Hear the Children Calling (34 page)

Tommy shook his head, holding Michael so tightly by the upper arms that the smaller boy winced. “It’s a trick, Michael,” he said sternly. “Don’t believe it. Adams is using the other kids to get to us, and someone’s making you see things that aren’t there.”

“But she—”

“Don’t fall for it,” Jenny said. “We can’t be safe. We can’t trust anyone yet.”

Michael studied his friends. Tommy’s blondish-brown hair stuck out in all directions, a shade darker for the layer of dirt that had settled on it during their hike. Even though she had brushed it, Jenny’s hair was still full of junk from the floor of the cave. Both their faces were smudged, and Jenny’s eyes were bloodshot from crying. All three were exhausted, hungry, and frightened. But Michael believed Tommy was right. Even if that girl really was his sister, it was too weird to imagine her here with his father.

He nodded. “All right,” he said softly.

Miles away, at Ralph’s bedside, Beth wailed in frustration as she lost contact with Peter once more.

“He was going to tell us where he is.”

“He’s afraid,” Ralph whispered, a bit groggy from the painkillers he’d been given.

“Don’t worry,” Lou Vermont said. “We’ll find him. I have a team going through those mountains now.”

“What about the center itself?” Ralph asked.

“Got myself a bona-fide warrant and sent my best men there,” Lou said. “I’ll be going there myself, but I wanted to talk with you first. This business about kids with powers, it’s the screwiest thing I ever heard of.”

“But you saw Beth,” Ralph protested. “You can’t say you think she was faking that!”

Lou shrugged. “She’s his twin. Maybe they have some kind of connection, I don’t know. But a whole community of kids like that? It’s like that movie,
Village of the Damned
.”

“But it’s the adults who are evil this time,” Ralph
said. He closed his eyes wearily, not even wanting to think of the price he’d pay for his part in Lincoln Adams’ bizarre experiment. They could throw him in jail forever. But that wouldn’t hurt as much as losing Michael.

The phone rang and he jumped. Lou reached for it before Ralph could make a move. Both he and Beth looked up at the cop, watching his expression change from interest to surprise to anger as he spoke. When he hung up, he was pale.

“It’s empty,” Lou said. “The LaMane Center is empty. There isn’t a single person in the whole complex.”

“Adams knew you were coming and moved them out,” Ralph said.

“They took the files, books, tapes, everything,” Lou went on in amazement. “Left all the furniture and most of their clothes, but my team says the houses look as if people went through their belongings in a hurry. This can only have happened in the last few hours.”

“They could easily be on various flights out of Albuquerque,” Ralph pointed out. “I’m afraid you’ve probably lost him.”

Beth shook her head. “But what about my mother?”

“I’m afraid there was no sign of her,” Lou said softly.

Beth was too numbed by the events of the past day to react. She simply asked another question. “And Peter?” she said. “Wasn’t Dr. Adams mad about Peter and his friends escaping?”

“She’s right,” Ralph said. “He’d still be after them.”

“But where?” Lou asked. “Where do we start looking so we can get to the kids first?”

Beth looked down at her worn sneakers.

“I’ll try calling Peter again,” she said softly.

But no matter how hard she directed her thoughts toward him, he did not answer.

It wasn’t that Peter didn’t hear her. But he was so
afraid that Dr. Adams and the other adults—even the kids—were trying to trap them that he forced himself to ignore her pleas. He felt like crying again and chewed his lips to stop the tears from flowing. The sound of Jenny’s gasp made him look up. The sight before him pushed all thoughts of the red-haired girl from his mind.

They had come out of the mountains and were standing several hundred yards from a long ribbon of sun-grayed blacktop. Cars were whizzing by in either direction, the chain broken by an occasional truck. But it was what they saw beyond the highway that made the children gaze in wonder.

Against the backdrop of a clear blue sky hung countless hot-air balloons, colored brightly with red, white, and blue, the oranges and reds and yellows of sunsets, green and white, purples, pinks, and dozens of other combinations. There was even a flag shaped like the head of a cartoon character.

“Wow,” Tommy whispered.

“What do you suppose is going on?” Jenny asked.

“Hot-air balloons,” Michael said. “It’s the Balloon Festival. They have it every year at this time. My dad told me about it . . .” He cut himself off, afraid memories like that would start him crying. But there would be no time for self-pity, for Tommy was urging them toward the road. They ran out in the open for the first time since leaving the center, forgetting their fears in the excitement of reaching the festival. At the road, they waited for an opening in the cars and dodged across. Within minutes they were mingling with the crowds.

“This is a safe place,” Tommy said. “Adams would never try to hurt us in front of all these people.”

Jenny looked around warily at the strange faces. “But what if someone from the center
is
here?” she asked. “What if they just try to sneak us out?”

“If any of you feel someone touching you,” Tommy warned, “scream like crazy. Now, I don’t know about
you guys, but I’m starved. Let’s see if we can get ourselves something to eat.”

The children weaved their way through the crowds, passing lines of people waiting for balloon rides, walking around huge ovals of nylon lying flat on the ground. They were unaware they were being watched. Weary from a long plane ride, the woman hardly had the energy to keep up with them. But she stayed close behind, knowing she had a job to do and determined to carry it through.

51

A
S THEY DROVE TOWARD THE
S
ANDIA
M
OUNTAINS
, Danny was at the wheel while Jill navigated, a map spread across her lap. She had circled the area where the LaMane Center was located, as well as St. Marta’s Ridge. From these points, the two had decided the children were heading toward the city. For a long time neither one of them said a word, lost in similar thoughts of the dangers they were facing. The possibility that they might not succeed, that they might end up as dead as Stuart Morse, was not allowed to grow beyond the vaguest of uneasy feelings. Worried as she was about what lay ahead, Jill thought of the Conestoga wagon kit she’d bought. The package said, Age 9 and up. Once more she wondered what Ryan would be like at age ten, how similar to the angelic little boy she remembered. She finally spoke to Danny.

“Did you ever wonder what Laura looks like now?”

“A bit,” Danny said. “But Kate tells me the child she sees in her visions looks a little like me. Poor kid!”

Jill couldn’t help a smile. It was hard to imagine a feminine, youthful version of this bear of a man. He wasn’t homely by any means, but his heavy dark brows and deep-set brown eyes would be overpowering on a little girl.

“I’m sure she’s charming,” Jill said.

“With enough of her mother’s genes to get her by, I hope,” Danny said. “I don’t care what she looks like. I just want her back again.”

Jill pointed off the road.

“There, that exit,” she said. “That will take us back to the center.”

Danny veered off the highway and followed the dusty mountain road for about fifteen minutes. When the mammoth wrought-iron fence around the LaMane Center came into distant view, Jill was struck by how its dour appearance contrasted with the gentle reds, browns, and greens of the surrounding mountains. But at the sound of Danny’s gasp, she turned away from the view and looked to where he was pointing. There was a roadblock up ahead.

Two police cars were parked sideways on the road, headlight to headlight. Behind them was another one marked S
HERIFF
.

Jill sat back and looked at Danny with wide eyes. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Danny only shook his head. Had the LaMane people been caught? Had something happened to one of the children?

“Looks like we’re going to have the police helping us after all,” Danny said.

Jill thought of the scarred man who had posed as a cop after Ryan and Jeff’s accident, and later as a guest at her hotel.

“I don’t think . . .”

Danny stopped the car and rolled down the window.

“What’re you folks doing here?” the policeman asked, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

Danny made no attempt at pretense.

“We’re looking for our children,” he blurted.
“Those bastards at that LaMane Center kidnapped my little girl and I’ve come to get her back.”,

“Danny,” Jill gasped.

The policeman took off his glasses and squinted into the back seat. “You better come with me.”

Jill glared at Danny for a second, wanting to berate him. How could he be so trusting? But before she could say a word Danny was already out of the car. They were introduced to a man in a uniform the same sandy color as his hair. Lou Vermont wasn’t quite as tall as Danny, but his barrel chest and thrown-back shoulders gave him the appearance of being every bit as strong. Lou did not waste time with preliminaries.

“Either of you folks know Stuart and Natalie Morse?”

“We went to school together,” Jill said. “I—we heard about what happened at the airport.”

“We’re looking for our kids, too,” Danny put in. “What’s going on in there?” He cocked his head toward the cluster of adobe-style buildings beyond the black fence.

“That’s what I mean to find out,” Lou said. He studied the pair before him. “Your kids, huh? Damn, but this whole thing gets messier by the minute. What makes you think they’re here?”

Jill and Danny exchanged glances.

“I doubt you’d believe—” Danny began.

“Oh, I’m sure I would,” Lou drawled. “But you’re too late. The whole complex is empty. Whatever’s been going on in there, they’ve packed everyone and everything up and left in a hurry. I’ve got my men searching the place for a clue as to where they went, but I don’t think they’re gonna find anything. So if your kids really are with them—”

“My daughter isn’t,” Danny said. “I’m sure of that. She ran away from this place, along with two other boys. Sheriff, have there been any others who claimed their children were brought here?”,

“Why are you here at all?” Jill wanted to know.

Lou held up his hands, his stubby fingers spread
wide. “Slow down. No, nobody’s said anything about their kid being here. I’m here to investigate a murder.”

“A murder?” Jill asked.

“You heard that that fellow was killed in an airport coffeeshop,” Lou said. “The most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. His mother-in-law was also a victim, and when I went to talk to her, she mentioned this place.” He took off his cap and scratched his head. “Damn but I wish I could figure this out!”

“We may have another clue,” Danny said. “Stuart Morse was an old friend of mine. Y’see, Jill, Stuart, and I went to school together back in a town called Wheaton, Michigan.”

Jill watched him with a mix of annoyance and fear as he told their story, of the illegal fertility drug, of the “deaths” of their children, and how Laura had been in contact with his wife.

Lou heard all this without saying a word, and when Danny was finished, he took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

“If you don’t believe this,” Danny said, “I’d understand.”

“Look, I got a murder on my hands no one can explain,” Lou said. “A woman and her daughter are missing, and now you two strangers come out of nowhere telling me details of this case that fit in like they were die-cut. I don’t know what to believe, but if you’ve got any suggestions I’m open-minded.”

“Danny, don’t . . .”

But Danny was so delighted to have the help of the police that he ignored Jill’s attempts to quiet him.

“When I last spoke to my wife,” he said, “she told me she had a vision that Laura and two boys were near a place called St. Marta’s Ridge. We’ve decided they must be heading toward the city. What we hope is that they’ll cross paths with the Balloon Festival and that we’ll be able to rescue them there.”

“Several questions,” Lou put in. “Okay, so maybe
this is all for real and that is your daughter. But how do you know it’s your boy, Mrs. Sheldon?”

“I didn’t, at first,” Jill said. “But the fact that Ryan had tried to make contact, too, tells me he might be one of the children. Call it a mother’s instincts, it’s just something I believe.”

“And if it isn’t Ryan?”

Jill turned away from the sheriff to hide the look of fear on her face. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of that possibility . . .

It was Danny who spoke for her.

“If it isn’t Ryan, then it’s another scared little kid who’ll help us find the boy.”

Jill swung around, her eyes rimmed red with tears she hadn’t allowed to fall. “If you really are here to help us,” she said forcefully, “then what are you going to do to get our kids back?”

“Well, this is all really unexpected,” Lou said. “Normally, there’d be a missing-persons report to be filed—”

“Screw that,” Danny grumbled. “Some maniac is after our children.”

Lou stared at him. “I’ve got people working on it. They’re looking for a large group of people, either on the road or at the bus station or airport.”

Jill listened to this while staring at the mud-caked tops of her boots. In the sunlight, she thought she saw the reddish-brown remains of blood and she closed her eyes in horror to remember what had happened the night before. She was terrified to think what might happen if the sheriff knew what she’d done—not of the price she’d pay for the crime, but of the delay in getting to Ryan. The LaMane people were on the run, too. And they’d be searching for the runaways to stop them from revealing too much.

Slowly, she looked up and spoke in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. “I know where there’s a crowd,” she said. “The Balloon Festival. What if they’ve gone there after the children? How easily could
they mingle with the crowds in search of Laura and the boys?”