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  Jill’s mind was not so occupied that she missed the quaint charm of Old Town. There was a Spanish feeling everywhere, from the Church of San Felipe de Neri to shops selling everything from turquoise jewelry to rattlesnake eggs. On impulse, Jill went into a store and browsed through the souvenirs. She wanted to buy something for Ryan, something to celebrate their reunion. Jill reached for a set of hand-carved building blocks, each with a design of Mexican origin. Ryan had always loved building blocks . . .

  She stopped herself. Somehow, she’d forgotten Ryan was ten years old now. Ten! The shock of seeing the change in him, when her mind was fixed with an image of a three-year-old, might be almost too much to bear. But she’d know Ryan when she saw him. She was sure of that. What would Ryan be interested in now? There would be so much to learn about him. Then she remembered how, even as a little kid, he loved building things. She spotted a kit for a model Conestoga wagon and took it to the sales counter. After paying for it, she walked across the road to the plaza that centered Old Town. She looked around and found no sign of the man who had been following her. Still, she couldn’t take a chance. This was so damned frustrating. Every moment that went by was another moment without Ryan.

  The aromas wafting from a nearby Mexican restaurant reminded her of how little she’d eaten since that morning. She left the plaza and went to have a late lunch. The restaurant was small, each table set with a terra-cotta candle molded in the shape of a dove. Jill ordered and sat looking out the window. In a few moments, she spotted the man who’d been looking for her. And he was headed straight for the restaurant.

  She gazed at him through the wrought-iron gates that surrounded the windows. He stood on the sidewalk for a few moments, as if considering whether or not he would dine here.

  Jill set her teeth hard. If he did come in, she’d confront him. She couldn’t play the victim forever.

  The waitress brought her order. “Are you Jill Sheldon?”

  Jill’s heart leapt. “Yes—yes I am. How—?”

  “There was a message for you,” the waitress said. “It was left at the front desk just a few minutes after you came in.”

  The woman handed her a folded piece of paper.

  “Who left it?” Jill asked. “Do you know what he looked like?”

  “I’m sorry,” the waitress said. “The waiter who took the note just went off-duty.”

  Jill thanked her and tore open the envelope:

  We know you are here. Stay away from the center and Ryan will be safe. You must give up your search, for your efforts will only result in the death of your son. And this time, it won’t be a trick.

  Jill crumpled up the note. When she looked out the window again, the man was gone.

  Suddenly, she had lost her appetite. Asking the waitress to wrap the dinner for her, Jill paid her bill and quickly left the restaurant. Now was the time to get out of here, when her follower was certain she was still eating lunch. Maybe he was watching her right now, but he’d never get to his own car fast enough to catch up to her.

  As she left Old Town and turned onto the highway again, Jill realized to her relief that she was right. No one was following her. She made her way back up into the Sandias again, ready to continue her vigil.

  Upon arriving at her campsite, Jill hoisted the telescope from the trunk of her car and began to spread the legs of its tripod. Though there hadn’t been much to see this morning, she hoped the aging day would bring more activity down in the center. She looked down into the valley, then trained the lens of the telescope in its direction. For a few moments, she gazed through the lens at a woman working in a desert garden. She was removing debris from the blanket of rocks surrounding her cactus plants, bits of feathers and twigs and dust that had rolled into her yard. Momentarily, the woman looked over her shoulder. Slowly, Jill moved the telescope. There was a child, at last! A girl with long, dark hair and a rather plain expression. When she came near to the woman, Jill saw she was as tall as her mother, but bore no resemblance at all to her. Jill wished she could read lips, aching to know what was being said. The telescope revealed two books held tightly in the child’s arms.

  “School,” Jill cried, her voice sending a flutter of birds up out of a nearby juniper.

  That was why she hadn’t seen any children earlier. They were in school. Was it possible that the LaMane people were actually educating their victims?

  “Educating them to do what?” Jill asked, speaking softly.

  Jill took her viewing position again and began a slow survey. Indeed, there were more and more children appearing on the streets. Some alone, some in pairs or clusters, just like normal schoolchildren at the end of a long day of classes. But there was something wrong here . . . Jill immediately saw that none of the children was running, that they moved in an orderly fashion down the main road of the center, branching off onto side streets to approach their homes.

  Their homes. Did Ryan think of a house down there as his home? Did he remember at all that there had been another place, a farm in the Midwest? Was there even the vaguest memory of a mother who had loved him dearly?

  Something suddenly occurred to her, and she sat back so abruptly that she sent the telescope swinging on the tripod in a wide arc. Ryan had been an active boy, and as talkative as any three-year-old. He wouldn’t have just gone off with someone without a fight. The fact that they’d been successful in taking him suggested something so horrible that Jill thought she could feel her flesh icing over. Brainwashing! They must have done something to make Ryan completely forget his home and family. And Jill had no doubt Jeffrey had just handed their son over to these bastards—probably walked away from them, thinking he was home free, unaware they’d booby-trapped his car.

  But there was another question, one more on a pile of questions reaching sky high. Witnesses to Jeffrey’s accident said they had seen a child in the car. Jill knew now that the child wasn’t Ryan. Then who was it?

  Or had there ever even been a child at all? Craig Dylan had said the whole investigation was suspicious to him. If only she could have spoken further with him! Everything he’d said had been true. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get Ryan. How many people had accepted bribes to look the other way? How many witnesses changed their story about what they saw in Jeffrey’s car after unclean money entered their pockets? It was unfathomable to Jill that anyone could be so full of hatred toward an innocent little boy.

  She looked up at the sky, fighting angry tears. A silent vow was made under the majestic pines: no matter what it took, she would get Ryan back.

  35

  JENNY, MICHAEL, AND TOMMY HUDDLED TOGETHER in a small cave, listening to the sounds of shouts and running footsteps. They were hidden by more than the darkness of the alcove. Their own special talents went to work for them now, in a way they never could when each was trapped in the green chair at the clinic.

  Tommy rustled bushes to make their pursuers move in certain directions.

  Michael woke a sleeping lizard and sent him scurrying, so that the grown-ups would think someone frightened it.

  And Jenny, recognizing voices outside, put her mind to picturing exactly where everyone was. But she’d been doing it for several hours now, and she was exhausted. Her head hurt, she was cold and hungry, and she really wanted to go back home. She stretched a little in the darkness, accidentally kicking Michael.

  “Hey!”

  “Shh!”

  Jenny mumbled an apology. “How long do we have to stay here?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Until my dad comes to get us,” Michael said. “He knows I ran away, so he’ll be looking for me.”

  “Sure, so he can take you back to the center,” Tommy grumbled. “Just like those other grown-ups out there.”

  “Not my dad,” Michael insisted. “He was trying to get me out of that place. He said there was a lot of stuff he had to tell me, but before he could, Dr. Adams got him.”

  Jenny shivered. She could just barely make out the outlines of the boys�
�� faces. There was an odd shape behind Michael’s head, and it took her a moment to realize he was using his backpack like a pillow.

  “Maybe Dr. Adams locked him up,” she suggested worriedly. “Maybe he can’t come to us. You said they were really fighting.”

  “My dad’s strong,” Michael insisted, though there was a hint of doubt in his voice. “He can get out of anything. And he’ll come for us. I know he will.”

  “But he doesn’t know where we are,” Jenny said.

  There was a long silence, almost heavy enough to mask the sounds outside—a coyote howling, wind blowing, human shouts.

  “Did you try calling him with your mind?” Jenny finally asked.

  Michael nodded, the movement of his head making the backpack rustle. “He didn’t answer me,” he said. “I don’t know why. I never called him like that before, so maybe he can’t answer me. I mean, not like that lady with the brown hair always answered you.”

  “I wish she was here now,” Jenny said. “I’m sure she’d help us.”

  “She is an Outsider,” Tommy pointed out.

  “Big deal,” Michael cried. The other two shushed him in unison. He whispered, “So, what’s an Outsider? Something Dr. Adams made up. We know the guy’s a creep, so why should we believe anything he said to us? Jenny, even if I can’t find my dad, maybe you can get that lady. Maybe she can help us.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “We sure can’t stay here forever,” Tommy insisted. “Listen, they’re moving farther away. I say we make a run for it. Head through the mountains and head for the city.”

  “Albuquerque,” Michael said. “My dad’s been there. I think that’s where we were go—”

  Unexpectedly, the reality of what was happening hit the little boy full force. His voice cracked and soft squeals filled the darkness.

  Jenny put her arms around him. “It’s okay, Michael,” she said. “We’ll see your dad again. As soon as we can figure out what’s going on at the center, we’ll find a way to contact him. I’ll picture him in my mind and tell you where he is.”

  Michael shivered in her arms.

  “Why haven’t you done it yet?” Tommy demanded. “That’d be a good idea.”

  “I did,” Jenny said softly.

  Michael pulled away from her. The wall of the cave felt cold as he pressed his back against it.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I—I didn’t see anything,” Jenny answered. “I tried to picture him, but I could see only darkness. I don’t know what that means, Michael.”

  “I do,” Tommy said. He felt a push in the darkness.

  “No,” Michael snapped. “My daddy’s okay. I know he is.”

  “Well, look,” Tommy said, “whatever’s happening, we gotta get out of here. I’ll see if the coast is clear, then we run for that bunch of cactus and yucca plants over there. See them?”

  Jenny and Michael said they did. Tommy crawled to the cave’s opening and peered out. The moonlight washed yellow-white over the bare land, casting sharp-lined shadows of cactus and rock. There wasn’t a sign of the grown-ups.

  “They’ve gone on to someplace else,” he whispered. “Come on!”

  In a flash, the children were running across the brightly lit ground, not letting themselves think how vulnerable they were. They grouped behind a huge boulder to catch their breath and to listen with both ears and minds.

  Jenny pictured one of the grown-ups down at the roadside. She gasped.

  “What?” Tommy hissed.

  “My mother,” she said. “My mother’s in the search party. Why?”

  “ ’Cause she’s your mother, dummy,” Tommy said.

  Jenny shook her head. “No. There’s something bad there, I can feel it. She’s angry. Not worried about me, angry!” Jenny shuddered, making a disgusted face and rubbing quickly at her upper arms. “I—I don’t like what my mind is telling me about her. I don’t understand it.”

  “No time to figure it out,” Michael said. “Let’s go.”

  Michael was first to move out from behind the boulder. Jenny went next, all the while praying her mother was out to help, not harm her. Somehow, she couldn’t believe it. Thoughts of her mother’s anger frightened her, and as she ran, she searched her mind for her father’s presence. He wasn’t there.

  Both children reached the cactus grove and turned to look for Tommy. But their friend was still back at the boulder, frozen. Jenny grabbed Michael’s arm and squeezed it tightly, pointing.

  Michael was being held at bay by one of the center’s guard dogs. The hunkering rottweiler paced slowly back and forth, blocking Tommy’s path to his friends. A deep growl started in the animal’s barrel chest, so soft it could hardly be heard above the wind.

  With all his might, Michael tried to send a thought message to his friend.

  Kill it, Tommy! You’ve got to kill it, before it barks. If the grown-ups hear. . . .

  Kill it, Tommy!

  The little boy stood solid, unmoving, his eyes fixed on the snarling beast. Kill it? Michael sounded just like the grown-ups in the lab, who made him do things he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to kill the dog. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wanted . . . he wanted . . .

  He wanted his mother. His eyes squeezed shut and an image came to his mind. Not of the woman he knew as his mother, strangely, but of another woman: a pretty one with red-brown hair and green eyes and a heavy plaid coat. She was standing in front of him—no, kneeling. She was kneeling, but he was looking right into her eyes, as if he were very small. He wanted her.

  Who was she?

  The dog let out one bark.

  “Tommy!”

  Tommy’s eyes snapped open. Without another moment’s thought, he glared hard at the dog. The animal’s next bark was cut in half. The broad body jerked left, then right, then clunked to the ground. It began to slither across the dirt, leaving a trail of drool and wild scratches where its toes clawed the ground. It started to hiss, snakelike, tongue darting in and out of its mouth.

  Tommy rounded it on cardboard legs, racing toward his friend. He hadn’t killed the dog, but with his powers he had made it behave like a slow-moving snake.

  36

  THE FIRST THINGS RALPH COLPAN WAS AWARE OF were the taste of blood on a badly swollen lower lip and a thumping pain behind his left eye. Slowly, sniffling through a broken nose, he got onto his hands and knees. He groped around in the darkness for some sense of where he was. Because he had designed the building himself, Ralph immediately recognized the room behind the examination area. It was the one where “victims” were placed, at whom the children were instructed to direct their powers.

  Carefully, he got to his feet, reaching out for support. His hand touched the cold glass of the window. It was a one-way mirror through which the children could be observed. Ralph’s head felt like a rock, his forehead falling heavily against the glass. They’d drugged him after the beating, he knew. He remembered the needle . . .

  The light came on in the examination room. Ralph’s head jerked up so quickly that screaming pain shot through it and he was forced to steady himself against the mirror. Blood stained the cold glass.

  Adams had returned. He was dragging a red-haired kid by the back of his neck.

  “Mich—ael,” Ralph croaked.

  But when the child looked up, he saw that it wasn’t Michael at all. It could have been Michael, with shorter hair and ten pounds skinnier. It could have been Michael . . . if it hadn’t been a girl.

  Michael’s twin.

  Ralph’s mouth dropped as far open as his injuries would allow. He tried to call out, but the drug was still too much a captor to let him. He realized, somewhere in the fog he was in, that Adams had never expected him to wake up so soon.

  The speaker. He had to hear what the little girl was saying. The buttons on the control panel were like colorful tropical fish, swimming in every direction. By sheer will he poked his finger at a black one. Static filled the darkened room, then a
child’s voice.

  “You’d better let me go, mister. My daddy’ll put you in jail. All of you.”

  Dr. Adams laughed. “Your daddy isn’t going to do anything to anyone, little girl. Dead people don’t cause trouble.”

  “No,” Beth cried. “You’re a liar. And when my mom sees I’m not at the police station . . .”

  “Oh, but that’s another mistake, Elizabeth,” Dr. Adams said.

  Elizabeth, Ralph thought. Her name is Elizabeth. What’s Michael’s real name?

  “Your mother isn’t at the police station. We took her for a little ride, even gave her something to calm her down. But we can kill her, Elizabeth. We can kill her as easily as we killed your father and grandfather.”

  Beth’s lower lip began to quiver.

  “You—you didn’t kill them!”

  “Oh, I’m afraid we did,” Adams said.

  Ralph had never noticed it before, but there was something maniacal about the man. Not just mesmerizing, as he’d been when Ralph first met him, but downright evil.

  “But you can save your mother, Elizabeth,” Adams said. “You can save her, and Peter, too.”

  Peter! That’s my son’s real name.

  “Just call him back here, Elizabeth,” Adams ordered. “Use your telepathic powers and tell him you’re being held prisoner. He’ll come to you.”

  Beth glared at him. “I won’t do it. You go to hell, you jerk.”

  The slap was so hard that even Ralph stumbled. Beth gaped at her captor, unbelieving. Then she burst into tears, wailing so loudly that Ralph turned down the speaker’s volume. If only there were a way out of this room . . . If only he could get to the little girl without being seen . . . Adams’ talk had given him hope, because he realized now that Michael had somehow gotten away. He could use this child’s help.

  Adams’ hand went up again. “Stop that confounded crying.”

  Beth wailed more loudly.