God Project (20 page)

The computer’s answer brought tears to Sally’s eyes. Through the blur, she read the computer’s final summation one more time.

“Insufficient data to make determination.”

Sally switched off her terminal, gathered up all the printouts her morning’s work had produced, and left her office.

All her work, according to the computer, meant nothing. And yet she was sure that the computer was wrong. Then, as she thought about it, she came to the slow realization that the computer had not said the CHILD surveys weren’t random. It had simply refused to take a stand on the question.

That was the problem with computers. They were too objective. Indeed, they were totally objective.

But CHILD, Sally was convinced, was
not
totally objective. The survey, she was sure, was a cover for something else.

A conspiracy.

But would she be able to prove it?

She didn’t know.

All she knew was that the more she learned, the more frightened she became.

Chapter 16

S
TEVE MONTGOMERY PAUSED
on the front porch of his mother-in-law’s house, wondering if he’d been right in his decision to share his problems with Phyllis Paine. When the idea of talking to her about Sally had first occurred to him, he’d immediately rejected it. But then, this morning, he’d changed his mind. After all, who knew Sally as well as her own mother?

He pressed the button next to the front door and listened to the soft melody of the chimes. When there was no answer, he pressed the bell again. Then, just as he was about to turn away, the door opened, and Phyllis, her eyes rimmed in red, and her face suddenly showing her years, gazed out at him.

“Steve.” Her eyes darted around as she looked for Sally, then her brows furrowed in puzzlement “Isn’t Sally with you?”

“No.” Offering no further explanation, Steve asked if he could come in, and Phyllis suddenly stepped back.

“Of course. I’m sorry, Steve. I—well, I’m afraid I haven’t been having a very good day.”

Steve paused. “Maybe I should come back another time.”

“No, no.” She closed the door, and led Steve into the parlor. “I was just getting rid of some things.” Sighing
tiredly, she seated herself on the edge of the sofa. “Some dresses I was making for Julie,” she went on. “They were in the sewing room, all cut, and I’ve been waking up every night, feeling guilty about not having finished them.” Her lips twisted into a desolate smile. “You know me—once I start something, I have to finish it. Anyway, I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night and going to the sewing room to finish the dresses, and it isn’t until I start working on them that I remember … what happened. So just now I threw them away. I took them out to the garbage can and threw them away.”

Her eyes, reflecting an uncertainty that Steve had never seen before, searched his face. “It seemed like a terrible thing to do,” she whispered. “And yet, I couldn’t think of anything else. It was a symbol, I suppose. A way of forcing myself to face up to what’s happened.” Suddenly she straightened up and folded her hands in her lap. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it?” The uncertainty in her eyes disappeared, to be replaced by the penetrating sharpness Steve was used to. “It’s Sally, isn’t it?”

Steve shifted uncomfortably, then nodded his head.

“Things aren’t going well, are they? I mean, even considering the circumstances?”

“No,” Steve said quietly. “And I’m beginning to wonder what to do.”

Phyllis’s brows rose. “About Sally?”

“Dr. Wiseman called me on Friday. He’s worried about her—he seems to think she’s avoiding facing up to the fact that Julie’s death can’t be explained by trying to prove that something else happened. Something more reasonable.”

“I see,” Phyllis said. “And what do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. I barely saw her over the weekend. When she wasn’t at her office, she was holed up in the den, and she wouldn’t tell me what she was working on. But I’m sure it had something to do with”—he faltered, then plunged on—“with Julie. And she’s been talking to Lucy Corliss.”

“Lucy Corliss? Why does that name—oh! The mother of that little boy who’s missing. What’s his name?”

“Randy. He was a friend of Jason’s. But that’s not what she was talking to Mrs. Corliss about, at least not directly. It seems that Jason and Randy as well as Julie were being studied by some group in Boston.”

Phyllis’s brows arched skeptically. “What’s unusual about that? These days it seems as if someone’s studying all of us all the time.” Then her expression changed. “Oh, God, she hasn’t come up with some sort of conspiracy theory, has she?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to go—”

“Has
she?”

“I’m afraid so,” Steve replied, his shoulders sagging.

Phyllis shook her head sadly. “Have you talked to Arthur about it?” she asked.

“No. I wanted to talk to you first I guess I was afraid Dr. Wiseman might see what Sally’s doing as some sort of—what? Neurotic behavior?” He groaned. “Oh, Christ, Phyllis, I can hardly believe we’re having this conversation.”

“And yet we are,” Phyllis replied firmly. “And since we are, the question is, what are we to do about it? Do you want me to talk to Arthur?”

“Would you?”

Now it was Phyllis’s turn to sigh. “I suppose so. I have to talk to him anyway. I’m afraid I was quite rude to him at the funeral, and I had no right to be. I owe him an apology. I’ll drop by the clinic this afternoon.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Steve told her. “I know how you hate getting—”

Phyllis waved his words away. “Don’t be silly. You know I try not to interfere, but I’m still Sally’s mother, and I still worry, even though I try not to show it.” Her expression changed slightly, and her eyes fell appraisingly upon Steve. “What about you? Are you all right? You look terrible.”

“I’m holding myself together.”

“See that you continue to,” Phyllis said. She rose to escort her son-in-law to the door. “You’re a man, Steve,
and Sally’s going to have to count on you.” Her voice dropped, as if she were about to impart a secret I’ve never thought Sally was as stable as she appears to be, you know. “It’s always seemed to me there were tensions in Sally, and under the wrong circumstances—” She suddenly fell silent, and as he left her house, Steve knew she thought she’d said too much.

“Want some more coffee?” Sally asked.

Lucy Corliss shook her head. “What I really want is a drink, but I’ll be damned if I’ll have one this early in the day.” The clock read three twenty, and she had been sitting at Sally’s kitchen table for nearly two hours. She fingered the stack of computer printouts, then leaned back and folded her arms across her chest “So all this might mean something, or it might not,” she said. Sally had already explained the meaning of the computer’s evaluation of its own work.

“It does,” Sally insisted. “I’m sure it does. It’s just that the damned computer can’t prove it.”

“So we’re nowhere,” Lucy said. “It looks like something is going on, but we can’t prove it. And you can bet I’ll get nothing out of Randolph. God, how I hate those smooth bastards.”

“But he said he’d have
something
for you?”

“Oh, sure. But you can bet that whatever it is, it won’t be the truth. If there was no secret about what they’re doing, why wouldn’t they have let us know they were studying our children? And they didn’t,” Lucy added bitterly. “I’m one of those people who keeps everything. I even have laundry receipts from Randy’s diaper service. They’re getting yellow, but I have them. Anyway, I went over everything—everything! There’s nothing about a survey, no forms, no requests for permission, nothing! And you know what, Sally? The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Even if it has nothing to do with Randy’s disappearing, the whole idea just gets to me. I mean, if they’ve been watching Randy and Jason, and even Julie, what about us? Are we all being watched? Don’t any of us have any privacy anymore? It’s scary!”

“It’s the new age,” Sally said quietly. “I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do but get used to it. But what about all these?” she asked, gesturing toward the printouts. “We’ve
got
to do something about this.”

Suddenly Lucy had an idea. “Could I have them?” she asked.

Sally frowned. “What for?”

“I want to show them to someone,” Lucy replied. Sally started to ask another question, but Lucy held up her hand. “Just trust me,” she said. “I might wind up looking like a fool, but there’s no reason why you should too.”

The back door slammed open, and Jason appeared. “Hi, Mom,” he called. “I’m—” Then he saw Lucy, and his words died on his lips. “Hi, Mrs. Corliss,” he went on. Suddenly he looked hopeful. “Is Randy back?”

Lucy had to fight to control the tears that came into her eyes at Jason’s words, but she made herself smile. “Not yet,” she told him, “but I’m sure it won’t be long now. Do you miss him?”

Jason nodded solemnly. “He’s my best friend. I hope nothing happened to him.”

Lucy stood up abruptly, picked up the printouts, and started toward the door. “I’ll take good care of these, Sally,” she promised. Then, before either Sally or Jason could say anything more, she was gone. Sally, still seated at the kitchen table, held her arms out to her son.

“Come here,” she said softly, and Jason, though unsure what his mother wanted, let himself be hugged. “I love you,” Sally whispered. “I love you so much.”

Jason, wriggling in her arms, suddenly looked up and grinned. “Enough to let me make fudge?” he asked.

For some reason, the devilish look on her son’s face broke the tension Sally had been living under for over a week, and she began laughing.

“Sure,” she said, releasing Jason and standing up. “In fact, making fudge seems like the best idea I’ve heard all day!”

   Jason watched as Sally mixed together the milk, sugar,
and chocolate, added a dash of salt, and put the pan on the stove.

“Want me to check the thermometer?” he asked.

“You can if you want,” Sally said with a shrug. “But it’s never been off yet, has it?”

“No,” Jason agreed, “but my chemistry book says you should always check your equipment before you start an experiment.”

“When you’re as old as I am, making fudge isn’t an experiment anymore.”

Jason filled a pan with water, put the long candy thermometer into it, and set it on a vacant burner. Then he turned the heat on, and while he waited for the water to boil, fished a bottle of pop out of the refrigerator. Sally glared at him.

“Drink that, and you won’t get to scrape out the pan,” she warned.

Jason glanced at the stove where the fudge was just barely beginning to heat, then at the bottle in his hand, which was all ready to be drunk. “Aw, Mom,” he muttered.

“Make up your mind.”

Reluctantly, Jason put the pop back in the refrigerator. “Dad would have let me drink it,” he complained as he went back to check on his pan of water. It was beginning to simmer, and he climbed up on the kitchen stool to watch the thermometer.

It read 200 degrees, but even as he watched it, he could see the mercury climbing. He shifted his attention to the fudge. It, too, was beginning to boil.

“The thermometer’ll be ready in a minute.”

Sally was buttering a pan. She glanced up, smiling at the intensity with which Jason watched the thermometer.

“When it gets to two-twelve, let it sit a minute. If it doesn’t go up any farther, it’s reading right. Then you can move it over to the candy pan. But
don’t
stir the candy!”

“I know,” Jason said, his voice filled with scorn. “If you stir it, it crystallizes. Anybody knows that.”

“You didn’t till I taught you,” Sally teased. She began chopping up some walnuts, but kept an eye on Jason when, a few moments later, he moved the thermometer from the boiling water into the candy. “Now, don’t let the candy go above two-thirty-four.”

Jason, his eyes glued to the steadily creeping mercury, ignored her.

He watched as the temperature reached 230 degrees, then 232. He was about to get down from the stool, ready to pick up the pan as soon as it rose two more degrees, when suddenly the temperature seemed to spurt.

As the red column in the thermometer started past 234, he picked up the pan and groped with his left foot for the step that should have been there.

It wasn’t.

Startled, he tried to set the pan back on the stove, but it was too late. His balance was gone, and he tumbled to the floor, the pan of boiling fudge still clutched in his right hand. His scream of fright made Sally look up just in time to see the searing liquid gush over Jason’s arm and spread out on the floor.

Sally forced back the scream that boiled up from her own throat. She dropped her knife as she scooped Jason up from the floor and instinctively moved him toward the sink. Then she began running cold water while she held his arm under the tap.

As the brown mess washed away, she saw the blistering skin underneath.

Jason, strangely still, stared at his arm.

“Why doesn’t it hurt?” he asked. Then, again, “Why doesn’t it hurt?”

Pausing only to snatch her car keys from the table and wrap his arm in a towel, Sally rushed Jason out the back door. A moment later she was on her way to the hospital.

Last time, she had been too late, and her daughter had died.

This time she would not be too late.

Jason was her only child now; she would allow nothing to happen to him.

As Jason sat silently beside her, his arm swathed in a kitchen towel, she sped through the streets of Eastbury.

   Arthur Wiseman was walking Phyllis Paine out to her car. They had talked for nearly an hour, but reached no conclusions. All that had been decided was that for the next few weeks they would keep a careful eye on Sally. And then, as they passed the emergency room, they heard her voice.

“But I
saw
it, Dr. Malone,” she was saying, her voice strident, and her face flushed with anger. “I tell you, I
saw
the blisters. Don’t tell me he’s all right! He’s
not
all right. He’s burned! Don’t you understand?”