The plane sputtered and rocked, and for one last moment shot up as if taking off to the stars. Then it made a deep curtsy and came down in a flaming streak into the lake no more than fifty feet away.
Fuel and debris burned on the surface for a few minutes and mushrooms of air belched from below, then all was black again, as the night returned to silence. Overhead the sky had opened, and a new moon set the clouds in motion.
Brendan tossed the shotgun on the dock and stood there staring out over the opaque water. He trembled against the cold air, but inside he felt as if something had opened up—like a sac of warm fluid bursting.
He wrapped his arms around himself and cried.
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER
BOSTON
The auditorium blazed in colored lights.
The stage was set with Christmas trees, giant candles, and nutcracker soldiers. Large shiny ornaments hung from the rafters. The orchestra, formally attired in black and white, was warming up as the children filed in to take their places on the dais.
It was the Children’s Yuletide Pageant at Symphony Hall, and from all over the commonwealth, young people had been selected to make up the special holiday choir.
Dylan was in the second row dressed like all the rest in a white robe.
Rachel had managed to get tickets in the orchestra, middle section, ten rows back, so that Dylan could see them from the stage. When he spotted them, he broke into a wide grin and waved.
And Rachel’s heart flooded with love.
While the performers got settled, her mind rumbled back to that awful night six months ago.
They had seen things almost too sordid to imagine, and it still sickened her that they had been unwitting parties to it all. Over the course of a decade, Malenko had enhanced over eighty children, kidnapping as many from randomly scattered locales across the country so as not to establish any coherence. He had apparently had a small but organized network of people who did freelance kidnappings almost always from poor rural families where the authorities had neither the resources nor the wherewithal for deep investigations. They were diabolically clever, often staging the disappearances as fatal accidents. On a few occasions they had crossed the border into Mexico and bought snatched street kids from local criminals. They never left tracks or telltale clues connecting the disappearances.
Luckily, the little boy who had been the harvest for Dylan had suffered no brain damage. His name was Travis Valentine, a gifted child with a love of butterflies, who had been safely returned to his mother in Florida.
As for the enhanced kids, some were Malenko’s clients from the Nova Children’s Center. But neither the parents nor other Nova clinicians had any idea of Malenko’s secret practice nor how he had scanned the database for prospective harvests—nor the fact that those children had been stolen, rendered brain-damaged, and disposed of at sea.
As one reporter had written: “The brain is the most wondrous creation in the universe—and, as Lucius Malenko had confirmed, the most frightening.”
The media had dubbed him a latter-day Josef Mengele.
And like his Nazi counterparts, Malenko kept extensive records of his practice. He even had a photo album and full medical report on each enhanced child, allowing authorities to contact the parents. None claimed any knowledge of the harvesting. While nearly all the treated children were exceptionally bright, some suffered serious behavioral problems that were being treated by medication and counseling.
The kids who had made up the surgical team were turned over to juvenile courts. Nicole DaFoe was arrested for the murder of Martin and was awaiting trial as an adult. The surviving cronies of Malenko were indicted for serial kidnappings and murder.
Rachel wore a permanent scar on her arm from the scalpel attack.
Because of the awful associations, Rachel sold her house in Hawthorne and moved to Arlington, which bordered Cambridge and which had a more diversified population. In the fall, Dylan was enrolled in a local school where they had a well-trained support system for LD children. And, most importantly, he was very happy.
When it was discovered that Sheila had recruited Rachel and Martin on the promise of a commission from Malenko, she was arrested for being an accessory to crimes—although her lawyers would probably get her off on a lighter sentence of abetting medical malpractice rather than kidnapping and murder. It was also discovered that she had switched videocassettes the night of Vanessa Watts’s death, having been spotted by one of the waiters.
Brendan LaMotte was put in the care of neurologists at Children’s Hospital. When he had visited Rachel last weekend, he seemed to be doing much better and was back in school. To the delight of his grandfather, he was talking about going to college next year.
A burst of applause brought Rachel back to the moment. The conductor had entered the stage.
Shortly the program began, and Rachel took Greg Zakarian’s hand and settled back.
She had, of course, gone through the Kubler-Ross stages of dealing with Martin’s death—denial, anger, a sense of sadness and grief. She even still harbored guilt for the loss of him. And, yet, with Greg’s help she had come to believe that what she had done was necessary to save her son’s life.
Of course, Dylan missed Martin. He sometimes spoke of him, recalling some of the things they had done together. And for a few weeks, he wore his father’s college ring on a chain around his neck. But that soon ended up in a bureau drawer. And that sometimes-miraculous healing process possessed by children had begun to take over.
It helped that Greg was beginning to fill the void in Dylan’s life. He came up every weekend from the Cape, or they went down there. He was back on the police force and had been promoted to detective sergeant. During Sagamore’s Town Day celebration in September, his superior officer, Lieutenant T.J. Gelford had presented Greg with a medal of commendation for his actions that night in July. Rachel and Dylan attended the ceremony. Rachel cried, and Dylan gave Greg a standing O.
After weeks of cross-checking Malenko’s files with those of missing children, Greg had determined the identity of the Sagamore Boy. His name was Emilio Cruz from Clayton, Alabama. His father was a farm worker, his mother cleaned other people’s homes. The boy, who was kidnapped just a week before his sixth birthday, had tested brilliantly.
Greg had accompanied Emilio’s remains to his parents. A private funeral was held at a local Catholic church, attended by Emilio’s family and many classmates from the local elementary school that Emilio had attended. With the aid of local residents and business people, Greg established the Emilio Cruz Scholarship Fund for rural Alabama children. Even from afar, he continued to raise money, and not just to help bring emotional closure for himself, but to keep alive the memory of that little boy.
About forty minutes into the program, Rachel felt a flutter of anxiety. They had reached the last vocal number before the intermission: “What Child Is This?” And, as written in the program, the piece featured a solo by Dylan Whitman.
Rachel squeezed Greg’s hand as she naturally tensed up. But there really was no cause for apprehension. Dylan sang like an angel.
Other Novels by Gary Braver
Elixir
WRITING AS GARY GOSHGARIAN
Atlantis Fire
Rough Breast
The Stone Circle