Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(43)

Freddy pushed the doorbell a second time. He could hear it buzzing inside. The light from the television flickered through the front windows although the plantation shutters prevented him from getting a good look inside. So the doctor was home, just not responding. Probably on the crapper.

After another minute, Freddy reached out and rapped the door hard with his knuckles, feeling the door move inward slightly under his hand. The thing wasn’t locked. Hell it hadn’t even been closed hard enough to latch. A sudden uneasiness raised the hair along the backs of his arms, despite the heat of the evening. On impulse, Freddy pulled out his shirttail and wiped down the doorbell and doorknob, before nudging the door open with his toe.

The television blared loudly from a room just out of sight from the foyer, the sounds of battle amplified through a sub-woofer blared so loudly that he could feel the concussion of cinematic artillery. Freddy stepped across the threshold, pushing the door closed with his foot.

Jesus H. Christ. If the bastard was taking a dump, he should at least light a match. The place reeked.

“Dr. Callow?”

Nothing.

Freddy felt himself move slowly forward, drawn toward the flickering light from the next room like some goddamn moth.

The living room opened up before him, the large flat-panel television occupying the wall on the left, its screen filled with combat as the war movie reached a crescendo of violence. Across the room a man sat in a recliner, his hand dangling over the padded leather arm, fingers open as if reaching for the gun that lay on the floor beside it. The television flared bright as another explosion shook the speakers, its light leaving little doubt about what Freddy was seeing. There sitting in the splatter of blood and clumps of brain matter was Dr. Callow.





41


Heather glanced down at her watch. 10:43 a.m. Her mom had said she would only be in the bank for fifteen minutes, but it had already been twenty. Maybe she should have gone in with her mom, but banks were so darn boring. Add a little elevator music and they’d be as exciting as an elevator.

She’d always loved these shopping trips down to Santa Fe, but today she just felt wired. Perhaps someone had spiked her herbal tea with a healthy dose of caffeine. Whatever it was left Heather feeling irked.

It probably had nothing whatsoever to do with her mother or even with today. After all, it was Saturday, arguably the best day on the planet. More likely, her sense of hyperactivity was related to everything else that had happened this week.

Dr. Caldwell had arrived, they had all signed the papers, and he had gone off, redirecting the shipment of their cold fusion science project to parts unknown. The judging committee had issued a statement that read:

“Upon further review, we the judges of the National High School Science Competition, hereby conclude that, although the team from Los Alamos High School failed to properly document the derivations in one section of their report, the omission appears to have been unintentional. Nevertheless, the disqualification of the Los Alamos team remains in force. Although the error in documentation was an oversight, it was an egregious one…”

Wonderful. They had been upgraded from cheaters to incompetent losers. And although the paper had carried the story of the revised decision by the board of judges, that story was relegated to a page snuggled up against the classified advertisements.

At least the ravenous press feeding frenzy had died out and their houses were only egged every other day. At this rate, within a couple hundred years, their popularity would be epic.

Just as Heather had about decided to go in and stand in line with her mom, Mrs. McFarland reappeared.

“Hi, sweetheart. Sorry it took so long, but I had to get something notarized and there was a line.”

“No problem, Mom,” Heather said, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

Heather swung her head in the direction of the intersection, her eyes scanning. For just an instant, she could have sworn she had seen the Rag Man. Her attention drifted to the traffic light. Odd. There it was again, that feeling of wrongness.

As she looked, a white Impala screamed around the corner, accelerating toward the yellow light, its engine climbing up through the RPM scale in a manner that indicated a floored gas pedal. As the light turned red, a blue van moved forward from the cross street, the faces of three young children visible through the van’s side windows. The squeal of brakes was so loud that it hurt Heather’s ears. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t, as the horrified faces of the three little girls in the van etched themselves into her brain an instant before the Impala impaled itself into the side of the van.

Heather screamed.

How long it took her to realize it was her mother’s arms wrapped around her, she wasn’t sure, but slowly, her eyes refocused onto her mother’s panicked face.

“Heather! What is it? Please, baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

Heather glanced at the intersection across from the bank parking lot. Nothing. No sign of the fatal car crash she had just witnessed, only normal traffic. She shook her head to clear the remnants of the vision. It had been so real.

As she started to answer her mother, she was interrupted by the squeal of brakes. Her head swung back toward the intersection as a large red pickup truck slammed into the side of a teal mini van, burying itself halfway into the passenger compartment, sending both vehicles spinning into a light pole and then into the plate-glass storefront beyond.