The Repossession (37 page)

Rian noticed some people getting up to leave, Fortress employees who sensed trouble, he guessed.

Danielle’s father was speechless, his face a mess of tears when he saw his Danielle stand, ready to say her piece. He just leaped up from his seat, grabbed her, embraced her and led her out of the church without a word.

Reverend Schneider looked distinctly uncomfortable

now. ‘This must be some kind of miracle,’ he began to mutter, trying to regain control. ‘Jeff Wasserman, you have prayed for your daughter’s safe return and now here—’

No one was listening as another person stood up.

‘I bear witness against you, Reverend Schneider,’ Renée began. ‘You stole my body, you stole my life. You’re a criminal. God knows what a real monster you are.’

Renée suddenly noticed her mother in the choir stalls, angrily glaring at her. Obviously she had chosen sides.

Outside the church, Miller and other cops were busy interviewing people who left, taking them to one side and checking their IDs. Still no TV or press people. Surely the Fortress couldn’t keep everyone away, could they? Just how much influence did they have? He should have called news organizations south of the border, in Seattle maybe.

If they didn’t come, how could he protect these kids?

Inside the church, Cary was standing up.

‘I’m Cary Harrison and I accuse you, Reverend Schneider, of abducting me.’

Cary’s mother cried out. His father just stared at Cary with bewildered astonishment.

‘I know the Fortress got you fired, Dad. I’m sorry. But I’m back now. We can make them pay.’

Cary made no attempt to move, but someone took his hand and led him towards his father. Cary turned his head and saw it was Renée.

Miller appeared at the door and Genie caught his eye.

She had spotted a large overweight man lumbering towards the door. Clearly Mr Yates wanted no part of this.

She stepped out in front of him.

‘Going somewhere, Employee of the Month?’

He looked at her, uncomprehending. Miller intervened.

‘Mr Yates, some people would like a word with you, sir.’

Mr Yates looked at Miller and beyond to the flashing blue lights of the assembled RCMP and realized he had problems. A plain-clothes man from IHIT flashed his badge at him.

‘You are Mr Jim Yates, Assistant Finance Director of Fortransco Development, commonly known as the Fortress?’

Mr Yates nodded, too surprised to lie.

‘This way, sir.’

That was when he saw Rian standing nearby. His face turned to thunder. ‘You little squirt, I might have known you were part of this.’

Rian watched him go. He felt a little happier. He could see his mother glaring at him from her wheelchair and knew that she didn’t share his sense of relief. She’d be

thinking that there was no one to look after her now.

Immediately he felt guilty about that. Suddenly he heard Genie’s voice, cutting through the hubbub. There was an audible murmur as the Reverend’s disciples all noticed her walk down the aisle.

‘Reverend Schneider, I bear witness against you. I’m Genie Magee.’

A sudden spate of whispering swept through the assembly. Genie heard one word repeated like a wave from aisle to aisle: ‘Possessed’.

Reverend Schneider was astonished to see her. He had seen her die. He began to stutter. ‘You are c-con . . .

confused . . .’

Genie felt her anger rising. ‘You smashed my dog’s head open, abducted me.’ She pointed to a woman who was trying to avoid her gaze. ‘You handed me over to this woman. Yes, you, Helen Ulrich – no need to hide your face – stripped me, shaved my head and made me disappear. We’re alive. You didn’t expect witnesses, did you? No kid is safe in this town from you people.’

She paused for breath. All around her the flock were agitated, standing, trying to leave. Denis’ parents were examining their son, trying to make sense of why he’d never grown a centimetre in nearly two whole years.

A huge woman bore down on Randall, screaming his

name. He looked scared and pleased at the same time as she crushed him in her arms.

‘Randall, Randall, Randall . . . you got so thin . . .’

Miller entered the church with two IHIT investigators and indicated Reverend Schneider.

Reverend Schneider was frantically trying to get through to someone on his phone. Genie thought for a moment that it might be the devil and he was trying to renegotiate his contract.

‘Reverend Schneider, you’re under arrest,’ Miller said.

‘You believe the rantings of a stupid, spiteful girl?’

Schneider shouted, red with anger.

Miller took his phone from him, read him his rights and put the cuffs on him.

One of the officers turned to the congregation. ‘No one leaves. We have a list of names of people we’d like to talk to.’

Genie glimpsed her mother at the back of the church, staring with intense hatred at her. There was no homecoming due her, for sure. Nothing had changed.

Someone touched Genie’s arm. Denis, his mother and sister beside him.

‘I’m going home.’ He hugged Genie. ‘None of this would have happened without you, Genie. Thanks.’

Genie hugged Denis back. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Denis looked confused.

‘For showing me the way.’

‘You’ll visit?’

Genie nodded. ‘You must make them leave town, Denis,’ she reminded him. ‘None of us can stay until we know we’re safe.’

Denis’ father put his hand out to her.

‘For he who is lost, shall be found,’ he said.

Genie watched them leave, slightly bemused, jealous of how tight that family was. She called after him. ‘Don’t forget to tell them about the mosquitos, Denis.’

‘So you’re Genie,’ a voice announced behind her.

Genie looked behind and saw Rian’s mother in her wheelchair.

She looked at Genie with sadness in her eyes.

‘Rian thinks a lot of you.’

‘He’s my hero,’ Genie replied.

‘And you’re intending to take him away from me.’

Genie blinked at the distinct hostility in the voice.

‘I . . .’ She thought suddenly of Mr Yates. ‘You knew Mr Yates worked at the Fortress, didn’t you? You must have known what he was doing. All those children disappearing and you said nothing?’

Rian’s mother narrowed her eyes.

‘You’ll ruin his life. You Munbys are all alike. You ruin everything you touch.’

‘You could have told Rian the truth. You could have protected him,’ Genie told her.

‘He’d have been safe if it wasn’t for you,’ his mother answered bitterly.

Rian was suddenly at her side.

‘We’ve got to go. The police want to talk to us.’

His mother grabbed his arm with desperation.

‘Don’t go, Rian. Don’t let this girl ruin your life. Don’t you understand she’s—’

‘She’s what, Ma? Abused? Possessed? Evil? She’s the best thing in my whole life.’ Rian signalled Renée who pushed through the crowd to join them.

‘Is your mother here, Renée?’

Renée shook her head. ‘She ran off. Some things never change.’

‘We’re leaving. You have to come with us. They need to talk to all of us.’

‘Renée?’ Mrs Tulane enquired. ‘This is Renée?’

Renée turned and looked down at Mrs Tulane.

‘Hello, Mrs Tulane.’

Rian was pulling Genie and Renée away. He didn’t want a scene.

‘If you ever see my dad again,’ Renée was saying,

‘tell him that I’m going to look after
my
family. We’re sticking together.’

Rian led his two girls away and Mrs Tulane stared after them, angry and frustrated.

Outside, Genie got the satisfaction of seeing Reverend Schneider being bundled into a squad car. Women were screaming around the car, some for him, some against. It was hard to tell which.

‘Ri?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I feel nauseous.’ Genie ran to the fence and dry-heaved.

Way too much emotion. She took deep breaths. Why did she feel so nervous? Hadn’t it gone to plan? Something was definitely wrong. Where were those promised newspaper people? They needed the protection of the media. Without them being on the news, the Fortress could pick them off, one by one.

Julia’s mother was suddenly beside her.

‘Are you all right, dear?’

Genie nodded, wiping her mouth.

‘I wanted to thank you for bringing Julia home to us.

She told us what you did and how you looked after her. I don’t know what she’s been through exactly, but I just wanted to say thanks.’

Genie blushed. She hadn’t done anything as far as she was concerned, but she smiled and accepted the remarks.

‘Don’t let her disappear again,’ Genie told her. ‘She loves you very much.’

Tears welled in Julia’s mother’s eyes.

Genie surveyed the confusion outside the church.

Police questioning people. Everyone was bewildered, and some folks were staring at her with hostility, as if it were all her fault.

Miller rescued her and escorted her to his car, where Renée and Rian waited.

‘Better?’ Rian asked.

Genie shrugged. She wasn’t sure.

‘What’s going to happen to us? Where are the journalists, Miller? Where’s the TV people? I can’t believe no one’s interested, I mean this is an event, right?’

Miller was tense. ‘I just learned that Fortransco set up a roadblock to prevent the press getting here. Someone leaked what we were doing, Genie. I’m sorry.’ He got behind the wheel and locked the doors as a precaution.

Genie instantly realized they were in trouble. Not even the local press turned up. The Fortress had outsmarted them. Homicide were taking it seriously. But without the media asking awkward questions she knew Fortransco

would get away with everything. She swore. This should have been the biggest story of the year.

‘Taking you to meet some people who’ve flown in from Vancouver,’ Miller said. ‘It includes the Deputy Commissioner of the Pacific Region and Commanding Officer of E Division. That’s like as high as it gets in the police. He’s got questions. My dad is already talking with his people.’

‘No TV reporters got through at all?’ Rian asked, confused.

‘No. I’m sorry, OK. I should have thought of that. I can’t even get through to them on the phone any more, the signal’s jammed.’

Genie sighed. She had feared this. She realized that Miller was more upset than she was. ‘Maybe they aren’t here because it isn’t a good story if we aren’t dead. Dead teens are a news story. Stabbed teens, teens with gunshot wounds. But we’re tanned and alive, claiming to be abducted by the most respected man in Spurlake, stored on a server in a place that doesn’t actually exist on the map and teleported to the middle of a forest? Crazy talk.

We’re probably lucky we aren’t on some tacky daytime TV

show with people who think they’re Martians.’

‘You’ve suddenly became all cynical, Miss Magee,’

Miller said, snatching a look at her. He could tell she was

really upset, and probably a little scared now.

Renée and Genie exchanged glances.

‘Perhaps with the Vancouver police involved we’ll get some protection,’ Renée suggested, but you could tell from her voice that she didn’t really believe that.

‘What happens now?’ Genie asked.

‘Marshall wants to talk to you about something,’ Miller answered mysteriously.

Rian squeezed her hand and tried to reassure her.

‘We did good in there. People were shocked. Those parents will guard those kids now. I’m sure. It’s up to them now to persuade their families to leave town.’

Genie nodded, looking out of the window as Spurlake passed by. ‘God, I need something to drink. Can we stop at the store on the way? I have an urgent need for Coke and chocolate.’

Renée laughed, putting an arm around Genie and hugging her. ‘God, chocolate. When did I last eat chocolate? Put me down for that.’

Two days later Genie threw up for real and there was blood in the bathroom sink. Marshall was out of hospital now and recuperating at Miller’s home. He’d immediately dragged her to see his doctor. The doc did X-rays and tested her blood and urine. Said they’d found nothing wrong, but she was concerned about her blood pressure.

She’d talked to her and asked if there was any tension in her life. Genie smiled at that. Even though the doc had given her a clean bill of health she knew Marshall was still worried about her. He drove back from the hospital in a thoughtful mood.

‘You have to hand it to those guys in the Fortress.

They may not know what the hell they’re doing, but the fact that you’ve still got your nose in the right place is still pretty damn impressive.’

Genie looked at him and frowned.

‘You do know they’re evil, right?’

‘I’m not defending them. But you’re here and your X-rays show that everything is pretty much where it’s

supposed to be. OK, your blood pressure is a bit high, but that may have been the case before you were teleported.

It takes a lot of skill to programme human DNA in such a way it can reform in the right order. I mean, I wrote a lot of those programmes, but it was theory, all theory. I never had a chance to make it work.’

Genie thought about what he said.

‘If you were still working there, would you have tried to send me through the system? Be honest now.’

Marshall shook his head. It was a question he’d been asking himself.

‘The most I was prepared to do was mice. We bred mice to do that. But I never got to send ’em. If we couldn’t send a damn clock, we weren’t going to be able to transmit a living mouse. You have no idea how complex the DNA structure of a mouse is. And keep its heart beating.’

‘But you wouldn’t have sent kids?’

Marshall thought about it.

‘If we had sent mice and they had lived, we would have worked our way up to larger animals. At some point we would be where they are now and be looking for human volunteers.’

Genie said nothing. Marshall snatched a look at her.

‘I’m trying to be honest, Genie. I’m a scientist. But to answer you, no, I’d never be part of anything that was

illegal, dishonest and frankly criminal. None of those kids knew what they were getting into. That means they weren’t volunteers and what they did to them was murder. That’s not how you do science. Sure you take risks, but first demonstrate you can do mice. Prove the theory, then do the practice.’