For JeffLaConner the treatment had been the norm- massive infusions of growth hormones-and until just two weeks ago it appeared Jeff was going to be a success. But now things had gone sour, for the first time since Randy Stevens-and Marty Ames had to make the onerous phone call. Quietly, he'd explain to ChuckLaConner that Jeff would have to spend a certain amount of time in an "institutional environment."
That was the phrase Ames had come to prefer. It allowed the boys' parents a vague hope that perhaps someday their children would be well again.
And perhaps, if Ames were lucky, it could be true for some of the boys. Perhaps he would find a way to reverse the uncontrolled growth and unbridled fury to which they fell victim.
Indeed, during the past few months he'd even begun to hope that there might be no more RandyStevenses, no more necessity for calls such as he was about to make. He was so close-so very close.
Perhaps tonight's call would, after all, be the last.
But of course, with experimental science, you never really knew.
Sharon sat quietly on a straight-backed chair next to the bed in which Mark lay sleeping. He looked younger than his sixteen years, and the bruises on his cheek, the bandage over his right eye, and the swelling on his jaw only made him look more vulnerable. Sharon was no longer certain how long she'd been sitting with him, how much time had passed since he'd finally drifted into a sedated sleep. His breathing, the loudest noise she could hear, sounded labored, and although she knew he felt nothing, she imagined she could feel the pain that each of his shallow gasps must be inflicting on his bruised chest.
Behind her there was a soft click, and she sensed rather than saw the door opening. A moment later she felt Blake's hands resting gently on her shoulders; automatically her own hands went up to cover his. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Blake's hands slipped away. "Don't you think we ought to go home?" he asked, moving around to the other side of the bed so she could see him.
Sharon shook her head. "I can't. If he wakes up, I want to be here."
"He's not going to wake up tonight," Blake replied. "I talked to the nurse just now, and she says he'll sleep through till morning."
Sharon sighed heavily. Her eyes left her son and she looked up at her husband. "It doesn't make any difference. I just want to be here for him, that's all."
Blake hesitated, then nodded. "I know," he said. "Tell you what. You stay here, and I'll go on over to theHarrises and pick up Kelly." He was silent for a moment, then added: "Walk me to the door?"
For a moment he thought Sharon was going to refuse, but then she stood up, reached down and touched Mark's cheek gently, and nodded. Neither of them spoke again until they had reached the nurses' station. The waiting room beyond was now deserted.
"How's he doing?" Karen Akers asked, looking up from the computer terminal mat glowed on the desk in front of her.
Sharon managed a wan smile. "Still asleep."
"You really should go home, Mrs. Tanner," Karen urged. "There isn't much you can do for him right now." Even as she spoke the words, Karen knew they would have no effect. After all, if it were her own son sleeping in the room down the hall, would she leave? Not a chance. "Tell you what," she said, not waiting for Sharon's reply. "I'll put on a fresh pot of coffee and bring you a cup when it's ready." Then she disappeared down the corridor to the small kitchen at the back of the building.
Sharon and Blake stood in silence at the door, then Blake drew her close, kissing her softly. "It's going to be all right," he assured her. "In a few days you'll hardly know anything happened to him."
Sharon nodded automatically, though she didn't agree. She knew that the sight of Mark lying on the stretcher, his face bruised and bloodied, would never leave her. As Blake was about to leave, a thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind almost since the moment she'd left the waiting room to take up her vigil at Mark's bedside suddenly emerged.
"Blake…" she said. "Do… do you know exactly what happened to the Ramirez boy?"
Blake hesitated, then nodded. "I saw the tape," he said, and braced himself for the question he knew was coming next, the question he'd been trying to answer for himself since he had first heard of the fight between Jeff and Mark.
"Well?" Sharon asked. "Wasitan accident? Or did Jeff deliberately hurt the Ramirez boy?"
Blake didn't answer for a moment, letting his mind rerun the cassette Jerry Harris had played for him the day after he'd begun working on the Ramirez case. "I don't know," he said at last. "It could have been. But there's the possibility it wasn't."
Sharon said nothing, but even before she kissed him once again and sent him on his way, Blake could see the shadow come into her eyes. Invariably that look meant that she had zeroed in on something and would now begin to examine it, worrying at it until she'd solved whatever her problem might be to her own particular satisfaction.
When he was gone, Sharon leaned against the heavy glass of the front door for a while. Then, her mind made up, she started back down the hall. But instead of returning to Mark's room, she let herself into the room across the way.
The room where Ricardo Ramirez lay, his body still held rigid in the grotesque mechanism of the Stryker frame, was nearly identical to her son's, and the similarities sent a chill through Sharon's body.
That's what could have happened to Mark tonight, she thought. She scanned the monitors over the bed, their green displays glowing eerily in the darkened room, the endlessly repeating patterns of Ricardo Ramirez's artificially sustained life forces crossing the screens with an almost hypnotic rhythm. Once again Sharon lost track of time as she stood silently watching.
What was happening inside the boy's mind? she wondered. Was he aware of anything? Was he dreaming, suffering from nightmares from which he could never escape? Or was he simply lost somewhere in a gray void, suspended from all reality, unaware of anything? She didn't know- couldn't know.
Perhaps no one could ever know.
"Mrs. Tanner?" Karen Akers's soft voice penetrated Sharon's reverie, startling her. "Are you all right?"
Sharon nodded. Turning away from Ricardo Ramirez, she stepped into the corridor, blinking against its brightness. "I-I just wanted to see him," she said, her voice quavering. "It's so horrible."
"And it could have been your son," Karen said, voicing the thought that had been so powerful in Sharon's mind a few moments before. "But Rick's not your son, Mrs. Tanner. And Mark's going to be just fine."
Sharon nodded, then forced a tiny smile as she gratefully took the mug of steaming coffee from the nurse's hands. "Of course he is," she said. She went back to Mark's room and once more took up her vigil next to his bed. But as the minutes slowly crept by, she found herself still thinking about Ricardo Ramirez.
She knew whatTarrenTech was doing for the boy, and until tonight had never thought to question the company's generosity and sincerity. Now she found herself wondering.
Her mind went back over the football games she'd watched over the past weekends, and she had an image of the Silverdale team trotting out onto the field like a troop of gladiators.
They were big boys-all of them-and now she recalled noticing, as each game began, how unevenly matched the opposing sides appeared to be. The Silverdale boys, towering over their opponents, easily overwhelmed them by the sheer force of their size alone.