He checked his watch. Lunchtime. He turned right and drove toward I-85.
Fifteen minutes later, he climbed the front stairs of Suzanne"s house and rang the doorbell. She opened her front door, smiled, and pulled him inside. "Unb.u.t.ton your shirt,"she said.
"Cool off, will you? I"m on my lunch break."
"Very funny. Let me see the creepy mark."
Joe slung his tie over his shoulder."You realize that you"re the fiftieth person to ask me that today."
"So I"m unoriginal. Let"s see it."
He unb.u.t.toned his shirt and peeled back the bandage.
She grimaced. "Looks like you had open-heart surgery."
"I just had a thin layer of skin removed. I wanted the doctor to cut away as much as possible. It"s the freshest sample we have."
Suzanne picked up a digital camera and snapped a picture.
"For your sc.r.a.pbook?"
"Hardly. I want to compare this against some other skin writings I"ve seen."
"You have experience with this kind of thing?"
"Not exactly, but I once had a session with a spiritualist who did something like this."
Joe pointed to the mark."Like this? this?"
"No, but letters, numbers, and even names appeared on her skin during the seance. It was pretty eerie."
He b.u.t.toned his shirt."So how was it done?"
"It took a few visits, but I finally figured out that she had written on her skin with an allergen-laced wax just before I arrived. I met her at the door with an ultraviolet battery lamp and the letters lit up like a neon sign."
He nodded. "Clever. So her body temperature softened the wax, which then released the skin irritant."
"Yep. The letters appeared on her skin just long enough, until the next sucker came along."She put down her camera. "But, as I recall, you"re not a deep sleeper."
"Not deep enough for someone to draw pictures on my chest without my knowing about it."
"No."She bit her lip. "There had to be another way."
He sat down on the sofa."I really didn"t come hereabout this, Suzanne. I wanted to talk to you about Nikki."
"I saw her yesterday."
"Yeah, my dad told me. It"s funny, but Nikki didn"t even mention it."
"I hope it"s all right. There"s been a lot on TV about you and the weird stuff that"s been going on. I thought it might help Nikki if I talked to her about it."
"Well, it worked. I think she"s a lot better now. Thank you."
"My pleasure. She"s a great kid. I like your father too."
"He didn"t hit on you, did he?"
She smiled. "No. He couldn"t stop talking about Carla. He"s crazy about her."
"Yeah, I guess he is. Miracle of miracles. He hasn"t been serious with anyone since Mom died. Thirty years."
"I"m happy for him."
"Suzanne ..."Joe took her hand."I may have done a terrible job of showing it, but I feel the same way about you. I"d like you to spend some time with Nikki and me. Together. We always had fun. It felt right."
"Yes, it did."
"It can be that way again. Better even, because now I know it"s the way it should be."
"You"re going to have doubts, you know. You"re too much the skeptic to give in completely."
"Probably, but there are issues in every relationship. You know, like leaving the toilet seat up, forgetting to take the garbage out, claiming to contact the dead...."
"The typical stuff."
"I know I"m not perfect,"he said. "Before, when I couldn"t deal with things, I just ran away from you. I promise I won"t do that again."
She smiled."You"d better be sure about this."
"I am, Suzanne."He raised her hand and kissed her palm."I really am."
An hour later, Joe entered Sam"s narrow downtown magic shop. Empty.
"Sam?"
"I"m here,"Sam called from the back room.
Joe walked back. "You should really put a bell or something on your front door. Anybody could just walk in and-"
"h.e.l.lo, Joe!"a two-foot mannequin shrieked.
Joe stopped dead in his tracks. Sam stood in the middle of his storeroom. Beside him was a heavyset man with puffy cheeks who was holding the dummy.
"A ventriloquist,"Joe said. "You asked me here to talk to a ventriloquist?"
Sam nodded."You wanted a sound expert, and this is the guy. Joe, meet Frank Webb."
Frank extended his free hand. "Hiya, Joe. Nice to meet you. Sam tells me you"ve got yourself a knotty little problem."
Joe shook his hand. "Uh, yeah. But I"m really not sure a ventriloquist is who I need to-"
"Hey, don"t let the dummy throw you. I was just showing Sam my newest creation. His name is Colin."
Joe looked at the dummy."It looks like you."
"Everybody says that, but it"s purely unintentional. I was trying to make him look goofy."
"You succeeded,"Sam said. "That"s why he looks like you. Now, put Colin away and tell Joe what he needs to know."
"All right, all right."Frank placed the dummy in a molded carrying case. "My whole life has been about studying sound, Joe. I don"t think a ventriloquist is behind your weird voices, but I still might be able to help you out."
"I"d appreciate any insight you can give me."
"There are all kinds of ways that sound can be ma-nipulated. You"ve heard about ventriloquists who can supposedly throw their voices."
Joe nodded. "It"s mostly about directing the audience"s focus with your eyes and body language, isn"t it?"
"Right. If you want to make it seem like a voice is coming from a trunk, you have to sell the idea with your expression."
"Right."
"Help! Let me out!"
Frank turned and stared at a large packing crate.
"Let me out of here, you dirty jerk!"
Joe smiled."Very good. I didn"t see your lips move."
"That wasn"t him,"Sam deadpanned."That was the new kid I hired. I keep him in there between shifts."
Frank turned back to Joe. "Now, in the past few years, there have been some interesting advances in audio-acoustical research. For about four hundred bucks, you can have a pair of Dolby Digital headphones that give the illusion of five speakers around you-three front and two rear."
"All from two tiny earphone speakers?"Sam asked.
"Yessiree. Sound waves take on different charac-teristics depending on which direction they"re coming from. It has to do with the shape of the ear, the curvature of your head, all kinds of stuff. Well, researchers discovered that by electronically altering those waves, they can fool your ears into thinking that sounds are coming from somewhere they"re not."
"But it still has to come from somewhere, somewhere,"Joe said. "I scanned my room only seconds after I heard the voice. No magnetic coils."
"Tell me, did the voice have a specific quality to it?"
"Other than the fact that it sounded like my dead wife"s?"
"Other than that, yeah."
Joe thought. "Her voice sounded ...thin. Hollow, somehow. It was difficult to localize in the room, and it seemed to be moving in s.p.a.ce."
"Sam said you"d bring pictures. Got "em with you?"
Joe opened a manila envelope and spread out the photos on Sam"s desk. "I have police photos of my place, Monica"s hotel room, the recording studio, and every other place where victims claimed to hear voices."
"Good."Frank inspected the prints.
Joe leaned over the desk."I"ve never seen them all together like this."He froze. "There"s one thing all of these locations have in common."
Frank nodded. "You mean the gla.s.s window-panes?"
"Yes."
"Joe, I might just have an answer for you."
Haddenfield threw in one last box and slid the van door closed. He"d spent the afternoon packing up the observation center, and the higher-ups had been too p.i.s.sed to send anyone to help him. Within a week, the testing center in South Carolina would be dismantled and he"d be on his own. Who needs "em, he thought. Soon, with Dylan"s help, he"d begin work in a state-of-the-art testing facility just outside Moscow. Funny how the Russians had always been ahead of the curve in psychic research, even when they couldn"t afford to feed their people. If only his own government could be so open-minded.
Haddenfield pulled away from the curb and glanced up at Monica Gaines"s hospital room window. He wanted to see her one last time, but there wasn"t time. What in h.e.l.l had happened to her? He"d made a horrible mistake by bringing his team to Atlanta, but he couldn"t resist the opportunity to study Monica Gaines in action. d.a.m.n. If only he had had resisted. resisted.
Fifteen minutes later, on the I-75 expressway, he glanced in the rearview mirror. A black Jeep Cherokee was behind him. He wasn"t sure, but he thought it had been on his tail since he left the testing center. s.h.i.t. Was it the feds? He wouldn"t put it past the military intelligence guys to put a tail on him. But why? As far as they were concerned, he was just an embarra.s.sing failure.
He sped up. The Jeep also sped up, but not in an obvious way. It hung back several car lengths.
Was he just being paranoid?
He fumbled for his cell phone and looked at thetop panel. OF SERVICE AREA He"d used his phone here dozens of times. Either the system was overloaded, or ...
He looked at the Jeep again. He"d heard that drug dealers could jam nearby radio and cell phone transmissions with a device no larger than a briefcase. It wasn"t a stretch to think that a government agent would have the same capability.
Or Dylan. Had he found out?
Haddenfield stepped hard on the accelerator, but the Jeep didn"t follow suit. Relief flooded through him. Maybe he was wasjust being paranoid. G.o.dd.a.m.ned cell phones cut out all the time. Maybe it was just- BLAM!.
A small explosion rocked the front of the van, and the vehicle jerked hard to the right.
Haddenfield struggled with the wheel. Mother of Christ.
The side rail raced toward his windshield. No, no, no, no ...
He crashed through the railing. Silence. Pieces of the broken railing floated in air in front of him as he hurtled downward.
Holy s.h.i.t. He was going to die.
Impact.
He opened his eyes. Water everywhere, spilling into the van.
The vehicle lurched forward. He was in the river, he realized. And he was alive.
He struggled with the seat-belt latch, now entirely submerged. The smelly water tickled the underside of his chin. Jesus ...