The Bird Cage (4 page)

It was worse for him, she knew. His mother in critical condition, missing brother, worried about his father. It was a lot worse for him. He looked exhausted. They both were exhausted. She had not slept well for nearly a week, and he had not slept at all the night before, and little the night before that. They walked silently to the car and she got behind the wheel and started.

Driving on Sandy Boulevard, dreading the bridge ahead because bridges were suddenly frightening, talking about nothing, making noise, that’s all it was, making noise, she glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead, not moving, unaware that her voice had stopped. She hit the brake.

“Trevor! Are you all right? Trevor!” A car horn startled her, and she signaled for a turn onto the first side street she came to. Midway down the block she was able to pull in at the curb. “Trevor, please, wake up!” She undid her seat belt, twisted around to shake him. He did not respond. She drew back, staring at his immobilized figure. He was sitting upright, his gaze fixed, unmoving.

Without warning, she began to weep, to sob, with her head against the steering wheel, clutching it hard with both hands. Her paroxysm of sobs eased and she groped in her bag for tissues. They couldn’t be alone, she thought in despair. They would need keepers, attendants. Be put away in institutions. No more jobs. Never alone unless sound asleep. No more driving. Or skiing. Hiking. No more life.

She leaned back, closed her eyes and waited for him to wake up, to come back. She didn’t know how long it took before she sensed that he had moved, pulled against his seat belt or something. He made a choked sound, almost a sob.

She reached for his arm, and this time he turned toward her with a strangely blank expression. “Snap out of it,” she said. “It’s okay now. You’re okay now.”

He blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes, then said, “Again. I did it again, didn’t I?”

“It’s over now. Are you all right?”

“Jesus!” he said. “Drive, Jean. Get back to my place. I’m okay now.” In a lower voice as despairing as her own thoughts were, he said, “It happened again.”

They had ordered take out burritos and found that neither of them was interested in food. It was dusk, the endless day closing down, she thought, listening to him on the phone again. “Sorry to bother you,” he said and disconnected. He punched in the next number.

He had not talked about his flashback, nor had she asked any questions. It didn’t matter what it had been. None of that mattered. Reliving the past, experiencing long forgotten incidents, it didn’t matter. What was terrifying was that they were experiencing Cody’s past, feeling his pain, his fear as well as their own. That was impossible, and it was terrifying.

“Mike?” Trevor said. “My name is Trevor McCrutchen and I have to find my brother Cody. It’s extremely urgent that I find him. Can you help me?”

He listened a moment, then said, “It’s a family crisis. Our mother is in intensive care following an accident. She is in very critical condition. He has to be told.”

Jean bolted up in her chair where she had been slouched.

Trevor nodded to her and grabbed a notebook from across the table as he listened to the man on the phone.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” Mike was saying. “He was taken inside, off the grounds, on special assignment for Dr. Sumner and Dr. Wooten. One of them can probably reach him for you. Gee, Mr. McCrutchen, I’m sorry to hear about your mother. Sure, Cody would want to be there with you, a time like this. Let me give you their numbers.”

Trevor wrote the names and numbers, thanked Mike and put the phone down. His hands were sweating. “The Markham Research Group,” he said hoarsely. “He was working there, but now he’s doing something for two doctors, on the inside. That guy, Mike, is his boss.” His mind was racing feverishly. Doctors? Medical doctors? Researchers? For a land development company? He wiped his hands on his legs and picked up the phone again, keyed in the first number and reached voice mail.

“Dr. Sumner, this is an urgent message.… ” He could hear the desperation in his own voice as he gave the same information he had told Mike—his name, number, emergency, intensive care, critically injured mother. He disconnected. Without pause he called the second number, and repeated the message on Dr. Wooten’s voice mail.

“Now we wait,” he said when he put the phone down again.

Jean woke with a jerk, sat upright, confused, then remembered. At eleven they had gone to bed, she in a room across a hall from Trevor’s. Several times during the night she had come awake, once getting up to check, make certain he was still there. And now it was six in the morning. When she looked across the hall, he was sitting on the edge of his bed.

Together they went to the kitchen and he put on coffee. “Hungry?”

“Not yet. Later. I have to go home, shower, change my clothes.”

“Me too,” he said. “We’ll eat something afterward. I can’t call them again before nine, I guess. There’s plenty of time.”

She drove to her apartment, talking all the way, and he sat in her living room while she showered. She left the door open and he listened to make sure the water got turned off. They didn’t linger any longer than necessary, then back to his house where she sat listening in the living room while he showered and dressed.

This is how it’s going to be
, she thought bleakly when he emerged. She went to the kitchen with him, to stay nearby while he scrambled eggs and made toast.

Neither had anything to say as they ate breakfast.

At eight-thirty his phone rang. Dr. Sumner was returning his call.

“I have to see him,” Trevor said. “My brother. Where is he? He has to know about our mother.”

“Mr. McCrutchen, I’ll give him your message, and as soon as possible, he’ll get in touch.”

“What does that mean? As soon as possible. Dr. Sumner, I’ll get the police to open up that place, wherever it is. What have you done to him, with him?”

There was a long pause, then Sumner said, “I’ll come to your place. We can talk. Half an hour. Give me an address.”

When Trevor disconnected he said furiously, “He’s coming here. So help me God, if he stalls, I’ll have the cops take over!”

Grace had listened to Trevor’s frantic call twice, then deleted it. Earlier she had adjusted one of the drugs, and she waited to see if the spike had been affected. At ten minutes after nine, on schedule, there it was, increased activity where there should not be any. Wearily she started the temperature adjustment. It would be a long, slow process to bring him up to normalcy. She knew as little as she had known when she started on her new young subject. Now it would depend entirely on his subsequent tests and his overt behavior to determine if he had suffered any ill effects that could be detected without an actual brain examination under the microscope.

Trevor opened the door to admit Dale Sumner. He looked to be in his forties, with receding dark hair, mild blue eyes, laugh lines at his eyes, a slightly stooped stance. And he looked worried, harried. His handshake was surprisingly strong.

“That’s Jean Biondi,” Trevor said, leading Sumner into the living room where Jean was standing by the sofa. “Look, Dr. Sumner, I have to talk to my brother. Our mother is critically hurt and he has to know. That’s the bottom line here.”

“Mr. McCrutchen, please calm down. If your brother is working with Dr. Wooten on a special project, it may not be possible to reach him immediately, but I can assure you he’s not in danger, not in trouble—”

“What do you mean
if
he is? Why don’t you know if he is or isn’t? Who’s Dr. Wooten? What special project that won’t let him use a telephone?”

“I’m on vacation,” Sumner said. “All this week and next, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I do know that there’s nothing at all dangerous in Dr. Wooten’s research. That’s all I can tell you at this time.”

“I’m calling the cops,” Trevor said. He yanked his cell phone from his pocket, then stopped moving.

Jean saw the blank look come over his face and screamed. “Trevor! Oh, God! Not again!”

“What’s wrong with him?” Sumner asked, moving a step closer to him. “A form of epilepsy?”

“No! Help me get him into a chair.”

Together they maneuvered Trevor down into a chair. He didn’t resist, nor did he help in any way. He sat upright, his phone in his hand, his eyes open but blind.

Sumner knelt beside him and felt his pulse, straightened, and asked, “Do you know what’s wrong with him? His pulse is racing. He could be having a heart attack.”

She felt tears burning and wiped angrily at them with the back of her hand. “I don’t know. He doesn’t know. It happened to me, too, and his mother, and Elise, and she hanged herself, and there could be others out there.”

“Ms. Biondi, please. Calm down. We should call nine-one-one, get medical help for him.”

She shook her head. “It’s about Cody! It’s always about Cody.” She felt Sumner’s hand on her arm and wrenched away. “What are you doing to him? What’s happening to him?”

“Ms. Biondi, Jean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened to you, and to his mother? What’s wrong with him? Please, just sit down and tell me about it.”

They were standing at Trevor’s side. He had not moved. Jean took the cell phone from his hand and put it on the end table. With her gaze fixed on Trevor, she backed up to the sofa and sat down and she told Sumner what had happened to her, what had happened to Trevor. “He could have burned down the house, and himself,” she said in a dull voice. “His mother drove off a road without applying the brakes. She didn’t try to stop, and now she’s in critical condition. Elise Bronstein was Cody’s lover years ago and she hanged herself.”

She looked at Sumner for the first time since starting to talk about it. He looked disbelieving, remote, as if watching a specimen on a slide. That was how it would be, she realized. No one would believe anything they said. Just memories surfacing. Coincidence.

“I felt wet and freezing, but I was dry!” she cried. “Cody was wet and freezing. Trevor felt his legs burning, but his legs had not burned. Cody’s legs were burned. His mother’s message before they took her to surgery was to tell Cody she was sorry.” She looked at Trevor’s still figure. “He’s feeling whatever Cody was feeling then, whenever that was.”

“How long does he last like that?” Sumner asked, looking at Trevor.

“I don’t know.”

Sumner went back to him and felt his pulse, peered at his eyes. He sat down and watched Trevor without speaking again.

“He’s waking up,” Jean said, and hurried over to Trevor. His eyelids were fluttering, and he shook his head, opened his eyes with a blank look on his face.

“Trevor, it’s all right,” she said. “You’re okay.”

Abruptly he lurched to his feet, upsetting her balance. She fell backward, pulled herself up, only to see him staggering, running to the hall, and the bathroom.

“Stay here,” Sumner said sharply and followed him.

Trevor held onto the counter by the sink, trembling, his eyes closed. He was barely aware of Sumner’s presence until he heard his voice.

“Are you ill? Are you all right?”

“I walked in on him,” Trevor said in an agonized whisper. “Him and a girl. I felt—” He opened his eyes and yelled, “Get out of here! Leave me alone, damn you! Leave me alone!”

Jean was outside the door when Sumner came out, almost as shaken as Trevor had been. “Is… is he all right?”

“I think so. We’ll wait for him to come out.” He wiped his forehead, then said, “Jean, please tell me again. Tell me what’s been happening to you, to him.”

It was a long wait before Trevor returned to the living room. He was pale, pinched looking. “Tell me where he is! Now!” he yelled at Dale Sumner.

“I’ll take you there,” Sumner said. “Come on.”

“I’ll sit in the back,” Trevor said at Sumner’s car. “Sit up front, Jean.”

Then, with Sumner driving, Jean said, “You have to tell us what’s going on. What Cody’s doing. Where we’re going.” She tried to control panic, but heard it in her voice.

“Stay calm, Jean,” he said. “It isn’t dangerous. We’re a research group, sleep research. It’s good research, legitimate research, and very important. We’re looking for a way to prolong life through a cold sleep until cures can be found for various diseases. Leukemia, cancer, Alzheimer’s. Cures will be found in the next decade for many diseases, but many people will die first, and we’re trying to save their lives.”

“What does that mean, cold sleep? Cryogenics?”

“No. It’s been determined that certain heart attacks, certain strokes can be controlled and even cured following a short period of lowered temperature for the patient. We’re trying to extend that period for much longer times, months, possibly even years. Not cryogenics, just a carefully maintained cold period above freezing, but low enough to slow metabolism almost to a standstill, prevent cellular damage, other adverse effects.”

“You’re using Cody in such an experiment?” she whispered. “Is that what you’re doing? Why the secrecy? He didn’t even tell his own brother, or his parents, anyone. If it’s legitimate, why the secrecy?”

“We require a confidentiality oath for everyone who works out there,” Sumner said. “PETA. The animal protection rights people. We use chimpanzees for our research. They’ve been fine, not damaged, but that group could try to break in, liberate them, and someone would be killed. Decades of research would be set back or stopped completely.”

She twisted around to glance at Trevor again. His face was still averted, his gaze apparently out the side window. She bit her lip. This was worse than before. Whatever he had seen, felt, experienced was worse than before.

“You’ve stepped up from chimps to people,” she said bitterly. “Without knowing what might happen, you just used a man.”

He made no response and she said nothing more. They had left the city, were heading west, out into the foothills of the Coast Range.

“He wouldn’t have ridden his bike out this far,” Jean said after a lengthy silence.

“No. He didn’t. He was in a car pool with several others from Portland,” Sumner said. “Dr. Wooten might have picked him up for this test, but I don’t know that.”