The Prodigy Part 37

She kneed him in the groin, and shot her elbow hard into his solar plexus. The air flew out of him, and the gun came free. She pushed off of the gasping man, and pointed the gun at his head. "Move and you're dead."

James Cyrus struggled to get his breath; flat on his back, he stared up at her; he blinked. "I'm sorry," Jimmy said, in his little boy's voice. "I love you. I'm sorry."

She felt her finger tighten on the trigger; it would be so easy. "Justine," she called out, "get away from the cage ... You ... in it. Now!"

Jimmy cowered, his eyes wide and innocent, "I love you. You love me. I'm sorry."

"Get in the cage Jimmy or I pull the trigger."

He blinked; his tongue licked lewdly across his upper lip, "I don't think you would, Doctor."

Repulsed, her grip tightened. "You have until three. One ... two ..."

"This isn't over," he said, crawling toward the cage, while keeping his eyes fixed on the gun. "You married the boy, and a wife must perform certain duties. You have a responsibility to the community. To the family ..."

She tuned out his prattle, watching for the moment he was fully inside. She moved fast, slammed the door and clicked the lock.

"Justine, go upstairs and call for help. Then get yourself out of here ... Go to mom's. I'll meet you there."

"I'm not leaving without you," her sister replied, as Jimmy's father persona continued to ramble.

"Please don't argue," Barrett said, keeping her eyes on Jimmy as she knelt next to Ellen's unmoving body. With two fingers she felt for a pulse; there was nothing. "Good, go Justine ... I'll be fine." She sat cross-legged in front of Jimmy's locked cage, holding the gun steady, and listening to the sound of her sister running up the stairs. Help would come soon. And this time there'd be no slip-ups; she'd stay until the cops arrived; she'd make sure that everything was done by the book, and that Jimmy Martin would get locked away-and never, ever come out.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

Four weeks later, Barrett was back in her office, trying to get through her work, but unable to focus. She was pregnant. She'd done a home pregnancy test immediately after her escape, and was shocked to see it was positive. Of course, as her gynecologist told her, that could have been from the fertility drugs they'd been giving her. What complicated matters was that, if in fact she was pregnant, it could quite possibly have happened that last night she was with Ralph. She'd been ready to have a baby, they'd not used protection, but now ... she was waiting for the results of the DNA test. Was the fetus inside her Ralph's or Jimmy's? And depending on how that got answered, she either would-or wouldn't have- some hard options to consider. In her entire life Barrett had never contemplated abortion. She firmly believed in a woman's right to choose, but that was other women; it had never been this personal, this immediate. It was hard to breathe, and she wished the d.a.m.n call would come. Her doctor had said it would take at least a week-the week was up.

The phone rang, her stomach lurched and she picked up.

"Hey Barrett," it was Hobbs, calling from his hospital room.

"How's it going?" she asked, glad for the intrusion, and remembering how relieved she'd been to discover he was alive, but shocked when she'd gone to visit him that first day in the hospital. He'd been heavily sedated and lucky to be alive. He'd been covered in gauze, and what exposed skin she could see was red and slick with antibiotic dressing-more than 30 percent of his body had second- and third-degree burns. Ed was facing months in the unit, and had tried to crack jokes about the mind-numbing series of skin grafts he was facing.

"It's going. Although I just got word that Jimbo's attorneys are going to shoot for the not guilty by reason of mental defect c.r.a.p."

"No surprise there," she said.

"You think he'll get it?"

She pondered the complexities of the case, and of Jimmy, "Hard to know. It could go either way."

"Yeah," he admitted, "they'll try and pin the actual murders on Ellen, and make him out as some crazy-a.s.sed accomplice. Either way, he ain't ever coming out."

"You sure of that?" she said.

These calls with Hobbs helped. Even with the burns that covered his face, hands, scalp, and torso, he'd insisted on following the case, and keeping Barrett up-to-date. The Martin mansion was sealed off and thoroughly searched, as was the carriage house and the elaborate reproduction of Barrett's condo. Each day had revealed fresh horrors that stretched back through decades.

In the dirt-floored bas.e.m.e.nt of the mansion, bone fragments and ancient blood-spatter were discovered in the area of the coal-burning furnace. Jimmy's story about the nanny was probably accurate, although the exact ident.i.ty of the nanny, Maylene, wasn't known. When they brought in a small excavator and dug up the courtyard they found additional bone fragments, the DNA matching that of James Cyrus Martin and Vivian Alfort Martin.

He also told her how the investigating team had been besieged with calls from distant Martin relatives, all wanting to know what would happen with the Martin fortunes.

"They have two detectives and a forensic accountant working on just that," he'd told her. "You can't imagine how rich these people were."

"So have you heard?" he asked.

"Not yet," she admitted, glad that Hobbs knew everything, and she didn't have to explain how she might be pregnant with Jimmy Martin's child.

"Can I make a horrible joke?" he asked.

"Yes, but only you at this point."

"You know if it is his kid ... and don't shoot me ... but he'd be the natural heir to all of that money."

"I know," she admitted. "And don't think I haven't thought about that, and don't think I hate myself for even mulling it over."

"It's human, Barrett. Don't beat yourself up over it. Whatever decisions you have to make, you'll do the right thing."

"I wish I was so sure, she said, feeling the tears that were never far off. "I wish I had the f.u.c.king test results ... Ed?"

"What?"

"There's something else...when Jimmy showed me all that c.r.a.p about you, I shouldn't have listened. I should have trusted that you would have told me-or not-I should have just trusted."

"Water under the bridge, considering what you've been through ... what we've both been through ... all that seems kind of small. Any chance I'll be seeing you? I could use the company. This place is boring as h.e.l.l."

"Sure ... I'll pick up Chinese. Although, if I get the results, I could be a total basket case."

"Is that the clinical name for it?"

"Yeah, that or head case." And after she hung up, she was surprised to see she was actually smiling.

Hobbs had that effect on her, unlike work, and this new job, which she wasn't certain she wanted. Anton had hastily resigned; his last interaction with Barrett an embarra.s.sing and disturbing encounter.

"You can ruin me," he'd told her, knowing that the trail of his research funding could be easily traced back to Ellen Martin. "I'm begging you not to."

She'd said little, her rage too close to the surface. "It'll all come out; I'm not going to stop that."

"But you could ..."

"I won't," she'd said. "You let Jimmy out." She'd wanted to say more, but the meaning was clear.

"I didn't know."

She'd glared at him, realizing that all of this could have been prevented if he'd done his job, and resisted the money. "Get out, Anton," were her final words. She'd tried to remember how they had ever been friends.

The day he handed in his resignation, she got a call from Housmann.

"They're pulling me out of mothb.a.l.l.s to head up a search committee. I don't know why, seeing as they didn't take my advice the last time," the retired psychiatrist had told her. "I told them that you were the only internal candidate I'd consider. What do you think?"

"I don't know. Right now I'm just trying to keep one foot in front of the other."

"I just read your article in the American Journal. They'd be foolish not to give you the job. It can be whatever you want it to be. You get to take the best cases, the best students. And I'll see to it that they don't try to stiff you on the salary ..."

"It's not that," she'd said, picturing the bespectacled man in his sun-flooded living room.

"I know; we're still human. You can't go through something like what you've been through without being changed by it. The only people who wouldn't be affected are sociopaths. That's why I think they're better adapted for survival. Stuff like this doesn't faze them ... So what are your symptoms? Flashbacks? Nightmares? Jumping every time the phone rings?"

"All of the above, and always feeling like I'm two steps away from a panic attack."

"Are you seeing anyone?" he'd asked.

"No."

He'd chuckled, "Spoken like a true doctor ... You could see me. We wouldn't call it therapy, more like supervision."

"I'd like that," she'd said, knowing that there were few others who'd be able to understand.

"And you'll think about taking the job?"

"If you throw yourself in as a supervisor, not just about this, but I don't know a thing about being an administrator, and you do."

"Deal," he'd said, and then pushed further. "So I'll tell the board that you'll fill in as the acting director with the expectation that after a brief and cursory search we'll offer you the job."

"If I don't like it, or can't do it?"

He had laughed, "I don't think your competency is in question, but we'll talk about how you survive being the boss. If you think Martin was a pain in the a.s.s, just try telling forty whining employees that they can't all have Christmas week off."

Still, there was more. Daily encounters with reporters and photographers who waited outside her co-op and the clinic, trying to get her photograph and gruesome details of the millionaire murderers. The tabloids and even The Times devoted pages of ink to the ongoing investigation and the t.i.tillating discoveries in the Gramercy Park mansion.

The forensic center which was, she discovered, part of the reason Housmann was recruited to play white knight, received less favorable mention in the press. A great deal was made of the fact that Jimmy had a deviant history and had been released into the community without adequate supervision. Editorials about releasing known s.e.x offenders back into the community popped up in every newspaper. Television reporters left messages with her secretary asking for interviews, and even national programs were looking to do exposes about releasing violent patients.

But now, all she could think about was the d.a.m.n phone. When it rang again, she half expected it to be Hobbs again; it wasn't.

"This is Dr. Harrison's office for Barrett Conyors."

"Yes," her mouth dry, heart in her throat.

"The doctor has your test results, and wanted to set up a time ... possibly later this afternoon, to review them with you."

"Of course," she said, unable to breathe. "I could be there any time."

"He has a cancellation at four, is that too soon?"

"No, I'll be there."

The End.

About the Author.

Charles Atkins, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist, author, and professional speaker. He is on the clinical faculty at Yale University and is an attending psychiatrist at Waterbury (Connecticut) Hospital. In addition to thrillers and a book on bipolar disorder, he has written hundreds of articles, columns, and short stories for both professional and popular magazines, newspapers, and journals.

His web site is www.charlesatkins.com.

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