Megan's Cure (9 page)

Chapter 17

THE CLIPBOARD WAS everything.
 

John Average hadn’t been sure when he first heard the suggestion.
 
But, now he knew it was absolutely true.
 

The scrubs were, of course, essential as well.
 
Thankfully, he had found that the four sets he’d bought – two shades of blue and two of green – covered almost everything.
 
He could drive around a hospital at almost any hour and spot somebody in the parking lot or just inside the emergency room lobby wearing whichever color was standard for the facility.

Then, he simply pulled those on over his jogging pants and T-shirt.
 
Add running shoes and the clipboard and he was good to go.

It all worked together as a package but it was the clipboard that sealed the deal.
 
It was better than a name tag or any badge or credential he might have conjured for the occasion.
 
Something like that was just an invitation for someone to read his name and title, and start asking questions.
 
Who was he there to see?
 
What was a physical therapist doing at 2 a.m. in an oncology wing?
 
If he was a radiology technician, where was the gurney to wheel away the patient?

The clipboard gave him purpose without details – authority without any fine print.
 
He had placed graph paper on the clipboard and filled it with words he was pretty sure would be meaningless to anyone who looked closely.
 
They were random Latin words written hurriedly in his own handwriting which was atrocious.
 
Finally, his Catholic education was proving useful.

If questioned by some particularly territorial nurse, he had two replies ready.

“Inventory,” he had answered twice when asked his purpose on a ward.
 
Then, he had gone back to looking closely at all the medical equipment in the room he was in, from beds and chairs to heart monitors and oxygen tanks.
 

Once, when he was questioned by a particularly prickly woman, he had replied, “Surprise hygiene check.”

Then, he had stepped back and closely scrutinized the overzealous, middle-aged registered nurse from her white orthopedic shoes to her dyed red hair tied back in a bun.
 
He made a few marks on his clipboard, gave her a polite smile and continued down the hallway.
 

Tonight, though, no one had done more than glance quickly at him as he walked through the hospital.
 
He was late-30s, a normal weight, medium height and wore glasses.
 
He had light brown hair and was not particularly attractive.
 
When he left his house, he tried to forget his real identity.
 
Blend in, he told himself.
 
Be average.
 
John Average. That’s how he thought of himself.
 
Weight, height, hair, accent, shoes, type of ballpoint pen.
 
Average, average, average.

He found the room using the number he had memorized.
 
He checked the name of the lone patient written on a whiteboard near the bed against the one he had also committed to memory.
 
From his pocket, he pulled out a syringe filled with a bluish fluid.
 
He had no idea what was in it.
 
Each time, he was given an unlabeled vial, the name of a hospital, room number and patient name.
 
He kept a bag of new syringes.
 
He filled one and replaced the plastic cap over the needle.
 
He was careful to dispose of the vial in a convenience store trash can, as instructed.

He suspected the drugs were different because the amounts and colors varied.
 
All he knew was that after he injected it into the intravenous line, he had at least ten minutes before anything would happen.
 
Whether that was a heart monitor alarm going off, a careful nurse noticing a change in breathing patterns or the patient turning over and releasing a polite fart before going back to sleep, he had no idea.
 
He didn’t know if what he was doing would leave the patient dead, blind or feeling like a million dollars the next day.
 
And, he didn’t want to know.

John Average still was holding the clipboard when he replaced the plastic cap over the needle of the now-empty hypodermic and put it back in his pocket.
 
He would dispose of it later that morning in another convenience store trash receptacle.

Then he left the room and walked back down the hallway toward the bank of elevators.
 
They led down to the lobby with an exit that opened onto the parking area.
 
He walked at four steps per each relaxed breath.
 
He counted off the steps as if he were a soldier on parade but more slowly.
 
Half speed.
 
One…Two…Three…Four.
 
One…Two…Three…Four.
 
It was a carefully calibrated pace.
 
It was exactly average.

Chapter 18

“I HAD A dream last night,” said Megan.
 
“There was this girl in it.
 
I think she was a little bit older than me.
 
She was blonde, with pigtails.”

Her fishing pole was high in the air.
 
She examined the worm on the end, still curled into a tight brown knot.
 
Satisfied, Megan pressed the thumb button on the reel, pulled the rod behind her on the right side and then cast next to a half submerged log.

Walter Novak had been watching his own line inattentively, keeping the float in sight while his mind wandered.
 
His thoughts had shifted from working through math problems – mental games really – to tracing the main points of the medical research that had consumed the past 15 years.
 
His conclusions.
 
He recalled yet again the trail of evidence he had uncovered that had convinced him of sabotage and of the threat to Megan.
 

The scientist’s greatest breakthroughs had come when he set a task for himself – such as finding the single gene in a cluster of thousands that had suddenly gone bad – and allowed his subconscious to grind out the answer.
 
After weeks or months, he would suddenly awaken with the solution or it would come to him while he was planting tulips or watching the sun set.
 

Novak had given himself the task of figuring a way out of the mess that had ensnared Megan and him but he was getting nowhere after two days. A math or science problem was one thing.
 
He wasn’t equipped to handle real danger.
 
He couldn’t see a path.
 
Everything felt too dangerous – more risky than just staying here where it at least
seemed
safe.

Megan’s account of her dream, though, had grabbed his full attention.

“She seemed familiar,” she said, slumping in her seat at the front of the canoe after her cast.
 
“It was like I knew her.
 
But I didn’t.”

“Did she…did she say anything?” asked Novak.

“No,” said Megan.
 
“She was high up in the room.
 
Filling it.
 
I was below.
 
And she was just, you know, watching me.
 
I usually don’t remember my dreams.”

They were silent for a minute.

“How is your mother?” asked Novak.
 
Megan had called her mother on the cell phone Novak had bought at a convenience store on the way to the lake just before they climbed into the canoe.

“She wants me to come home,” said Megan.
 
Her voice jumped half an octave as she mimicked her mother: “Come home.
 
Come home.”

Novak nodded sympathetically.

“But I said I can’t,” she continued.
 
“You said it isn’t safe.
 
Not yet.
 
I told her soon.
 
Everything is okay.
 
You are taking care of me.”

“She remembers me, right?” said Novak.

“Of course,” said Megan.
 
“How can she forget?”

“And I told her, ‘Don’t tell anyone,’” she continued.
 
“Like you said.
 
‘Don’t trust anyone.’”

Novak nodded his agreement to the messages conveyed.
 
They were quiet again, watching the water that was disturbed only by the occasional touch of a flying insect .
 

“Look!” said Megan as the red and white float ducked below the water and then popped to the surface.
 
It dipped again.
 
The third time, it stayed down.
 
She flipped her wrist to set the hook and began reeling it in.
 
After a few seconds, the fish broke the surface in a splash of brown and white.
 
In another 20 seconds, she had the 11-inch bass in the boat.

It was Megan’s third fish, equaling her catch of the previous day.
 
She had caught their dinner again.
 
Novak had caught his one and only fish an hour earlier.
 
Megan had hooked her fingers securely into the gills of that one and held it up admiringly as it flipped in desperation.
 

“It’s BIG,” she had announced, although it looked to Novak no larger than ones she had caught.
 

It was a hard 20-minute paddle back to the house.
 
The sun was already down when they tied up and unloaded the gear on the dock, Megan looked at him questioningly.
 
He knew she wanted to jump in.
 
She was wearing denim shorts, a white T-shirt and flip flops.
 
They hadn’t bought a swim suit for her.

He nodded.
 
Two shakes of her feet to remove the flip flops and one leap later she was under water.
 
She came up eight feet away, spitting out water and tossing her head to shake the water out of her bangs.
 
Her grin was infectious.

She swam 30 feet away and then floated on her back, staring at the darkening sky for awhile as she slowly moved her arms back and forth as if she were making a snow angel.
 
Then she turned on her stomach and swam back.

Novak reached his hands down toward Megan.
 
He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up, holding her high for a second as if
she
was the trophy catch.
 
Then he set her down on her feet.
 
They gathered up their fish, poles, oars and other equipment and ambled up the dock, across the small yard to the house.

An hour later, Megan was cleaning the fish when Novak turned on his laptop and checked his private email account.
 
In his in-box was a message from a sender identified by a string of seemingly random numbers and letters.
 
He knew who had sent it.
 
He clicked it open.

The message was short and to the point.

“The British are coming,” it read.

Chapter 19

CHIEF CLIFF DAVIDSON walked up the front steps of the small, well-kept house surrounded by a lawn watered to a lush thickness by the fickle but heavy Gulf Coast rains.
 
It sat on supports that held it two feet off the ground.
 
The gap underneath was hidden by lattice panels.
 
He knocked on the door.

The barrel-chested man who opened the door had long gray hair tied in a ponytail in the back.
 
He wore glasses and a thin-lipped smile on his cherubic face.
 

“Mr. Whitten?” Davidson asked.

“Yessir,” said Whitten.
 
“Yessir. That’s me.
 
Indeed.
 
Indeed. Come in!”
 
He wore a short-sleeved shirt that was white with a purple floral design sprinkled over it.
 
He opened the door wider and gestured inside.

Just inside on the left was a deep sofa facing a big flat-screen television.
 
On the right was a black-leather recliner surrounded by adjustable table surfaces so that computer displays surrounded the chair on three sides.
 
It was a makeshift cockpit for a computer jock.

“Coffee or iced tea?”
 
Whitten offered.

“Thank you, sir,” said Davidson.
 
“Coffee would be fine.
 
Black.”

 
Whitten walked quickly through a door into the kitchen.
 
A few seconds later he came out with a tan-colored mug he handed to the police chief.

 
Davidson blew on the hot brew a couple times and then took a sip.
 
He nodded appreciatively at Whitten.

“Why don’t you show me what ya’ll got, Mr.Whitten,” he said before his second sip.

Whitten nodded and moved over to the recliner.
 
He slipped through a gap along the side, seated himself and then pulled a keyboard strapped to an adjustable tray down to his lap.
 
His fingers started tapping the keys as he talked.

“After one of your people came by asking me about…what’s her name?” said Whitten as he continued to work the keyboard.

“Megan Kim?” said Davidson.

“Right.
 
The little girl,” said Whitten.
 
“Well, as you can see, I’m totally hooked on gadgets, computers, video games…you name it.
 
And I have these cameras all around the outside of the house.

“It took me a while to get around to it,” he continued.
 
“Had a lot of work to get out.
 
But when I looked at that day, I found this.”

Whitten swiveled the monitor on his left side so Davidson, standing to his left, could see it clearly.
 
It was a photo of the street looking from Whitten’s house toward the end of the block.
 
Just past the intersection, Davidson could see the elementary school where Megan Kim had vanished five days earlier.

“I run the cameras on video at night,” said Whitten.
 
“During the day, they’re all set to take a picture every five minutes.
 
This one was taken five days ago, five minutes past noon.
 
This is the car that I thought was interesting.”

The image vanished and was immediately replaced by another.
 
It was a close up of the back of a car.
 
It was a Ford Escape.
 
The license plate was from Missouri.
 
The numbers were clear.

“It wasn’t there five minutes earlier,” said Whitten.
 
“Ten minutes later, it was gone.
 
I’ve never noticed a car with Missouri plates on it in this neighborhood.”

“Okay,” said Davidson.
 
“Let’s start with any pictures with the car in it.
 
I may come back for more.
 
But, can you give me copies of those?”

“Sure thing,” said Whitten.
 
“USB drive okay?”

“Yep,” said Davidson.
 
“That’s perfect.
 
And, you know what?”

“No.
 
What?”

“Y’all just made my day.”