Two mountain bikers entered the minimart just then. They were plastered in mud, carrying helmets, wearing bike shoes. Thomas
hoped they wouldn’t hear anything. Fortunately, they continued to the rear of the store.
“Bailey, Bailey,” the mother said. “What am I going to do with you?”
She turned to Thomas, smoothing her henna-colored hair with her hand, self-conscious under his gaze. “They watched
Hook
on video the other night? Now what does he see? Tinkerbell flying about in the woods, right. So he says. I suppose it’s a
good thing.” She smiled. “He has a truckload of imagination, and they say it leads to creativity later on.”
The boy’s voice cracked with hurt and indignation. “I’m not making this up! We saw the girl in the woods near the blueberry
bog. She
said
her name was Tinkerbell and she flew real high over the trees. Cross my heart.”
Harding Thomas thought he knew the place they were talking about. He’d been through the bog a couple of times with his search
team, but they hadn’t seen any trace of Max. He tossed two singles onto the counter, then said “So long,” in the general direction
of the woman and her children.
T
HOMAS FOLLOWED the woman and her kids in his off-white Range Rover. The family had an old, dented, and weather-beaten Isuzu
pickup. The mother wasn’t in any big hurry to get home from the Quik Stop and following them couldn’t have been easier.
As Thomas tailed the pickup, he thought about his life. Once upon a time, he’d taught science at the Air Force Academy. He’d
been a captain. Dr. Peyser had contacted and recruited him for a job. He had explained his dream, and Harding Thomas understood
and believed the first time he heard it. He wasn’t the only one. And he believed that the dream, the vision of the future,
was worth protecting. So he followed the Ellers family from the Quik Stop.
When the pickup pulled into a deep-rutted, weed-infested driveway, Thomas understood why the family wasn’t hurrying home.
The house was a disaster.
The off-white paint was blistering and peeling on every surface. The front porch sagged and almost looked dangerous to walk
on. The grass near the house was at least a foot and a half high. The name Ellers was nearly faded off the mailbox.
The mother and her kids were just getting out of the truck. Thomas accelerated, and pulled in behind the Isuzu. The woman
looked up alarmed. So did the two kids.
Harding Thomas hopped out of the Range Rover, threw his hands in the air, produced a big, friendly grin. He played Uncle Thomas
for them. He could appear to be everybody’s friend when he needed to.
“Hey. Hi, kids, remember me? No need for alarm. Smile, you’re on Candid Camera! I just had a thought about what the kids might
have seen in the woods. Thought it might be important to you.”
“I didn’t say I saw anything,” the older girl protested, “because I didn’t. Neither did my extraterrestrial brother. He’s
a big fat storyteller, that’s all.”
“Mister, I don’t think—” the woman started to say something.
“They saw an eleven-year-old
girl with wings,
” Harding Thomas stopped her in midsentence. “I believe what the boy said. The truth is, I’ve seen the girl myself. I’d like
to tell you what I know and you can do the same for me.
“May I come in for a few minutes? I promise, this is vitally important. Your children are telling the truth, strange as it
sounds.”
Harding Thomas produced his wallet, and a card that identified him as a lawyer with the Justice Department. Thomas wasn’t
with Justice, but the business card worked like a charm.
The Ellers family had to be questioned, and then, unfortunately, they had to disappear.
They had seen Tinkerbell.
They went inside and Harding Thomas tried to make the question and answer period as nonthreatening as possible.
“I know this is weird, and a little scary, kids,” he told them. “I’m a little shook up myself.”
“Would you like coffee, sir?” the woman asked him. He wasn’t sure how well the fake ID had worked with the kids, but it had
certainly gone over with her.
“It’s Thomas,” he said, “and coffee would be great. I just had a cup, but I could sure use another under the circumstances.”
The mother went off to make coffee—probably instant, but at least she was out of the way for the moment.
“You can call me Uncle Tommy,” he said to the two wide-eyed kids.
“We didn’t see anything,” the girl continued to insist. “My brother belongs in a loony bin.”
“We saw the girl with wings. We saw her fly!” the boy thrust out his chin and proclaimed.
“No, we didn’t.” His sister stared him down.
Harding Thomas brought his fist down on the living room coffee table.
“Yeah, you did! You saw the girl, and you saw her fly. Now tell me everything else—or I’m going to hurt you and your mama.
You look in my eyes, and know what I’m saying is the truth.”
The two children looked—and they knew, and they told what they knew about the girl with wings.
K
IT MADE THE FORTY-MILE DRIVE from Bear Bluff to Boulder. He was
definitely
starting to feel like an agent again, to feel like the Tom Brennan of old.
He parked the black Jeep on a congested side street a few blocks from Boulder Community Hospital. As he walked there he saw
evidence of the city’s celebrated mix of sixties hippies, “granolas” from the seventies and eighties, Gen-Xers, and plenty
of relatively normal-looking, Rocky Mountain high natives, too.
Mostly, though, he was looking over his shoulder, afraid that he might be followed, that someone had already spotted him.
He needed to talk to a Dr. John Brownhill at the hospital’s in vitro clinic. Dr. Brownhill had past associations with two
of the murdered doctors in San Francisco and Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was all recorded in Kit’s earlier reports at the
FBI.
As he sat in the waiting room, he couldn’t help noticing how user-friendly the clinic was. The walls were painted a soft yellow
and there were fresh-cut flowers on the magazine tables. That was good for the mothers-to-be, and it was good for him, too.
He needed to relax some if he could.
“The doctor will see you, Mr. Harrison,” said a tall black receptionist who was sunny and pleasant. Everyone he saw at the
clinic seemed that way, soothing and helpful.
“The doctor’s office is just down the hall, first door on the right. You can’t miss it.”
He walked purposefully down a plush beige-carpeted hallway to Dr. Brownhill’s office. He took a quick, deep breath before
he turned inside.
Here we go.
Dr. Brownhill was impressive to meet. Silver streaks were beginning to show in his long, reddish-brown hair. His complexion
was ruddy. He looked to be in excellent physical shape. He had a toothy, Andy Hardy smile that was disarming. It seemed to
Kit that he’d have a wonderfully reassuring bedside manner.
“I’m a little curious, Mr. Harrison. You’re here alone. Is this visit about your wife? Or perhaps a girlfriend?”
Kit still wasn’t quite sure how he should play the tricky interview. There were a lot of ways to go.
“I’m a senior agent with the FBI,” he said in a self-important tone he rarely used in the field. “I’m in Colorado as part
of a murder investigation.”
It was a subtle thing, lasting only an instant, but he caught a slight tic under John Brownhill’s right eye. “I don’t understand,”
the doctor said. “A murder investigation?”
Kit’s face betrayed nothing. “You came here from San Francisco? You were at University Hospital there. Another in vitro clinic.”
Brownhill nodded. “Five years ago, and I’ve never regretted the move. I can’t imagine why the FBI would want to talk to me,
though. Murder investigation? I help couples have babies they otherwise wouldn’t be able to have.”
Kit peered into the doctor’s eyes, measuring him. “Did you know Dr. James Kim while you were working in San Francisco?”
“Yes, I knew James Kim. Not very well, I’m afraid. We were both in California around the same time. Please tell me what this
is about. I have pregnant women waiting out there to see me.”
Kit nodded sympathetically. “I interviewed Dr. Kim in May. He was involved with illegal experiments in the Bay area. He told
me that a doctor by the name of Anthony Peyser was hiding out here in Colorado. He said that both he and you had worked with
Dr. Peyser.”
Dr. Brownhill shook his head. “Now wait a minute. That’s simply not true. Yes, Dr. Peyser was accused of unethical practices
in the lab he supervised at Berkeley. But I had nothing to do with the lab or with the experiments. I’ve never been accused
of any wrongdoing, and I’m certainly not in hiding.”
Kit lowered his voice. “Do you know that James Kim is dead? He was murdered a week ago in California. That’s part of the reason
I’m here.”
John Brownhill seemed genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear about Dr. Kim. I still don’t see how I can help
you, though. I have no idea what happened to Dr. Peyser.”
Dr. Brownhill tried to get up and leave. Kit held up a hand. “I have one other subject. It’s important, doctor. Would you
tell me about Dr. David Mekin? You worked with Dr. Mekin here as well as in San Francisco. I understand that the two of you
were friends. David Mekin was
murdered.
Is that a coincidence, too?”
Dr. Brownhill rose from the chair at his desk. “You’ll have to excuse me now. I have patients to see. David Mekin was a friend
and I don’t care to revisit his death again.”
Kit took his time getting to his feet. He left the in vitro clinic. He thought that he’d accomplished what he needed to do.
He had gotten a doctor there uncomfortable, gotten him to hedge and probably lie. He had rattled some cages, and that was
a good start.
N
IGHT HAD FALLEN across the foothills east of the Rockies. The sky was a dense midnight blue and covered with gleaming stars.
The security team crouched at the edge of the clearing near the summer house.
They wore night goggles and looked like a police or army strike force about to move into serious action.
They had the girl. They’d spotted her not too far from the blueberry bog.
The house was a perfectly yuppified weekend place, a modern A-frame with enormous windows looking out on the mountains. Nouveau
riche folks from southern California owned it and only stayed there on weekends.
Harding Thomas took in all the details. It was just after ten and the place was mostly dark. Except for the grayish-blue light
in one downstairs room. Then a brighter, almost white light.
A television set was on, and she
loved
TV. She called the TV at the School her “mom and pop,”
“the baby-sitter,” and her “pal.”
“Let’s get her now,” Thomas whispered to the others. She’s eleven, but she’s strong,” he warned. “She’s stronger than most
men. She has a
designer
chest and shoulders.”
“What is she, supergirl?” one of the others asked.
“That’s about right,” Harding Thomas told the man. “You’ll see if you screw up. Just don’t think of her as an eleven-year-old
girl.”
The steps to the first level of the deck were tight and practically new and they squeaked. Harding Thomas stepped around pots
of geraniums stacked on the landing. There were three pairs of discarded in-line skates, Roces Barcelonas.
The hunters adjusted their night goggles. They climbed the next flight of stairs in a hurry, making more squeaking noises.
They brushed past metal deck furniture, moving even faster now. It was the same team that had taken out Dr. Frank McDonough
in his swimming pool.
Light through the picture window continued to glow and flicker. It was definitely light from a TV. Thomas peered inside, saw
a family room laid out before him.
Halogen lamps, all of them off. A telescope on a tripod. A DUB video player. Custom armchairs upholstered in burlap coffee
bean bags that read “Product of Guatemala, 50-lbs” and “Product of Yemen, 50-lbs.”
An overstuffed sofa sat right under the window. Max was lying on it. She was asleep, curled up in her own wings.
“Thank God,” Harding Thomas whispered under his breath.
M
AX HEARD the
squeak, squeak, squeak.
The noise was coming from outside on the deck. She pictured everything that was supposed to be out there.
She kept her eyes closed, but she was awake and alert and knew something very wrong was going on outside the house. She’d
been dozing under a musty old Indian blanket. Now she felt a cold shadow fall between herself and the moon.
She slipped open her eyes, tilted up, and there he was—Uncle Thomas had found her. That traitor, that terrible liar.
He was standing outside the picture window. He’d brought along his sidekicks. Three or four other men. Trackers! Hunters!
Killers!
Max’s mind and her body screamed, FLY.
FLY, FLY, FLY AWAY FROM HERE!
She couldn’t fly, though. Not in the living room with its low ceilings and the clutter of heavy furniture.
You’re strong. Incredibly strong.
Be strong now!
So Max rolled real fast off the sofa. A table toppled over. Magazines went flying—
Los Angeles, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Details.
A metal chair came crashing through the window! Reflexively, she threw her arms over her face. Shards and splinters of glass
showered everywhere around her and cut her, but not too badly.
“NO!” she screamed at the top of her voice. “Get away from me! Get away!”
The long hallway between the living room and the bedroom stretched out before her, beckoned.
Be strong! Be gone!
Moonlight white as bone streamed through the bedroom door that was half open at the end of the hall. A Jacuzzi encased in
lime-green terrazzo was visible off the bedroom. Max flung herself toward the bedroom with full speed and full strength.