Too Near the Edge (29 page)

“So will Nathan be better off without me
too?” Sharon asked icily.

“He’ll have me,” Waycroft said, “and I’ll
make sure he gets a good education. Too bad Adam didn’t tell me
he’d printed out pages from the website. I could have found them
and destroyed them, and we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

I finally got a grip and spoke up. “You can
be a complete jackass, but I can’t believe you’d kill your own
daughter just to save a piece of research,” I said.

“Believe it,” Sharon said giving Waycroft a
look of pure hatred. “In his eyes, I’m mostly just a piece of
research gone wrong. I never behaved according to the learning
theories he used on me, never followed the script he set out for
me, never lived the life he had planned for me. He’ll be glad to
see the last of me and have Nathan all to himself.”

“I know where I went wrong with you, Sharon,”
Waycroft replied.

“I can do much better with Nathan, especially
if you’re not around to get in the way.”

Elisa had surreptitiously reached into her
purse and started fishing around. Waycroft noticed her movements
and grabbed the purse out of her hands. “Give me your cell phones
and drop your purses on the floor in front of you,” he barked.
“Now!”

We gave him the phones, still too stunned to
resist. Any hope of calling for help had vanished.

“Donald, you don’t seriously think you can
get away with killing all three of us, and simply continue your
work?” Elisa asked incredulously.

“Of course I know it’s not that simple,”
Waycroft said in a mocking tone. “But accidents happen.” He pointed
to a door on his left, marked “Lab.” “In here! Now! All of you! You
first, Sharon, then Elisa, then Cleo. Now move.”

We were moving slowly in the direction of the
lab room when we heard noisy chanting from outside the building.
“Enlighten, empower, expand. Seek to believe, not understand.
Enlighten, empower, expand. Seek to believe, not understand.”

Waycroft turned toward the window. I realized
in a flash that if any of us were going to get out of there alive,
now was the time. I couldn’t meekly walk into that room and let
Waycroft kill us all. I bolted, ran past Waycroft toward the front
door, and pulled it open. I heard a shot ring out, but didn’t
realize it had hit me until I got outside and saw blood running
down my arm.

“Cleo, what’s happening? Is someone shooting
at you?” It was Narmada with a bunch of women carrying cardboard
signs with painted slogans like “My spirit group rejects Waycroft!”
“There’s more to life than Waycroft knows!” and “We foresee
disaster for Waycroft!” I realized this must be her protest rally
supporting my cause.

“Do you have a cell phone? Call the police!”
I yelled. “He’s got Sharon and Elisa in there, and he’s got a
gun.”

“You’re bleeding! Are you okay? Do you need
an ambulance?” There was a group gathered around me now.

“Call the police! Hurry! We have to get
Sharon and Elisa out!” I felt panicky, desperate to somehow save
them from Waycroft.

“I called the police,” someone yelled. “Do
you need an ambulance?”

I felt around my left shoulder where it was
bleeding. The bullet had grazed my shoulder. It seemed to be a
superficial wound. “I’m okay. But we need to save my friends.”

“So let me get this straight,” Narmada said.
“Donald Waycroft shot you, and he’s holding his own daughter and
someone else at gunpoint? We knew he was an asshole, but this is
over the top even for him. What’s going on?”

“I can’t explain it all now,” I said
frantically. “But he’s extremely dangerous. He’ll kill them if we
don’t stop him.” I realized now that I was out, Waycroft’s secret
was moot. He couldn’t come after me with so many people out here.
So he must be considering some strategy for getting away.

Sure enough, before the police had time to
show up, Waycroft appeared at his lab door pushing Elisa in front
of him, his gun in her back. “Don’t come anywhere near us, or I’ll
shoot her,” Waycroft threatened, moving Elisa in the direction of
his Red Jeep Cherokee.

“Where’s Sharon?” I yelled at him. “You know
you can’t keep your secret now, so why not let Elisa go?”

He ignored me, pushed Elisa into the
passenger side of the Jeep, kept the gun trained on her as he
walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off. I
memorized his license plate number, then ran inside to find
Sharon.

She lay on the floor in the small lab room.
One side of her face was bruised and bleeding. She looked to be
unconscious. “Now we need that ambulance,” I shouted to the women
who had followed me inside.

“Let me check her. I used to be a nurse,”
said a young blond-haired woman wearing a black tee-shirt dress.
She knelt beside Sharon on the floor. “She’s breathing, and her
pulse is good,” she said, after checking Sharon for a minute.

“Hey, Cleo,” Narmada called from the doorway,
“The police are here. You need to tell them what happened.”

“Tell them to go after Donald Waycroft,” I
shouted back. “Red Jeep Cherokee, license number J57163.”

“I told them he’s armed and has a hostage,”
she called in a minute later. “They need to talk to you for more
details about her.”

I jumped up, ran out, and gave them
identifying information about Elisa as well as Waycroft. The
ambulance arrived and loaded Sharon up. She was still unconscious,
so I had to give them information about her. As I did that, I
remembered Nathan was at soccer practice and would need to be
picked up. I rescued my cell phone from Waycroft’s desk where he’d
left it, and called Joel. “I can’t give you the details now,” I
said, “but can you pick up Nathan at the soccer field at 11:30?

“Where’s Sharon? Has something happened to
her?” he asked anxiously.

“She’s okay,” I reassured him. “But I think
she hit her head, and she’s unconscious. She’s on her way to the
hospital in an ambulance now. Could you take Nathan out for lunch
or something, keep him occupied for a while. There’s a lot going on
here right now and I need to go. I’ll call you as soon as I
can.”

“A lot going on where? Where are you calling
from, Cleo?”

“Joel, I have to go. Can you just trust me
and pick up Nathan?”

After he agreed, I hung up and went over to
talk to the police to find out what had happened with Waycroft and
Elisa. There were quite a group of them there by then, examining
Waycroft’s lab, taking pictures and notes. They said they had
broadcast a statewide wanted person bulletin for Waycroft with
information about his vehicle and cautions about Elisa. They wanted
me to go to the police station to make a statement about what had
happened. I agreed.

We had come in Elisa’s car, and she had the
keys, so one of the police officers offered to drive me to my
office to get my car. I must have been running on pure adrenaline
up until then, but suddenly I couldn’t stop shaking. When we got to
my office, the police officers made me some tea and helped me wash
the blood off my shoulder and put some ointment on it. Suddenly I
realized Elisa’s husband and daughter didn’t know anything about
what had happened. The officers said they would locate them, fill
them in on the situation, and have them call me on my cell.

After I finished the tea, I felt much better
and convinced the officers I was able to drive. They left and I
followed them over to the police station to make a statement about
what had happened. After that I went to the hospital to see how
Sharon was doing. She was still in the ER—awake, a little groggy
from some pain medication, bruised, but basically fine and ready to
go home. She had been worrying about Nathan and was relieved to
hear Joel had picked him up.

While they got the papers ready to release
her, I brought my car around to the door. As soon as I got her in
the car, I could see that emotionally she was still reeling from
the morning’s events. I drove out onto the street, found a parking
space, and stopped so we could talk a bit before I took her
home.

“How are you doing with all this?” I
asked.

“It’s hard to believe Dad killed Adam. He
didn’t like him, didn’t want me to marry him, didn’t want him to
adopt Nathan—but I never thought he’d murder him.”

“It must be overwhelming. I can’t
imagine.”

“And that Mexico project. Who would have
guessed? Maybe I should have paid more attention to what Dad was
doing in the last few years. I knew he was fanatical about proving
that behaviorism can save the world, but I never would have thought
he would go that far. I wish Adam had told me. Maybe none of this
would have happened.”

“What happened in the lab after I ran out?
What did he do to you?”

“After he shot at you, I jumped at him, tried
to grab the gun. He hit me—I guess with the gun—and that’s all I
remember.” She suddenly clicked in on the whole thing. “Oh my God,
where is he? Did he get away? What happened to Elisa? Is she
okay?”

“He brought Elisa out at gunpoint as a
hostage, put her in his car and drove off. The police are trying to
find them.”

“Oh, my God! I feel responsible for getting
you two into this. I had no idea he was so dangerous. He can be a
self-focused jerk who makes trouble for people who won’t do what he
wants, but I never thought he’d kidnap or kill anyone.”

My cell phone rang. We both jumped. I grabbed
it, hoping for good news about Elisa. But it was Joel, wanting an
update.

“I just picked up Sharon at the hospital.
She’s fine and we’ll be at her house in a few minutes,” I said.
“How’s Nathan doing?”

“He’s fine. I told him something came up, and
Sharon couldn’t pick him up. We got some pizza and came back to my
place, since I didn’t know how we’d get into Sharon’s. Nathan
doesn’t have a key with him. So we’ll meet you over there.”

I closed the phone, pulled out and headed
toward Broadway. “We need to get back,” I said to Sharon. “Joel is
bringing Nathan over to your house now.” I realized Sharon would
have some explaining to do when we got there. Just looking at her,
Nathan would know something had happened.

“Have you thought about what to tell Nathan?”
I asked.

“I’m thinking about it. But I don’t have any
good ideas. I don’t want to lie to him. But I don’t want to tell
him his grandfather killed Adam and threatened to kill me.”

I wished I could help her, but some suffering
can’t be soothed by others at the moment of impact. I could help
her with grief therapy in the coming months, but right then it was
her family, her sadness, her tragedy to face however she could. We
drove on in silence, thinking about the horror we had seen and the
pain that waited for us.

As I pulled into Sharon’s driveway, Elisa’s
husband Jack called on my cell phone. He was so distraught he could
barely choke out the words. “Cleo, what happened? Why did Donald
Waycroft kidnap Elisa?”

“Jack, let me come talk to you in person
about it. Are you at home?”

He was. I thought Jack and Maria needed my
support more than Sharon did at that point. Plus, I thought she and
Nathan could talk better without me. So I left her with Joel and
Nathan, and drove to Elisa and Jack’s house in the foothills.

A police car was parked in their driveway
when I got there. Elisa’s daughter Maria answered my knock wearing
baggy shorts and a tank top. Her hair hung over her face as usual,
but I could see her eyes were red and swollen.

“Cleo, tell me exactly what happened. I need
to know exactly. The police are so not clear on the details.” Her
voice was shrill, her words tumbled over each other. I could feel
her panic and my heart ached for her.

I put my arms around her and hugged her long
and hard, patting her back to calm her like I used to do when she
was little. “I’ll tell you what I can, Maria. Let’s just go where
your dad can hear it, too.”

We moved into the living room. Jack sat in a
chair next to the fireplace, talking to two police officers seated
on the couch across from him. Jack is a lanky, sandy-haired man,
generally easy-going and sociable. But that morning he had a tense,
tightly coiled look to him, a aura of hyper-vigilance. “Cleo!” He
jumped up, darted toward me, and threw his long arms around me in a
big hug. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt.” Then he stepped back. “I
need to know everything you can tell me about Elisa and Donald
Waycroft. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?”

I sat on the other couch, pulling Maria down
next to me, and began the Waycroft story from the beginning—much of
which Maria knew, but I wasn’t sure about Jack. I talked about how
he’d threatened Elisa, Sharon and me, how we’d found out about his
horrible project and confronted him—but I left out the part about
him pushing Adam over the cliff. I didn’t think that part was my
story to tell. At least not until I’d talked with Sharon.

The police officers sat quietly, listening
without comment. Just as I finished recounting the details of the
confrontation and shootout at the lab that morning, one of the
officers’ cell phone rang. He got up and walked toward the front
door as he answered. We listened, drawing what conclusions we could
from the side of the conversation we heard.

“Mathews. Right. When? Where was it? How
long? So what do we …. Okay.” He walked back to where Jack sat.
“They found Waycroft’s Jeep. He drove up the canyon to some
friend’s house off Sugarloaf, locked his friend in the closet,
stole her car and left his there. When the friend missed a lunch
appointment with her daughter, the daughter drove up there to check
on her. She found her mother in the closet, and they called the
sheriff’s office. It looks like Waycroft took your wife with him in
the friend’s car. They have a bulletin out for it now.”

“Holly,” I said.

“What?” Jack turned in my direction.