Hear the Children Calling Page 18

  She flipped the top of her suitcase back onto her bed and began to repack. Certain now that Ryan was at the LaMane Center, she would proceed to the next step in her plan: surveillance of the area from a safe distance, just as she’d told Maureen.

  Jill checked out of the hotel and drove along Central. Every once in a while her line of vision would go to the rearview mirror, just to convince her no one was following her. She drove until she saw the huge, wood-framed stained-glass sun hanging from a signpost outside a small shopping center. She had noticed it on her way home from Maureen’s house the previous night, the orange-and-yellow flares of glass shining like a beacon in the moonlight, under a sign that said, SUNFLOWER MALL. She remembered seeing a large sporting-goods store here and had filed the stained-glass sun away as a landmark.

  Although it was small, it was well-stocked, and within twenty minutes Jill had all the things she had been unable to pack in New York. She handed the clerk a credit card and waited impatiently while her order was tallied. Then the teller filled a huge shopping bag with everything she had purchased: a small camp stove, a lantern, a huge canteen, and a box of waterproof matches. There was long underwear, heavy socks, hiking boots, a wool hat, and numerous small items.

  “Cold time of the year to be camping,” the teller commented.

  “But the best time of year for viewing certain constellations,” Jill answered. She hoisted the bag up, grabbed her new, rolled-up sleeping bag by its cord, and left the store.

  Jill then stopped at the grocery for provisions, packed the bags into her car, and drove away. One more stop now, she thought. The most logical place to find a camera store would be near the university. Sure enough, she located one between a shop specializing in stained-glass works and a place called New York Deli. She went inside and found a display of high-powered telescopes. She turned one toward the university grounds, then adjusted the guide scope until she found a letter on a far-off campus building. From this distance, she couldn’t identify it. She peered into the eyepiece and adjusted the focus know until the letter came into perfect view: M.

  “Perfect,” Jill said.

  After the order had been written up, Jill carried her new prize from the store and set it down carefully on the floor behind her seat. She knew Virginia would have fits to know she had spent money on something she had at least three of at the museum. But there was no time to have Virginia send her a telescope, and she didn’t want her partner asking questions. It had been hard enough to lie about the trip to Albuquerque, saying a relative had passed away. She seriously doubted Virginia believed a word of it.

  But now wasn’t the time to worry about her partner back in New York. Jill turned back onto the highway and headed toward the mountains. She really wanted to go straight to the LaMane Center, but didn’t dare, lest they recognize her. As much as she wanted Ryan back quickly, she knew this had to be done very carefully. There would be no soft hotel bed tonight, but the thick loft of a warm sleeping bag.

  Over the past six years, Jill had become used to the seasonal changes on Long Island. Here in Albuquerque, the lack of water provided for very few trees, and most of what Jill saw as she sped along the highway was cast in shades of brown. But when she reached the Sandia Mountains, she was able to marvel at the deftness of nature’s paintbrush. Driving deeper between them, rocks and flora changed from browns to greens to brilliant reds. Early snow dotted the upper cliffs, while small waterfalls spattered rainbows in the air.

  Jill could not resist pulling off to the side of the road. She got out of her car and went to a chain-link fence, wondering why it was here among so much natural beauty. A moment later, she understood: it protected travelers from the depths of a dark ravine. Shivering, she went back to her car and continued up into the mountains. There was a sign marked SANDIA CREST, but Jill passed the turnoff. She knew the attraction faced Albuquerque itself and that even at this time of year there would be tourists there. What she needed was a place farther into the mountains, one that would give her a good view of the LaMane Center.

  It took her half an hour to find it. Pulling her car into a clearing, she got out and walked through a thick growth of juniper and pine. There below her, some twenty miles from the base of the mountain, was an isolated collection of adobe-style houses. Even without the telescope, Jill could see the rectangular shape of Victory gardens. Twenty years ago, it might have been a hippie commune. But the presence of a long, low building dispelled any ideas that this was a place where people came to get back to nature. Jill suspected it was some kind of hospital or a research laboratory.

  She went back to her car and unpacked her equipment, setting up the little stove to start a pot of coffee going. It wasn’t until she breathed in its warm aroma that she realized she was famished. Jill prepared a quick sandwich for herself and ate it with one hand while she erected the telescope. Peering through the lens, she was able to make out the bent-over figure of a woman working in her cactus garden. Jill swung the telescope slowly on its tripod, seeing other adults, a corral of horses, a huge barn, and some stray dogs. But not a single child. Were they keeping them hidden? she wondered. Had Ryan been locked in a prison all these years, unable to see the sun?

  The thought depressed her so that she closed her eyes and bent her head. She had to get a look inside the buildings, but that couldn’t be done until nightfall, when lights would be turned on. Realizing this, Jill decided she ought to take a nap. After all, she hadn’t slept a wink the previous night, and she couldn’t afford to fall asleep when she was supposed to be spying on the LaMane Center. She would only sleep for an hour or two, then she would watch some more.

  The name “LaMane” echoed in her mind as she drifted off, using her rolled-up sleeping bag as a pillow. The sun shone down through the branches of the trees, caressing her face warmly. LaMane . . . something familiar about it . . . she’d heard it before . . .

  She was presented with a newborn Ryan, all wet with fluids from her womb and still attached to his umbilical cord. She cooed at him, gently consoling him as he protested his introduction to the world.

  “Oh, Jeffrey, I can’t believe it,” she had cried. “After all these years, a baby! I had almost given up.”

  “A baby boy,” Jeffrey said, beaming.

  The doctor helped her deliver the afterbirth, then stitched up the episiotomy. At Jill’s request, he got into one of the family pictures the nurse was snapping.

  “Thank goodness for modern technology,” he said. “I told you not to give up hope.”

  “But after all the tests,” Jill said, “and after trying Perganol and—”

  “That doesn’t matter now,” the doctor said. “It was Neolamane that did the trick.”

  “Great new discovery,” Jeff said. Suddenly, he turned to Jill, his eyes darkening. He frowned deeply and spoke in guttural tones that echoed through the sterile room. “Too bad Ryan won’t live to tell about it. . .”

  Jill sat up with a gasp, jerking herself into wakefulness before her dream could turn into a nightmare. Shaking, she crawled over to the stove and poured herself another cup of coffee. Since she had only been asleep a short time, it was still warm, and it helped settle her nerves. As she sat against a tree sipping it, she went over the dream in her mind. Immediately, she understood the message that had been sent to her. LaMane—it was a pharmaceutical company, manufacturer of a fertility drug called Neolamane. It was this same drug that had helped Jill conceive after years of trying.

  Was it possible that the drug had had some effect on the babies it produced?

  “I have a lot of questions to ask,” Jill said out loud.

  But whom could she ask? Whom could she trust? It was just a chance she had to take, but she had to find out everything she could about the drug. It would be hours until nightfall, and no amount of viewing through the telescope had produced the sight of a child. With a new lead to follow, Jill packed the car up again and headed back down the mountain. She would return this evening, but in the meantime,
she’d spend the day following up on the LaMane Center.

  When she arrived back in Albuquerque, she headed into the campus in search of Maureen Provost Swanson. Perhaps the teacher had access to the school’s computers, where she might find some information. She left her car in the parking lot, everything locked safely in her trunk. If anyone had followed her here, she didn’t want to advertise her intentions by leaving the telescope and camping gear in plain sight.

  Jill found Maureen in the teacher’s lounge, grabbing a quick lunch between classes. The woman smiled to greet her, waving her into the room.

  “What happened?” Maureen asked eagerly. “Did you learn anything?”

  “You were right about my being followed,” Jill said. “Someone broke into my room last night.”

  Maureen gasped. A couple sitting at the opposite end of the table turned to look her way, then refocused their attentions on each other. Maureen lowered her voice and spoke again. “Was anything stolen?”

  Jill shook her head. “He didn’t touch a thing. He was there for one reason only: to get rid of me, or at least to frighten the hell out of me.”

  Jill related what had occurred, watching Maureen’s brown eyes grow rounder with each sentence.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” Maureen said. “But what are you going to do now? Do you need a place to stay?”

  “I’m as fine as I can be right now,” Jill answered. “As to my accommodations, those are being provided by Mother Nature. I’m setting up camp in the mountains, right above the LaMane Center. Bought myself a fancy telescope and a good supply of camping gear.”

  Maureen grinned. “Good for you. But what brings you to the university?”

  “I think I might have made a connection, at last,” Jill said. “LaMane is the name of a company that produces a fertility drug called Neolamane. I took it before conceiving Ryan. So I need an ‘in’ at your science or math department, to ask if anyone knows about the drug.”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Maureen said. “It just so happens that Steve teaches computer programming.”

  When Jill was introduced to Steven Swanson, her immediate thought was that he looked like a young, slim Rod Steiger. But when he spoke, his mellifluous tones were more like Leonard Nimoy’s. He was more than happy to help her. When Maureen left them to return to her classes, he led Jill to an array of humming computers.

  “This one is on a bulletin board,” he explained, sitting before a monitor. It was blank except for a blinking cursor. Steven punched in a code, and a menu began to scroll.

  “Can you patch into the LaMane Center’s computer?”

  “If they have one,” Steven said. “And if it is necessary. But first, this drug of which you spoke. Neolamane?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Aha! Here it is.” He typed a few more letters, and an adjacent printer began to hum and click. Moments later, he pulled out a three-page report entitled “Neolamane—A five-year Market Study.”

  “This is fantastic,” Jill said. “How can I thank you?”

  “Just get your child back,” Steven said. “It will be the only thing to make my sister-in-law’s death worth something.”

  Eager to know the contents of the printout, Jill thanked Steven again and hurried outside to find a place to sit. A beautiful pond attracted her, filled with mallards and surrounded by trees and benches. She sat on one of them and began to read.

  What she found was so shocking that she had to go over the paper twice. Neolamane had turned out to be a pharmaceutical nightmare, almost a reincarnation of the Thalidomide scare, but on a different scale.

  She realized now that her beloved Ryan had been brought into the world by the work of evil.

  30

  “DID YOU SEE THAT?”

  “What happened?”

  “That crazy guy jumped right through that window.”

  The crowd that had disembarked a flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth suddenly took notice of the mayhem in the souvenir boutique. The window was cracked in a pattern of rays as if a bullet had gone through it, but instead of a bullet, a body hung suspended in the glass. The legs dangled grotesquely, like a pair of pants set into a wall for display. They were soaked with blood, dripping from the belt down to the shoes, down to the floor.

  People shoved and jostled to get a closer look, but one woman stood frozen in the midst of the crowd. They had not seen what Lillian had just witnessed. Somehow, they had seen only the aftermath of Stuart backing out of the window, and it had appeared he was jumping through it. In the instant that Lillian had screamed, the crowd had come out of a strange kind of mass hypnosis.

  “Well, for God’s sake, get help,” someone yelled.

  “I already called the police,” said Tito Puerto, the airport security guard on duty.

  “Is he okay? Is he alive?”

  Please let him be alive! How can I tell Beth her father is dead? And her grandfather! Oscar!

  “Oscar,” Lillian screamed. She pushed through the crowd, crying out her husband’s name.

  Gasps and cries of shock rang through the lobby as the bystanders wondered if it had been her husband who had acted so insanely. Up to now, no one had gone near the window. There was an underlying fear among the travelers, something keeping them back. But Lillian was beyond fear now. Oscar and Stuart had been hurt. She had to help them.

  She reached out and touched Stuart’s leg.

  With a resounding thunk the lower half of Stuart’s body fell to the floor. He had been bisected at the waist.

  Lillian doubled over and began to retch. Screams raced through the crowd, cries of dismay rose up from children as their mothers quickly turned them away from the sight. There were shouts, the wail of sirens, and at last a group of uniformed police officers appeared.

  “It’s really bad, Chief Vermont,” Tito said, his Hispanic complexion having gone shades lighter.

  The young guard had graduated from the police academy only a year ago, and he had never witnessed anything like this. Even Chief of Police Lou Vermont, a seasoned veteran with thirty years under his utility belt, stiffened in horror at the sight. He’d seen terrible accidents—mountain climbers at the bottom of ravines, skiers who had landed headfirst in shallow snow—but nothing, nothing so nightmarish.

  Still, he had to take control.

  “George, get something to cover him up,” he ordered, his voice taking on a steady, professional tone. He turned to the crowd and barked like the marine sergeant he’d once been: “All right, clear out. There’s nothing here to see.”

  “What happened?” a woman in the crowd demanded.

  “That’s what I’m here to find out,” the guard said.

  Tito had found some garbage bags and helped George cover the remains.

  The other half’s inside. The half with his head.

  The woman who’d asked the question, tapped the chief’s shoulder. She pointed to Lillian, who was crouched down on the floor, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

  “I think that’s his wife,” she said.

  Lou nodded.

  Tito, happy to get away from the gory sight, went to help her up. “Is that your husband?” he asked gently.

  Lillian shook her head, staring at the floor with tear-filled eyes.

  “She says it’s not her husband, Chief,” Tito said. “Who is it then, ma’am?”

  Lillian could only muster the faintest squeak of a voice. “Son-in-law.”

  “Sit her down and stay with her until help comes,” Lou said. He opened the door of the boutique and stepped inside. From the corner of his eye, he saw a face staring across the floor, the mouth agape in a silent scream. He wouldn’t look at it. Let the medical examiner’s people take care of it.

  Lou sidled over to the remains, squinting as he threw another garbage bag over Stuart’s head. Now that the hideous thing was out of sight, he took a deep breath and went about his investigation. Within moments, he found Oscar’s body.

  Lou got to his knees a
nd pressed his ear against the man’s chest. There was only a thready whisper of a heartbeat. He jumped to his feet.

  “Get that stretcher in here,” he cried. “We’ve got another one in here, but he’s alive. Heart attack.”

  The cop named George took off.

  “Is this the store-owner?” a police woman asked Lou.

  “I guess so,” Lou said. “I’m still looking around.”

  As they lifted the man onto a stretcher, Lou continued his investigation. The boutique was a shambles. Toy animals had been thrown in every direction, some crushed or ripped. When he heard a wailing noise, he looked out to see the woman running to the stretcher.

  “What in the name of God happened here?” he asked out loud.

  Lou found the store-owner behind his counter. Four parallel lines of blood ran down the front of his shredded shirt. His head was thrown so far back it touched his spine, unhinged by a gaping, bleeding hole. Lou blinked and tried to understand what he was seeing. It couldn’t be possible, and yet . . .

  “My God,” he said out loud, “he looks like he’s been mauled by a wildcat.”

  There would be no way of knowing just what happened until the forensic team finished its work. Lou left the store to them and went out to start asking questions. One of his officers had already begun. He came to his senior partner, shaking his head.

  “No one saw a thing,” he said. “They heard glass breaking and looked up to see the guy halfway into the window. No one even saw him take the jump.”

  “How can you miss something like this?” Lou demanded. “That store looks like the end of the Third World War. And no one heard anything?”

  The younger cop shook his head, as befuddled as his senior partner.

  A few miles away, someone else was fighting confusion. With Dr. Adams gone now, Michael Colpan was better able to explain the strange feeling that had overcome him. He sat on the couch in his father’s office, still wearing his jacket.