Chapter 6 #3
“And he believed us. I wish he’d stayed a skeptic. Instead, he saw his chance to get his name into scientific journals, land that sweet investment money, maybe gin up some patents. He went to the press.”
“They believed him?” We were nearing the end of the corridor. Yet another door.
“He got Elaine to go along with him. Even talked Adam into backing him up. Juliette let me know what was happening, but I was too late to stop them. They’re reputable scientists and physicians, from a prestigious university, and they spun your disappearing act like it was hard science.
Lots of long, flowery, intelligent-sounding words, and the promise you’d come back right when they said you would, right in front of their cameras. ”
We reached the door. Maggie unlocked this one with the same key, opened it partway, and repeated the action of peeking out.
It would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so serious.
She pushed the door fully open and flicked on a light switch.
Bare overhead bulbs flickered to life. We stepped into a musty-smelling storage room filled with stacks of ancient, decaying boxes that slumped together along the walls.
“We’re almost to the exit. This room is where Chamberlin’s reams of documents go to die, those that people like me can’t bear to shred or recycle.
Almost no one comes down here.” She shut and locked the door behind me and then ushered me along the path between the boxes.
“Maggie? The reporters?”
“Right. The reporters. Honestly, I don’t think many believed Michael and Elaine.
More like they wanted to be in on the big story of a couple university eggheads making public fools of themselves when you didn’t magically reappear.
I got there first. I called campus security as soon as Juliette told me their plan. But, Scott, your family…”
My blood went cold. “What about my family?”
“They found them. The reporters did, I mean. Tried to get statements. This all happened in the last few days. Michael and Elaine and Adam waited until the last minute to break the news, so there wouldn’t be enough time for the story to lose steam before you reappeared.
” She puffed out her cheeks and looked at me, the harsh overhead lights deepening the lines on her face.
Her cheeks and the space under her chin became craters of deep shadow.
“Where’s Amy? Lyle?”
“Amy didn’t tell me where they were going.”
“They left?”
“They left town. Amy said they had to. Reporters were at your house. They even tried to get your son on record. I think that—that was the last straw, for Amy. She didn’t—on the phone, she didn’t tell me that explicitly, but I think having reporters harassing your son as he was getting off the bus, it—” Something caught in her throat, and she looked away, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, Scott.”
I stopped amid stacks of moldy boxes. My head spun. “Did you get anything?”
“What?” Maggie, noticing I’d stopped, came back to me.
“From the sensors. All that setup before the main event.”
“No. Not really. You’re totally normal, according to all the instruments we had. Still beat-up from that original fall you took a few months ago … but no. You’re normal.”
I huffed out a breath. The headache was building this time rather than receding. “Great.”
Maggie’s lips drew to a narrow line. “I’m so, so sorry, Scott.”
“I—yes. Okay.”
She pointed in the direction we’d been going.
There was a metal door there, mounted in the concrete of what I assumed was an exterior wall.
“That’s the side exit. Take the outside steps up and you’ll be on the side of the building next to the little botanical garden.
Don’t go back to University right away, that’s the direction the reporters will be.
You can loop through the garden and they probably won’t see you.
Once you’re past Lathrop Hall you should be safe.
You took the twenty-eight metro bus, right? ”
“Yeah. Yes.” The odor in the storage room was making my eyes tear up.
My head was still swimming, trying to sort through everything Maggie had said.
The news. The press. The thought of a reporter accosting my small, vulnerable son as he got off the bus made my blood boil.
I had to clench my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
“You should be able to catch the twenty-eight off University, down by the School of Music.” Maggie, perhaps misreading why I had balled my hands, reached out and took my right fist. She gripped it tight with both of her hands, cupping it like a baseball.
I knew she meant it to be reassuring. “Scott. What are you going to do?”
“Um. I’m, ah, I’m going to go find my family. After that, I don’t know.”
“Come back here,” she said. “Security will keep the press out. We can still run more tests, call in specialists—”
“I don’t think there are specialists for this.” I paused for a few heartbeats. I carefully but deliberately took my hand from her grip. “Maggie. Thank you for trying to help.”
Maggie didn’t say anything. Her face crumpled further, and her eyes shone with tears. But she nodded. “Okay, Scott. All right. I understand. The door is unlocked on this side. Duck out through the botanical garden. I’ll go back up and make sure campus security is keeping the reporters occupied.”
I bobbed my head and started for the metal door.
“Scott,” she called.
I stopped and glanced back. Maggie stood in a puddle of light cast by one of the bare overhead lightbulbs.
She looked small. Diminished. Her back was rounded, her shoulders slumped.
She had lost much of the energy that had so effectively captured me, Amy, and Lyle before.
I realized, standing there, that I had believed her when she’d told us she’d figure out what was happening to me.
We’d all believed her. And Maggie had convinced herself, too, that this problem would submit to her prodigious intellect.
“I am so sorry.”
I gazed at her for a long moment. “I know.” Then I turned, pressed the horizontal bar on the door, and pushed my way out into the morning sunshine.