I'll Be Seeing You (38 page)

She could see the knife he had used to kill Phillip lying on the ground. Was this the knife that had taken Annie's life?

Phillip's gun was still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, I'm sorry. If you want I'll carry you.” His lips were on her hair. “But, stand here for just a minute. I want to take your picture. See my camera?”

His camera. Of course. He must have been the cameraman in the woods who had almost strangled Kyle. She leaned against the well as he videotaped her and watched as he walked around Phillip's body, taping him.

Then Bernie laid the camera down and came over to her. “Meghan, I'm a hero,” he bragged. His eyes were like shiny blue buttons.

“Yes, you are.”

“I saved your life.”

“Yes you did.”

“But I'm not allowed to carry a weapon. A knife is a weapon. They'll put me away again, in the prison hospital. I hate it there.”

“I'll talk to them.”

“No, Meghan. That's why I had to kill Annie. She started to scream. All I did when I saw her that night was to walk up behind her and say, ‘This is a dangerous block. I'll take care of you.'”

“You said that?”

“I thought it was you, Meghan. You'd have been glad to have me take care of you, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, of course I would.”

“I didn't have time to explain. There was a police car coming. I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't even know I was carrying the knife that night. Sometimes I don't remember I have it.”

“I'm glad you were carrying it now.” The car, Meg thought. My keys are in it. It's my only chance. “But Bernie, I don't think you should leave your knife here for the police to find.” She pointed to it.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, thank you, Meghan.”

“And don't forget your camera.”

If she wasn't fast enough, he'd know that she was trying to get away. And he'd have the knife in his hand. But when he turned and started to walk the half-dozen steps to Phillip's body, Meghan whirled, stumbling in her weakness and haste, yanked open her car door and slid behind the wheel.

“Meghan, what are you doing?” Bernie shrieked.

His hands grabbed the handle of the car door as she clicked the lock. He hung onto the handle as she threw the car into gear and plunged her foot down on the gas pedal.

The car leaped forward. Bernie kept his grip on the handle for ten feet, shouting at her, then let go and fell. She careened around the buildings. He was emerging from the passageway between the house and shed when she headed down the dirt road through the open fields.

She had not reached the wooded area when in the rear-view mirror she saw his car lurch forward in pursuit.

They were passing over a wooded area. The police helicopter was in front of them. The photographer and cameraman were straining their eyes.

“Look!” the pilot shouted. “There's the farmhouse.”

Mac never knew what made him look back. “Turn around,” he shouted. “Turn around.”

Meg's white Mustang shot out of the woods, a green car inches behind it, repeatedly smashing into it. As Mac watched, the Chevy pulled alongside the Mustang and began sideswiping it, trying to run it off the road.

“Go down,” Mac shouted to the pilot. “That's Meghan in the white car. Can't you see he's trying to kill her.”

Meghan's car was faster, but Bernie was a better driver. She had managed to stay ahead of him for a short time, but now could not escape him. He was slamming into the driver's side door. Meghan's body whipped back and forth as the air bag ballooned from the center of the wheel. For an instant she could not see, but she kept her foot on the accelerator, and the car zigzagged wildly through the field as Bernie kept attacking it.

The driver's side door smashed into her shoulder as the Mustang teetered and flipped over on its side. An instant later flames burst through the hood of the engine.

Bernie wanted to watch Meghan's car burn, but the police were coming. He could hear the scream of approaching sirens. Overhead he heard the din of a helicopter coming closer. He had to get away.

Someday you'll hurt someone, Bernie. That's what
worries us.
That's what the psychiatrist had told him. But if he got home to Mama, she'd take care of him. He'd get
another job parking cars where he could be home every night with her. From now on he'd only make phone calls to women. Nobody would find out about that.

Meghan's face was fading from his mind. He'd forget her the way he forgot all the others he had liked. I never really hurt anyone before and I didn't mean to hurt Annie, he reminded himself as he drove through the hastening darkness. Maybe they'll believe me if they find me.

He drove through the second patch of woods and reached the intersection where they'd turned off onto the dirt road. Headlights snapped on. A loudspeaker said, “Police, Bernie. You know what to do. Get out of the car with your hands in the air.”

Bernie began to cry. “Mama, Mama,” he sobbed as he opened the door and lifted his arms.

The car was on its side. The driver's door was pressing against her. Meghan felt for the button to release the seat belt but could not find it. She was disoriented.

She smelled smoke. It began pouring through the vent. Oh God, Meghan thought. I'm trapped. The car was resting on the passenger door.

Waves of heat began to attack her. Smoke filled her lungs. She tried to scream but no sound came.

Mac led the frantic race from the helicopter to Meg's car. Flames from the engine shot up higher just as they reached it. He could see Meg inside, struggling to free herself, her body illuminated by the flames that were spreading across the hood. “We've got to get her out through the passenger door,” he shouted.

As one, he, the pilot, the reporter and cameraman put their hands on the superheated roof of the Mustang. As one they pushed, rocked, pushed again.

“Now,” Mac shouted. With a groan they threw their
weight against the car, held while tortured palms blistered.

And then the car began to move, slowly, resistantly, then finally in rapid surrender it slammed onto its tires, once more upright.

The heat was becoming unbearable. As in a dream, Meghan saw Mac's face and somehow managed to reach over and release the door lock before she passed out.

T
he helicopter landed at the Danbury Medical Center. Dazed and blinded with pain, Meghan was aware of being taken from Mac's arms, lifted onto a stretcher.

Another stretcher. Annie being rushed into Emer
gency.
No, she thought, no. “Mac.”

“I'm here, Meggie.”

Blinding lights. An operating room. A mask over her face.
The mask being removed from Annie's face in Roo
sevelt Hospital.
“Mac.”

A hand over hers. “I'm here, Meggie.”

She awoke in the recovery room, aware of a thick bandage on her shoulder, a nurse looking down at her. “You're fine.”

Later they wheeled her to a room. Her mother. Mac. Kyle. Waiting for her.

Her mother's face, miraculously peaceful when their eyes met. Seeming to read her thoughts. “Meg, they recovered Dad's body.”

Mac's arm around her mother. His bandaged hands. Mac, her tower of strength. Mac, her love.

Kyle's tearstained face next to hers. “It's all right if you want to kiss me in front of people, Meg.”

On Sunday night, the body of Dr. Henry Williams was found in his car on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the quiet neighborhood where he and his wife had grown up and met as teenagers. He had taken a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Letters to his son and daughter contained messages of love and pleas for forgiveness.

Meghan was able to leave the hospital on Monday morning. Her arm was in a sling, her shoulder a vague, constant ache. Otherwise she was recovering rapidly.

When she arrived home, she went upstairs to her room to change to a comfortable robe. As she started to undress, she hesitated, then went to the windows and closed the blinds firmly. I hope I get over doing that, she thought. She knew it would be a long time before she would be able to banish the image of Bernie shadowing her.

Catherine was getting off the phone. “I've just cancelled the sale of the inn,” she said. “The death certificate has been issued, and that means all the joint assets Dad and I held are unfrozen. The insurance adjustors are processing payment of all Dad's personal policies as well as the one from the business. It's a lot of money, Meg. Remember, the personal policies have a double indemnity clause.”

Meg kissed her mother. “I'm so glad about the inn. You'd be lost without Drumdoe.” Over coffee and juice she scanned the morning papers. In the hospital, she'd seen the early morning television news reports about the Williams suicide. “They're combing the Franklin Center records to try to find out who received the embryos Petrovic stole from Manning.”

“Meg, what a terrible thing it must be for people who had cryopreserved embryos there to wonder if their biological child was born to a stranger,” Catherine Collins said. “Is there enough money in the world for anyone to do something like that?”

“Apparently there is. Phillip Carter told me he needed money. But Mom, when I asked him if that was what Petrovic was doing, stealing embryos for the donor program, he told me I wasn't as smart as he'd thought. There was more to it. I only hope they find out what in the records at the center.”

Meghan sipped the coffee. “What could he have meant by that? And what happened to Stephanie Petrovic? Did Phillip kill that poor girl? Mom, her baby was due around this time.”

That night when Mac came, she said, “Dad will be buried day after tomorrow. Frances Grolier should be notified about that and told the circumstances of Dad's death, but I dread calling her.”

Mac's arms around her. All the years she'd waited for them.

“Why not let me take care of it, Meggie?” Mac asked.

And then they'd talked. “Mac, we don't know everything yet. Dr. Williams was the last hope for understanding what Phillip meant.”

On Tuesday morning, at nine o'clock, Tom Weicker phoned. This time he did not ask the teasing-but-serious question he'd asked yesterday: “Ready to come back to work, Meg?”

Nor did he ask how she was feeling. Even before he said, “Meg, we've got a breaking story,” she sensed the difference in his tone.

“What is it, Tom?”

“There's an envelope marked ‘Personal and Confidential' for you from Dr. Williams.”

“Dr. Williams! Open it. Read it to me.”

“You're sure?”

“Tom, open it.”

There was a pause. She visualized him slitting the envelope, pulling out the contents.

“Tom?”

“Meg, this is Williams' confession.”

“Read it to me.”

“No. You have the fax machine you took home from the office?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the number again. I'll fax it to you. We'll read it together.”

Meghan gave the number to him and rushed downstairs. She got to the study in time to hear the high-pitched squeal of the fax. The first page of the statement from Dr. Henry Williams slowly began to emerge on the thin, slick paper.

It was five pages long. Meghan read and reread it. Finally the reporter in her began to pick out specific paragraphs and isolated sentences.

The phone rang. She knew it was Tom Weicker. “What do you think, Meghan?”

“It's all there. He needed money because of the bills from his wife's long illness. Petrovic was a naturally gifted person who should have been a doctor. She hated seeing cryopreserved embryos destroyed. She saw them as children who could fill the lives of childless couples. Williams saw them as children people would pay a fortune to adopt. He sounded out Carter, who was more than willing to place Petrovic at Manning, using my father's signature.”

“They had everything covered,” Weicker said, “a secluded house where they brought illegal aliens willing to be host mothers in exchange for ten thousand dollars and a bogus green card. Not a high price when you think Williams and Carter were selling the babies for a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars each.

“In the past six years,” Weicker went on, “they've
placed more than two hundred babies and were planning to open other facilities.”

“And then Helene quit,” Meghan said, “claiming she'd made a mistake that was going to become public.

“The first thing Dr. Manning did after Petrovic quit was to call Dr. Williams and tell him about it. Manning trusted Williams and needed to talk to someone. He was horrified at the prospect of the clinic losing its reputation. He told Williams how upset Petrovic was and that she thought she'd lost the Anderson baby's identical twin when she slipped in the lab.