coil put in because I was pretty sure I knew what would happen if I got pregnant. Unfortunately, I was one of those women who doesn’t hold an IUD, but by the time I found that out, it was too late.”
Sally sat stunned, trying to sort it all out. Was she being hysterical, or was the whole situation becoming more ominous? There were four of them now, four children, all of them unplanned, all of their mothers “protected” by IUDs when the pregnancies occurred, all of them under study by the Children’s Institute for Latent Diseases. Now two of them were dead and one was missing. Only Jason was left.
“It’s horrible,” she said, not realizing she was speaking out loud.
“What?” Carl Bronski asked her. “What’s horrible?”
Abashed, Sally glanced from one face to another. All of them were looking at her curiously, but all the faces were friendly. “I was just thinking,” she began. “Thinking about you, and me, and Jan Ransom, and all the coincidences.” She went through them one by one, half-expecting someone—Bronski probably—to tell her she was overreacting, to explain to her that she was seeing a conspiracy where none existed, to suggest that she get some counseling.
No one did.
When she was finished, there was a long silence that was finally broken by Sally herself.
“Lucy,” she asked, her voice oddly constricted. “Who was your obstetrician?”
Lucy frowned thoughtfully. “Somebody over at the Community Hospital. After Randy was born, I never saw him again. I’m afraid I’m just not much of a one for doctors. But his name was Weisfield, or something like that.”
“Was it Wiseman?” Sally asked, knowing the answer.
Lucy brightened. “That’s it! Arthur Wiseman. I hated him, but at the time he was all I could—” She broke off, seeing the twisted expression on Sally’s face. “What is it? What did I say?”
“Wiseman is my doctor too,” Sally explained. “And Jan Ransom’s.” Her voice suddenly turned bitter. “He and his bedside manner and his fatherly advice. What the hell was he doing to all of us?”
“We don’t know that he was doing anything,” Carl Bronski said quietly. But privately he decided that it was time for him to devote a great deal more attention to finding out exactly what had happened to Randy Corliss.
The house was dark when Sally returned, except for one light glowing upstairs in the master bedroom. Her mother, apparently, had finally gone home. Sally slipped her key into the lock, let herself into the house, then checked the lower floor to be sure all the windows were closed. As she started upstairs she wondered how she was going to tell Steve that far from withdrawing from Lucy Corliss’s problems, she was now going to become even more deeply involved. She knew what his response would be, and she didn’t want to hear it. Yet, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—begin lying to him about what she was doing.
Somehow she would have to make him understand. She knew now that something was happening at Eastbury Community Hospital. Something had happened to her there, and it had happened to Jan Ransom, and it had happened to Lucy Corliss. How many others had it happened to? How many other babies had died, and how many children were missing? She had to know, and Steve had to understand that.
They owed it, if not to themselves or to Julie, to all the women and children to whom, so far, nothing had yet been done.
She reached the top of the stairs and started toward the bedroom, but then changed her mind. She would look in on Jason first, just to reassure herself that everything was all right.
He lay in bed, sound asleep, his right arm dangling over the side of the bed. When she bent down to kiss him, he stirred, and turned over to look up at her.
“Mom? Is that you?” The words were mumbled sleepily, and Jason’s eyes, half opened, seemed to be searching for her.
“It’s me, honey,” she whispered, kneeling by the bed and slipping her arms around him. “How are you? Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” Jason replied. “Me and Dad spent the whole night playing games with Grandma, and I won.” There was a note of accusation in his voice, and Sally half-wished she had been home to enjoy the games. And yet, she knew, if she had stayed home, she would have felt guilty all evening.
She reached down and touched the hand gently.
“Doesn’t it hurt at all?” she asked.
“Uh-uh,” Jason said. Then he added, “I guess Grandma was