Brain Child

And then Kate Lewis was beside her, pulling her away.

Suddenly she was back on Hacienda Drive, and the night was filled with sirens, and flashing lights, and people everywhere, asking her questions, staring down into the ravine.…

It had seemed to go on forever.

Finally there was that awful moment when the stretcher had appeared, and she’d seen Alex—

Except it hadn’t been Alex.

It had only been a shape covered by a blanket.

She’d only been able to look for a second, then Kate had twisted her around, and she hadn’t seen any more.

Now a voice penetrated the haze.

“Lisa? Lisa Cochran?”

She looked up, nodding mutely. A policeman was looking at her, but he didn’t seem to be mad at her.

“We need to get you out of here,” the policeman said. “We have to take you down to the Medical Center.” He held out a hand. “Can you stand up?”

“I … I …” Lisa struggled to rise, then sank back to the ground. Strong hands slid under her arms and lifted her up. A minute later she was in the back seat of a police car. A few yards away she saw another police car, and a policeman talking to some of her friends.

But they didn’t know what had happened. Only she knew.

Lisa buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

The speaker on the wall of the emergency room crackled to life once again.

“This is Unit One,” the anonymous voice droned. “We’ll be there in another thirty seconds. And we have an identification on the victim.” Suddenly the voice cracked, losing its professional tone. “It’s Alex … Alex Lonsdale.”

Marsh stared at the speaker, willing himself to have heard the words wrong. Then he gazed around the room, and knew by the shock on everyone’s face, and by the way they were returning his gaze, that he had not heard wrong. He groped behind him for a chair, found one, and lowered himself into it.

“No,” he whispered. “Not Alex. Anyone but Alex …”

“Call Frank Mallory,” Barbara Fannon told one of the orderlies, immediately taking charge. “He’s next on call. His number’s on the Rolodex.” She moved around the desk and put a hand on Marshall Lonsdale’s shoulder. “Maybe it’s a mistake, Marsh,” she said, though she knew that the ambulance crew wouldn’t have identified Alex if they weren’t absolutely sure.

Marsh shook his head and then raised his agonized eyes. “How am I going to tell her?” he asked, his voice dazed. “How am I going to tell Ellen? She … she had a feeling … she told me … she wanted to come with me tonight—”

“Come on.” Barbara assumed her most authoritative tone, the one she always used with people she knew were close to breaking. Outside, the sound of the approaching ambulance disturbed the night. “We’re getting you out of here.” When Marsh failed to respond, she took him by the hand and drew him to his feet. “I’m taking you to your office.”

“No!” Marsh protested as the approaching siren grew louder. “Alex is my son—”

“Which is exactly why you won’t be here when they bring him in. We’ll have Frank Mallory here as soon as possible, and until he gets here, Benny Cohen knows what to do.”

Marsh looked dazed. “Benny’s only an intern—”

Barbara began steering him out of the emergency room as the siren fell silent and headlights glared momentarily through the glass doors of the emergency entrance. “Benny’s the best intern we’ve ever had. You told me so yourself.”

Then, as the emergency-room doors opened and the gurney bearing Alex Lonsdale’s nearly lifeless body was pushed inside, she forced Marsh Lonsdale into the corridor.

“Go to your office,” she told him. “Go to your office and mix yourself a drink from the bottle you and Frank nip at every time you deliver a baby. I can take care of everything else, but right now I can’t take care of you. Understand?”

Marsh swallowed, then nodded. “I’ll call Ellen—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Barbara cut in. “You’ll fix a drink, drink it, and wait. I’ll be there in five minutes, and by then we’ll know something about how he is. Now, go!” She gave Marsh a gentle shove, then disappeared back into the emergency room.

Marsh paused a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts.

He knew that Barbara was right.

With a shambling gait, feeling suddenly helpless, he started down the hall toward his office.

In the little house behind the old mission, across the street from the graveyard, Maria Torres dropped the blind on the front window back into place, then shuffled slowly into the bedroom and eased her aged body into bed.

She was tired from the long walk home, and tonight it had been particularly exhausting.

Unwilling to be seen by anyone that night, Maria had been forced to make her way down the canyon by way of the path that wound through the underbrush a few feet below the level of the road. Each time she had heard the wailing of a siren and seen headlights flashing on the road above, she had huddled close to the ground, waiting until the car had passed before once more making her slow progress toward home.

But now it was all right.

She was home, and no one had seen her, and her job was safe.

Tonight she had no trouble. Tonight it was the gringos who had the trouble.

To Maria Torres, what had happened on the road near the hacienda tonight was nothing less than a blessing from the saints. All her life, she had spent many hours each week praying that destruction would come to the gringos. Tonight, she knew, was one of the nights the saints had chosen to answer those prayers.

Tomorrow, or the next day, she would find out who had been in the car that had plunged over the edge of the ravine, and remember to go to church and light a candle to whichever saint had, in answer to her prayers, abandoned one of his namesakes this evening. Her candles were not much, she knew, but they were something, and the souls of her ancestors would appreciate them.

Silence finally fell over La Paloma. For the rest of the night, Maria Torres slept in peace.

Benny Cohen carefully peeled away the towel that had been wrapped around Alex Lonsdale’s head, and stared at the gaping wound on the boy’s skull.

He’s dead, Benny thought. He may still be breathing, but he’s dead.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ellen Lonsdale knew her premonition had come true as soon as she opened the front door and saw Carol Cochran standing on the porch, a handkerchief clutched in her left hand, her eyes rimmed with red.

“It happened, didn’t it?” she whispered.

Carol’s head moved in a barely perceptible nod. “It’s Alex,” she whispered. “He … he was alone in the car …”

“Alone?” Ellen echoed. Where had Lisa been? Hadn’t she been with Alex? But her questions went unspoken as she tried to concentrate on what Carol was saying.

“He’s at the Center,” Carol told her, stepping into the house and closing the door behind her. “I’ll take you.”