wasn’t wearing any clothes. And his head felt cold.
Curiously, he touched his head.
Where there should have been hair, he felt only bare skin.
Fire.
There had been a fire. But where were his parents?
He began stumbling out of the woods. “Mommy? Mommy, where are you? Daddy?” Suddenly, he stopped, as the memory of what had happened flooded back to him. Now he was screaming and running toward the blackened car. “Mommy! Daddy!”
The crowd gathered around the wreck turned to stare at the strange apparition that had appeared out of the woods.
“Where the hell did he come from?” one of the medics muttered. Grabbing a blanket, he moved toward the naked child, then tried to wrap the blanket around him. Randy struggled against him.
“Mommy!” he screamed again. “Where’s my mommy?”
“Easy, son, take it easy,” the medic told him. “Where’d you come from?”
But Randy was beyond hearing. Thrashing in the confines of the blanket, he could only keep shouting for his parents, tears streaming down his face. Finally, exhausted, he fell to the ground, where he lay sobbing helplessly.
“Get him into the truck,” a second medic said. “He must have been in the car with them. Let’s get him to a hospital. Fast.”
They carried Randy to one of the ambulances. A moment later, its siren wailing, the vehicle began racing toward Eastbury Community Hospital. The medic carefully unwrapped the blanket and stared at Randy’s skin.
“I don’t get it,” he said to his partner. “Look at him. His clothes are gone, and his hair is gone. He must have been right in the middle of that fire. He should be dead, just like the others.”
And yet, as they examined Randy, neither of the medics could find anything more than what appeared to be a few first-degree burns on what was otherwise baby-smooth skin.
Mark Malone stared somberly across his desk, trying to read Sally Montgomery’s eyes.
She had sat silently next to her husband while Malone recited what had happened in Wiseman’s office. Twice she had been about to interrupt him, but both times Steve had gently squeezed her hand. Now she was sitting still, her eyes thoughtful. Slowly, she rose from the sofa. “I’m going to see him,” she said, her voice coldly furious. “I want to hear it all from him.”
“I’m not sure hell see you,” Malone said softly. “When I left him, he said he was all through as a doctor—”
“All through as a doctor?” Sally exploded. “He’s a killer, Mark. He killed Julie. Whether he knew what he was doing or not—and if you ask me, he knew exactly what he was doing—he killed her. And God knows how many others. That’s why he wanted to commit me—I was finding out too much.” She started toward the office door just as the phone rang.
Malone picked up the receiver and listened for a moment When he hung up, his hands were trembling. “It’s too late, Sally,” he said softly. “That was Arthur’s nurse. She just found him in his office. He’s dead.”
“Dead?” Sally repeated. “He’s dead?”
“There was a hypodermic on his desk. Apparently he killed himself.”
Her fury suddenly deserting her, Sally sank back onto the sofa. “Oh, God,” she mumbled. “What next?”
As if in direct response to her question, the phone rang once more. This time, as he listened, Malone closed his eyes and nodded, almost as if he’d been expecting more bad news. When he hung up, he seemed unable to speak.
“What is it?” Steve asked. “Mark, has something else happened?”
Malone nodded. “There—there was an accident Anyway, they think it was an accident.”
Sally lifted her head and her eyes widened. “Where—who—?”
“Carl Bronski,” Malone whispered. “He’s dead. And Lucy and Jim Corliss too.”
“No!” Sally screamed. She was on her feet again. Her eyes wild, she staggered toward Malone. “No! It’s a lie—they can’t be dead. They can’t be.” Suddenly her legs buckled beneath her, and she fell, sobbing, to the floor.
Malone rose from his desk and came around to help Steve move her back onto the sofa. “I’ll give her a sedative,” he said. He went to his drug locker, and a moment later Sally’s eyes closed, and her breathing evened out. Only then did the doctor speak again.
“Randy’s alive,” he said. “They’re bringing him here now.”
“But what happened?” Steve asked.
“I told you—they don’t know. The car went off the road and exploded. If they know why, they didn’t tell me.”
Steve’s mind was reeling. He looked from his sedated wife to the doctor, then bade to Sally. “What—oh, Christ, Mark, what the hell’s happening?”
“I