The only person from Saint Margaret’s she dared stay in touch with was Colleen. Colleen had been fired from the hospital immediately after Sarah left, and she’d been given the same threats regarding her own child, Sammy. Colleen was desperately searching for another job. She couldn’t afford to move, and Sarah felt guilty for her predicament, knowing it was Joe’s foiled scheme that had led to her unemployment.
Despite her relentless sorrow over Joe, Sarah tried to be cheerful and optimistic for Janie’s sake. Gradually, she began to relax and feel safe in her new home and job, although in the back of her mind, she was constantly trying to think of a way to tell someone in authority what was going on at Saint Margaret’s. She did not believe for an instant that the experimentation was sanctioned by the government. She should call someone at the FBI. If the government was behind Dr. Palmiento’s work, she wouldn’t be telling them anything they didn’t already know. If not, she could finally put an end to the suffering the patients were being forced to endure. Still, she was afraid to call, knowing that Dr. P. had managed to learn it was she who originally contacted the board of psychiatry. Yes, she was worried about the patients, but she had to put Janie’s safety—and her own—first. She had the FBI’s number on the wall next to her kitchen phone, though, in case she one day got the courage.
Early one Saturday morning in November, Sarah was cleaning her apartment when her doorbell rang. She was expecting one of her neighbors to stop by for a cup of coffee, but the woman was a little early.
She leaned the mop against the kitchen wall and walked past Janie, who was contentedly playing by herself in her playpen. Pulling the apartment door open, Sarah gasped and took an involuntary step back into the living room.
Gilbert smiled from the hallway. “I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he said.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “How did you find out where I live?” She thought she’d left no trail behind her.
“May I come in for a moment?” Gilbert asked. “It’s important.”
Sarah hesitated. “All right.” She would leave the door open and scream if anything happened. Her neighbors would hear her.
“This is your little girl,” Gilbert walked over to the playpen, and Janie reached her arms up toward him. Janie was too hungry for a man’s touch these days.
“Sit down on the couch,” she commanded Gilbert, stepping between him and the playpen.
He sat down, but she remained standing.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Just a few things.” He seemed unperturbed by her rudeness. “First, I wanted to let you know how much you’re missed at the hospital. You really were one of the very best nurses we had. I wanted to make sure you know that you’re welcome to return any time. Bygones will be bygones.”
“Never in a million years would I go back to that hellhole,” she said.
He nodded his understanding. “I know that Dr. Palmiento can be…difficult,” he said, “but his work is truly brilliant, and—although I know you are not yet convinced of this—critical to the security of the country.”
“Look—” Sarah walked toward the door “—there’s no point in talking about this any further. I know you think Dr. P. is God and doing God’s work. I don’t happen to agree. So let’s just—”
“You’ve been talking to people,” he said, not budging from the couch.
“I…what do you mean?”
“Your co-workers at Emery Springs.”
“How do you know where I work?” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
He chuckled. “You are a very easy target, Sarah. I know a great deal about you. You leave for work at eight each morning. You drop little Jane there off with your neighbor, Mrs. Sucher, on the first floor of this building. You arrive at Emery Springs about 8:30. You come home at five each day, like clockwork. Your closest friends in this building are Paula Rose and Susan Taylor. You visit with them occasionally in the evenings. You shop at the A & P on Terrace Street. You go to bed at ten-thirty each night. You are quite regimented.”
“How do you know all this?” She folded her arms across her chest, suddenly very cold.
“We told you there are people in the government willing to go to any length to protect our research,” he said. “But how we get information truly doesn’t matter, Sarah. What matters is that you said—you swore—you would tell no one about Saint Margaret’s, and you haven’t kept your word.”
“I haven’t told anyone who has the power to do anything about it,” she said.
He laughed. “True, because that person doesn’t exist.” He leaned forward. “Maybe Dr. P. and I should have made it clearer to you. When we told you not to tell anyone, we meant anyone.”
“All right. Fine. I understand. Now, please leave.”
To her relief, he stood up and moved toward the door. “Listen to me,” he said. “I don’t mean to be so harsh, but you have to understand how important it is for you to keep all of this to yourself. Peter Palmiento is driven. And he’s a genius. And sometimes geniuses border on the maniacal. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Good,” he said. “And good luck to you, Sarah.”
She closed the door after him and locked it. Trembling, she pulled Janie from the playpen and sat on the couch, holding her little girl in her arms. She’d thought she was safe in sharing some of her experiences at Saint Margaret’s with her co-workers. Who had told? She shouldn’t have trusted them, nor should she trust her neighbors. She would move again. Change jobs. Should she change her name? No, she couldn’t lose that much of Joe. But she would have to stop searching for him. Maybe her inquiries were being reported. An easy target, Gilbert had called her. She would have to change that.
This time, she moved across the state line to Virginia, taking a less-satisfying job in a smaller hospital. She hired a woman to sit with Janie in the safety of their own apartment during the day. And she threw away the number she had for the FBI. She didn’t dare think about making that call.
Still, her dreams were haunted by images of the patients at Saint Margaret’s, those wounded people who put their trust in their caretakers, only to be slowly and methodically destroyed.
34
LAURA WAS READING A BOOK TO EMMA IN THE LIVING ROOM when the phone rang.
“I’ve had a late cancellation for the sunset ride tonight,” Dylan said, instead of hello. “Would you and Emma like to go up with me? I’d have to talk to Emma first, to be sure she could handle it. Plus, you’d need to be here in an hour.”
“I thought you didn’t take up children under eight.” Laura distinctly remembered him telling her that on the day of her own flight.
“That’s true. That’s why I want to talk to her. Do you think she’d be afraid? Can you put her on?”
She looked down at her daughter, sitting next to her on the couch. “It’s Dylan, Emma,” she said. “He wants to know if we’d like to go up in his balloon tonight.”
Emma gasped. She flew off the couch and began jumping up and down with excitement, making Laura laugh in surprise. “No,” she said into the phone. “She’s not afraid.”
“Let me talk to her, then,” Dylan said.
“He needs to talk to you.” She held the receiver out to her daughter, who simply stared at it. “There are important rules you need to know.”
Emma reached for the receiver and held it to her ear.
“She’s on, Dylan.” Laura spoke loudly.
She heard the hum of Dylan’s voice on the other end of the line, and Emma listened with concentration. Once she actually smiled, and she nodded a few times, as if Dylan could see her. Then she handed the phone back to Laura.
“Hi,” Laura said.
“I told her I’ve never taken a five-year-old up before and that I can only take her if she can act very grown-up and do exactly what I tell her to do,” Dylan said.
Laura looked at Emma. “Do you really want to go?” she asked.
Emma nodded.
<
br /> “And did you understand what Dylan said about doing what he tells you to do?”
Again, the nod.
Laura spoke into the phone again. “We’re on our way,” she said.
It was the first time Laura had seen the balloon being readied in daylight, and the sight was not quite as dramatic as it had been before dawn, when the flame filled the opening of the balloon and turned the crew into silhouettes. Still, Emma was thrilled, her step bouncy as they walked across the field.
Amazing, Laura thought. Emma was afraid of the water and the dark, but she seemed completely fearless about floating a thousand feet above the ground.
When they reached the balloon, Dylan stopped what he was doing and walked over to them to give them the preflight instructions, and Emma solemnly nodded her understanding. She was taking this acting grown-up business very seriously.
Dylan climbed into the basket first. Emma hesitated for just a minute as Laura helped her up the stepladder, probably realizing that she would have to be alone in the basket with Dylan until Laura got in.
“Go ahead, honey,” Laura said. “I’m right behind you.”
She watched as Dylan helped Emma onto the propane tank and then down to the floor of the basket. Emma’s little body went rigid when Dylan touched her, but she was smiling broadly by the time Laura got into the basket herself.
“Okay, Emma,” Dylan said. “Once we get going, you can stand on the propane tank and then you’ll be able to see.” Emma could barely see over the leather rim of the basket. “But for now, I need you to stand right there in that corner and hold on tight to those ropes handles.” He glanced at Laura. “You, too, Mom,” he said.
Emma and Laura did as they were told, and Alex and Brian untethered the balloon from the truck. Emma jumped when Dylan fed the flame, the pillar of gold stretching high into the balloon, but she didn’t budge from her corner. Still holding on to the rope handles, she tried to stand on her tiptoes to see over the side of the basket. She was so precious. Laura’s heart ached with love for her.
The balloon rose slowly from the ground until it was above the treetops.
“Okay, Emma,” Dylan said. “Careful now. Step on this tank.” He helped her, and she didn’t balk at his touch. “Still hold tight to the handles. That’s it.”
Emma’s eyes were wide with wonder as the lush sea of green flowed beneath them. When the trees fell away, she let out a gasp and pointed to the ground. Laura looked at the pasture where she was pointing, but saw nothing in particular. Dylan was first to spot what had drawn Emma’s attention.
“That’s right, Emma!” he said. “It’s an Appaloosa. That’s a type of horse. And there are more of them. Usually five. Can you find them?”
She found the rest of the horses and a few cows as well.
The sky turned peach and pink and purple, and Dylan told Emma what made those colors appear at sunset. He pointed out shapes in the clouds. He showed her the mountains in the distance, and he and Emma waved to children swimming in a pool far below them. Dylan even spotted what he said was a fox. Laura thought it looked more like a small, mangy dog from that height, but Emma was so enthralled that Laura said nothing to correct him.
She was surprised that, even after an hour, Emma did not seem the slightest bit bored.
“We need to start going down now,” Dylan said. “Our landing site is just over those trees.”
Emma whimpered, not wanting the ride to end, and Laura saw the smile spread across Dylan’s face.
“You can stand up there a bit longer,” he said to Emma. “Then you’ll have to go back to the corner and hold on for the landing. Okay?”
Emma nodded, not budging from her stance on the propane tank as they skimmed over the treetops.
“Get in the corners, now, both of you,” Dylan said after a minute.
Laura held Emma’s arm as the little girl stepped off the propane tank and into the corner of the basket. There she stood facing Dylan and holding tight to the rope handles.
Laura tried to catch her eye, wanting to let her daughter know how proud she was of her for doing everything Dylan had told her to do and for being so good and patient during the ride.
But Emma’s eyes were on Dylan. On her father. And the expression on her face was something close to adoration.
Dylan left Alex and Brian in charge of dismantling the balloon, then walked over to the fence where Laura and Emma were standing. Emma had amazed him. Hard to believe she was the same child who’d been afraid of the water at the beach.
“The crew will take care of the balloon,” he said to Laura. “They brought my van along with the truck, so how about we go back to my place? Brian gave me a couple of lobsters. They’re in my bathtub, swimming in blissful ignorance.”
“That sounds great,” Laura said as they began walking toward his van.
“Have you ever eaten lobster, Emma?” Dylan asked.
Emma took Laura’s hand and skipped along next to her without answering.
“I don’t think she has,” Laura said.
“And she might not want to, once she sees them in my tub,” he said under his breath. “I always have peanut butter and jelly.”
“We’ll see.” Laura smiled.
He was afraid that Emma might still equate his house with the gun cabinet incident, but she marched in the front door and over to his aquarium. She was a different child tonight. She’d loved the balloon ride, and he was glad he’d set aside his misgivings about taking up a five-year-old. She’d let him hoist her over the side of the basket to Laura once they’d reached the ground, even raising her arms up to him to let him lift her. He’d reacted as though that gesture was nothing special, but inside, he felt lighter and fuller than he had in years.
Although Emma cried a little when he dropped the live lobsters into the pot of boiling water, she ate all the meat from one of the claws, along with an ear of corn and a few slices of the fresh tomato he’d plucked from his small garden.
He’d bought her the video of Beauty and the Beast on the recommendation of the salesclerk in the video store, and he popped it into the VCR to keep her occupied while he and Laura cleaned up.
Laura was standing with her back to him, her hands in dishwater, when he walked into the kitchen.
“There’s a new lock on the gun cabinet,” he said, in case she was worried.
Laura turned to look at him, and her face was as unworried as he’d ever seen it. Her cheeks were rosy, her smile soft. She looked younger and more relaxed than she had even a few hours earlier, and he felt a quick and confusing flicker of desire.
“You were terrific with her tonight,” she said.
He reached for the dish towel, anxious to look away from Laura’s face. “I can’t believe she let me pick her up,” he said.
“Neither could I.” Laura handed him a bowl from the rinse water. “But I think something happened up there.”
“Like what?”
“I think you sort of became her hero.” Laura grinned.
He felt himself blush. “Always wanted to be somebody’s hero,” he said.
She leaned forward to peer through the window. “When we’re done here, can we use your telescope?” she asked.
He glanced through the window himself. A crescent moon hung above the trees. “Let’s go now,” he said, laying the towel on the countertop. “I can do these later.”
They walked through the living room. Emma was curled up on his sofa, eyes glued to the TV, thumb deep in her mouth, and Dylan dared to tousle her hair. “How’re Beauty and the Beast doing?” he asked, not expecting an answer and not getting one.
He lifted the embarrassingly amateur telescope from the corner of the living room and carried it onto the deck. “It’s all yours, for what it’s worth,” he said to Laura.
Laura’s hair spilled over her shoulders as she focused the telescope on the moon. “There,” she said, stepping back. “Take a look.”
He looked into the eyepiece. Centered in the circle
of stars was the sharp, white crescent moon, but the rest of the orb was clearly visible as well. He could even make out the craters. “Wow,” he said.
“That’s known as ‘the old moon in the new moon’s arms,’” Laura said.
He turned his head from the eyepiece to smile at her. “A little bit like Sarah and Laura, huh?” he asked.
Laura’s own smile disappeared, and she bit her lip.
“Uh-oh.” Dylan stood up straight. “What did I say?”
She leaned against the deck railing. “You know,” she said, “I may never figure out how Sarah knew my father, but I hope he was a very good friend to her. I hope he gave her some happiness, even if she can’t remember it. ’Cause she sure had more than her share of misery in her life.”
He moved next to her, leaning against the railing himself. “Have you seen her since the last time we talked?” he asked.
Laura nodded. “Yesterday, she told me she moved to get away from Saint Margaret’s, but they were able to track her down. That weird psychology student, Gilbert—”
“The psychic driving guy?”
“Right. He showed up at her door, and he knew everything about her. He got the information with help from the government, it sounds like. He even knew what time she went to bed. It was eerie, listening to her talk about it. So, she had to stop trying to find Joe then. She figured they’d tracked her down because she’d contacted various institutions trying to find him. I feel more strongly than ever that I want to find out what happened to him and Janie.”
“How, though?” Dylan asked. She was obsessive about this, but he didn’t blame her.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I can somehow look at old institution records. Or maybe the library has some resources I can use. Next week, I have to go up to Johns Hopkins to fill out some paperwork extending my leave, and I can use the university library up there. I’ll have to take Emma with me, though, and keep her occupied somehow while I do the research.”