The Phantom Limb (13 page)

The bell rang.

“Maybe I'll see you at lunch,” Kravetz said, and Isaac felt better. He could tell him the whole story then.

He returned the spiral aftereffect to its box, and once he was inside the school he carefully put it in his locker.

He waited impatiently through his morning classes. Several teachers spoke to him privately after class, telling him he was falling behind in his homework and warning him that if he didn't get it together he'd be in danger of failing. Isaac tried to explain that his mother was in the hospital and that
he'd get back on track when she was better. Some of the teachers seemed sympathetic, but others were more demanding.

The fact of the matter was, Isaac couldn't care less. Right now school was the least of his worries.

At lunch, he sat by himself, as usual. The difference was that today he genuinely hoped Kravetz would join him. He needed Kravetz to help him with his plan. Time was running out. It seemed possible that he might help, now that Isaac knew how Kravetz really felt about the twins.

But he also wanted Kravetz to eat with him because he wanted to be his friend. Joking around with him earlier had reminded Isaac of how nice it was to be around someone his own age.

And then Kravetz was standing at his table with his tray. He sat down across from Isaac. “I don't know why you want me to help you with those two,” Kravetz said. “Especially Destiny.”

Isaac's heart lifted. “It's a long story,” he said. “I'll try to be quick about it.”

“All right, but hurry. You know how short lunch period is,” Kravetz said.

“You'll be surprised,” Isaac said, and plunged in. He quickly described Vera's original symptoms
and how Dr. Ciano, Candi, and possibly others were keeping his mother sedated most of the time, giving her lots of drugs. Instead of getting better, his mother's condition was worsening. He recounted what Esther, Vera's roommate, had said about a girl at camp, and how quickly Esther had been moved away. He told him what he had learned from Joey Haynes's grandmother—that they hadn't liked his doctor, and how the boy had ended up first one-armed and then dead. Whoever was doing this seemed to be fixated on piano players—Joey and his mother and also the girl's brother. This person had dismembered her dolls when she was a child.

Kravetz seemed fascinated, but he was clearly also confused. “How do you know all this?” he asked.

Isaac realized that if he told Kravetz about the phantom limb, Kravetz would think he was hallucinating and immediately discount the whole story. So he simply said, “When Esther worked at that camp, she found some of the girl's mutilated dolls. I've got to get my mother out of there before that happens to her.”

“What about the doctor?” Kravetz wanted to know.

“Whenever the doctor's there, my mother's asleep
or unconscious. And somebody tampered with the lab results so it looks like my mother has bone cancer. The doctor can easily log in whatever lab results she wants. My mother has a big sore on her arm that's getting worse, and it wasn't there at all when she entered the hospital.”

Kravetz sighed and shook his head. “Geez, it sounds pretty bad,” he admitted. “But I still don't get why you want the twins on your side.”

“You didn't know they have to volunteer at the hospital? Community service, I think—as punishment for something they did.” Isaac shrugged. “But I don't know for sure.”

“Oh, I know. They were caught shoplifting,” Kravetz said. “So what do you expect
them
to do to help get your mother out of there?”

“I'm not sure,” Isaac replied, shrugging again. “But I know that they know their way around the hospital and that they have access to places I can't get to. If they were on my side, it would be three instead of just one against the hospital staff. And the twins
are
pretty good at being sneaky.”

The bell rang.

Kravetz stood up and picked up his tray. “I don't
know what I can do about the twins—you know how they can be.” He thought for a few seconds. “If … if you spin that spiral thing faster, does it—”

“It can make people fall down. That's what I want to do to the people who are hurting my mother at the hospital—incapacitate them so I can get my mother away from there. But it has to be at the right time and the right place, so it will really have an effect. That's where the twins come in.”

Kravetz's eyes widened. “You have the nerve to do that?” He sounded impressed. “Listen, I'll try to get them to cooperate. I'll see if I can find out how they feel about the hospital. But I can't say too much. They have big mouths, you know. Meet me at the bike rack after school.”

Isaac smiled and nodded in agreement.

 

SAAC HURRIED TO THE BIKE RACK AFTER HIS last class. He was sick of the guilt trips he was getting from teachers. Kravetz wasn't there yet. He unlocked his bike and waited impatiently. He wanted to hear how it had gone with the twins, but he also wanted to get to the hospital as soon as possible to make sure Vera was safe.

Finally, Kravetz came out of the school building and jogged toward him. He reached the bike rack and got right to the point. “Sorry. Out of luck, pal. The twins wouldn't listen to me about you. They have this fixation. They said they're having too much fun
messing with you. If I keep trying to convince them that you're cool, then they might turn on me.” He shrugged.

What else could he say? More and more it was becoming clear that Kravetz really was a decent guy, and interested in some of the same things Isaac was, despite being a jock.

“Well, thanks for trying. I'll … see what I can do on my own. Maybe I can change their minds.”

“Maybe,” Kravetz said, with no emotion in his voice. “I have to get to practice. Sorry again.” He jogged away from Isaac.

Isaac checked his bike for any more tampering, hopped on, and rode away quickly. Now he was worried about Kravetz as well as everything else. Why had he become so cold all of a sudden? Had Isaac told him too much? But he had to push that out of his mind and stay focused. His priority right now had to be to win over DCynthia. He didn't have much hope about Destiny.

The twins were seated at the desk at the entrance to the intensive care unit, checking visitors' IDs. “We were expecting you, tool,” Destiny said with a smirk.

“Don't you have a life?” DCynthia said, but she had
a guilty expression as she said it. At least her voice was soft, not braying. They both had to be careful that the staff didn't hear them taunt a visitor.

“Why did you think Matt would ever help someone like
you
?” Destiny asked. She put her hand over her mouth and giggled. DCynthia looked away. When Destiny got her laughter under control, she continued smugly, “We told him to shut up about you. And it worked.”

Isaac had to fight the urge to smack her. It had been a vain hope to think he could get them on his side, but he had to try one more time. “What about Dr. Ciano?” he said. “What do you think of
her
?”

“We know how to play everybody here so we get what we want, not like the other candy stripers. The staff gives us the easiest jobs, like sitting here and checking in guests. We've talked to some of the other candy stripers. They're always running around getting exhausted.
That's
not for
us
! We're getting out of here as soon as our time is up.
Hasta la vista
.”

He sighed and gave up. “Gotta go check on—”

“Your
mommy
!” Destiny mocked him.

Candi was at the nurses' station. “I'm afraid your mother won't have much to say to you today, dear,”
she said pleasantly. She clucked her teeth and shook her head. “I have to tell you that the doctor's very worried about her.”

He wanted to say,
None of you seem worried about her.
Instead, he controlled himself and said determinedly, “I need to see her.”

“I'm afraid you can't,” Candi replied. She smiled at him. “She's going to have a procedure in the basement soon.”

He felt scared, but he was determined to fight back. “It'll just be for a minute. OK?”

Candi's voice had a steely edge to it. “Well, all right. You can open the door and peek in for a few seconds.”

As he feared, Vera was unconscious. The bandage on her arm was even larger than before. Her body seemed almost lifeless. There was no more time.

Isaac rushed home and immediately got out the mirror box. He needed the phantom limb's help before it was too late.

The phantom limb slid into the mirror. It was holding up three fingers again. Was it really trying to say “triad,” as Grandpa had suggested? Isaac knew he had to search the net to find out what Joey was trying to tell him.

Grandpa had known only two meanings for the word, the musical term and the group of three people. How could he find out if it had any other meaning?

He went downstairs and found Grandpa reading. He asked him about the term “triad” for the second time. After thinking about it, Grandpa said, “If it refers to that doctor, maybe it has something to do with psychology.”

Isaac went back upstairs, opened his computer, and went to Google. He typed in “triad and psychology.” Several entries appeared with the title “Macdonald Triad.”

“Yes!” Isaac said to himself. He'd found it!

“The triad” referred to three childhood behaviors that were often displayed by children with psychopathic tendencies who were prone to becoming serial killers. Most kids with one, or even two, of these behaviors never became a serial killer. But almost every serial killer who had ever been studied possessed all three. One trait was cruelty to animals or other small creatures—like the way the girl in the mirror treated her dolls. Another trait was enuresis, or bed-wetting, which was why the other girls in the cabin had made fun of her. The third trait was arson, the deliberate starting of fires. If Isaac
had ever seen someone look happy, it was when that girl was preparing to burn down the cabin—with the other girls in it.

He went over to the mirror box again. He wrote down two questions. “Did that woman kill other people before she killed you? Does she want to kill my mother?” He held the piece of paper so that it was reflected in the mirror.

The phantom limb didn't merely read the paper, it
sucked
it into the mirror box. It had done the same thing with the licorice. How was that possible? How was any of this possible? He would have to do research on mirror boxes as soon as he could. Forget about homework—this was more important.

The phantom limb reappeared. It gave a vigorous thumbs-up, meaning the answer to both questions was yes. Isaac felt more scared than ever now that he had found out about the triad and had seen that look on the girl's face as she prepared to burn down the cabin with the girls in it. Horror stories about famous serial killers bombarded his mind, the things they did to their victims before and after killing them. How some kept severed heads and other body parts in their fridges. It terrified Isaac to think he was dealing with some kind of sociopath.

He had to tell Grandpa, so he hurried down to the kitchen.

Grandpa was bent over the oven. “I was about to call you to come down and eat,” he said. “The steaks are just done.”

Isaac was shocked. It had been months since Grandpa had cooked a meal. But he didn't want to say anything about it—he didn't want to do anything that might interfere with his progress. “Thanks, Grandpa,” he said, “but I'm too worried to eat much. There really
is
a serial killer at the hospital. Whoever killed Joey Haynes has killed other people. And Mom is next. Besides the doctor, there's another suspicious woman there too. We'll have to sneak Mom out. I don't know any other way to get her discharged.”

“Isaac, we can do it,” Grandpa said. “But you have to calm down. We can't accomplish anything if you're in a panic.”