The Disappeared

  “I'll see if I can get our reservations back.”

  Walt pulled the flashlight out of his backpack, and they started down the stairway.

  [128]

  “That guy really is an asshole,” Mitch said.

  “I know. Even worse, he's a skittish asshole.” D.C. swirled the ice around the bottom of his cup of Diet Coke, then finished the drink. The cubicle where they were talking sat in the middle of a maze of cubicles on the third floor. The only light on in the room was the Luxo fluorescent lamp above the desk. “He's going to panic and do something stupid one of these days.”

  “How'd you ever hook up with him anyway?”

  “It was a long time ago. I like to think I've grown a little wiser since then.”

  Mitch let out a huff. He stood at the corner of the cubicle, leaning against a divider, his arms crossed, all business. You never had to guess with Mitch, and you rarely had to keep an eye on him, the way you had to watch Childs all the time. Some men you could trust, some you couldn't.

  “Things are getting tight,” he said, just before biting down on an ice cube.

  “I know.”

  “We're going to have to do something about this mess before it gets so far out of hand we can't bring it back under control.”

  “You have something in mind?”

  “I don't know. I guess if I thought I could get away with it, I'd be tempted to try taking our asshole doctor out of the picture entirely and see what we're left with.”

  “Scrap the project?”

  “The project's already dead. The guy's been working on this thing for twenty years and he still doesn't have a fucking clue about what's going on.” D.C., who had finished the last of the ice, tossed the cup aside and sat up. He felt tired, a little from stress and a little from the fact that he still hadn't had dinner. “And with this Knight woman and her friend poking around—Christ, this thing's a bomb waiting to go off. And we're sitting right on top of the damn thing.”

  “So?” Mitch prompted.

  “So, I wish I knew what the hell to do about it.”

  “I'll take him for a ride, if you'd like.”

  “Thanks, but we'd still have a room full of sleepers to worry about.” He paused, anticipating that Mitch might make an offer to take care of the kids as well. That would be the kind of tell that would worry him, D.C. thought. Because it was one thing to be all business, and quite another thing to be a fucking loon. If Mitch had mumbled a single syllable about handling the kids, he might very well have stood up and shot him right on the spot. Bang, you're dead. One less psycho in the world to worry about.

  The man, however, made no such offer.

  “Are your hands dirty?” Mitch asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “And the agency?”

  “Everything's clean. Why?”

  “I don't know; it just seems like maybe the easiest thing to do would be to get up and walk away. Leave the whole thing sitting in the doc's lap.”

  “He'd squeal.”

  “Anything to back him up?”

  “No. I'm not aware of anything.”

  “Well, then.” Mitch shrugged, enjoying the scenario. “Mrs. Knight stumbles onto the scene, she finds the doc here with her kid and a whole room of other kids just like him, and who's she gonna point her finger at? Hell, the only way they found this place is by tailing Childs.”

  “And everything's in the name of the Institute. He's registered as the President of the Board of Directors on all the paperwork. It just might work.” D.C. rocked back in the chair, running it through his mind in case there was something he might be missing. You had to be careful with something like this. Overlook one small detail and you could find the whole thing blowing up in your face. “It does have a sweet sense of irony about it, doesn't it?”

  [129]

  The room was completely dark except for the gray cast of the four video monitors mounted across the back of the console. Just at the periphery of the man's vision, the nearest monitor reflected the slow, sweeping movement of the camera over the receptionist's area on the main floor. The screen flickered and the picture changed. This camera was mounted near the ceiling above the basement landing, just outside the elevator. It did a slow, deliberate sweep across the open space.

  Jake, who was working alone tonight, briefly glanced up from his checkbook then returned to the task of trying to find the one-hundred and forty-seven dollars and thirty-six cents that was missing from his account according to his current bank statement. He'd had this problem with the bank before, though it had always been a couple of dollars here, a couple of dollars there. That kind of difference wasn't worth the time or effort to track down. But a hundred-and-something dollars, that was real money. You could make a down payment on a fine stereo system with that kind of money. He wasn't going to let it slide. The bank had some explaining to do.

  The nearest monitor flickered and changed pictures to the room with the two boys. The youngest boy was asleep. The other kid, the Knight kid, had settled back and was trying to read a Christopher Pike book with his cast across the top of the page to keep it from turning.

  The far monitor flickered and the camera swept across the lab where Dr. Childs was hunched over a console, his glasses sitting on top of his head. He sat back, ran his hands down his face, then sat forward again, apparently refreshed enough to continue.

  The right middle monitor flickered and the picture from the loading dock changed to the room in the basement where the sleepers were housed. Jake glanced up again, and started back to his checkbook when he thought he caught a movement at the corner of the screen. He sat forward, pressed a button, and froze the monitor at that location.

  “What's this?”

  At the lower right-hand corner, two adults emerged from out of camera range. They moved only a step or two into the room and stopped, side-by-side, their backs turned away from him. He wasn't sure who they were, but he thought one of them might be Elizabeth Tilley, who tended to make her rounds at odd hours, whenever it seemed to convenience her.

  “Come on, turn around now. Let's see your faces.”

  The woman, who was standing on the left, suddenly sank into the man's arms. That was something Jake had never seen between the doctor and his assistant. Not that he would know if anything were going on. He only came in for a couple of hours a night. It wasn't as if he were privy to anything.

  Finally, the man turned toward the camera, where his face could clearly be seen. He was not Dr. Childs. And he was not one of the other two who were always hanging around, either. This guy... he was a man Jake had never seen before.

  “Oh, Christ,” he said, reaching for the phone. “Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty, we've got one.”

  [130]

  “My God,” Teri whispered. She could barely believe her eyes. They were standing just inside the door of a room that was maybe thirty by sixty, looking out across two rows of hospital beds. Half of those beds were occupied, and all of the occupants were children. “What has he done?”

  She sank into Walt's arms, overwhelmed. “How could he—”

  “Shhh,” Walt said, giving her a hug. “I know it's horrible, but we've got to keep moving, Teri. We don't have time.”

  “I know. I'm sorry.” She did her best to buck herself up. It was just that—

  “You take that row, I'll take this one.”

  She nodded. There were four occupied beds on her side. The first two were empty and cast in a thick, neglected shadow. There was a small fluorescent lamp above the third bed. Its light fell over the soft face of a little girl who looked to be ten or eleven years old. Teri stopped and held the girl's hand, amazed at how tiny and delicate her fingers were. How old was she really? And how long had she been here? And who were her parents? Had they searched for their daughter the way Teri had searched for Gabe? Of course, they had.

  “Teri!” A sharp whisper of admonition from Walt.

  “I'm sorry.”

  She went down the row, one bed
at time. Gabe was not one of the occupants, thank God. This was where he had been, though. She had no doubt of that. He had slept here in this cold room, maybe in one of these darkened beds, a tube going into his arm to feed him, another coming out to drain him. No love. No mother. No father.

  Oh, Gabe, I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry.

  “He's not here,” Walt said.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Keep looking.”

  “No, I mean about these children. We can't just leave them here.”

  “Teri, we can't take them with us, either.”

  She knew that, of course. Though it was something she did not readily want to admit to herself. She had already let Gabe down, how could she do the same to all these other children?

  “We'll make a report,” Walt said. “Tonight. As soon as we get back, all right?”

  Teri nodded.

  “All right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  And then the door behind them opened.

  [131]

  Gabe sat up in bed, leaning on his cast. He thought he had heard something coming from the next room, something that had sounded like voices. Cody, who had been asleep for a good long while, stirred uneasily.

  “Cody!”

  “What?” he moaned, one eye opening reluctantly.

  “Listen.”

  [132]

  “Excuse me, you folks lost?”

  Teri Knight looked as if she might clutch her heart and fall over dead right there. Her mouth opened, her eyes widened, her coloring went instantly white. Walter Travis, on the other hand, hardly seemed surprised. He pulled the woman to his side, and shined his flashlight in Mitch's face.

  “Get rid of the light,” D.C. said.

  Obediently, the man turned it off and dropped it to his side.

  “No, I think I better take that,” Mitch said.

  The man passed it handle-first, no resistance. Folks tended to be cooperative when they had guns pointed at them. D.C. had learned that years ago, and it was just as true today as it had been the very first time he had tried it. Mitch frisked both of them, finding a nice little Ruger P-85 strapped under Mr. Travis's left arm. He took possession of it, along with both of their backpacks, and stepped back again.

  “So, now that we've checked your luggage, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” D.C. asked.

  “Where's my son?”

  “And you are?”

  “You know who the hell I am.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “Teri Knight. My name is Teri Knight.”

  “Well, Teri Knight, if he's not here, then it's my guess you're probably looking in the wrong place. Maybe the mall would be a more likely place. Wouldn't you agree?”

  “I want my son,” she said firmly.

  “We don't always get what we want, Mrs. Knight. Though, I suppose it never hurts to ask.” This was as true for him as it was for her, of course. D.C. had not wanted to find himself in this position. It wasn't going to make Webster happy, him with his blunt warnings. Nor was it going to make walking away from the Institute any easier. “Why don't we take a little walk?”

  He took them upstairs to a small office on the second floor, using the elevator this time. There was only one door. Plenty of windows. No way out unless they were tempted to try a swan dive into the rock walkway below. Not as secure an environment as D.C. would have liked, but secure enough to hold them until he could decide what to do next.

  Things are getting exciting now!

  [133]

  “Did you hear it?” Gabe asked.

  “Sounded like someone talking,” Cody said, still wiping the sleep from his eyes. He sat up in bed, looking a little younger and a little more fragile than he had when he had first been wheeled in by Miss Tilley.

  “Exactly.”

  “You think it's Tilley?”

  “Did it sound like her?”

  “I don't know.”

  “I think it was my Mom,” Gabe said, hoping that just saying it out loud didn't jinx the possibility it might be true. “Mom and Mr. Travis.”

  “Who's Mr. Travis?”

  “He's a friend of hers. A detective.” Gabe threw off his covers and climbed down from the hospital bed, the tail of his gown hooking on the side railing until he pulled it free. The floor felt cold against the bottom of his feet. He went after his slippers. “My Mom said he used to work for the police.”

  “Really?”

  “No lie.”

  “Maybe he came looking for us?”

  “Bet he did,” Gabe said. His slippers had somehow made their way underneath the bed, all the way to the other side. He found the right one first, underneath the box top to the Monopoly game Tilley had brought in when he had first arrived. He leaned against the edge of the bed, balancing on one foot, and managed to get the slipper over his toes and hooked across the back of his heel. Then he went about finding the other one.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Maybe I can get their attention.” The left slipper was stuffed into the corner between the bed frame and the wall. Gabe dug it out, got it onto his foot, and went to the door. He pressed his ear against it.

  “Hear anything?”

  “Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head. It was completely silent on the other side, not even the restless sound of the ocean, like you heard when you held a sea shell to your ear.

  “Maybe they left already.”

  That's what he was afraid of... they had come downstairs to check on something and they hadn't seen the door, or if they had, they hadn't imagined anyone would be on the other side, and they had left without checking to make sure.

  Gabe slammed the palm of his hand against the cool, smooth metal surface, and heard it echo on the other side. Someone had to have heard that. It sounded as if a cannon had gone off. Someone had to have heard it.

  Another slam, harder this time.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Help!” The word resonated at the back of his throat. “Help! We're in here!”

  [134]

  “It seems like every time I turn around, I'm asking this question again,” Teri said, sitting on the edge of a desk. The fear that had screamed its lungs out downstairs was quiet now, subdued by the knowledge that at least for the moment they were out of danger. It didn't prevent the queasiness from churning in her stomach, though. That fear might not settle for several more days, assuming the two of them were afforded several more days.

  “But here it goes again,” she finished. “What do we do now?”

  “Try to find a way out,” Walt said evenly. “Any suggestions?”

  “Don't look at me. It was everything I could do just to get us in here.”

  He grinned, and Teri had to admit that she didn't know where the humor had come from. It was something she wouldn't have had two weeks ago, before Gabe had come back. She might have cried then, or she might have grown tired and lain down and fallen asleep. But she wouldn't have been able to laugh. Not in the best of circumstances.

  “Can you pick the lock?”

  “They took my backpack with my tools.”

  She hopped down from the desk and pulled out the middle drawer. A tray had been built into the front span. It was filled with pens and pencils, rubber bands and paper clips, old pennies and a couple of letter openers. She plucked out a paper clip.

  “How about this?”

  He looked up from the lock. “You've been watching too many movies.”

  “Okay.” She dug around a moment longer and brought out one of the letter openers. It wasn't anything fancy. Not one of those engraved ivory-handled things or even an antique sterling pewter opener. Just an everyday straight-and-narrow stainless steel letter opener. That was all. “What about this?”

  “No,” he started to say. Then he caught himself. “Well, let me take a look at it.”

  Teri passed it to him.

  He turned it over in his hands a couple of times, as if he were trying to get
a feel for what it might actually be able to do. “Even with the tapered end, it's too big to pick the lock,” he said thoughtfully. “But then, picking a lock isn't the only way through a door, is it?”

  “It isn't?”

  “You better hope not.”

  [135]

  Jake put aside his checkbook. There was too much going on tonight, and D.C. had told him no more screwing around. He hated the idea of losing more than a hundred dollars to the bank, but he hated the idea of losing his job even more. He could always pull out his checkbook and have another go at it tomorrow.

  The nearest monitor flickered from the room with the sleepers to the room with the two boys. One of the boys was sitting up in bed, his face pale, a pillow pulled into his lap. The other boy was barely visible out of the corner of the camera. Jake sat forward. It appeared the kid had gotten out of bed and moved to the door. He was pounding against it with his good arm, his hand coming down again and again and again.

  Jake flipped an audio switch.

  “Help! We're in here! Please! Help!”

  He flipped it off again.

  Christ, what next?

  He sat back again, and moistened his lips, which had begun to chap a couple of days before. The question he had to wrestle with was this: would this be something D.C. would need to know? He didn't think so, though he had to be careful. He hadn't made a report when Amanda Tarkett had taken the kid out of the room for the first time, and everyone knew how that had turned out. Sometimes the little things you didn't think mattered much mattered more than you could ever imagine.

  Still, Jake didn't think this was one of those. At the very worst, the kid might scream himself raw. He certainly wasn't a threat to break out. Not with that door. It was as solid as they came. Even screaming the way he was, it was debatable that anyone might actually hear him from the other side.