“Maybe the surgeon was trying to avoid leaving a long Frankenstein scar,” said Budd.
“Couldn’t he have made it behind the hairline?”
“Sure, but then the kid grows up and starts losing his hair, and there it is.”
Greg turned to Nurse Porter. “You said he didn’t know he had them.”
“Yeah, he looked genuinely surprised when I pointed them out. In fact, he looked in the mirror like he was seeing them for the first time.”
“Which makes sense, since they were flush to the scalp,” Doria added. “Through the hair, he wouldn’t be able to feel them with his fingers. And he’d never notice them unless he shaved his head.”
“Why was he brought into the ER?”
“He slipped and banged his head against a glass door.”
“And you took the X rays to see if he had a concussion.”
“Yes,” Nurse Porter said.
Greg jotted down what they were saying. “Does his medical file have any record of his having a brain operation?”
“No. In fact, the only entry for him is for a sprained ankle four years ago. He apparently slipped on ice. But that’s it.”
“You still haven’t said what kind of brain operation this could be.”
Doria took the question. “Because I’m not sure. Holes are made through the skull either to take something out of the brain or to put something in. If it was to remove something, then we’re talking needle biopsies or the removal of tumors, lesions, or blood clots. But I have never heard of needing twenty-one holes for any of those procedures. Even if the patient had multiple tumors, I would think that the surgeon would have removed segments of the skull instead of making multiple holes over so large an area. And frankly, tumor masses that large would probably be fatal.”
He was right about the size, since the holes covered an area constituting most of the side of the head.
“The other possibility is putting something into the brain. He could have had interstitial radiation therapy—the insertion of radioactive pellets into tumor tissue. What bothers me is that radiation therapy is local. It’s not commonly used for widely spread or multiple tumors. Another thing, if he doesn’t remember, he must have been very young. And multiple radiation implants in a child are almost never heard of, because a child’s brain is very susceptible to radiation.”
“So, what are you saying?” Greg asked them.
All three of them shook their heads. “I don’t know what they did to him,” Doria said.
17
From the inside of her closet, Brendan watched Nicole DaFoe undress.
It was Friday night, and she was home for the weekend again. As usual, her father had picked her up at school. Brendan knew the patterns of her movements. He had watched her ever since that day at the club swimming pool. She had been wearing a rather revealing white bikini of which her mother did not approve because when she arrived and found Nicole sunning herself in a lounge chair, she spoke sharply to Nicole who snapped back then grabbed her towel and huffed away. Nicole was something of an exhibitionist. And her mother was very proper.
But to Brendan’s mind Mother DaFoe had no need to worry that her daughter was wanton, since she lacked the arousing fantasies and sexual urges of a true flasher. She had been genetically blessed with physical beauty and the instinct on how best to employ her baby-doll appeal for maximum gain. But she was like a polar cap—all light and no heat. Yet when she needed something, she could affect the turn-on, and the boys swarmed around her like heat-seeking missiles. And as long as the flesh was warm, they’d put up with anything, even a frozen core.
Ironically, it was the ice that drew Brendan.
When her parents drove off and Nicole went to the basement to do laundry, he slipped in through the back door and headed up to her bedroom, where he had waited for two hours until she had finished watching some medical video downstairs and came up.
But while crouched in her closet, he discovered a lockbox stashed behind some storage bins of clothes. The box was not an expensive thing, so it was easy to jimmy open with a penknife. With a pocket flash he inspected the contents.
At first glance it looked like a hodgepodge of things. But he went through them closely: two inexpensive men’s watches; a curled-up leather belt; a Swiss Army knife; two smaller pocketknives; a leather Pierre Cardin wallet which still had some cash, two ID bracelets with different male names on them; a fancy pen; a Bloomfield football high school ring; and a man’s gold wedding ring. They were all male effects. But, oddly, no photos or love notes or things that looked like gifts. On the contrary, they looked like collectibles. Probably from all the boys she had bedded. Things she had probably taken to commemorate her little conquests. Trophies.
When Nicole returned, she didn’t go straight to bed. Instead, she stripped down to her panties and bra, then got down on the floor to do stretching exercises—probably one of her ballet routines. For nearly twenty minutes he watched her do sit-ups, push-ups, then an elaborate set of revealing stretches, at one point lying on her back and moving her hips up and down as if having sex with an invisible lover. Watching her like this, any other normal boy would have exploded on the spot. But Brendan just watched—feeling nothing. No, he was not gay. He was not anything.
Just dead.
When she finished, she pulled off her top and headed into the adjoining bathroom. He could not see her from his angle, but he heard the rush of water as she took a shower. He thought about taking a peek, but the glass door steamed up. Besides, she might catch him, which would be disastrous. So he remained in the closet peering through the black crack.
When she came out, she had one towel wrapped around her head, another around her body, so he could see nothing. She sat on her bed and removed the towel. Her breasts were like pink-tipped pears. He had never touched a girl and wondered what it would be like. Until Nicole, he had never seen one naked in the flesh.
She stood up and toweled her behind, then turned toward him and for a moment he saw her point-blank naked. But then she slipped into panties and a camisole top. A moment later she flicked off the light and got into bed.
He waited until he was certain she was asleep, then crept across the floor, guided by the glow light of her aquarium. The creak of the floorboards caused her to stir, but she did not wake up.
When he reached her bed he froze. Fortunately, she was sleeping on her right side. Fortunately, also, it was a warm night, so only a single blanket covered her.
He had to be swift. He reached into his pocket, and in a clean move he pulled back the covers and clicked on a penlight.
Nicole’s eyes snapped open.
The next moment she yelped and jerked away. Before he knew it, she leapt off the bed and pulled a field hockey stick from wall mounts. Without a sound, she took a huge swipe at him.
He jumped back just in time. “
But she came at him and swung again. He reflexed again, but this time he stumbled backward over a stuffed animal and came down on his backside, his head slamming on the edge of the closet door. As he lay there, she came at him with the stick raised high.
“P-p-please, don’t. My head.”
“I know you. You’re Brendan LaMotte,” she gasped.
“Please don’t h-h-hit me, okay? Just don’t h-hit me.”
Nicole backed up to her portable phone and picked it up. “You’ve been following me, you creep. At the club and the diner. You’re stalking me.”
“
