“Are you bleeding?”
She leaned back against the chair, hiding her back from view.
“I’ll be all right.”
Her color was better and her breathing, though not normal yet, was easing in the right direction.
“Should I get a doctor?”
She shook her head. “No doctor can help with this. I’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time he’s hurt me, and it won’t be the last. He’s moving closer and closer to his goal. A strange season is upon us, and it will grow stranger.”
“Damn it, Anya, tell me his name. I’ll put an end to this.”
She shook her head. “No, Jack. He’s immune to your methods. He’s more than you can handle.”
“Then how do we stop him?”
Anya looked up at him and Jack saw fear in her eyes. “I don’t know. We can only hope that he makes a fatal mistake—he’s not perfect you know—or that the Ally steps in on our side. Otherwise, I don’t know if he can be stopped.”
16
After Anya’s pain had subsided, she shooed Jack out of the house. He felt he should stay but he could see that she wanted to be alone.
He stood in her front yard among the ornaments, staring at the rising moon, and wondering at how his life had changed since a year ago last summer when he’d accepted the seemingly simple, straightforward job of finding a stolen necklace. Now it seemed that every time he turned around, a new revelation leaped at him, tearing a jagged rent in the fabric of the snug, familiar worldview he’d been wrapped in for the first thirty-five years of his life.
A year ago he’d have written Anya off as a loon. But no more.
He popped into his father’s house and peeked again into his bedroom. The old guy was still sleeping peacefully with the TV going. Jack found the screwdriver and flashlight he’d used last night, then stepped outside and headed for the clinic.
Although he’d broken in once before, he didn’t take for granted that it would be as easy the second time. He was just as careful about approaching the building, keeping to the bushes and watching for the security patrols. About halfway there he realized he’d forgotten the mosquito repellent. They’d declared his arms and neck an all-night deli and were ordering take out.
Slapping and scratching, he picked up his pace and made it to the clinic faster than last night. He popped the window latch again and slid inside. After reclosing the window, he killed a couple of mosquitoes that were still drilling into his skin, then got to work.
Straight to the record room where he began flipping through the charts. He had the list of names his father had given him and though it was a long shot that they’d all had recent physicals, he had to check.
He started at the top of the alphabet and worked his way down, pulling the charts as he came across them: Adele Borger…Joseph Leo…Edward Neusner…
All here.
No second guessing the ethics of invading privacy this time. These folks weren’t his father, and they were dead.
Inside the charts, Jack knew where to look. He went to the bottom of the final page of the complete physical. Each one read the same: Final assess: excellent health.
A prickling sensation ran along the back of his neck. Seemed like being single at Gateways South and passing your free physical with flying colors was not a good thing. In their cases, it appeared to be a death sentence.
The pattern was obvious: The healthiest single members of Gateways South were dying by mishap. An early demise meant that, instead of having to wait many years for these healthy folk to go, the management was able to resell their homes immediately.
Jack had a pretty good idea as to the why and the who, and a wild idea as to the how.
He wondered if the doc was in on it. Probably not. He seemed like too much of a straight shooter.
Besides, you didn’t need the doc to get a look at the files. Jack’s presence here proved that. But there was an even easier way. If you were someone with an official position at Gateways South, and if you had a key to the clinic, you could stroll in here at night, check out the names of those who’d had a complete physical lately, and peruse their files to your heart’s content.
Jack decided that he and Gateways South director Ramsey Weldon were going to have a little heart-to-heart chat tomorrow.
Friday
1
Jack jogged along the asphalt walking/bicycle path that wound through the pines lining the eastern limits of Gateways South. A thin morning mist wound between the trunks; brown needles, shedding early due to the drought, littered the path. The scent of pine lay thick in the air.
He’d awakened to silence for a change. Carl must have been trimming someone else’s hedges this morning. His father was just starting to stir, so Jack had come out for a run. He’d been too sedentary the past few days. Needed to get the blood flowing. He’d thought about checking on Anya but it was too early. He’d swing by on the way back.
He chugged along in a Boneless T-shirt and gym shorts, building a sweat; he wore his leather belt under the loose shirt to hold the small-of the-back holster for his Glock 19; the way it bounced against the base of his spine as he ran was annoying, but no way he was going unarmed around this place.
An eight-foot chain-link fence ran along the Gateways border to his right. The links of the par-3 golf course lay to his left. He noticed a lone, vaguely familiar figure hunched over a putter on a rise ahead. As he neared he recognized him: Carl.
Jack veered to his left and found Carl on a putting green, working with a club that protruded from his right sleeve. Jack had thought he was a righty, but he was using a lefty stance.
He waited until Carl had hit the ball—he just missed, rimming the cup—before speaking.
“When did you join the community?”
Carl jumped and spun. “Oh, it’s you! You scared me again! You gotta learn to make more noise when you come up on people.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “I’ll work on it. Say, did your video camera catch any signs of Ms. Mundy watering her lawn?”
“Zilch again.” He grinned. “And I hope it don’t. Wouldn’t mind keepin’ this up the rest of the year, long as old Doc Dengrove keeps payin’ me.”
Jack glanced down at the balls Carl had arranged on the grass before him, sitting in a line, waiting for the putter. “Is a golfing membership one of the perks of your job?”
He shook his head. “Only on weekdays, and only on my day off, and only if I stay out of everbody’s way. I ain’t much with the drivers—I mean, my scores for eighteen holes are pretty pan-o-ramic—but I like to putt. I ain’t a bad miniature golf player.”
“No kidding.” This was fascinating, simply fascinating. Jack waved and turned away. “Got to keep moving. Good luck. Sink those putts. Make those birdies.”
But he never got restarted. The sight of a beat-up red pickup cruising the dirt road on the far side of the fence stopped him cold. It slowed as a pair of mismatched eyes peered at him from under the brim of a dirty John Deere cap, then picked up speed again.
A thought struck Jack. He turned back to Carl, intending to ask him if he knew them, but the half-sick look on his face as he watched the pickup bounce away into the trees said it all.
“You know those guys, don’t you.”
Carl swallowed. His left eye was already looking away; the right followed. “Why you say something like that?”
“Because I think you do. Who are they?”
“Nobody to mess with. You don’t want to know ’em.”
“Yeah, I do.” Especially after what his father had told him last night about the accident. Jack gave him a hard stare. “Who are they, Carl?”