“I’m really, really scared,” Wendy trilled. Her brown eyes were bulging, and she did look petrified now.
“So am I,” said Peter.
“Care Bear stare!” Max said to them. Obviously, it was something they shared, a lucky saying, a charm.
“Care Bear stare!” the others chorused. “Care Bear stare! Care Bear stare!”
Unfortunately, Max was right about the creepy part.
Now, two army Jeeps were approaching in the opposite direction. Army Jeeps? Was the army part of this, too? How could that be? Who were they? Everybody but us?
“Down in back,” I whispered and the kids ducked again. I ducked down as well.
We passed by the grunting and groaning U.S. army Jeeps without incident.
“Kit, please tell me this can’t get any worse,” I said as we got on the last stretch toward my place. I needed to stop at the Inn-Patient for medical supplies. I had to treat the lacerations and bruises from our flight down the mountain.
“If you recognize any more hospital personnel, old friends and acquaintances and such, be sure to let me know,” he said.
We curled around the last familiar bend approaching the Inn-Patient. Kit almost stopped—then he sped up. He stepped on the gas hard and the Jeep lurched forward. We barreled right past the Inn-Patient, past my home.
“Kit, stop. We have to stop!” I yelled. “Kit, stop this Jeep! Now!” I repeated.
“Frannie, no! It’s not good. We can’t stop,” he said and kept speeding down the road. The rear of the Jeep was fishtailing badly.
I knew Kit was right, but I couldn’t believe what I saw. I thought my heart was finally going to break.
They had burned down my house, my hospital, my everything. They had torched the Inn-Patient. All of my poor animals were inside.
Book Five
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
Chapter 95
WE STREAKED PAST the Inn-Patient at better than sixty miles an hour. I felt hollow and sick inside. I knew Kit was right to speed by my place without stopping, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Max leaned in close from the backseat. “Oh, Frannie, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“We’re sorry, Frannie,” the other kids joined in.
In the back of the Jeep, little Pip was in a highly agitated state. Pip was barking and whining as we passed our old house, or what was left of it.
Damn them. Damn them to hell. Who had done this? Who was responsible? I wanted to do terrible things to them. I felt I had the right. I’d never felt anything close to this kind of anger and disgust.
“I know where we can go.” I finally managed to speak after we got a mile or so up the road where I used to live. “I know where we’ll be safe, for a little while at least. Until we can figure something out.”
I gave Kit directions to my sister Carole’s. She lived in the town of Radcliff, which is about twenty miles southwest of Bear Bluff. We’d be okay there, for the rest of the day, anyway.
Carole had moved out to Colorado from Milwaukee, after she split with her husband, Charlie. She lived on a small working farm with her two daughters, Meredith and Brigid, and their dogs, two geese—Graham and Crackers—and a house-trained rabbit named Thumper. People can tell right away that we’re sisters.
I would have gone to Carole’s earlier, at least to talk to her, but she and the kids had been on their two-week camping trip to Gunnison National Forest. I wasn’t even sure if they were back now, which might be even better.
But I spotted C-Bird working in her vegetable garden as we approached the house. She was nearly lost among the droopy-headed sunflowers. Bumblebees danced around her.
“Kit, would you stop here? Let me walk to the house. I have to sort of prepare Carole for this.”
“Doesn’t she like kids?” Max cracked from the back.
“Yes, she does, and animals, too,” I said.
I climbed out of the Jeep and walked toward my sister. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing now. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. In the last few hours I’d learned there were a lot of folks in the area whom I couldn’t trust. I also had a better appreciation for what Kit had been going through with this case.
My sister Carole is five years older than I am and a great, great person in every way. Her husband, Charlie, a radiologist, was such a jerk to lose her and his kids. Carole summed it up. “You snooze, you lose.”
“Instant family?” she said, looking toward the Jeep. She had on muddy gardening boots, plaid shorts, an old denim shirt, and a floppy straw hat. Sunblock was smeared unevenly on her forehead and cheeks. Behind her, a clothesline was heavy with towels and bathing suits from their trip.
“Of course you can bring them for a little unexpected visit, Frances. Who are they, though? Is that a man in the driver’s seat?”
I nodded. “His name is Kit—I mean it’s Tom.”
Carole’s eyebrows raised several inches.
“Uh-huh. He’s Kit, Tom, whatever. And? The others?”
Man, oh man, oh man. The others?
“Carole, this is very strange. I’m your sister. You trust me, right?”
“Up to a point. You didn’t get married to someone with a huge family, Frannie? Please tell me you didn’t. Oh hell, I don’t care if you did,” Carole said and pushed strands of loose hair away from her face. “You didn’t? ”
I put my hand on her arm. No, that wasn’t enough for me right now. I needed more. I hugged my sister tightly in the middle of her garden.
“Sweetie, are you all right? You’re trembling,” she said against my cheek. “You’re trembling all over.”
“Someone is after us,” I whispered. “I’m not kidding. I’m not making a joke. And—those children in the car? Carole, oh God, Carole. They uh, they uhm… oh hell, they have wings and they can fly.”
Chapter 96
SUPPER AT MY SISTER’S HOUSE is usually a spontaneous event, what with Thumper or possibly one of the geese, Graham or Crackers, encouraged to wander in and out of the dining room like an extra guest or two. Over the table is a quote that accurately captures the family’s spirit: “If the sky falls, one may hope to catch larks.”
The sky was falling.
I had to hand it to Carole, though, she was enormously cool under fire. So was Kit. And so were Meredith and Brigid, who are two of the nicest, kindest, smartest kids I’ve ever met.
“Is this your idea of payback for Frank the Swan?” Carole said, and we cracked up. So did Kit, though he had no way of knowing exactly what we were talking about. Before she had left for her camping trip, Carole had brought me an old, hopelessly injured swan for mending.
Over a home-cooked meal I told Carole as much as I dared, and said that we would be out of her house as soon as we possibly could. It was also decided that Carole and the kids would return to Gunnison National Forest for another week of camping—just to be safe.
When dinner was finished, Kit and I had to leave for a while. It was Kit’s idea. We were going to see Henrich Kroner, who had been David’s boss at Boulder Community Hospital, and who was also high on Kit’s list of suspects. Kroner had studied embryology under Dr. Anthony Peyser in Boston.
Henrich had come to Colorado from MIT. He’d never been charged or indicted in Boston. He lived in Boulder with his current girlfriend, Jilly. I remembered that Jilly was a pediatric nurse, and worked at the hospital’s in vitro fertilization clinic.
I couldn’t help thinking of all the murdered babies at the School. All of the rejects. A pediatric nurse? It couldn’t just be a coincidence.
We were afraid that Kit’s Jeep might be easily recognized by now, so we borrowed Carole’s Chevy 4x4. We were at Dr. Kroner’s before nine-thirty. If he and Jilly were home, they’d be up. I remembered seeing Henrich at the McDonoughs’ the night Frank had been murdered. Another coincidence? I doubted it.
The lights of the expensive and grossly oversized mountain “cottage” were shining brightly. Henrich Kroner’s tr
iple-black Mercedes convertible was parked in the drive.
The two of us walked up a flagstone pathway. We stood outside the screen door and rang the front bell a couple of times.
Nobody came at first. I could see into the living room: pine furniture and brightly colored throw rugs. Audubon prints, Shaker doors, wide-board pine floors. No Henrich and Jilly, though. A little scary. Everything was now.
“Dr. Kroner,” I finally called. “It’s Frannie O’Neill. Henrich Kroner. Jilly. Are you in there? Is anybody home?”
Total silence in the house. Only the loud shrilling of crickets and cicadas in the yard.
“Let’s go round back,” Kit said. He started around the edge of the house. I took a deep breath and followed him. I didn’t want to be alone. “I’m two steps behind you, Kit.”
Kit stopped suddenly and I nearly walked into him. “Oh, Christ,” he whispered. “Stay there, Frannie. Stay back, please. It’s bad.”
I could see Henrich and Jilly from where I stood. They were lying face up on a pair of bright yellow chaise longues. Blood was puddled around the chairs and seeping into cracks between the flagstones. Blood stained the longues as well.
I could see that Jilly had been shot in the hollow of her throat. Henrich had been shot through the right eye.
My heart constricted and my mouth was very dry. I wanted to cover my eyes, but I didn’t do it. I needed to see everything now, to describe it if I had to. If I was going to be a witness, I might as well be a good one.
Kit lightly touched my arm. “You okay, Frannie?”
Not really. I had seen a lot of animals die, but it hadn’t prepared me for the sight of a viciously murdered man and woman, especially people who I’d known. “I’m doing all right, I guess. Still on my feet, anyway,” I whispered.
“Two shots for each victim. Entry an inch or so apart,” Kit muttered.
“Kit, this just happened. Neither body is rigorous or discolored. We just missed the killers. Or, they just missed us.”
Neither Henrich Kroner nor Jilly had been friends of mine, but I’d known them. I didn’t like Henrich, but David and I had come to a couple of parties at this house.
I had sat in one of these yellow lounge chairs. I wondered if Dr. Anthony Peyser had ever been here? Could he be responsible for these deaths?
Bad thoughts were repeating in my brain. That happens under stress. I couldn’t help remembering that I saw Kroner at Frank McDonough’s the night Frank drowned. Or that Henrich Kroner had visited my house in Bear Bluff after David was killed. It was so awful, and none of it seemed coincidental.
“We have to go back to Carole’s,” I said, grabbing Kit’s arm. “We have to get her and the kids out of there now.”
They were killing all the witnesses.
Chapter 97
KIT WAS AFRAID, but he was trying not to show it for Frannie’s sake. He pulled over at a 7-Eleven on Baseline Road in Boulder. The last twenty-four hours were testing everything he’d learned as an agent, and some things he hadn’t. He did remember an old saying from his training at Quantico: Fall seven times, stand up eight.
“I’ll be quick,” he said as he ripped open the 4x4’s door. “I’m going to try to talk to Peter Stricker at the FBI. I’ve got to make him believe me, which might not be so easy.”
“Okay,” Frannie said, “but please hurry. I’m worried about Carole and the kids.”
Kit walked quickly toward the pay phone outside the brightly-lit convenience store. He was still feeling alone in all of this. That’s just the way it was. Realistically, there was only so much one agent could do. Why in hell had they shut him down? It made no sense and it was scary as hell.
He didn’t want to call Peter Stricker. Not even now. It was like asking to be insulted and browbeaten and turned down again. It had been going on for more than a year. The same thing, over and over.
Even though it was past seven in Washington, he decided to try Stricker at his office first. He had Stricker’s home phone number—they had been friends, right?—but calling there was a last resort. Not a really good move.
Peter’s secretary was still working at the office. She picked up after one ring.
“Cindy, this is Tom Brennan on the line. I have to talk to Peter. It’s an emergency.”
“Mr. Stricker is on the road,” the secretary said. “I’ll give him your message when he calls in.”
Kit yelled into the phone. “Damn it, Cindy, people are dying. You beep Peter’s number right now. I’ll hold the line. I’m not going away this time. Tell him there have been more deaths, and it’s his goddamn fault.”
It didn’t take long for Cindy to reach Stricker, and Kit wondered if he’d been in the office all along. Probably, he had been.
He heard Stricker’s familiar whisper. “Tom, what is it?” He wished he could reach through the fiber-optic phone lines and strangle him.
“There’s been another murder. Two murders. No, actually, Peter, there have been a lot more murders than that. Now let me talk, let me finish what I have to tell. Don’t say a goddamn word.”
“Tom, where are you?”
“Not a fricking word!”
“I understand. Of course. Go on.”
“All right, well I’m not in Nantucket. I haven’t been in Nan-tucket. I’m in Colorado, which is where I ought to be, which is where the Bureau should have sent me, where you should have sent me, Peter, if you’d listened to my warnings.”
“You’ve seen someone murdered. You said—”
“Shut the hell up. Yes, I just left the house of Dr. Henrich Kroner. He’s dead, and so is his girlfriend. That’s our fault. No, it’s your fault. Kroner used to work for Anthony Peyser.”
“All right, I hear you. Where are you now, Tom? Where exactly is Dr. Kroner’s house?”
“Forget about Henrich Kroner. Kroner is dead. I told you that. Peter, they’ve killed children. They destroyed embryos. They’re experimenting on humans. I saw it myself. I saw the awful, horrible lab where they worked. I was there.”
“Tom, where the hell are you? ” Peter Stricker finally raised his voice.
“I’m on a fucking phone in the middle of Hell, and in case you’re interested, there are 7-Elevens here! I want fifty agents now! Get everybody from Denver. Tell them to head to Bear Bluff, Colorado. Go to what used to be the Inn-Patient. It’s an animal hospital. They can’t miss it. Somebody burned it to the ground. I’ll make contact with them—not the other way around. I’m running this now!”
Stricker sighed. “All right, I hear you. We’ll send people in.”
Kit hung up the pay phone and took a deep breath. That was pretty damn good.
The cavalry was coming.
Chapter 98
I SAW KIT GET OFF THE PHONE after a very animated conversation. He jogged back to the car, and he actually looked better. He had some of his color back. He told me that his old boss had finally listened. “I don’t know how much he believed, but he believed some of it. He’s sending agents here.”
The feeling I had, the crazy imagery in my head, was that I had been thrust into a real-life scenario that roughly paralleled the one in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I was beginning to think I could no longer trust anyone in Boulder or the surrounding towns.
We hurried back to Carole’s house from Boulder. Carole saw the car lights and was waiting for us at the front door.
“Everything’s cool here, Frannie,” she said. Obviously, she’d read the worried look on my face. “The kids were really good. Nobody’s been flying or anything.”
“Yeah, except for you, Meredith, and Brigid. You’re flying out of here right now. Another doctor from the hospital is dead. Henrich Kroner. Pack your things now.”
Carole and the girls were ready in fifteen minutes, which was a new land-speed record for them. I felt guilty about involving them, but I knew they would be, anyway. Whoever was after me could easily find out who my sister was, if they didn’t already know, and where she lived. Camping in Gunnis
on National Forest was the safest place for Carole and her girls to be right now.
We hugged furiously hard and tried not to cry. Then everybody waved sad good-byes in front of the house. My sister and her girls drove off into the night. I prayed they would be safe, that all of us would be.
But I didn’t really believe it. Too many bad things had happened, and we knew about most of them.
Chapter 99
DR. ANTHONY PEYSER was slow climbing out of the slate-gray Mercedes sedan. His face showed the pain of the exertion. Peyser was in his late seventies, and genius or not, he hadn’t been able to arrest the ravages of aging and a highly stressful life.
He walked slowly toward the men waiting for him in the small wooded clearing. He waved a greeting and looked to be a pleasant older chap.
“We haven’t caught up with her yet.” Harding Thomas spoke before he did.
“So it would seem,” the doctor said and smiled thinly. “Well, I’m not surprised. Under different circumstances, I might even be pleased with the results. She had avian instincts for survival and flight, and the clever intelligence of humans. She is superior to all of you, and she’s proving it, isn’t she. Of course she is. What a supergirl.”
“We’ll get her,” Thomas said.
Peyser nodded and pursed his thin lips. “I have no doubt of it. She’s sought out help, and the humans will be her downfall. She’s finally made a mistake.”
Harding Thomas nodded. As usual, the doctor was right.
“Bring her in alive if you possibly can. She’s worth a small fortune,” Peyser said. “But if that fails, bring her in dead. And that goes for anyone else who’s seen her. The good that will ultimately come will justify everything. The most important days in history are almost here.”
Chapter 100
WE SLEPT FITFULLY at Carole’s house and we were all up before dawn. Kit needed to go to the Inn-Patient and we decided it was best if we all stayed together.
When the Wind Blows Page 22