to Chris’s bedside.

The little boy stared up at him with huge green eyes. He frowned deeply, then asked in a quiet voice, “Where’s my mommy? Where’s Daddy? What happened to Mrs. Ginmoor? Who’re you? What’s that?”

“Shh! Shh,” Nurse Parks hushed.

In a flash, Nicholas was looking the boy over. As if he’d wakened from a deep sleep, he was perfectly fine. Somers shook his head. “This is one for the record books,” he said. “How do you feel, Chris?”

“I’m hungry,” Chris said. “Where’s my mommy? How come this bed has a cage around it?”

The nurse and the doctor laughed. Danny and Kate Emerson had mentioned their son’s never-ending questions.

But it was a day for multiple miracles. Across the room, a shrill scream came from Joey Emerson’s bed. They raced to him, doing their best to soothe and examine him at the same time.

“I don’t understand it,” Dr. Somers said. “I’ve never seen anyone snap out of a coma like that. And both of them at the same time.”

“They’re going to be okay, aren’t they?” the nurse asked.

Dr. Somers shrugged. “Looks good to me.” He smiled at the boys.

Joey was crying his eyes out, gazing at these
strangers in terror. Chris frowned and studied his surroundings.

“You know what, guys?” Dr. Somers said. “I’m going to bring a telephone in here. There’s someone who’s gonna want to hear your voice.”

Nurse Parks went off and found a phone. Once it was connected, Nicholas tried to call Kate’s home. It took a few minutes to get past the busy signal, but at last he got through. He handed the phone to Chris.

“Hi, Mommy! Where are you? Are you gonna come get me?”

For a moment, Kate was silent.

Somers took the phone from the little boy. “It’s Dr. Somers, Mrs. Emerson,” he said. “I can’t understand what happened, but both Joey and Chris are awake. And they seem fine.”

Kate said something the doctor couldn’t understand, then let out a whoop. He could hear sobbing on the other end of the line, but he understood what was happening. Kate’s were the tears of relief, the release of tension after being in the dark about her boys for so long.

“Dr. Somers, this is the most incredible, wonderful, marvelous day of my life,” Kate said. “We’ve found my daughter, too. Your suspicions about Mrs. Ginmoor were right.”

“Kate, you come and tell me all about it,” Dr. Somers said. “But not on the phone. There are two little boys here who are very anxious to see their mother.”

“Tell them I’ll be right there,” Kate said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can drive.”

56

N
ATALIE STARED UP AT THE MAN WITH THE SCARY
blue eyes, her own eyes and nose a glaring red contrast to the gauze around her mouth. She was sitting in what, by its simple furnishings, appeared to be a hotel room. From the moment she woke to find herself tied to a wooden chair, Natalie had been trying to free herself of the ropes that tied her. Even though she couldn’t see them, the soreness in her wrists indicated they were raw and bloody. But the pain there was nothing compared to the searing fire in her heart. Dr. Adams had been going on for hours about her husband and children being dead. No matter how much she tried to tell herself this Dr. Adams was a maniac, she couldn’t convince herself his cruel taunts weren’t true.

“The boy’s dead by now, too, you know,” he said. “I must say I’m sorry to lose Michael. He was a boy of remarkable genius and might easily have stood at my right hand when he grew up.”

His name is Peter, you bastard!

Adams ignored the flash in Natalie’s eyes. He paced around the room, speaking to her, and yet speaking as if she weren’t there.

“Some of the children are almost grown up, you know,” Adams reported. “You see, I saw the potential of Neolamane long before any others, because I had given it to my wife in its earliest stages. Our baby was much like these children. He could make things happen. You wouldn’t want to give him something, but suddenly you found yourself doing it anyway. I knew Lincoln Junior was forcing his mother’s hand through
his mind. He couldn’t do it with sounds, you know. Not crying, not talking. He didn’t have a mouth.”

Something congealed in the pit of Natalie’s stomach, and she closed her eyes in disgust.

“He only lived a few months,” Adams went on, his voice faraway. “When he died, my wife committed suicide.”

He stopped abruptly, staring off into space as if seeing something from his past. If Natalie had been able to know his thoughts, her terror would have expanded beyond the point of sanity. Adams was correcting himself silently, remembering exactly how his wife
really
died.

Lincoln Jr., twisted and frail though he was, had mind powers beyond anything his father could have imagined. Power enough to force his mother’s hand to pull the trigger on a gun.

Natalie saw Adams jump, but couldn’t know he had actually heard the gunshot. She watched in silence as he stood trancelike, off in his own world, unaware of her.

Lincoln Jr. had died a few hours after his mother. But his father saw at once the potential of Neolamane, already being taken off the market due to the birth defects it had caused. If he could perfect it, working in his father-in-law’s laboratory at LaMane Pharmaceuticals, he could create a race of beings so powerful they could use mind power alone to control their subjects. And if he did everything right, he would be in control of these magnificent beings.

Adams buried his wife in a private family ceremony, claiming she had died in childbirth. He set Lincoln Jr.’s birthday back several weeks, making everyone believe the child had died because of his deformities. Perfunctory tears were shed for Helen Adams, but in the back of his mind he was already wondering where to find a new woman to carry on his plans.

It was easy enough. Adams only had to spend a few days at the bus terminal to pick up a runaway girl. Her name had been Victoria—aged eighteen, she claimed,
and the victim of child abuse. She’d been wary at first, but Adams had won her over, finally taking her into his beautiful home and caring for her as no adult ever had.

It was only a matter of time before he got the Neolamane into her, in the guise of vitamins. How naïve she had been! So naïve that she believed his promises of marriage after she became pregnant.

“But I must make certain everything is settled with my affairs,” Lincoln had told her. “After all, it’s only been a year since my wife died.”

“I’ll wait, Lincoln,” Victoria had said, her eyes wide with admiration.

Adams tried to remember if she’d been pretty, but could see only a pale face, frizzy brown hair, and a big belly. She’d meant nothing to him, other than her importance as an incubator. When Gregory was born, a perfectly beautiful little boy, Adams turned completely cold. Months passed with no sign that the child was different. Hurt by Lincoln’s hardness, confused by his complete obsession with the baby, Victoria had finally snapped.

“Now I see what you wanted me for,” she had screamed one day. “You only wanted a child. Not me. You don’t love me. You used me. You stupid old man, you used me!”

Lincoln had only smiled at her. He was cradling the three-month-old baby in his arms.

“Old man?” he’d said. “I’m barely forty. Although, I suppose to a child like yourself I am an old man.”

“I’m not a child,” Victoria had cried out. “Lincoln, I gave birth to a baby. I’m no longer a little girl, but a mother. Why are you always taking Gregory away from me? Why can’t you let me be his mother?”

Lincoln stared at her for a few moments. Then he said, very evenly, “You are not capable of caring for this child. He is special, more special than you can realize. He requires more care than a spoiled, incompetent little brat can give him.”

Victoria had let out such a scream that Gregory began to wail. Ignoring her, Lincoln clucked at the baby, trying to soothe him. He didn’t see the vase come hurtling at him . . .

. . . until it burst into flames midair and then vanished.

Victoria had gasped, staring at the puff of smoke that hung in the air. Lincoln had looked at it, too, then at the baby. It had finally happened. His experiment was a success!

Gregory was a miracle.

And there would be more miracles, more power, and finally, the prestige that was rightfully his.

Adams blinked, snapping out of his reverie.

He turned now to Natalie and took her by her bound shoulders. “I’ve worked so hard,” he cried, his blue eyes reflecting his madness. “I’m a genius, a god! Those children will never stop me.”

Adams let her go and started to pace again. The room was dark except for one small light on the night table beside the double bed. All the curtains were drawn.

“The first subject was my own son,” he said. “My second son, I mean. His name is Gregory. His mother was a runaway, but she’s dead now. I took care of that.” He looked at Natalie. “Strychnine in her cola. Very simple. No one missed her, either.”

Natalie felt a cold sweat break out over her skin. Why was Adams telling her all this when she could easily tell it to the police? Easily? Natalie reminded herself she was tied up, at the mercy of a lunatic.

He doesn’t care what you know. He’s going to kill you.

“I raised the boy on my own,” Adams went on. “Remarkable child! He could completely destroy something, then reassemble it before your eyes. It took me a long time to realize it was all illusion. He actually tricked your mind into believing what you saw. That’s how he killed the boy’s father, you know. Made him think the window was broken when in truth the
glass was intact. When your husband tried to climb through, the glass cut him in two. Oh, it must have been a remarkable sight.”

He spoke in a tone of such sheer delight that Natalie couldn’t suppress the belief it was all the rantings of a madman. Stuart was alive, of course. He was alive and he was going to find her.