Robin levels a last lethal look at me and walks out the studio door. She doesn’t wave goodbye.
I turn my attention back to Gabe.
“So you decided to call in to our show tonight,” I say.
“Only after picking up the one thing I needed to make my birthday complete,” he says.
My heart is pounding.
“And what was that?” I ask.
“A vial of saxitoxin.”
Robin has entered the control room. The space is brightly lit. I see everything, but hear nothing. It’s like watching a silent movie. Without even a glance at Nova, Robin strides through the door that leads to the hall that will take her out of CVOX.
I open the talkback to Nova.
“We can’t lose Robin,” I say. “Go after her. Unless I’m mistaken, Gabe is playing for keeps. Tell Robin that if she saves Gabe’s life on air, she’ll be able to write her own ticket for her call-in show.”
When the control-room door closes behind Nova, my pulse begins to race. It’s just me and Gabe now. I turn on my microphone.
“Okay, Gabe. You’ve got my attention. What’s saxitoxin?”
Gabe is clinical. “Saxitoxin is a poison,” he says. There is no hint of emotion in his pleasant tenor. He might be delivering a lecture or reading an entry from a textbook. “Some people call it shellfish toxin,” he says. “It kills quickly. And there’s no antidote.”
“So if a person changes his or her mind, nothing can be done,” I say.
I stare at the door that separates the CVOX control room from the world where no one can control anything. Gabe continues his lecture about saxitoxin. The seconds tick by on the studio clock. No one comes through the door to the control room. Nova is smart and persuasive, but Robin’s egotism may be a rock that cannot be cracked.
Just when I reconcile myself to flying solo, the door opens. As she resumes her customary place on the other side of the glass, Nova gives me a discreet thumbs-up. Robin sweeps back into the studio, takes her chair and slips on her earphones. She listens long enough to hear Gabe say that death from an injection is painless, and then she turns on her microphone and pounces.
“Gabe, you’re not interested in injecting yourself with anything. You’re not interested in dying. You’re just interested in making my life a living hell.”
“If your life is a living hell, why not join me?” Gabe says. “The vial is full. Saxitoxin for all.”
Robin shrugs off her coat. Seemingly she’s back on the team.
I turn off my mike and switch on the talkback. Nova is tense, but she’s in command. “Get Gabe’s address from Dr. Harris and keep him talking until we can get a police shrink there.”
“Will do,” I say. “Dr. H., what’s Gabe’s home address?”
Robin’s face flushes with anger. She reaches over and flicks on her microphone.
“Gabe, listen to me. You’ve got everyone here in a panic, but I know you’re faking. Don’t play along, Charlie D.”
I attempt to clear the air. “Gabe, this is a high-stakes game, so I need you to tell me the truth. Are you planning to commit suicide?”
“I prefer to think of it as exiting on my own terms,” he says.
There’s a hopelessness in his voice that I recognize.
“Let’s rethink this, Gabe,” I say. “I’ve been where you are, standing so close to the Gate of Hell I could read the inscription over the entrance.”
“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’” Gabe supplies the passage from Dante’s Inferno. “One of life’s nastier surprises is that even our suffering is not unique.”
Dr. Harris cannot contain her impatience.
“Gabe, you’re an adult. Whether you choose to end your life is your decision. I’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve threatened suicide. You’re like the boy who cried wolf.”
“Ah, but one day, there really was a wolf, and he ate the boy. My wolf is a vial of saxi-toxin. It takes so little-there’s more than enough here for both of us. Just a pinprick from the hypodermic and, within seconds, oblivion. Would you like to say goodbye, my dark star?”
Robin spits out her response.
“To you? I don’t think so. I’ve already said goodbye to you a hundred times. You never get the message.”
Gabe sounds weary.
“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to say goodbye to your daughter.”
“What?” For the first time since she walked into the studio, cracks appear in Robin Harris’s facade. “What are you talking about, Gabe?”
“You never quite hear me, do you, my dark star? I simply asked if you wanted to say goodbye to Kali?”
Robin’s eyes are wide with fear.
“What are you talking about? You know I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my daughter.”
“Too late, Robin. She’s here with me now.”
“You’re lying. I talked to Kali two hours ago. Her nanny had just given her a bath and tucked her in.”
“And Kali was wearing her new pajamas- the ones I bought her for Halloween-but why don’t I let Kali tell you about them.”
As she describes her new pajamas, Kali’s voice is as tuneful as a well-played flute.
“You were gone before Gabe came, Mummy. The pajamas he gave me are dark blue and they’re covered in moons and stars…and when the lights go out, the moons and stars glow in the dark.”
Dr. Robin Harris seems to crumple before me.
“That’s her voice,” she says. “Oh my god, Gabe has my daughter.”
For the first seconds after she hears that her six-year-old is with Gabe, Dr. Harris looks as if she’s been sucker-punched. But she’s a champ, and she comes out swinging. She pulls her microphone closer, a rookie mistake but-given the circumstances-understandable. I reach over and adjust it.
“How did you get her, Gabe?” she asks. She makes no attempt to disguise the hostility in her voice. Both Robin’s tone and her question surprise me. I thought her first concern would be Kali’s safety. But it’s not. Dr. Harris obviously sees Gabe’s possession of her daughter as a kind of power play.
“What did you promise Inge?” she asks. “She would never simply hand Kali over to you. She’s been my nanny since Kali was born.”
“Which means she has seen how deeply I love you both,” Gabe says quietly. “Inge and I talk all the time. She’s been concerned about this rift between you and me. I wish you could have seen her face when I told her the estrangement was over.”
“She believed you?” Robin says.
“She was ecstatic,” Gabe says. “We were all ecstatic, weren’t we, Kali?
