John Saul

by The Presence (v5) (epub)

  “I’m fine,” Michael insisted.

  “If you’re ‘fine,’ then why were you having such a hard time breathing?” Katharine demanded, her fear giving way to anger as she remembered the torment she’d gone through. “And do you have any idea how many times I picked up the phone to call the police?”

  Michael stifled a groan.

  “But I didn’t,” Katharine went on. “I kept reminding myself that you’re not a little boy, and that I have to stop thinking of you as if you were still sick all the time.” Her eyes fixed on his. “So I didn’t call them. Instead I sat here and worried myself half to death.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mom,” Michael began again. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I—”

  “Don’t tell me anything,” Katharine interrupted. “Just don’t argue about going to see a doctor in the morning, all right?”

  A glare of headlights appeared through the window. “I thought you said you didn’t call anyone.” Michael, already on his feet, was starting toward his room, suddenly embarrassed about being clad in his underwear.

  “I didn’t call the police,” Katharine told him. “But I had to call someone.”

  A car door slammed, and a moment later Rob Silver appeared at the front door. “I’ve changed my mind,” he began. “I really think we ought to call the police. If he’s out—”

  “He’s back,” Katharine told him. “He came in about five minutes ago. And he seems to be okay. But I’m taking him to see a doctor in the morning.”

  Rob nodded. “I’ll call Stephen Jameson first thing,” he said. “He’s the best doctor on the island, and he works for Takeo Yoshihara.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  “All he’s going to do is tell you I’m fine, and then you really are going to look like an overprotective mother,” Michael groused. “Why don’t you just drop me off at school?”

  “In case you didn’t notice,” Katharine observed archly, “we’re going in exactly the opposite direction. And as for me being overprotective, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Given your medical history, I think your difficulty breathing last night is a perfectly legitimate cause for concern. And since Dr. Jameson agreed with me, that settles it.”

  The argument had been going on ever since breakfast, when Rob Silver, who had spent the rest of the night on the Sundquists’ sofa, had called Stephen Jameson, then turned the phone over to Katharine. Michael had listened in silence as she set up the appointment, and wondered if someone at Takeo Yoshihara’s estate might have seen him last night and would recognize him this morning. After all, something had told them he was there last night, and brought the guards looking for him.

  What if they actually had pictures of him?

  There were cameras that could do that—cameras that could photograph things in a lot less light than there’d been last night.

  But wouldn’t they have called the police if they had pictures?

  Though he’d done his best to talk her out of it, and knew he was now skating on pretty thin ice, Michael figured he might as well take one last shot at it. “There’s a school bus stop right up there,” he said, pointing to a yellow sign a hundred yards farther along the road. “If you just drop me off—”

  “I’m not going to drop you off, and I’m getting tired of arguing about it,” Katharine cut in.

  Michael, watching the bus stop slide by, and hearing the finality in his mother’s voice, gave up the argument and reached out to turn on the car radio. An announcer was just finishing a report on the mayor’s assessments of the island’s economic condition, and Michael was about to change the station when the newscaster’s voice took on a somber note. “Two local men died in the scheduled burning of a Maui sugarcane field last night. Their bodies were recovered this morning from a field off the Haleakala Highway. Their names are being withheld pending notification of their families. In an unrelated incident, a Makawao boy has been reported missing by his mother. Jeff Kina left his home around nine o’clock last night, and police confirm that he was one of three boys questioned in relation to the death of Kioki Santoya, whose body was found early yesterday. Though there is currently no evidence connecting the Kina boy’s disappearance to the death of young Kioki Santoya, police are not yet ruling out the possibility that these two incidents are related. Anyone who might have seen Jeff Kina, who is described as being six feet two inches tall and weighing 225 pounds, should contact the Maui Sheriff’s Department immediately.

  “In other news …”

  But Michael was no longer listening.

  What was going on? Jeff was missing? He glanced over at his mother. Should he tell her he knew both Jeff and Kioki? That they’d both been with him the night before last?

  But then he’d have to tell her everything. And when she found out he’d not only gone out diving at night, but broken into a dive shop—

  No! Josh had known where the key was, and they hadn’t broken in!

  But they might as well have.

  He was still struggling with what, if anything, he should tell his mother about Kioki and Jeff when he saw the gate to Takeo Yoshihara’s estate swing open. But his mother hadn’t pressed any buttons on the sun visor, or anywhere else that he could see. “Where’s the remote control?” he asked, a knot of apprehension forming in his stomach.

  “There isn’t one,” Katharine told him. “The car has some gadget on it that the gate can sense.”

  “You’re kidding,” Michael breathed. His eyes were already searching for signs of the cameras that he now was certain must be keeping watch over the grounds. “Does it know who you are, too?” He tried to keep his voice casual. “Or do they have cameras?”

  Katharine glanced quizzically at Michael out of the corner of her eye. “I hardly think they need cameras,” she said. Yet as they went into the lobby of the building she’d been in yesterday with Rob Silver, her eyes—almost of their own volition—scanned the corners where security cameras would most likely be.

  They were there.

  But why wouldn’t they be, she wondered, given the collection of art housed in the lobby? There were at least half a dozen sculptures scattered through the vast space, cabinets filled with priceless artifacts stood against the walls, and the painting that hung behind the desk where a private security officer sat looked like it might be a Vlaminck. The security guard himself—the same one who’d been on duty yesterday when she and Rob had gone to Rob’s office to use the computer—looked up, then smiled as he recognized her.

  “Morning, Dr. Sundquist. Dr. Jameson’s already in his office.” He gestured in the opposite direction from the wing in which Rob Silver’s office was located. “Third door on the right.”

  A beautiful Eurasian woman of perhaps thirty sat at a desk behind the door the guard had indicated. “I’m Jade Quinn,” she said, standing up and offering her hand to Katharine as they came into the spacious office. “Steve Jameson’s nurse, secretary, and all-around gofer.” She smiled at Michael. “You must be Michael, but you certainly don’t look very sick.”

  “See?” Michael said to Katharine. “I told you. Can we go now? If we hurry, I won’t miss second period.”

  “Not quite that easily,” Katharine observed. “Is Dr. Jameson here yet?”

  “In the building, but not quite in the office yet,” the nurse replied, smiling apologetically. She rose and led them to a door leading to an inner office. “If you’ll just make yourselves comfortable, I’m sure Dr. Jameson will be here in a minute or two.”

  Katharine and Michael stepped into a room that looked nothing like an ordinary doctor’s office. Decorated like a comfortable den, its three interior walls were paneled in koa, and the outside wall was made up of French doors opening onto an elegantly laid-out Zen garden. The gravel was perfectly raked, and the stones, though apparently natural at first glance, had actually been subtly carved into abstract forms that both arrested and soothed the eye. Just as Katharine and Michael were about to seat themselves on a de
ep leather-upholstered sofa, the door from the receptionist’s office opened and Stephen Jameson stepped in.

  “Dr. Sundquist,” he said, taking Katharine’s hand in his and gripping it warmly. “So nice to meet you. Sorry to be late—I was just finishing something up in the lab downstairs. And you must be Michael,” he continued, releasing his grip on Katharine’s hand to extend his hand toward Michael. “Steve Jameson.”

  “Hi,” Michael said, briefly shaking the doctor’s hand. “Look, I’m really sorry Mom called you—”

  “Suppose I be the judge of whether she should have called me or not?” Jameson interrupted. He tipped his head toward a door set into a wall that was otherwise filled with bookshelves. “Why don’t you go in there and take your shirt off, then we’ll have a look.” When Michael was gone, he gestured Katharine into one of the two chairs in front of his desk, dropped something that looked like a plastic card into the top drawer of a credenza, then seated himself in the chair opposite Katharine. “Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”

  Katharine related the story as briefly as she could as Jameson jotted a few notes. Then she waited in the office as the doctor followed Michael into the next room.

  Half an hour later, Dr. Jameson’s examination of Michael finished, he lowered his large frame into the chair behind his desk and waited until Michael, still buttoning his shirt, emerged from the other room and took the chair next to his mother. Jameson winked at him, then turned to Katharine.

  “Well, I’ve done as much poking, prodding, and peering as I can, and I’ve listened to practically every inch of his lungs. I had Jade take a set of X rays, which she should be finished cooking in a few more minutes. The blood and urine samples will take a little longer, but unless something unexpected shows up, I don’t see anything for you to be worried about.”

  “But last night—”

  “Last night he had a nightmare, and bad dreams can make for some of the worst noises you’ve ever heard,” Jameson interrupted. The door to the examining room opened and Jade Quinn appeared, holding a large sheet of film which she placed on a light box built into one of the walls. “Why don’t we take a look?” the doctor suggested.

  As far as Katharine could tell, the picture showed Michael’s lungs looking no different than they had the last time they’d been X-rayed in New York. “Considering his history of asthma, they’re in remarkably good shape,” she heard Jameson say. “And his lung capacity, though not quite up to where I’d like it to be, isn’t anything to worry about, either. All in all, I’d have to say he’s in very good health.”

  Katharine felt a surge of relief.

  “Then can I go to school now?” Michael asked.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can.”

  “And my mother can stop worrying about me every second of the day?”

  Jameson smiled. “I’m just a doctor,” he said. “There are some things even I can’t stop.”

  Katharine stood up. “I guess maybe I overreacted last night,” she said, extending her hand to the doctor. “I can’t thank you enough for taking a look, though.”

  Jameson spread his hands in a dismissive gesture. “Glad to be of service. And please feel free to call me anytime.” He walked them to the door of the office, nodded a final good-bye as they left, then returned to his desk and picked up the phone.

  “I’ve finished my examination of the boy,” he said when the call was answered at the other end. “It appears that he, too, has somehow been exposed to the project.”

  “How is that possible?” Takeo Yoshihara demanded.

  “I’m sure I don’t know, since security is not my department,” Jameson replied. “But nonetheless, it seems to have happened.”

  For a long moment Takeo Yoshihara said nothing. Then: “For now, we will take no action. We will watch him, as we are watching the others. We’re far too close to success to run any risks now,” he said. “If it becomes necessary, we will dispose of him.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  “You’re really sure you’re all right?” Katharine fretted as she pulled the Explorer to a stop in the school’s parking lot. Despite the doctor’s assurances, she couldn’t convince herself that her son’s terrible wheezing last night had been caused by nothing more than a bad dream.

  “I’m fine,” Michael insisted for at least the fourth time since they’d left the estate. Grabbing his book bag from the backseat, he swung out of the car and slammed the door. Then he opened it again and stuck his head back in. “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened last night, Mom. I didn’t mean to scare you, and I won’t do it again. But you’ve got to stop worrying about me every minute of the day. I’m really okay now.”

  Katharine sighed and stretched in the driver’s seat. Her whole body felt as tired and sore as if she’d already been crouching over the skeleton up in the ravine all day, instead of still having that job to look forward to. “I’ll try,” she agreed. Before she could say anything more, Michael glanced at his watch, waved to her, then turned and started toward the building. She watched him until he’d disappeared inside, still unable to shake the feeling that, despite his assurances, there was something he wasn’t telling her, something he was keeping to himself. But as she started out of the parking lot a moment later, she told herself that maybe the problem wasn’t Michael at all.

  Maybe it was her.

  She hadn’t gotten more than an hour’s sleep last night—maybe two—and she felt bone weary already. And she still had an entire day of work ahead, moving the skeleton from the site in the ravine into the safety of Rob’s office. But the very thought of spending the rest of the day stooped over the bones, carefully freeing them from their shallow grave, only made her feel even more exhausted. Finally she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and called Rob. “I’ve got a deal for you,” she said. “If you can get the skeleton collected without me, I’ll fix you dinner tonight. I think I’m getting too old to stay up all night and then work in the field all day.”

  “Not a problem,” he replied. “Go home. By this afternoon I’ll have it all moved indoors. See you later.”

  Dropping the phone back in her bag, Katharine pulled out of the parking lot, remembering as she was starting up the road toward her house that the only things in the refrigerator were a half gallon of milk, a few eggs, and a six-pack of Cokes. Taking a deep breath, she made a right half a mile farther on and headed for the market in Kula, wondering whether Rob would prefer steak or chicken.

  Hearing her name half an hour later as she was pushing the cart through the last aisle of the grocery store, Katharine looked up in surprise. The man who was smiling at her looked familiar, but for a moment she couldn’t quite place him.

  “Phil Howell,” he said, reading her confusion. “Astronomer? Friend of Rob Silver’s?”

  “Of course,” Katharine assured him, her memory finally putting it together. “Sorry—I’m afraid I was up all night. In fact, I’m on my way home to sleep the entire day.”

  “Lucky you,” Howell sighed. “I’ve been on top of the mountain all night, and now I’ve got about five hours of work on the supercomputer down in Kihei.”

  Katharine cocked her head. “Kihei? Isn’t that down by the water on the other side of the island? I thought the computer was up on the mountain.”

  “I wish,” Howell sighed. “But our guys only use a little tiny part of it. Most of it’s being used by everyone else. Schoolkids, business types—you name it. It’s an amazing machine—you can do anything with it if you know how.”

  Katharine went silent, the image she’d seen on the monitor in Rob’s office popping into the forefront of her mind: the skull, and the strange video file that had been linked to it, both of which had mysteriously vanished from the screen, defying even Rob’s ability to reconstruct the file. Now an idea was forming in her mind. “How good are you with that computer?” she asked.

  “A lot better than I wish, actually,” Phil Howell said wryly. “I spend far mo
re time on the computer than I do with my telescopes these days. What do you need?”

  Katharine told him about the file that had disappeared yesterday. “Do you think there’s any way of finding out where it came from?” she asked.

  Howell thought for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he mused. “But practically everything that goes through the Net gets cached one place or another. If we can find the right cache record—”

  Suddenly, the exhaustion Katharine had felt only a moment ago evaporated. If Phil Howell could find that file for her again—or even just the location of it—she’d at least have a chance of figuring out what the strange skull she’d uncovered in the ravine might be. “Could we do it this morning?”

  “If we don’t do it this morning, I suspect there’s practically no chance we’ll find it,” Howell told her. “The caches are all timed to dump after a set period of time, which I suspect isn’t any more than twenty-four hours. But it could be a lot less.”

  “Then let’s go,” Katharine said. Abandoning the rest of her shopping, she headed for the checkout stand.

  If dinner wasn’t very interesting, Rob and Michael would just have to deal with it.

  Josh Malani’s whole body hurt.

  Instinctively trying to escape the pain, he drew his knees up to his chest, but that only hurt more. Then, as he came fully awake and felt the heat of the sun on his face, he knew why he hurt.

  He wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t even home.

  He was in the back of his truck, which was parked in the lot at Makena Beach.

  Slowly, as if he were thumbing through a stack of snapshots, the memories of last night came back to him.

  Feeling kind of funny when he’d left Mike Sundquist’s place.

  Picking up Jeff, and taking off into the night.

  The burning cane field that had been vomiting fire and smoke into the air.

  The images flashed faster: glimpses of Jeff, getting out of the truck.