keeping them grouped together by means of the code numbers. Let’s try something else.”
For the third time, her hands manipulated the keyboard, and once more the screen went blank for a few seconds. As before, the screen began to fill with numbers, but Ulis time there were names attached to them. As Sally stared at the names, her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I told it to find Julie’s case number, then list all the names and numbers of the rest of that group,” she explained.
All the names were on the list.
Randy Corliss.
Adam Rogers.
Julie Montgomery.
Eden Ransom.
Jason Montgomery.
In all, there were forty-six names. Sally Montgomery and Mark Malone stared at the list for several seconds, each deep in his own thoughts.
“We’d better print it out,” Malone said at last.
Sally nodded silently, and her fingers once more began moving over the keyboard, but slowly this time, as if by committing the list to paper she would somehow seal whatever fates awaited the children whose names appeared on it.
Fifty feet away, Arthur Wiseman sat in his office listening quietly while Steve Montgomery once again described Jason’s misadventures.
“And that’s it?” he asked when Steve had finished his recital.
“That’s it.”
Wiseman turned to Jason.
“And what about you, son? Did it happen the way your father told it?”
“I—I guess so,” Jason faltered. “I mean, the fight happened, and I was bleeding.”
“Well, why don’t we just have a look at you and see what we can find, all right?”
Jason frowned. He hated it when Dr. Malone poked and prodded at him, and stuck the ice cream stick in his mouth and made him say aaahhh. It wasn’t as if he was ever sick, or anything was wrong with him. “I’m okay,” he said.
“And who said you weren’t?” Wiseman countered with mock severity. “All I want to do is take a peek. I haven’t seen you since the day you were born, and it seems to me it’s only fair if you let me admire my work.”
“Were you the doctor who delivered me?” Jason asked. He’d always thought it was Dr. Malone.
“Sure was. Popped you a good one on the bottom, then handed you over to Ehr. Malone. You were a scrappy little critter, as I recall. Nearly tore the roof off this place with the screaming and yelling.”
Still talking, Wiseman led Jason into the examining room and boosted him up onto the table.
“What are those?” the little boy asked, staring curiously at the stirrups that rose from one end of the table.
“Just something I use now and then. Why don’t you take off your shirt?”
Obediently, Jason stripped to the waist, then waited to see what would happen. A moment later he felt the cold chill of the stethoscope as the doctor listened to his heartbeat and his breathing. Then he looked from side to side while Dr. Wiseman carefully watched his eyes.
“Which one got the fist?”
“This one” Jason replied, holding his hand up to his right eye.
Wiseman compared the boy’s eyes carefully, and saw no evidence of a bruise. “Couldn’t have been much of a punch.”
“I guess it wasn’t,” Jason admitted. “It only hurt for a second.”
“And what about the other day, when you spilled the fudge on your arm. Did that hurt?”
“Not much,” Jason said, scratching his head while he tried to remember. “I guess it did at first, but not very long. Like the day I cut my finger.”
“Your finger?” Wiseman asked.
Jason nodded. “I was making a fort and I cut myself.”
“Badly?”
“Nah. It bled for a minute, and I was going to put a Band-Aid on it, but then it healed up.”
Now it was Wiseman who scratched his head. “Healed up? Before you put a Band-Aid on it?”
“Sure.”
Wiseman thought for a moment, then spoke again. “How would you like to have your blood tested?” he asked.
“What for?”
“Just to find out something,” Wiseman replied.
“Okay.”
A moment later, while Jason watched, Wiseman plunged a needle into the boy’s arm and drew out five cc’s of blood. With a single practiced motion, he drew out the needle, placed an alcohol-soaked wad of cotton on the point where the needle had pierced Jason’s skin, then folded the boy’s arm so that the cotton was held in place. “Just hold your arm like that for a few minutes,” he said. Taking the blood sample with him, he returned to his office and picked up the phone. He issued a series of orders, then, putting the receiver bade on the hook, he turned to Steve Montgomery.