Dr. Bill Lerwick climbed another fence and jumped to the ground on the other side. Not bad for a fifty-six year old man, he commended himself. Not so spry as in former days, but sufficient for the task at hand. That task was to elude the authorities until they spread out and he could make his way elsewhere.
Where to go? He concealed himself within a tangle of low branches between two trees in a random back yard and listened to the sounds of law enforcement working through the neighborhood, trying in vain to find him. Edward had betrayed him, of course—that was the only way the boy could have come to live with his parents. And if Edward had betrayed him, he would have to rely on his secondary hideouts. There would be no more public presentations on the science of reproduction—any notoriety now would draw the attention of the authorities like a neon sign flashing his name and location.
But he no longer needed such spectacles in any case, not anymore. Just a few more weeks…
Retrieving the boy was no longer possible, not at the present time. That was a pity; he had been mere moments from escaping with the lad. McWrait's attempt at vengeance had produced such a serendipitous opportunity to regain possession of the child; McWrait had inadvertently done the hard work for him, arranging the abduction.
But that FBI agent—how had he known…? This would set his plans back a bit, but no matter. He could return for the boy later, when his work allowed and the authorities had let their guard down. It had been wise, his decision not to divulge all of his plans and arrangements to Edward. The young man was much like Dr. Lerwick himself, yet far too much like his mother to be relied upon. He was talented, to be sure, but like Rhonda, too prone to the weakness of compassion—a virtue, indubitably, but one that could all too easily ruin a more noble work like Dr. Lerwick's research.
Information… Never give all your information to anyone. Information is power. His parents had taught him that when he was growing up, when they had educated him in the arts of theft and deception so that he could provide them with an income to sustain their addictions. Information—its collection and its discovery—had done more than that for him: it had led to his new and growing control over the conception of human lives. Information—his having withheld it—would now keep him safe from his son and from the authorities.
The sounds of officers hunting for him in the dark continued to edge down the street away from him; a spotlight from a hovering helicopter followed them. Dr. Lerwick looked around carefully. There was a detached garage at the house next door, and all the lights in that house were off; with the police moving door-to-door in search of him, and with their having passed that house, the absence of lights indicated that the residents were not at home.
Dr. Lerwick snuck across the back yard—cautiously, lest eyes from inside this nearer house notice him through the darkness and rain. He reached the fence; it had a gate to the neighbors' yard. He stepped through it gratefully; at his age, he could not hop fences all night.
Coming to the garage, he drew a familiar pair of tools from a pouch in his inner jacket pocket—tools his junkie father had taught him to use those many years ago, tools he had passed along to his own son. He pulled his gloves snugly into place, then inserted the tools into the doorknob at the side of the garage, one atop the other, and jiggled the one on top. He felt the expected click in the knob, opened the door, and quickly shut himself inside. Dusty boxes and forgotten furniture cluttered the garage; no one had stepped inside this structure for months. Neither was there space to park a car here, so he need not be concerned if the residents suddenly returned home. He could hide here a while.
An hour, or perhaps two—that would be sufficient. He would need to move under cover of darkness sometime during the night, before dawn. A yawn threatened, but he stifled it; rest would have to wait. Safety first. He took out his phone—the one Zechariah had not used—and with a single call made arrangements for his transportation elsewhere.