James Patterson - When the Wind Blows

by When the Wind Blows (lit)

  Now everything, all the bad memories about David's murder, came flooding back to me. I couldn't bear it.

  Chapter 13

  "I'M DR. O'NEILL," I said, and I pushed my way past a tall, burly Boulder policeman stationed on the familiar, whitewashed porch. "I'm Barb and Frank's friend. She called me."

  "Yes, ma'am. She's inside. You can go right in," he said, doffing his visored cap.

  I barely noticed the sprawling ranch house or Frank's beloved Xeriscaped landscaping. Instead of lush green lawns, hundreds of small, colorful plants dotted the yard. Frank had planned everything with water conservation in mind. That's the way he was. Always thinking about other people, thinking ahead.

  I was numb, and at least partly in denial. The Mcdonoughs were the couple that David and I were closest to when he worked at the hospital.

  They had rushed to our house the night David was shot. Barb and Carole and my friend Gillian Purls stayed the night with me. Now here I was in Boulder under similar circumstances.

  A woman burst from the front screen door of the house as I was hurrying up the stairs. It wasn't Barb Mcdonough.

  "Oh, God, Gillian," I whispered. Gillian is my best friend in the world.

  The two of us hugged on the porch. We were both crying, holding on to each other, trying to understand this tragedy. I was so glad she was here.

  "How could he drown?" I muttered.

  "Oh, God, Frannie, I don't know how it happened. Frank's neck was broken. He must have tried a shallow dive. Are you okay? No, of course you're not. Neither is poor Barb. This is so bad, so awful."

  I cried on my friend's shoulder. She cried on mine.

  Gillian is a research doctor at Boulder Community and she's a crackerjack. She's so good she can afford to be a rebel "with a cause," always up against the hospital bureaucrats, the admin jackals and jackasses.

  She's a widow, too, with a small child, Michael, whom I absolutely adore.

  She wore hospital scrubs and a lab coat with her ID badge still pinned to the lapel. She'd come straight from work. What a long, terrible day for her. For all of us.

  "I have to see Barb," I said to Gillian. "Where is she, Gil?"

  "Come on. I'll show the way. Hold on to me. I'll hold you."

  Gillian and I entered the familiar house, now uncharacteristically dark and quiet and somber. We found Barb in the kitchen with another close friend, Gilda Haranzo. Gilda is a pediatric nurse at the hospital. She's part of our group.

  "Oh, Barb, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I whispered. Words never seem to work at times like these.

  The two of us fell hard into each other's arms. "I didn't understand about David. Oh, Frannie, I didn't understand," Barb sobbed hard against my chest. "I should have been better for you back then."

  "You were great. I love you. I love you so much." It was the truth, and it was why this terrible moment hurt so badly. I could feel Barb's loss as if it were my own.

  Then all four of us were hugging and consoling one another as best as we could. It seemed only yesterday that we all had husbands and would get together for barbecues, swimming games, charity gigs, or just to talk for hours.

  Barb finally pulled away and yanked open a cabinet door over the sink. She took out a bottle of Crown Royal. She cracked the label and poured four large glasses of whiskey.

  I looked out the kitchen window and saw a few people from Boulder Community standing in the backyard, out near the pool. Rich Pollett, Boulder's chief counsel, was present. He'd been a good friend of Frank's, a fly-fishing partner.

  Then I saw Henrich Kroner, president of the hospital, Rick to his friends. Henrich was an elitist snob who thought his narrow focus in life made him special, and didn't realize it made him very ordinary. It struck me as odd that Henrich of all people would be here, other than that the Mcdonough house was so close to the hospital. But then again, everybody loved Frank.

  I had a sudden and painful flash of memory that cut like a knife into my heart. A few years back, David and I had gone white-water rafting with Frank and Barbara. Afterward, we'd gone swimming in calmer waters. Frank was as much at home in the water as an otter. I could still see his powerful freestyle stroke.

  How could he have died in his pool?

  How could Frank and David both be dead?

  As I sipped the bracing whiskey I couldn't come up with a single answer. I felt like a top that wouldn't stop spinning. I had another drink and another after that until I was finally numb.

  Gillian almost seemed as concerned about me as she was for Barbara.

  That's the way she's been since David's death, especially since I wouldn't let the murder be. It's as though I'm her adopted child. She reminds me of how I could imagine Emma Thompson might be - smart, but sensitive, thoughtful, funny too.

  "Come home with me tonight. Please, Frannie," she said and made a needy face. "I'll build a fire. We'll talk till we drop."

  "Which would be pretty soon. Gil, I can't," I said and shook my head.

  "A hurt collie's coming in the morning. The Inn-Patient is already full."

  Gillian rolled her eyes, but then she smiled. "This weekend then. No excuses. You'll come."

  "I'll be there. I promise."

  I helped put Barbara to bed; I kissed Gillian and Gilda good-bye; and then I headed home.

  Chapter 14

  THE FAMILIAR, WELCOMING SIGN loomed in swirling mists of bluish-gray fog: BEAR BLUFF NEXT EXIT. I signaled for a right turn, cruised down the off-ramp, and felt the usual two lumps in the road.

  Then I ragged onto Fourth of July Mine & Run Road, a narrow twolaner that cuts through five and a half unmarked miles of woods until it reaches Bear Bluff. The Bluff is basically a drive-through town. It has a gas station, a Quik Stop, a video store, and me. We all close by dark.

  There's a local saying - happiness is seeing Bear Bluff in your rearview mirror, but you better look damn quick.

  I couldn't wait to get home. I wanted to escape into blessed sleep. I felt distant, unreal. I'd also had too much to drink.

  The unlit road looped around rocky outcroppings through the forest.

  Dense tree growth made reluctant way for the narrow, concrete thoroughfare, and for the dancing headlights of my Suburban.

  I slowed the car, and concentrated on getting home in one piece.

  Deer were bound to dash out at me, and I wasn't in any shape for sudden-death decisions.

  I saw something strange, a streaking white flash in the woods to my right.

  I gently applied the brake. Slowed down some more. Peered hard into the shifting shadows of the woods.

  I hoped I was wrong, but the white flash looked like a young girl running. A little girl had no business out here in the middle of the night.

  I braked to a full stop. If the young girl was lost, I could certainly give her a ride to her home. I felt something was wrong, though. Maybe she was being chased by someone? Or she might be lost?

  I left the engine running and got out of the Suburban. The ground fog lifted some, so I walked a few yards into the woodland. My skin was prickling with apprehension.

  Stop.

  Look.

  Listen.

  "Hello," I called in a soft, tentative voice. "Who's out there? I'm Frannie O'Neill. Dr. O'Neill. The vet from town?"

  Then I saw the white streak again, this time darting from behind a tall, blue-green spruce. I scrutinized, looked closely, concentrated, squinted fiercely.

  It was a young girl, yes!

  She looked to be about eleven or twelve, with long blond hair and a loose-fitting dress. The dress was ripped and stained. Was she all right?

  She didn't look it from where I stood.

  She'd heard me, seen me, she must have. The girl started to run away.

  She seemed afraid, in some kind of trouble. I couldn't see her very well.

  The fog had returned in ragged shreds.

  "Wait!" I called out. "You shouldn't be out here by yourself. What are you doing? Please, wait."
/>   She didn't wait. She actually sped up, tripped over a log, went down on one knee. She shouted something that I couldn't make out from where I was standing.

  My heart started to beat faster. Something wasn't right about this. I began to run toward her. I thought she might be hurt. Or maybe she was high on something? That made some sense to me. Maybe she was older than she looked from a distance. It was hard to tell through the scarves of fog.

  There was only the dimmest light from a thin slice of moon, so it was hard to tell, but it looked to me that her proportions were a little odd. Her arms were sheathed with something I stopped running. Hard! My heart started to thunder. I could hear it.

  It couldn't be.

  Of course it couldn't be.

  I almost screamed. I gasped for breath, steadied myself against a tall spruce.

  The little girl appeared to have white and silver wings.

  Chapter 15

  WHAT I SAW was way beyond my abilities to imagine, beyond my comprehension, my system of belief, and maybe beyond my ability to communicate it right now. The little girl's arms were folded back in a peculiar way, but when she lifted them - feathers fanned out.

  It wasn't humanly possible, but there she was - a girl with wings!

  Spots jumped in front of my eyes. Colors, coruscating reds and yellows, danced. I was definitely a little high from the Crown Royal, but I wasn't drunk. Or was I very drunk? Was I so freaked out by Frank Mcdonough's death that I was hallucinating?

  Close your eyes, Frannie.

  Now open them again, slowly... She was still there! No more than twenty yards away. The girl was watching me, too.

  Don't faint, Frannie. DON'T YOU DARE, I told myself Go slow. Go really slow here. Don't make any sudden noise or movement to scare her off.

  I watched as the girl awkwardly found her feet. One wing was folded neatly behind her. The other wing dragged a little. Was she hurt?

  "Hey," I called again, softly. "It's all right."

  The young blond girl turned toward me. I guess she was close to five feet tall. She gave me a fierce look with her large, wide-spaced eyes. I stood in the ferny glade in the milky moonlight. Everything around me was shifting shadows. I watched, dizzy and panting, not knowing who was more frightened, her or me.

  She shot me a grim look of horror and ran away again, into the night, farther into the woods surrounding Fourth of July Road until she was just a blur.

  I followed until it was too dark to see in the dense woods. I finally leaned against a tree and tried to review the last few minutes. I couldn't do it. My head was spinning too fast.

  Somehow I managed to get back to the Suburban. I climbed inside and sat there in the dark.

  "I did not just see a young girl with wings," I whispered out loud.

  I couldn't have.

  But I was sure that I had.

  When I could manage to drive, I went to the police station in nearby Clayton, a burg of about three thousand. Actually, the station is an outpost for the main office in Nederland. I stopped the Suburban on Miller Street, less than a block from the station house.

  I desperately wanted to continue down the peaceful village street, but I couldn't do it, couldn't make myself.

  I had been drinking... and driving. It was already past two in the morning, way past the witching hour in Clayton.

  Now that I wasn't actually looking at the girl... I wasn't completely sure what I had seen. I just couldn't tell my story to the local cops. Not that night, anyway. Maybe tomorrow.

  I went home to sleep on it - or more likely, to sleep it off.

  Chapter 16

  KIT WAS SWEATING, just like he had on the American Airlines flight from Boston. Damn it, he still couldn't fly very well. But he had to.

  The pilot of the Bell helicopter shot a look across the cockpit at him.

  He didn't bother to conceal a smirk. "You okay? Never been up in one of these eggbeaters, huh? You don't look so good, Mr. Harrison? Maybe we should head back?"

  Kit almost lost his cool with the guy. The pilot was an asshole of the first order. Actually, he'd flown in plenty of helicopters before, flown in snow-blind blizzards, bad rainstorms, and on dangerous raids. There had never been a problem until August of '94.

  He'd been a good agent until then, one of the best. Resourceful, bright, hardworking, tough enough. It was a matter of record in his personnel file. So what the hell had happened to him?

  "The natural color of my gills is green. I'm just fine. I'm all right." He tried a little self-deprecating humor.

  "Whatever you say, Kermit. It's your dime."

  Yes, it sure was his dime, and he didn't have a lot of them to blow on costly surveillance junkets like this. But he felt he needed an overview; he had to see the big picture; take in the lay of the land. And the real big picture here had to do with subjects as lofty and important as the survival of the human race. He believed that, or he wouldn't be out here on his own.

  Kit tried looking down at the treetops again. Acres of ponderosa pines with aspen groves nestled in. Occasional "blowouts" - stacks of trees blown down in winter. And, of course, the snowy peaks of the Continental Divide.

  There was a lab out here somewhere near the Divide. Kit knew that much. Where the hell could it be?

  The helicopter passed over Gross Reservoir. Then he could see the Eldora ski area, and the small town of Nederland. Then another picturesque reservoir - probably Barker, if he was reading the maps correctly. Off in the distance, he spotted Flagstaff Mountain. Closer in was Magnolia Road, Sunshine Canyon.

  He knew what he was looking for... the end of civilization as we know it. A brave new world. That's all. It was out here somewhere.

  He thought about Dr. Frank Mcdonough again. Dr. Mcdonough had been on his list. Mcdonough, and also David Mekin and his wife. He had wanted to meet with Dr. Mcdonough - a pediatrician with a background in embryology.

  Unfortunately, he'd been a day late getting here. Blame his boss, Peter Stricker, for that. Hell no, blame himself.

  Dr. Mcdonough was victim number four. Four doctors had been murdered that he knew of. Four doctors with suspicious pasts, dubious presents, and now, no futures at all.

  He watched a couple of paragliders off in the distance. They almost seemed to be flying. They looked so free.

  "Okay, let's go down," he finally said to the rent-a-chopper pilot. He had his overview, anyway; he had the lay of the land. It was the right first step for the investigation.

  The pilot grinned and gave Kit a thumbs-down signal. What a jerk.

  "Hang on to your insides... Kermit." F-you, Sky King, Kit thought. He didn't say anything, didn't want to start a scene up here. Especially not up here.

  The helicopter swooped and went into a steep dive. He knew it was a physical impossibility, but his stomach seemed to drop before the rest of the chopper and its contents.

  He was feeling unsatisfied and uptight as he left the tiny "High Pines" Airport at around ten-thirty in the morning. He needed help, but knew he couldn't ask for it from the Bureau. He was on his own, and that really sucked.

  Chapter 17

  HAVE FAITH and pursue the unknown end. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it and Kit had always believed it. He still did, so here he was in the Rocky Mountains. Pursuing the unknown end, and trying like hell to keep the faith.

  He needed answers, or maybe he just wanted to hear a familiar voice.

  He called Peter Stricker's office in Washington. This was going to be tricky, but he thought he could pull it off. He might just be able to get a little help from the Bureau.

  Peter Stricker was in charge of the Northeast sector of the FBI. They were still pretty good friends. Up until two and a half years ago, Peter had actually worked for him.

  Then Kit's world turned upside down, and he wound up working for Peter. And last week, Peter had threatened to can him if he didn't make his job priorities the same as the ones the Bureau had for him. And Peter had put the warning on paper.

  Even
before the official threat there had been signs. He'd been passed over for promotion after the accident in '94 - though God only knows if that was the reason. More likely, it was his stubbornness and insubordination that had stalled out his career in the FBI. Also, his obsessiveness with cases that fascinated or scared the living shit out of him. Like this case that had brought him out to Colorado. He could see potential leads, looming problems, possible solutions where others didn't.