She saw a few other women walking in the streets that afternoon, their shopping carts rolling along behind them like so many tiny cabooses. Sharon nodded to the ones she didn't recognize, spoke to the ones she did.
As she walked, she had to force herself not to look back to see if she were being followed.
By the time she got to the village, she was beginning to feel a bit foolish about the whole thing, but still, the knowledge of what was in her bag-and the changes that had taken place in Mark-kept her wary. Even as she recognized MacMacCallum lounging on one of the benches on the boardwalk that connected the shops, she hesitated, her eyes scanning the area for anything suspicious. She chuckled hollowly to herself as she realized ruefully that she wasn't even certain what she should consider suspicious and what she shouldn't. At last, striding purposefully, she approachedMacCallum.
He stood up as she drew near, his eyes crinkling as he cocked his head slightly. "Sounds like you've got some kind of mystery on your hands," he said, his voice dropping so that, though Sharon could hear him clearly, she doubted that anyone else in the area would overhear him at all.
"I-I don't know," she stammered. She nodded toward the small park across the street. Surrounded by the neat white picket fences that were so prevalent in the village, its gardens were deserted this afternoon except for a small black and white dog sniffing around the playground at the north end. "Why don't we go over there?"
MacCallumnodded his assent and the two of them crossed the street, then moved into the park itself.
"What's going on?"MacCallum asked. "And you might start by telling me why you think your phone is tapped."
Sharon flinched. "Was it that obvious?" She couldn't resist glancing around now, but the park was still empty, and the few people on the sidewalk seemed oblivious to their presence. "Well, ifitis tapped, I suppose I was as obvious to whoever was listening as I was to you." Then, settling onto a bench in the center of the park, she began explaining everything that had been happening, from her worries about CharlotteLaConner to her ill-defined concerns about Mark. "I suppose it sounds kind of nutty, doesn't it?" she asked when she was finished.
Almost to her surprise,MacCallum shook his head. "It sounds like what you're postulating is some kind of conspiracy, withTarrenTech right smack in the middle of it all."
Sharon bit her lip and nodded. "But that's crazy, isn't it?"
MacCallumtook a deep breath. "Maybe it is," he conceded. "But on the other hand, if you're not part ofTarrenTech, sometimes this place looks pretty weird." He glanced sharply at Sharon out of the corner of his eye, but her face betrayed no trace of defensiveness. He smiled wryly at her. "Or maybe you don't think it's strange that even in a company town like this,TarrenTech either supports or runseverything.Everything. The schools, the town council, the library, even Rocky Mountain High."
"And the hospital?" Sharon asked, her heart suddenly skipping a beat. To her relief,MacCallum shook his head.
"We're county. Completely independent, although even that isn't byTarrenTech's choice. In fact, they offered to buy the hospital from the county a few years back. Claimed they could run it more cheaply and efficiently than the county. Unfortunately for them," he went on, making no attempt to keep his sarcasm and anger towardTarrenTech out of his voice, "all of us aren't quite as thrilled to haveTarrenTech here as the company thinks we ought to be, and the county didn't see it quite the company's way. They had the idea that a public hospital should be run by the public, and wouldn't knuckle under to Thornton." His lips curled into a wry grin. "So anyway, if you think there's some kind of conspiracy going on, I won't argue with you. This whole place has always been a little too perfect for my tastes. In fact, I was very happy with it the way it used to be. Anyway, the whole thing smells bad to me." He fell silent for a moment, then went on. "I assume you know all about Ricardo Ramirez?"
Sharon nodded.
"Well, if you ask me,TarrenTech wouldn't have been so antsy to avoid any kind of legal action on Maria's part if they didn't have something to hide. I'm afraid I just don't believe in that much corporate altruism. Which, I have to confess, is one of the reasons I'm here this morning." He looked at her pointedly now. "I'm assuming you know something you haven't told me about yet."
Sharon was silent for a few moments, making up her mind whether to trust him or not. But of course, she had no choice. Finally she nodded, reaching down to pull the small white package out of the bottom of her purse. "I-I found these out atTarrenTech the other day," she said, her voice dropping so lowMacCallum could barely hear her. "They were in a box marked for incineration, and when I had a chance, I just-well, I just took them."
She handed the package toMacCallum. He stared at it for a moment, then slowly unwrapped it. A moment later the brilliant glare of the afternoon sun shone on the two dead animals, both of them still frozen solid.
His frown deepening,MacCallum read the tags. "Same litter," he said. "Born May eighth. Their parents were Male Number 61 and Female Number 46."
"That's what I thought," Sharon replied. "But what could the other number mean? The one on the big one?"
MacCallumstudied it for a moment. Suddenly he was almost certain he knew. And then, as he thought about JeffLaConner and Randy Stevens-maybe even Robb Harris?-he felt a wave of nausea rise in his stomach. "Growth hormones," he breathed almost to himself. His eyes, oddly dazed, drifted toward Sharon. "That's what it has to be, doesn't it?" he asked. "They're experimenting on animals with growth hormones." He stared at the larger of the two mice once more. Now its strange deformities seemed to stand out.
The enlarged feet and the long claws.
The heaviness of the bone structure around its eyes, and the distended look to its jaw.
He shook his head, unable to accept the idea that had taken such sudden form in his mind. "You're not thinking they're experimenting on the kids, are you?"
"I don't know what I'm thinking," Sharon said numbly, but knew in her heart that that was precisely what she had been thinking.
"Look,"MacCallum told her. "Let me take these things back to the hospital and run some tests on them. It could be that we're on the wrong track completely. I mean-maybe they're experimenting with some kind of genetic engineering techniques out there. Certainly all kinds of things are possible with that now, and the big one might be nothing more than some kind of mutation. If it is, it won't be too hard to find out-all I have to do is get a lab in Denver to run a DNA comparison on them."
"And if it's not?" Sharon asked, hearing in her mind once again echoes of Blake's assurances that Mark's treatment was nothing more than a vitamin complex of some sort.
"Then we'll take it one step at a time,"MacCallum told her. He wished he could tell her not to worry, assure her that nothing as evil as human experimentation could be going on in Silverdale.
But he couldn't.
They parted a few minutes later,MacCallum having carefully rewrapped the two small corpses in their butcher paper and put them into his briefcase.
As soon as they left the square, the man who had been parked in a station wagon half a block away, his presence unnoticed by either Sharon orMacCallum, stepped out of his car and moved across the sidewalk to a pay phone, ignoring the unsecured convenience of the cellular phone mounted in the console next to the driver's seat.