‘You’d like to know. Sperm of Satan. Back to hell. Unclean bastard. Crux Sacra sit mihi lux.’ With knife overhead, she sprinted towards him. ‘For a thousand years, burn in the pit.’
Frank knew she was here to kill him. But this needs to end. He held his ground, timed her manic advance, and as she neared he feinted back and pivoted to the right.
She ran past, her knife slashed air.
Brutal memories of his father’s murder and the frantic run to Grace’s, played in his head. Her words, a ramble of English and Latin. The trace of Leona Lang’s call. Is this what happened to Grace? Is that her blood?
Candace turned. She raised her knife and slashed three signs of the cross. ‘Crux Sacra sit mihi lux. Nunquam draco sit mihi dux. Vade Retro Satana!’
‘Are you kidding?’ Frank said as a realization hit. ‘That’s who you think you are?’ He’d never understood the source of his mother’s delusions. But as she stood with the sun at her back and a bloody knife, he got it. ‘You think you’re an angel.’
‘Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas.’ She came at him a second time, but not as fast. She shuffled, in rubber soled hospital slippers, her knife outstretched like a sword. ‘Crux sacra sit mihi lux.’
‘That makes no sense.’ He edged back towards the UNICO SUV. ‘Are you trying to exorcize me? Or kill me? Which is it Mother?’
‘Try to beguile and vex. I will not be swayed.’
‘You’re crazy. You have schizophrenia. You’re mentally ill.’
‘Lies.’ She shrieked. Her words tumbled fast. ‘He came to me in the night and put his unclean thing into me. It spasmed and bore filth. Snakes writhe in the pit. I felt it in me. I wanted to cut you out. But you, but you, but you. Filthy slimy creature, bathed in blood and slime and shit.’ She closed the distance with a skipping run. Her mouth contorted with rage, her eyes dark and fixed on him.
‘Crazy. Pure crazy. You killed my father. You killed your husband.’
‘Satan skin. Put the devil’s prick inside of me. Squirming little snake.’
‘What kind of angel lets the devil do that?’
‘Tricky. Prince of lies.’ Her gaze narrowed, she lowered her head and pointed the knife towards his chest. She charged.
Frank turned and ran towards the road.
She pursued. She screamed obscenities mixed with Latin. But years locked up in a forensic hospital, and that she was fifty-seven, left her no match for Frank.
How did this happen? How did they let her out? Grace. Blood on the knife. That’s what that phone call was about.
He sprinted hard and tried to think. Sirens neared. He spotted flashing lights in the distance. He chanced a look back. She had stopped in the middle of the road. Half a football field’s distance between them. She looked winded but she whipped her head from side to side like a bull set to charge.
Here it comes.
But she just stood her ground, and with legs akimbo and knife raised to the heavens she proclaimed. ‘You will die this day, child of darkness. I will send you back to the ooze from which you sprang.’
Between her scrubs, hospital booties, and incoherent ramble, he was mesmerized. In that instant she was no longer the bogeyman of his childhood, but a mentally ill and deranged woman. ‘She’s sick. This isn’t about me.’ Wary of the distance between them and of what she would do next, he didn’t linger. A police cruiser, followed by a second, and one of the FBI SUVs raced towards him.
He then turned back to see what Candace would do, but she had vanished. ‘Crap.’ He scanned the quiet neighborhood with its lovely mix of houses, some two and three hundred years old, others built to look like that. What will she do?
She’ll come for me. But where?
Not wanting to wait for the cops, he doubled back towards Grace’s rental. They pulled in behind him as he spotted his cell and scooped it up. Like a berserker he raced through the house. Saw Grace’s laptop, but no blood. He heard footsteps behind him, tore out the back, retrieved his stolen SUV, and drove off. This is not good. Grace, where are you?
Dread spread through his chest, as events of the last minutes played back. He thought to turn around. Leona Lang’s strange phone call replayed in his head. Where are you?
Glancing between the road, his cell, and the flashers which now pursued him, he fumbled for Leona’s number. He pressed call.
With the phone to his ear and his gaze fixed on the road, time warped. Every turn of the tires seemed eternal.
‘Frank?’
‘Leona, what happened to Grace?’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Just answer the question. You called me and said she’d been in an accident. What happened?’
‘I didn’t call you.’
He slammed on the brakes, and nearly skidded out. ‘What the fuck? You did. You said she’d been in an accident and that—’
‘It wasn’t me, Frank. Someone is playing a not funny joke. Where are you?’
‘I don’t know. On the road. My mother just tried to kill me.’
‘Where?’
‘She ran off. She’ll try again.’
‘Go to Hollow Hills, Frank.’
‘No, she’ll show up. She’s unpredictable. People will get hurt … killed.’
‘Understood, but it’s safest. We can protect you, and the children, and Grace. But we need you in one place … and in one piece.’
‘Shit!’ He looked out as three patrolmen approached. Behind them were two … now three, and a fourth cruiser pulling up.
‘Doctor Garfield, get out of your vehicle with your hands up.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ she said.
‘Nothing is.’
‘I’ll take care of this,’ she said. ‘Go to Hollow Hills. Do the work you were meant to do. Those children’s lives depend on it. If anything were to happen to you right now …’
‘Understood.’
‘Your work is too important. Too many lives are at stake for it to exist only in your head. If something did happen to Grace … and to you, this would all be for nothing. All your work … like it never existed.’
‘You want the process.’
‘It’s time. It can be just me. Think of those kids … If something happened to you.’
‘Like almost just did … twice. Let me think.’
‘No, Frank. That time is over. Get to Hollow Hills. Walk me through the process. We can do it over a secure line. Just you and me.’
‘OK.’ He was surrounded by a tightening noose of cops. He peered behind them, half expecting to see his knife-wielding mother. Whose blood was that? But he saw woods. A squirrel bounded up a tree, and three drawn service revolvers pointed in his direction. ‘I’ve got to go.’
He opened his door, and with the cell above his head, shouted. ‘I’m unarmed. And please, someone has to check on Grace Lewis.’
THIRTY-ONE
‘What the hell is going on?’ Leona said.
Little Rex responded by depositing a saliva-slicked red rubber ball onto her lap. His tail beat a frantic pace. Not minding the slime, she picked it up and rolled it towards a hedge. Her quiet afternoon of mindful contemplation staring at the waves of Long Island Sound and playing with her puppy destroyed by Frank’s frantic call. ‘What the hell was that? Someone’s playing games.’
She knew who. What she didn’t know, was why. Since he was five Dalton had displayed a brilliant talent for mimicry. He’d honed it to a razor-sharp proficiency during his years at NYU’s theatre program. She considered other possibilities, which included Frank’s mental stability, or that a rival pharmaceutical company was making a play for the formula. But no … this is Dalton.
Rex retrieved his treasure and rocketed back to her. He poked his moist nose and the ball into her hand. She didn’t respond. He dropped the ball by her feet. Stepped back and yipped.
‘What is he up to?’ She picked it up and rolled it a few feet not wanting to risk her new puppy getting too close to the water or the electric fence, which
he was too young to understand. ‘And he didn’t want me to know …’ She wiped Rex’s saliva off her fingers and onto the bench. She stared at her hand, like a stranger’s, and the reason she’d holed up at home to buy time for a plausible explanation of her increasingly fantastic transformation. She’d planned on two weeks. Let people think she’d gone to a Swiss clinic for a plastic surgery overhaul. She’d practiced responses to their questions. ‘Leona, what did you have done?’
‘Everything.’
She splayed her fingers and rolled them side to side. The fine lines were gone. She stroked her cheek. And ran her fingers through her hair, even that felt different, softer, springier. She sighed. What was on the outside was wonderful, but the best part was how she felt within … vibrant, alive … young.
Rex ambled back with the ball. She picked it up a final time, ‘Sorry boy.’ She placed it under a flowerpot, and scooped him up. His puppy sharp teeth nipped at her fingers as she cradled him. ‘Time to go in my little love. Mother has work to do.’ She headed back towards the house, and with the dog nestled in one arm she pulled out her cell.
‘Dalton,’ she said, as his phone clicked to the recorded message, ‘call me.’
Interesting. She knew how dissatisfied Dalton was with his role of COO. It went beyond his absurd notions of pop star fame. But he wouldn’t turn against me … And if he has … is this the first time? ‘What do you think, Rex? What games is he playing?’
Her suspicion festered as she settled Rex into his toy-filled crate in the kitchen and topped up his water and kibble. Dejected, he stared after her and made high-pitched yelps. ‘I don’t want to leave you either, but Dalton has become a pill.’
She got into her car, tapped on the GPS and the Hollow Hills address. She glanced into the rearview mirror and was startled. A lovely blonde in her early thirties looked back. She thought of Frank. He’d know what she’d done, and from there figure out she’d taken Jen’s dose. But with Dalton’s games, crazy Candace Garfield doing God only knew what, she had no choice. The endgame with Frank Garfield had to be now. This could not be left to chance, and sadly, could not be left to Dalton. ‘What will I do … with him?’ She thought of Rex and felt a pang at having to leave him. The maid would take care of him, but it wasn’t that. It was what Rex and his predecessors gave her, and what Dalton, her mother, her husband, Jackson, never had. Love, unconditional love. She snuck a glance in the rearview mirror. Luminous blue eyes looked back. You are young again. She put a hand to her belly and a thought took hold, as a feeling she’d not had in fifteen years, made her stop the car and race back to the house. Not possible.
Once in the bathroom, the impossible was real. My period. Which means … Not possible. I can’t be fertile again … but if I am. And like exchanging one damaged Rex for the next an answer of the problem with Dalton, and even more, took hold. Everything and anything. You can do it all again. She gazed in the mirror, her beauty and wealth would attract any man she wanted. She chuckled, or ditch the man … they get so clingy, but have a baby … hell, have two.
THIRTY-TWO
Pushing over a hundred with lights and sirens, Sean swore. ‘Move, you moron.’ He’d tried to call Frank multiple times after he’d crashed his car. No answer. ‘Get out of my way,’ he shouted at a blue Corolla. Half on the shoulder, he sped past. ‘Idiot!’
He muttered, ‘Why didn’t I stay with him? I should never have left.’
‘Right. New relationship, no one likes a clingy boyfriend.’
‘And why the fuck didn’t he tell me about his crazy mother?’
‘Because he likes you and … did he say love? Did I say love?’
Little made sense, including this rush of emotions he’d had since meeting Frank. He swerved across the highway for the Farmington exit. ‘It was the turtle … no tortoise.’ He knew that’s when it happened, lying on his belly next to Frank in Atlas’s backyard looking for a four-hundred-pound Galapagos tortoise.
Please be OK. The awful call when he heard the crash … he said he was OK. Yeah, and that he’d just taken out a phone pole. He could be dead.
There was that, and the crazy mother, but even before that shit-storm, was the stuff Sean dug up on the Langs and UNICO. Which included the in-the-news death of an ex-employee who’d drunkenly rammed into a school bus and conveniently died … while amid a class-action lawsuit against UNICO. As an isolated incident he could write it off to karma. But as Sean had dug through potentially large-payout lawsuits over the past two decades against UNICO a pattern emerged. Dead lawyers, dead witnesses, or witnesses deciding they were wrong and retracting damning statements. One case where the plaintiff’s expert was arrested and convicted of pedophilia with his testimony rendered worthless.
‘I should have listened to him.’ Because when added to the random, maybe not-random murder, of Jackson Atlas and Frank’s game-changing research it brought up possibilities. ‘Dude is a danger-magnet … but they need him, right? They need him alive … until they have what they want.’
He glanced at his GPS, where he was a red dot and Frank’s cell phone was a blue one. There were still twenty-two-point-four miles between them. Why hasn’t he called back? And where is he going?
The blue dot was in motion. Sean’s GPS rerouted.
He tried to think of reasons why Frank wouldn’t answer. Not good.
And with the scenic Farmington River to his right, and vibrant green hills on his left, he floored it.
THIRTY-THREE
‘You need to stay here, Dr Garfield.’ Melvin seemed nervous. Behind him stood the uniformed head of security and three other guards. They effectively blocked the door to his laboratory at Hollow Hills. ‘It’s for your safety.’
‘And if I want to leave?’
‘Not recommended.’
‘Understood. And if I want to leave?’
‘I would talk you out of it.’
‘Would you go further?’ Frank assessed his chances with Melvin and the guards, who’d made promises to the state troopers that he would not leave the facility.
‘Please, Dr Garfield, we’re under orders to keep you, the children, their families and everyone safe. Until your mother is found and apprehended, it’s too risky.’
That rang true. Little else did.
‘If there’s anything you need?’ Melvin said.
‘No. Have they found Dr Lewis … Grace?’
‘Not yet.’
‘The minute they do, please tell me.’
‘We’re working on it. We have extra security coming in from our Boston and Manhattan facilities. We will find her.’
‘What about the police?’
‘They said they’re doing what they can.’
‘What does that mean?’ Frank wanted to argue, but he’d been in too many of these situations over the course of his life. Where if he were to say something about Leona Lang calling him and telling him that Grace had been in an accident … and then later say she’d never done such a thing. It would not go well. He’d sound delusional, and with mad Mommy Candace amok in the Litchfield hills, people would mix two plus two with the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. ‘Then leave me alone,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’ Melvin backed out and closed the door behind him.
Frank listened. He heard muffled voices on the other side. Am I locked in? And what the fuck is going on?
His cell rang. He looked at the screen, wondered if it was another from Sean, but no, it was an unidentified wireless caller. His vision narrowed, and his breath caught. He picked up.
‘Dr Garfield, are you being naughty?’ It was that same woman.
‘Who the hell is this? Leona?’
‘You have work to do, Dr Garfield. I suggest you hop to it.’
‘Where’s Grace?’
‘I told you she was in an accident. Maybe she’s dead. She wasn’t moving. She could be asleep. It’s sometimes hard to know the difference.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Please. You’re n
ot stupid. Make your magic potion, write everything down, and stop being such a princess.’
Frank looked around. He wondered if the guards were still outside the door. But what would I say. There’s a crazy woman on the phone, I think she’s kidnapped Grace, and she’s got a pitch-perfect imitation of your boss. ‘Let me know she’s OK.’
‘Frank, you are not positioned to bargain. But I’ll tell you a secret. You know your six darling little cancer kids. One of them had her dose stolen.’
‘What?’
‘It’s true, the worst case of candy from a baby I’ve ever seen.’
‘Jen, that’s why she’s not improving.’
‘Yes. Sad. And to sweeten the pot, when you’ve made your fresh batch of brownies why not give one to little Jen? She doesn’t have much time. There, see? Now, there’s something for you. And Frank, here’s the fun part, everything you say and do, I see. You make your elixir. You do not call your detective, you do not scream for help. If you do, people will die, starting with your gal pal Grace, and then one by one, the kiddos and their loving parents. Are we clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Tick tock, Dr Garfield. It’s time to make the donuts.’ The line went dead.
Frank stared at his phone. He felt trapped. He looked out over the pristine beautiful lab with its stainless work benches, state-of-the-art DNA sequencers, a spectrometer that came with a two million-dollar price tag. And if something is too good a deal. It probably is. Too late now.
He stared at the dome cameras on the ceiling. He’d assumed that they were just part of the security. ‘You want the telomere process,’ he said aloud. Something about the caller’s voice, Leona, but maybe it wasn’t. She said not to call Sean … but if it wasn’t Leona, it seems like she might want to know about it.
He dialed her number; she answered fast.
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