“Observation.”
Sally looked up at Malone. “I don’t understand—”
“Don’t you? I think maybe I do.” He reached down and swung Jason up off the chair. “How’d you like to go for a ride with your mother and me, sport?”
“Where?”
“Over to visit some friends.” He started out of the waiting room, speaking to Sally over his shoulder, “Come on.”
With an uncertain glance at the closed door leading to Dr. Wiseman’s inner office, Sally followed.
Chapter 25
“THEN IT’S SETTLED,” Arthur Wiseman said. He stood up, stretched, and came around to lean on the edge of his desk. “CHILD has the best children’s diagnostic clinic in the country. If they can’t find out what’s going on with Jason, nobody can. Now, it seems to me that we might as well keep the boy here tonight and send him to Boston in the morning.”
But Steve was still not quite sure. “Can’t he stay home tonight? It seems to me—”
“And it seems to me,” Wiseman interrupted emphatically, “that you have quite enough to worry about tonight.”
“But there’s nothing really wrong with him.”
“So it would appear,” Wiseman agreed. “But appearances can be deceiving.” His voice dropped slightly. “Don’t forget Julie.”
At mention of his daughter’s name, the last of Steve’s resistance crumbled. He rose to his feet and went to the door, opening it. “Jason?”
The waiting room was empty. “Jason?” he repeated, more loudly this time. Then Wiseman was beside him.
“He probably got bored and went to the emergency room,” the older man suggested.
But when they got to the emergency room, it, too, was empty, with only the duty nurse sitting placidly at her desk.
“Did Jason Montgomery come through here?” Wiseman asked.
The nurse shook her head. “I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s in Dr. Malone’s office.”
“Malone? Is he here?”
Now the nurse’s smile faded into an uncertain frown. “Of course. Didn’t you see him? He and Mrs. Montgomery—”
“Mrs. Montgomery!” Wiseman flared. Blood rushed into his face as sudden fury raged through him. “I gave orders that if anybody—anybody—saw Mrs. Montgomery, I was to be notified immediately.”
The nurse trembled under his wrath. “I—I’m sorry, Dr. Wiseman,” she stammered. “I didn’t know. No one told me when I came on shift, and—” But she was talking to an empty room. Wiseman, followed by Steve Montgomery, was striding down the hall toward Malone’s office.
It, too, was empty.
The two men stood silently for a moment, and it was Steve Montgomery who at last spoke, his voice quiet, defeated. “I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I,” Wiseman replied tightly. “But it seems that Sally must have convinced Malone that there’s something to her fantasies.”
And suddenly Steve knew exactly where his wife had gone. “Lucy Corliss,” he said. “They’re with Lucy Corliss.” He started through Malone’s office. “Come on.”
“Wait a minute,” Wiseman said. Steve turned to face him. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get my wife and son!”
“And if Sally doesn’t want to go with you?”
“She has to—I’m her husband!”
“Think, Steve. She doesn’t trust you, and she doesn’t trust me. Apparently, she only trusts this Corliss woman, and maybe Mark Malone. Nor does she have to do anything she doesn’t want to. You can’t barge in there and drag her out, even if you think it’s for her own good.”
Steve’s shoulders slumped; suddenly he felt exhausted—exhausted and frustrated. “But I have to do something,” he said at last “I can’t just let her take Jason, let things go. I can’t …”
“For now,” Wiseman said softly, “there isn’t anything else you can do. Wait until morning, Steve.” He led the unhappy man back to his own office, where he opened his drug cabinet, shook four tablets out of a bottle and into an envelope, and handed it to Steve. “Go home and try to get some sleep. If you need to, take these. And stop worrying—Mark Malone is a good man. He won’t let anything happen to either Sally or Jason. Then, tomorrow, if she hasn’t come home, we’ll take whatever action is necessary to protect her.”
Steve Montgomery, his mind whirling with conflicting doubts and emotions, made his way out into the night.
“But why did you go with that woman?” Lucy asked for the third time. Once again, Randy repeated his answer.
“She said Daddy sent her. They said Daddy was on a trip, and when he got back, he’d come and visit me.”
“But I haven’t been anywhere, son,” Jim Corliss told the little boy. “Ever since the day you disappeared, I’ve been right here, trying to help your mother find you.”
Randy’s expression reflected his uncertainty.