Now his friend was dead, and Maria Ramirez, whomMacCallum also had come to think of as a friend, was sitting in the waiting room, only her eyes betraying the depth of her grief, trying to come to terms with the loss of the single thing in her life she had truly loved and believed in. Finally, his features setting harshly,MacCallum reached for the phone and called Phil Collins at Silverdale High School, then waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on his desktop while the coach was summoned from the playing field.
"It's Dr.MacCallum," Mac said when Collins came on the line. "I know you don't really care, but Ricardo Ramirez died half an hour ago."
"Christ," Collins swore, butMacCallum was certain the only emotion in the coach's voice was worry, not regret. "What's going to happen now?"
"I don't know,"MacCallum replied. "But I can tell you that I'm very well aware of what you and Ames andTarrenTech have lined up for Maria, and I don't think it's enough." His voice hardened. "I've had it with you and your football team, Collins. We had a broken leg in here last weekend, and a ruptured spleen day before yesterday." He hesitated, briefly wondering whether or not he would be able to back up his next words, then plunged on. "I'm going to suggest to Maria that she institute a wrongful death suit against you, the school, JeffLaConner, his parents, Marty Ames, and Rocky Mountain High. I don't know what you're all up to, but it's got to stop right now."
"Now wait a minute," Collins began, butMacCallum cut him off.
"No, Collins," the doctor breathed, and gently replaced the phone in its cradle. He didn't know what, if anything, he'd accomplished, didn't even really believe a wrongful death suit would get anywhere. But at least he felt better.
In his own office, Phil Collins stared at the dead phone in his hand for a moment, then rattled the button on the cradle until a dial tone buzzed. He punched the digits for Marty Ames's private number, then waited, drumming his fingers impatiently in unconscious duplication of MacMacCallum a few minutes earlier. When Ames came onto the line, Collins repeatedMacCallum's words almost verbatim.
Two minutes after that, Ames was repeating them to Jerry Harris.
"All right," Harris replied tiredly. He thought a moment, then spoke again. "We'll have to clean up theLaConner situation right now. Can you make whatever preparations we might need?"
"Of course," Ames replied.
Before he called ChuckLaConner into his office, Jerry Harris made arrangements for one of theTarrenTech corporate helicopters to prepare to make a flight to Grand Junction, where a Learjet would be waiting.
CharlotteLaConner felt an empty hollowness in her stomach. She couldn't have heard Chuck right-it had to be a mistake. Perhaps, after all,shewas beginning to imagine things, as he'd been insisting since that terrible moment at the Tanners' the other day-she could no longer quite remember which day it was-when Chuck had as much as told Blake and Sharon that she was losing her mind. Maybe she was even imagining that he'd come home from work in the middle of the morning today. Maybe he wasn't really here at all.
She shook her head dazedly. "Pack a bag?" she asked. "Now?"
Chuck nodded. "That's right," he said. "I'm leaving."
"But, I don't understand."
"I'm being transferred, honey, remember?" Chuck said. "I'm going to Boston."
Charlotte's hands fluttered in a helpless gesture. "But I thought-I thought we were waiting for Jeff…"
"I can't, Charlotte," Chuck replied. "I have to go now. Today. There's a chopper waiting for me."
Charlotte sighed with relief. Then it was all right. He was leaving, but she didn't have to. She could stay here and wait until Jeff got better. "M-Maybe I'll go to Boulder," she said. "I could be closer to Jeff then." The fingers of her right hand were working at her left now, the nails-ragged and unkempt from the totally unconscious habit she'd developed over the past few days of biting at them as she sat staring vacantly at nothing-digging into her skin, leaving angry red marks.
But Chuck shook his head. "I'm sorry, Charlotte," he said softly. He couldn't look at her now, couldn't bring himself to watch the pain in her face as he told her what was about to happen to her. "You're going to have to go into the hospital for a while. I've discussed it with Jerry and Marty Ames, and we all agree that you need a good rest. A period of time to adjust to what's happened and get over these paranoid ideas."
Charlotte recoiled from the words as if she'd been struck. "No," she whimpered. "You can't do that to me! I'm your wife, Chuck-"
"Honey, be reasonable," Chuck pleaded, but Charlotte was no longer listening to him. She ducked around him, rushing out of the room and stumbling up the stairs to the second floor, where she ran into the master bedroom, locking the door behind her.
She was in a state of panic now. They were going to take her away and lock her up, just like they'd taken Jeff away. But why? What had she done? All she'd wanted to do was see her son, talk to him, tell him she loved him.
But they wouldn't let her!
Why?
She knew now. It was suddenly clear to her; she should have realized it long ago! They were lying to her, had been lying to her right from the start. Jeff wasn't in a private hospital at all, not in Boulder or anywhere else. They had him locked up somewhere, where neither she nor anyone else could see him. He wasn't sick! He was being held prisoner somewhere!
Help! She had to get help before it was too late. She scrabbled around in the top drawer of her nightstand, where she was certain she'd hidden the scrap of paper on which she'd scribbled Sharon Tanner's phone number. She found it at last, then fumbled with the phone as her trembling fingers refused to obey her churning mind.
It was at that moment, while she frantically tried to dial the number, that she might have looked up and glanced out the window; might have seen the ambulance approaching the house and turning into the driveway. But she didn't look, didn't see, didn't have time to flee from the house.
Her fingers finally found the right buttons, and she waited in panic as the phone at the other end rang four times, then five, then six. What if Sharon wasn't home? What would she-
Then, to her relief, she heard a breathless voice at the other end.
"Sharon?" she said. "Sharon, you have to help me. They're going to send me away. They've done something terrible with Jeff, and they don't want me to find-"
"Charlotte?" Sharon Tanner's voice broke in. "Charlotte, what's wrong? You're not making any sense."
Charlotte forced herself to stop talking and willed her body to stop trembling. She focused her mind, drew a deep breath, and was about to begin again when she heard a banging at the bedroom door. "Charlotte?" It was Chuck's voice. "Charlotte, you have to let me in." Then she heard Chuck speaking to someone else, and her carefully constructed calm shattered like a house of cards.
"Oh, God," she whimpered. "Sharon, they're here! They've come for me, Sharon! What will I do?"
There was a crash, and the bedroom door burst open. Chuck, followed by two attendants, burst into the room, stared bleakly at her for a moment, and while she stood speechlessly watching him, came over, took the phone from her hand and replaced the receiver.
"It's going to be all right, darling," he told her, putting his arms around her and holding her gently as he nodded to the two other men. As one of them disappeared from the room, the other came forward and slipped a needle into her shoulder.