When the Wind Blows (14 page)

Kit and I sat at the bar, as far away from Angelo as possible. We tried to talk over the excruciating crooning, but he was
miked, so it was impossible. We finally began to laugh, careful that Angelo didn’t know his singing had given us giggling
fits.

“He’s dying up there,” I whispered. “I feel so sorry for him.”

“He’s sure clearing out the bar fast. I’ve never seen live entertainment have quite this effect before,” Kit said. Then he
stood up from his barstool. “Hold the fort. I’ll be right back.”

I watched with building curiosity as Kit walked over and talked to Angelo. They both started to laugh conspiratorially, then
the men looked my way.

Now what? I didn’t like this too much. What were Kit and Angelo up to?

“We have a request from the audience to hear ‘Nel Blu dipinto Di Blu,’ also known as ‘Volare,’ ” Angelo announced. I thought
of his butchering the beautiful old song and I cringed. “And to help me with the vocals, straight from the New England Conservatory
of Music, Mr. Kit Harrison.”

Straight from the New England Conservatory of Music?

Angelo played a little intro to the old Domenico Modugno song, and I noticed that his pianowork wasn’t actually so bad. Now
how about Kit’s vocals? And their duet together?

Kit leaned into the mike, and he actually looked as if he knew what he was doing. He looked pretty sure of himself. “This
is for Dr. Frannie O’Neill. She’s a wonderful doctor of veterinary medicine, a real lifesaver. I hope this rendition is worthy
of her in some small way.”

I modestly nodded my head, and smiled nervously. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say or think. About Kit Harrison? And especially
about being serenaded by Kit and Angelo in the local hangout.

Kit began singing “Volare.” And he wasn’t just worthy of me, he was very good. He had a beautiful tenor voice, and he was
in control of it all the way through the song.

New England Conservatory? Was that a cute joke, or was it the truth? Who was this man? Everybody in the restaurant and bar
had stopped to listen and watch. Kit could really sell a song, and everybody was buying, even the local rednecks and their
dates.

When he and Angelo finished, just about everybody was clapping, cheering them on. Kit and Angelo took a few comical bows,
then Kit came back to me at the bar.

“The lovely
signora
approve?” Kit asked. “It was okay?”

I couldn’t even be flip. “Thank you. You were terrific,
magnifico.
I’m very touched. New England Conservatory?”

“Actually a bar
near
the conservatory. ‘Sparks.’ I played and sang my way through college and law school. I also worked summers on the Cape.”

Flashback time. Kit and I were working side by side, saving the fox. He was asking me to dinner in Clayton. Little generous
acts that left me feeling both cared about and maybe too vulnerable, too fast. My throat ached from the sudden tenderness
I was feeling. I was also conscious that I could easily be hurt right now.

“You’re quiet again,” he said. “Don’t be. Please. I didn’t mean to have that effect.”

“I’m just thinking,” I said. But I couldn’t tell him that I was thinking about him and the effect he
was
having on me. So I told him something else.
Trust me,
he’d said, when he helped rescue the fox. For some reason, I did trust Kit now.

“I saw something the other day in the woods,” I said as we sat at the bar. “Something that’s going to sound unbelievably crazy
to you. I almost can’t believe I’m saying this. To you, or anybody else.”

I stopped myself from going on. Kit looked a little alarmed, but I definitely had his attention.

“What did you see, Frannie? Finish what you were about to say.”

I stared into Kit’s deep blue eyes.

God help me.

I bit my lip.

What if I was making a mistake?

You don’t knowathing about me,
he’d said.

“I saw a little girl… I think she was about eleven or twelve. A wild girl. And this is the really crazy part, Kit. She had
wings—this girl has wings like a bird’s.”

His expression froze and his mouth dropped open a little.

I wished I could take back my words, but I couldn’t. It was too late for that.

“I know,” I said. “Sounds unbelievable. But, Kit, she was as real as I am sitting here. I saw a little girl with wings. And
I saw her fly.”

K
IT FELT THAT THE TOP of his head had just blown off. He was trying not to show it. He had to remind himself that he was a
professional, an agent with the FBI, a smart, pretty sane person.

So, he had been right that something was going on out here. He’d been right to follow the case to Colorado, and anywhere else
it would take him now. Why in hell had the Bureau pulled him off this case? It made no sense. Jesus, Jesus! Frannie O’Neill
has seen a little girl with wings. And she’d just told him about it. That was important, too. It meant she couldn’t be part
of it. Didn’t it?

“When did this happen?” he asked. He didn’t want to interrogate Frannie, but he had to know what she had seen. A little girl
with wings? Experiments on humans? What kind of experiments? What was happening out here?

“You believe me?” Frannie said, and did a double take. She looked surprised, and then pleased.

He thought that when she looked at him like that he could probably believe the earth was flat, the moon was made of blue cheese,
that there was such a thing as unconditional love at first sight, and happy endings, and little girls who could fly.

“I do believe you, Frannie,” he repeated.

“Good, because I saw the girl
twice.
”

Frannie looked like a young girl herself as she recounted both sightings in the most vivid detail, with great enthusiasm and
obvious emotion. Her arms actually flapped when she described the girl and recounted how she had flown. Her eyes were huge
as saucers, and she was talking even faster than she usually did. She didn’t frown at him once.

In fact her innocence and exuberance made Kit want to tell her everything he knew, things he shouldn’t tell anyone about the
case, but especially not a woman whose husband might have been involved.
I shouldn’t lie to Frannie, though. Not ever again. Lying to Frannie isareally bad thing to do,
he told himself.

“Listen, first thing tomorrow morning,” he finally said. “We’ll go and look for the girl. We’ll look together. We’ll find
her.”

“So you really do believe me?” Frannie asked. She continued to look incredulous, and maybe even a little needy.

“I really do,” Kit said. He gave her a big wink. “And I’m trained to know whether or not somebody is lying.”

Then Kit reached out for Frannie, took her into his arms, and he gently, gently kissed her in their quiet corner of the bar.

And Frannie O’Neill finally did surprise him—she kissed him back.

FOUR AND TWENTY
BLACKBIRDS, BAKED IN A
PIE

T
HE SOUND OF SHATTERING GLASS interrupted the quiet of the house in the upscale suburb of Denver. The sudden noise jolted Dr.
Richard Andreossi from his peaceful slumber.

Baby Sam was asleep across his chest, both of them having dozed off for a mid-afternoon nap. Sweet dreams of the best kind,
visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

More glass rained and clattered to the hardwood floor.
Jesus, the sound was coming from the study.

Dr. Andreossi carefully lifted Sam off his chest, so that he didn’t wake. He laid the infant boy in a nest of couch cushions.

“Be right back, Sam the Man,” he whispered. “You just sleep. Hush, baby, hush.”

Richard Andreossi had been meaning to cut down a branch that was banging at the window of the study. He’d been too busy, too
tired out by the newborn and his responsibilities as a father.
Forty-seven-year-old softies aren’t built for this,
he knew, but Megwin had desperately wanted a baby and now there was no looking back.

He hoisted his blue-plaid Gap boxers up around his ample waist. Stepped into his scuffed-up, off-white sneakers. He heard
another crash. Sounded like a lamp going over! What the hell?

Had an animal gotten inside? Squirrel? A small bird? He quickly shuffled his sneakered feet down the hall, looked into the
room.

It took him a couple of confused seconds to comprehend what he saw, and even then he didn’t completely understand.

A tall, well-muscled man dressed in a hooded, gray running suit and Nikes was methodically dropping things onto the floor,
making a huge mess in the study. The mess seemed calculated. The man was doing this on purpose. Dr. Andreossi recognized who
it was.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Andreossi finally asked. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

The intruder had knocked half the heavy books and loose papers off the antique rolltop desk. Dr. Andreossi could feel sweat
rolling down the back of his neck, his sides.

He gauged the distance to the intruder. He was worried about his own safety, but even more about little Sam’s.

“It won’t work,” the man said. “You can’t move that fast.” Suddenly, he drew a pistol like some kind of Western gunslinger.
He pointed it at the doctor’s face.

“What do you want from me?” Dr. Richard Andreossi’s mind flashed through the full grid of logical possibilities. He was a
bright man and his brain was operating at full capacity.

“Nothing. Not a thing,” said the man with the gun, a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic. “There’s nothing you can do now.
Two of the children have escaped from the School. You let us down at the worst possible time, Doctor.”

Suddenly, Dr. Andreossi confronted the possibility that he was about to die. His body went cold. His head became light. His
insides were screaming
Sam, Sam, Sam.

“My baby?” he whispered. “On the couch.”

“Don’t worry. Megwin will be home soon,” said the cold-eyed gunman. “Your baby will be fine. We wouldn’t harm your baby. We
aren’t monsters.”

Then Harding Thomas pulled the trigger three times.

M
AX WAS SERIOUSLY AFRAID, but she was determined not to let her fear stop her from doing the right thing. She had to act grown-up
now. She had to return to the scene of the crimes; she was headed
home.
She needed to see if Matthew was being held there, and some other worrisome stuff, too. Important stuff, no way around it,
no more dodging the bullet.
Home again, home again.

Of course, flying at night, without the help of radar or autopilot, was super dangerous and maybe not the smartest thing she’d
ever done in her life. It was cloudy and threatening to rain, and she sure wished the light was better.

Watch out!
She nearly crashed skull-first into a hill as she banked out of a raggedy-assed patch of fog. She rolled quickly to the left,
flapped her wings hard and strong. Then she rose up above the cool, smoky air. Close call. Too close.

She was thinking about the School now, couldn’t help it. She knew from “Uncle” Thomas that the model for the way it ran was
military schools. She also knew that Thomas had been a soldier at one time, that he’d taught at the Air Force Academy, even
that he had grown-up children of his own. She and Matthew lived in a small dormitory. Everything in their lives had been on
a tight, no-nonsense schedule: breakfast, study, testing, exercise, lunch, work projects, study, more testing, dinner, study,
then bed. Then do it all over again. Then do it again. Do it again.

It was always like that until Mrs. Beattie came. She did school-work with them as well as all the irritating testing, but
she also introduced them to an amazing concept: playtime. Mrs. Beattie had
never
been in the military. They had loved her. Until Mrs. Beattie was put to sleep.

Around the time Mrs. Beattie came, there had been other improvements as well. A “boxcar” from the Boxcar Children series was
installed. So was a new Apple computer. And on the weekends they got to go to woodworking and an art studio. Max had the idea
that “art” was part of the constant testing, but she didn’t care. If the tests were more fun, she wouldn’t have minded them
either.

The School used the latest technology—it was an AMP Smart House, for one thing, which was pretty neat, and convenient, and
efficient of course. All the lights, thermostats, and door locks were on a tight schedule, too. They were always watched by
a video security system. Guards could call in to their cell telephones to open doors, even to run a bath or shower.

Maybe that was why she loved her new freedom so much.

Suddenly, she could see the School down below. She was almost home again. She flew easily, her wings very stable now. Then
she power-dived toward the cluster of familiar buildings. This was it—now-or-never time. Put up or shut up, Maximum.

Something was wrong—she could see it immediately. She pulled out of her dive, fluttered, almost stalled out, and then set
down quietly in the woods.

She could feel the skin on her neck and back prickling with fear. She gasped, choked, couldn’t quite catch her breath. Oh
God, oh God, this was her worst fear.

Max watched several men in dark, scary jumpsuits rushing in and out of the buildings. They were loading heavy boxes into big
gray trucks that were almost as scary as they were. It looked as if they were closing down the place, moving out, shutting
the School.

There were too many of the suckers walking around out there. No way could she get closer and definitely no way could she get
inside the School buildings.

She even heard guards in the nearby woods, so Max moved farther away from the School. She had to—she couldn’t bear to get
caught now. She felt like crying, but she wouldn’t let herself break down.

I can’t get caught.Ican’t! I’m the only hope,
she told herself.
I’m the only one who can tell.

She made herself angry, and the anger gave her more strength. It always did, never failed.