“Any weight loss?”
“A little, maybe.”
“Has he been eating well?”
“Not as well as I’d like. He’s been picky lately.”
“Unusual thirst or the need to urinate often?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Uh-hum,” he said absently. He flipped through a page of Gabriel’s file, and set the clipboard aside. “Well, why don’t we take a look and see if we can find out if anything’s going on. If you’ll take your shirt off for me…”
The boy, who had been sitting on the edge of the examination table, his feet dangling over the end, took off his shirt and handed it to Teri. For a brief moment, she was shocked to see how thin he had actually become. It was almost as if he were holding his breath, the skin below his ribcage pulled taut into a small hollow recess, the framework of ribs visibly pronounced. Gabe had never been this thin. Not even when he had begun his first growing spurt, around the age of six or seven.
“Just relax now,” Childs said. “This isn’t going to hurt.”
Teri watched him check the boy’s lymph nodes, the doctor staring off into the distance as his fingers first worked the underside of the jaw, then a spot just below the boy’s armpit on each side.
“No swelling,” he said absently.
“That’s good.”
“So how’s everything else been?” he asked as he pulled a penlight out of his breast pocket and used a tongue depressor to take a look at the back of the boy’s throat. “Say ah for me.”
“Ahhhh.”
“Things have been all right,” Teri said.
“Still working at the post office?”
“Yeah. It seems like forever, doesn’t it?”
He smiled politely, checked the boy’s reflexes—which to Teri’s untrained eye appeared to respond surprisingly well—and used his stethoscope to listen to the boy’s lungs. When he was finished, he sat down on the stool again and made some notes in Gabriel’s file.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, to be honest. Everything appears normal. His lungs are clear, the blood pressure’s normal, the lymph nodes aren’t swollen. There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think I’d like to take a urine sample and maybe a little blood, just to be on the safe side. And after that—”
“What about the gray in his hair?”
“Pardon?”
“The gray.” Teri, who had been leaning against the wall, trying to stay out of the way during the doctor’s examination, moved around the foot of the table and had the boy tilt his head to one side.
“When did that show up?” Childs asked.
“A couple of days ago.”
He took a long, thoughtful look under the fluorescent lights.
“What do you think it might be?”
“I don’t know. Is there a history of premature graying on either side of the family?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well, I’m not sure it’s anything to worry ourselves about, Teri. Not just yet anyway. Just keep an eye on it, and if it continues to get worse or if there are any other symptoms that seem like they might be related, then give me a call and we’ll take a closer look.”
“You don’t think it has anything to do with him being tired all the time?”
“It’s not likely. But just in case, why don’t we wait and see what the test results have to say before we start speculating, all right? My guess is that whatever’s going on—and it’s probably just a virus—he’s already over the hump by now and it’s just a matter of building his strength back up.” He took possession of the clipboard again, and stood at the door with his hand on the knob. “All right?”
Teri nodded. “When will you have the test results?”
“Sometime tomorrow if all goes well. I promise I’ll call you.” He glanced down at the clipboard. “We still have your current phone number?”
“Would it be all right if I called you? Tomorrow’s looking like it might be a little on the hectic side.”
“Sure.”
“Sometime in the afternoon?”
“That should work out fine,” Childs said. He tucked the clipboard under his arm, and reached out to shake hands with the boy, who seemed almost taken aback by the gesture. “It’s nice to see you again, Gabriel. Try to talk your mother into bringing you in every once in a while for a checkup, even if you don’t think you need one. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He opened the door, and paused again. “I’ll have the nurse come in to take a little blood and help with the urine sample, and we’ll see if anything turns up. Until then, try not to worry about it, Teri. I really don’t think it’s anything serious.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
“My pleasure.”
The door closed, and Teri turned to the boy, who was slipping his shirt back over his head. “Well, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About Dr. Childs.”
“He’s okay.”
“You don’t remember him, huh?”
The boy shook his head and hopped down from the table. “Should I?”
Yes, Teri thought. Gabe would remember him. But then she didn’t know if that were true or not. Especially under these circumstances.
[26]
Walt closed the door to his motel room, tossed his suitcase on the nearest chair, and collapsed on the queen-sized bed next to the window.
The drive down state had taken nearly six hours, due largely to an eight mile backup in Concord, where a semi had smashed into a small Ford pickup while changing lanes. The semi had flipped onto its side and gone for a long, helpless slide down the middle two lanes of the freeway, leaving a thirty-foot-wide skid mark. By the time Walt had made it to the front of the line, all that was left were a few scattered flares in the road. Off to the right, the semi and the pickup were both in the process of being towed away. If there had been any injuries, the ambulance had come and gone long ago.
Right about now, he wished he had gone with it.
Not only had the trip been a long one, but he hadn’t slept well last night. After Teri had gone off to bed, he had put things away in the kitchen and reread the story about the nursing student who had been found dead – Amanda Tarkett. There was no way her death had been an accident. That kind of coincidence didn’t happen nearly as often as people liked to believe. No, the boy’s sudden arrival and Miss Tarkett’s death were certainly both part of the same weaving.
Walt thought on that awhile, and then he tried to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. But there had been something else bothering him. He hadn’t been completely honest with Teri about why he had left the department. At times, he wasn’t sure he had even been honest with himself. There was a ghost giving chase, and it was a ghost that belonged to his past.
When he had been a boy, Walt, too, had been one of the disappeared.
It had happened shortly after his seventh birthday. His mother had won full custodial rights after a lengthy court battle, and his father was allowed to visit on weekends only. It was a fate the man decided he couldn’t live with. So one day he had picked up Walt after school, the car packed to the brim with every last possession, and the two of them had begun an odyssey across the country. Salvation Army clothes. Odd jobs. Every new town bringing a new hair color, a new name. Always on the move. Always looking over their shoulders, wondering how much longer before the Witch would catch up with them.
The Witch.
That had been his father’s name for her. “You’ve always gotta be on your toes, Walter. ’Cause the minute you relax, she’s gonna be there. And when she gets her hands on us, she’s gonna throw us both in jail and that’s where we’ll stay until the day we rot. So you be careful, you hear?”