“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
CLUTCHING HER SUITCASE IN HER SMALL HAND, KATE 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?”
“That would be unfair,” Somers said. “And cruel. But if you could answer a few questions, it might help us.”
“Of course.”
“My office is—”
Kate’s grip tightened around the little hands to either side of her. “I’m not leaving my babies.”
“All right,” Somers said, understanding. He often wondered if parents felt that being near their children kept the specter of death away. But these boys weren’t going to die. He was sure of that.
“Mrs. Emerson,” he said, “when the boys were brought in, your husband told us they’d been electrocuted. That a cord connected to a live socket had fallen in the bathtub.”
“I saw it, too.”
“But the strange thing is that neither boy showed signs of having been electrocuted,” the doctor said. “The very fact they were alive makes me wonder if there wasn’t a mistake.
“The horror of seeing your boys hurt so might have clouded your vision,” Dr. Somers added. “Is it possible the cord wasn’t even plugged in? That the whole thing was a setup?”
Kate glowered at him. She pushed her glasses up her nose with a quick, angry movement.
“Some setup,” she growled sarcastically. “It’s a pretty convincing trick, isn’t it? Doctor, my boys may be dying.”
It was so hard to fight the tears.
“No, no,” Somers said. “I don’t think so. That’s the other strange thing. Both these boys are strappingly healthy. We can’t find a thing wrong with them other than the fact that they’re comatose.”
He went to Joey’s crib and reached through the bars. Gently, he brushed back the soft blonde hair. Kate noticed for the first time that the nurses had taken the time to wash it.
“I’ve spoken to both you and your husband,” Somers said. “Neither of you seems to remember a thing. But there’s one person I haven’t been able to contact—your sitter, Mrs. Ginmoor. She was the third witness to this strange phenomenon, and she may be able to help us.”
Kate thought a moment. She’d been so busy thinking of Laura and worrying about the boys that she hadn’t even realized that Mrs. Ginmoor did not come to visit her.
“She didn’t come to see the boys?”
“Her name is not on the sign-up sheet,” Dr. Somers said. “And though I’ve tried calling her several times, she doesn’t answer. On the day you were brought in, you were mumbling something about someone hurting your boys. Could it have been Mrs. Ginmoor? Could she have tried to kill them and is hiding because of her crime?”
Kate’s green eyes widened. “Not in a million years,” she cried. “Mrs. Ginmoor was like a grandmother to those boys.”
Dr. Somers’ question was blunt. “Then why hasn’t she come to visit them?”
Kate opened her mouth, but only a strange gulping noise came out. She could not answer the doctor’s question.
49
RALPH AND BETH STAYED ON THE MOUNTAIN ROAD AS long as they felt it was safe—that is, as long as Beth didn
’t pick up feelings of other people in the area. She could still sense her brother’s presence, but no matter how hard she tried to contact him, he didn’t answer. It frustrated her, because she didn’t know if he was ignoring her or if he was unable to respond. She also tried to think of her mother, and she felt that she was very frightened, locked in a dark place.
She didn’t let herself think of her father. When she did, nothing was there.
They came to a turn in the road that sloped at a deep angle. On one side, the craggy mountain face worked toward the sky like a staircase. The other side, protected by railings only at its curves, dropped sharply into thick greenery.
Ralph glanced over the edge, felt the pounding begin again behind his eye, and moved quickly toward the relative safety of the other side of the road. Now that they’d turned another corner, he asked, “Are you getting closer? Do you feel anything?”
“They just keep moving farther and farther away,” Beth said. She was tired and hungry, her legs hurt terribly, and she was scared. But she didn’t say so. Poor Ralph looked so hurt, and she had come to like him very much. She still didn’t understand what he had to do with Peter’s disappearance, but she could feel that he had loved her brother very much and was trying to do the right thing by him now.
They plodded on, silent for the next half-hour. At the base of the slope, Ralph finally let out a sigh of exhaustion. He was willing to admit what a ten-year-old wouldn’t.
“I’m beat,” he said. “We’ll never find them this way. My head is pounding and I can’t think straight. We have to get help, Beth.”
“But I don’t think we can trust anyone,” Beth said worriedly.
“Not here, of course,” Ralph said. “But I’m pretty sure we’re heading toward a highway. We’ll hitch a ride into the city. I’ll bet the police have been looking for you.”
Beth shook her head wildly, her red hair flying. “No! We can’t go to the police. They still have my mother and I’m sure they’re looking real hard for Peter. If they even suspect we went for help they might—they might . . .”
Ralph put his arms around the little girl, but she only shuddered a little bit and didn’t let fresh tears fall. Pulling away from him, she had an expression of determination on her face that reminded Ralph of Michael. He felt a chill rush over him and turned quickly.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I think I can hold on for a little while longer. How about you?”
Beth nodded.
They took a shortcut through a path that had been cut by a long-extinct river, and to their surprise found themselves on the main highway. Dozens of cars whizzed by, ignoring Ralph’s outstretched thumb. But at last a man and woman who seemed to be in their fifties pulled over. The woman gasped.
“Hiram, they’ve been in an accident.”
“What happened to you?” Hiram asked. He reached across his wife and unlocked her door. She slid close to him and Ralph and Beth squeezed in beside them.
“We were camping,” Ralph said. Even in his battered state, he was somehow able to think quickly. “I—I fell into one of those ravines. My little girl here stayed all night with me, but in the morning I insisted we try to get help.”
“I told him to lie still,” Beth put in, picking up on the story line. “I was going to get a doctor myself.”
“Can you imagine a little girl wandering through this area alone?” Ralph asked.
“Well, you aren’t alone now,” Hiram said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
When they arrived, Beth was surprised to see so many policemen in the lobby. She looked around warily, and when one of them pointed to her, she jumped into the safety of Ralph’s arms.
“That’s her! That’s the kid!”
A dozen people rushed toward her.
“Are you Elizabeth Morse?”
She nodded.
One of the cops eyed Ralph suspiciously. “Who are you? What are you doing with this kid?”
It had been a long ordeal. Not just the flight from the LaMane Center, but all the previous six years. He did not put up a fight.
“It’s a long story,” he said. “You’ve got to help us, please . . .”
Suddenly, dozens of questions were being shot at him. Some were from police, some from reporters. It was so overwhelming and so sudden that Ralph’s brain could not take the pressure. He let out a soft moan, then fainted into darkness.
Beth screamed, kneeling down next to him. “You bad people! Look what you’ve done to him! He was going to help me find my brother, but now he can’t.”
“What happened to your brother?” a woman asked.
“No questions,” Lou Vermont’s voice boomed across the lobby. The crowd parted and the police chief made his way toward the little girl. He lifted her gently by the elbows and whisked her away from the crowd.
Looking back over her shoulder, Beth saw doctors and nurses working with Ralph. She was taken to a room, where a lady doctor came in and quickly looked her over.
“She’s suffering from exposure,” the woman said. “Lots of bug bites, some bruises . . .”
“Where’ve you been all night, honey?” Lou asked.
The doctor called a nurse and asked that Beth be admitted. As Lou talked to her, the doctor continued to examine the little girl.
“Some bad men came and took my mom and me to a weird place,” Beth said. “I don’t know where my mom is. Ralph and I got out and we were trying to find Peter.”
“Peter?”
“My brother,” Beth explained. She saw the look of doubt over the police chief’s face and was put on the defensive. “My brother didn’t die. My mom and dad didn’t believe me either, even when Peter kept appearing to me.”
“Appearing to you?” Lou was growing more confused. Was the kid delirious?
But the doctor negated this possibility. “You seem fine, Beth, but we’ll keep you for observation.”
“What do you mean, he was appearing to you?” Lou pressed after the doctor had left.
Beth shook her head. She could sense Lou would never understand. “My mom and dad didn’t believe Peter was alive, at first,” she said. “But then my mom saw him, too. And my dad checked with a friend at the airport and found out Peter never got on the plane. So we all came to stay at Grandma’s. Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa went back to the airport to see if they could remember anything. I don’t know where they are now.”
Lou felt a clump of ice forming at the bottom of his stomach. God, how he hated times like this. But Beth seemed like an intelligent child, and if he wanted her to answer his questions, he had to be honest with her.
“Beth, your grandma and grandpa are in two rooms upstairs,” he said softly.
Beth eyed him. “And where’s my daddy?”
Lou took a deep breath. “I’m afraid your daddy died last night, Beth.”
He expected her to scream, to protest. Instead, she simply stared at him blankly. Her head moved slowly up and down. “I thought so,” she said. “I kept trying to think of him, but there was only black in my head. I knew he was—I guessed he was prob—probably . . .”
And now the tears began to flow. As Lou held her in his arms and comforted her, he let the child let go of her grief. He was surprised how quickly she pulled away. Her expression which had been bland at first and then bewildered, was full of anger now.
“They killed my daddy,” she seethed. “They took Peter from us a long time ago and they have my mommy locked up somewhere.”
“Who are they?” Lou pressed. “Do you know who kidnapped you?”
“I think the guy with the scary blue eyes was named Dr. Adams,” Beth recalled. “Ralph would know. He helped me get out of that place.”
Lou felt excitement growing in himself. “Was it the LaMane Center?”
Beth nodded eagerly. “That’s what Ralph called it.”
“And who exactly is Ralph? Why was he there?”
Beth did not answer right away. It seemed that Ralph had cared very much about Pe
ter, even though he called him Michael, but if he was at the center in the first place, was he also a bad man? But he helped her to escape, to get to the police. She couldn’t get him into trouble.
“I—I don’t really know,” she mumbled.
It was only a little lie. She didn’t really know exactly why he was there.
“Well, we’re going to head right over there,” Lou said, straightening up. “If your mom is still there, we’ll find her. In the meantime, maybe I can arrange for you to see your grandma before you go to your own room. Would you like that?”
Beth nodded eagerly. When she was taken to Lillian’s room, the older woman burst into tears of joy. Beth was momentarily stunned by her grandmother’s appearance. She wore no makeup or jewelry, and instead of a brightly colored outfit, she wore the bland colors of a hospital gown. But Beth saw so much love in Lillian’s eyes that she ran to her and held her tightly. Together, they cried, mixed tears of relief and sorrow.
50
Peter! Peter, please wait for me. Don’t run away, we won’t hurt you.
Michael couldn’t see the red-haired girl as he followed Tommy and Jenny. But her voice was so loud in his mind—louder than the brook he was crossing over precarious stones—that he could almost believe she was right there. But that was impossible. Whoever she was, he had always sensed she was very far away. There was no way she could be here in the mountains.
Peter, don’t ignore me. You can hear me in your mind, I know it. Please, please try to remember me. Stop, close your eyes, and picture me.
Michael stopped short, on a large flat rock in the middle of the brook, and closed his eyes. Yes, he could see her. Red hair like his own, freckles. And all around her, white.
Who are you?
He made the demand more furiously than ever before.
I’m your sister, Peter. Your sister, Beth. Do you remember me?
No. I don’t have a sister. And my name is Michael.
Hear the Children Calling Page 26