There are so many things I still want to ask him.
2
Dr. Kline opened the Cadillac’s door before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. Despite the darkness, he felt no disorientation as he stepped out into the cool Hanover air. He was home. The Hitchcock medical center was there, just to his right. Carlisle’s office – or what had been his office – was in that small outcropping at the side. Everything looked exactly as he remembered it, and he could feel his focus returning. He forgot about Martin, shook off those last few awful hours in the car, and even stopped thinking about the dog phase that was now letting him smell every organic compound within a 500-yard radius.
He was here. He was ready.
There was only one, simple goal left: find and eliminate all traces of the experiment. It felt good to be clear-headed again. Purposeful. He would start with an investigation of Carlisle’s office, and then –
“There’s someone. Ask that guy.” A voice coming up behind him. A young, worried voice. “Sir, do you work at Hitchcock? We need help.”
Dr. Kline turned quickly, ready to lie. Ready to tell whoever this was that he knew nothing about the medical center. Anything to be left alone so that he could go about his business. His focus was so complete, he almost missed the strange sound of that voice. It was familiar, somehow. As if he were listening to a younger version of himself.
When he turned around and saw the students, he almost fell back.
The after-effects of Frederick Carlisle’s latest experiments were unmistakable. Looking at the four young adults coming towards him, Kline made a series of instantaneous diagnoses. It was a reflex. He saw Melissa first: her unsteady gait, and the way she leaned on Lea’s shoulder like an invalid.
Proprioceptive and vestibular deficits. Not yet complete, but getting worse.
Jason’s problem was even easier to see. The former hockey player was clutching at Lea’s other shoulder with the dependence of someone who had gone recently blind.
Degenerative neuro-paralysis. Temporal lobe. Also progressive.
Lea’s handicap was different, and particularly touching. He could see the desperate, searching expression in her eyes; their nervous motion, like a lost child’s. That feeling was one he knew too well: being able to see so much, but understand so little.
Aphasic. She wouldn’t understand a word I said to her. But she’d probably be able to catch me lying in any language.
Then there was the last one. Despite an entire year of planning, Kline’s primary objective was briefly forgotten as he studied the fourth student coming along the path towards him. And for the first time in months, he found himself thinking about the Genius Postulate.
Does it matter anymore? Did it ever matter? Is anything worth this much?
Because there, still shuffling a few yards behind the others on the path, was Garrett Lemke.
Oh, Jesus, thought Dr. Kline. Look at this.
3
Lea brought the group to a careful stop in front of the tall, gaunt man with the backpack. He had looked different from afar. Calm, and somehow distinguished. That was why Melissa had thought he might be a Hitchcock employee. Now, up-close and lit by the dim, strange-shadow light of a street lamp, she thought he seemed more like a homeless person.
A miserable homeless person.
He was looking at the four of them as if he had just heard the most depressing news. That Christmas had been canceled, or that someone’s dog had died. That love, as an idea, was at its end.
No, it’s something worse, Melissa thought.
“I see you’ve met Dr. Carlisle,” the tall man said sadly.
Lea reacted first. She saw his face, listened to him speak. And then she jumped. Actually jumped into the air, as if she had been stung. Jason and Melissa, both dependent on Lea’s shoulders for physical support, were put off-balance. They clutched at her like nursing-home patients reaching for their walkers.
Lea began pointing wildly at the man, and from her mouth came a series of urgent bleating noises. Melissa watched her with distress. It was impossible to decipher any of the sounds she was making. “I can’t – ” Melissa waved at her, signaling for her to calm down. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Lea stopped her bleating, but she continued to point.
“Okay,” Melissa said, still trying to calm her. “Okay.” She looked up at the tall man. “How do you know Carlisle?”
He took a long, slow breath. “So many questions,” he said, almost to himself. He looked thoughtfully at Melissa. “Let’s skip ahead, shall we? I helped to design the machine that did this to you.”
Lea was following the conversation in her own way, and she saw from Melissa’s shocked expression that the necessary information was being communicated. She smiled and stopped pointing. Surely Melissa would know what to do now.
Melissa, however, seemed to need a moment to digest.
“You…” she began. Then she stopped. Started over. “The antenna thing?”
The man nodded.
Melissa took a breath. Considered. And then she demonstrated once again why she had become the de facto leader of this strange little group. She did not waste time with irrelevant questions.
“Can you help us?”
Kline studied the tall, beautiful girl before him, and he felt something click over in his head. She reminded him of someone. There was a barely controlled anger in her eyes, and the way she held herself showed a deep foundation of confidence. Even as she leaned on the aphasic girl for support, the strength inside her was obvious. He realized suddenly that he wanted to help her. The emotion surprised him.
“I might be able to do something,” Kline said slowly. “But I don’t know if –”
“Fucking WOMEN,” came a shout from behind them. Then the slam of a long, heavy car door.
The Cadillac never pulled away, Kline realized suddenly. It’s been there this whole time.
“They’re always asking for help,” Martin continued, stepping onto the path. His fury had made him larger, like an animal preparing for a fight, and he walked as though his shoes were made of lead. His gun hung loosely in one hand. “They take everything they can,” he growled. “Take your wife, take your dignity, take your damned house.”
A change came over Melissa. She straightened up, and her eyes went dark. It made the two of them, father and daughter, look strangely similar. “Hi, Dad.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Did you come to visit me? You smell like the man on the street corner again. And angry, too. Like one of the stray dogs behind the trash bins.”
Dr. Kline took a short sniff through his own, currently hyper-sensitive nose, and found that he agreed. Martin smelled worse than ever. Hot, perspiring, and breathless.
Almost rabid.
Lea Redford was still watching them all very carefully. She saw, with her increasingly accurate emotional sense, that the man with the gun was Melissa’s father. And she also saw what Melissa and Dr. Kline could not. That Martin was not simply angry.
That his plans here were specific.
4
“I burned down your precious house,” Martin said. There was a look of triumph in his eyes. “And I made sure they’d know it was arson. No insurance money for you. Not one fucking dime.”
Melissa nodded thoughtfully, as if her father had told her she’d have to wait another year before he could buy her that new bike she’d been wanting so badly. “Okay, Dad. Sorry to hear that.”
The light in Martin’s eyes faded. “You’re such an idiot,” he hissed. “Just like your mother.”
“Like Mom?” Melissa’s voice went up a notch. She smiled. “You’ve never really talked to me about her. How did you two meet?”
“We –” Martin bit his lip, and his face twitched. “I’ll tell you about your mother,” he said slowly. “She was weak. And ugly. And absolutely fucking useless, just like every other woman who ever – ”
Melissa’s laughter, high and bright, cut him off.
> 5
Dr. Kline had found himself riveted by the exchange, and now he watched in wonder as the tall, beautiful girl transformed herself yet again. Melissa’s dark eyes flashed with delight, and she became gorgeous as she laughed. She laughed at this man who was calling her mother useless, laughed the way one laughs at a burbling, fussing infant.
Aren’t you cute, with your loud noises and your red face?
She was not intimidated, Dr. Kline saw. Not even a little bit. And now he realized why the girl had seemed so familiar.
She was Alexandra, of course.
She had come back to him somehow. Her hair was different – a shade lighter, perhaps – and there was a hardness to her face that hadn’t been there before. But the laughter gave her away. The laughter, and the love he could hear in her voice.
6
Martin stood with his mouth open, shock and anger making his skin turn purple. He couldn’t speak.
“I never saw it,” Melissa said, still laughing between her words. “Not before. But Mom probably did. It’s just fear, isn’t it? You smell so scared now, Dad. What are you afraid of?”
Martin Hartman felt something lurch in his stomach.
She’s reading my mind.
It was suddenly difficult to breathe. The girl in front of him… he had thought she was Melissa, but that had been a mistake. This girl was an apparition, something other-worldly. Her face threw out light that pulsed with the street lamp above. She seemed to glow.
And now she had turned into some kind of psychic.
Yes, you scare me, Martin thought. And you always have. But you won’t anymore. Not for long.
7
Lea had been watching the man with the gun. Watching his eyes. She saw the decision he had made, saw it on his face before he even began to raise his arm. She stepped quickly in front of Melissa. It was a light, almost unconscious movement. The two girls might have been sisters in a shared bathroom, alternately vying for space in front of a narrow mirror.
I need to check my hair. Hang on a second.
8
Martin could no longer look directly at the laughing, black-eyed devil in front of him. She did resemble Melissa, but he knew this was only a trick.
He closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger.
9
Garrett had been focused on his headache, ignoring everything else.
I can make it to the emergency room, he thought. I’ll be okay.
But then there was a strange, high-pitched noise, and he looked up. Garrett had seen enough James Bond movies to recognize the sound of a gun with a silencer attachment, and this sound probably meant that things were not okay. As he took in his surroundings, he saw that there were two strangers here now. One was tall, with a sad, haunted expression on his face. The other was stocky, and angry looking. And unless Garrett was seeing things, that angry-looking man had just shot Lea in the chest.
10
Jason Bell never heard the gun go off; his ears had become useless. But he was still holding Lea’s shoulder, and he felt her body go jolting backwards suddenly, as if she had been hit by a large rock. It was clear from her movements that she was going to fall.
Though now completely blind as well, Jason caught Lea easily, dropping down on one knee like a man about to propose. He supported her head with one hand, and slid a single strong thigh gently under her back. His sightless eyes searched the darkness, straining for a glimpse of her.
He tried hard to find her face.
“Oh,” said Lea weakly. Her voice sounded wet, as though she were trying to speak while drinking a glass of water. She was dimly aware that she had been shot, and that her lungs were no longer working properly. More important, though, was that Jason had taken hold of her. His face, tense and desperate, told her stories. She saw how scared he was. How much he wanted to help her, protect her.
Save her.
She tried to say something else, but no more words came. The air stopped moving down her throat. If she had been able to speak, or even breathe, Lea would have tried to comfort him. To tell him that everything would be okay. It felt good to be held like this, even as blackness began to fill her field of vision. Jason’s face hung over her, and she tried to smile.
Lea Redford felt happy then, and loved. She had found her perfect boy. But this did not keep her alive.
Jason felt the change, and he understood what he could neither see nor hear. He slumped over Lea, and sheltered her body from the world. To see them there, together under the streetlamp, you might have thought that they were kissing.
11
Melissa, too, had felt the jolt as the bullet went rocketing through Lea’s chest. It passed in and out of her friend’s quickly beating heart, through the delicate tissue of the left lung, and finally lodged itself in one of the ribs in Lea’s back.
The bullet never found its way to Melissa.
Lea was caught by Jason as she fell, but the sudden movement sent Melissa tumbling backwards, onto the ground. She had no savior to catch her, and Garrett was too busy staring at Martin to be of any help. Melissa realized then, too late, that her father was not simply scared. Was not just a misogynistic brute with a grudge. That he had, in fact, gone insane.
Some things are hard to sniff out, she thought.
Her sense of calm nearly deserted her, and she felt a sudden urge to get away. Anywhere away. She briefly imagined herself wriggling along the ground like an army cadet avoiding enemy fire, as if she might be able to crawl to safety. But instead she took a breath, and the moment passed. There would be no crawling. Not from the likes of Martin Hartman.
Martin, meanwhile, was peering down at Lea Redford’s now lifeless body with a curious, bemused look on his face. “What the fuck was the point of that?” he said, and grinned crazily. The fear that had gripped him a minute ago was gone, replaced by exhilaration. He had let the gun drop for a moment, but now he raised it again. “Skinny bitch thought this thing came with just one bullet?” He turned his attention back to his daughter, who had fallen to the ground as if something were wrong with her balance. Strangely, she did not seem to be trying to get up or run away. Instead, she looked up at Martin with the same, peaceful expression she had always had for him, even as a baby.
Why doesn’t she run?
Martin decided that he didn’t care. He widened his stance for extra stability and adjusted the gun sight to line up with Melissa’s chest.
He never saw Kline coming.
12
The Hilti nailer had jammed somehow, so Dr. Kline used his long arms – his “gangly” frame, as Nurse Bailer had always described it – to send the heavy carpenter’s appliance whistling towards Martin’s head in a wide, sweeping arc.
Garrett was still watching the scene unfold before him. He watched passively, as if he were simply at a movie. The grace in the tall man’s movements surprised him.
Angry-Man’s about to get bonked, Garrett thought.
Martin’s sharp ears picked up something behind him, and he moved at the last second. The Hilti missed. Instead of colliding with his head, as Kline had meant it to, the tool smashed into the back of Martin’s neck. He stumbled forward, and turned with the gun.
Kline held fast to his one available weapon, and he advanced quickly, before Martin could get a shot off. As he moved, he kept the heavy nail-gun swinging, throwing it backwards and high over his head like a softball pitcher going into the windup. He stepped forward to add momentum, and the 20-pound appliance accelerated like a stone on a string.
Just before impact, Kline saw the shock on Martin’s face. “What the fuck are you – ”
Kline delivered his uppercut with grim, silent precision, and this time he found the mark. Martin’s head snapped back with the sickening crunch of shattered bone and mashed cartilage, and he went flopping to the ground. The gun flew from his hand.
Kline was still moving, cursing himself under his breath. He had let Martin shoot the one girl, which was bad enough. Alexandra was still all ri
ght, but that wouldn’t last if this lunatic was allowed to go on living. He straddled Martin’s body, pinning the man’s arms to the ground with his knees.
He examined the Hilti briefly. The tool looked in one piece; it had not even been dented by its encounter with Martin’s face. It also looked as if the safety might be on. Which meant that it wasn’t jammed after all.
Easily solved, Kline thought, as he moved his thumb over the trigger guard.
13
Melissa barely had time to register how close she had come to being shot. Her first instinct was simply to deny what had happened.
Lea’s okay, she thought desperately. She’s fine. Jason will help her.
But a quick glance in Lea’s direction told her otherwise. Her friend was not moving, and Jason was hunched over her in a mourner’s crouch.
She’s gone.
Melissa did not have a chance to cry. Before she could give into her sadness, or even exhale, her father had been cracked in the nose by the tall man, and now Martin was lying stunned beside her on his back. A moment later, the man was straddling her father like a professional wrestler. She almost expected him to start bellowing in Martin’s blood-spattered face.
“Who’s the champion now?” the tall, hungry-looking man would shout.
Instead, he took what looked like an extra-large power drill and began jabbing Martin with it. Jabbing him in the face, in the forehead. In the neck. The last shot to the neck, in particular, produced a sudden, gushing stream of blood.
Charcot's Genius Page 27
