sudden blur from the left as a man ran forward and leaped down after Klinger, disappearing from view. After that Dave began taking the video forward incrementally, showing the train as it rolled over the spot where the two men had gone onto the tracks, people rushing back and forth, the white-faced conductor coming out of the stopped train as its passengers were told to disembark. Another few minutes and the cops were there and clearing the platform, the conductor went back onto the train, and the train slowly backed up.
Then, of course, the moment of supreme surprise—although it was like watching a silent film, they could still almost feel it—when the tracks were finally exposed and the rescuer’s head appeared over the edge of the platform as he hoisted a sick and shaken Klinger into view.
“Stop,” Eran said. “Go back a bit. I think we can get a decent view of the guy’s face.”
Dave did as he was told, frame by frame, until—
“Oh, yes,” Bheru said as the three of them stared at the screen. On it, fully facing the camera, was a tall, light-haired young man. He was filthy from head to toe, but even through the black streaks on his face and the muck caked in his hair, they could all see that without a doubt it was the same guy who had rescued Jack Gaynor yesterday morning. “You were right.”
“Great,” Eran said as he straightened. “But how in the hell are we going to find him?”
E leven
T he visions had driven her mother insane.
They absolutely had. This was real life, not a mystery movie where some poor schmuck or pitiful woman was wrongly locked away so a conniving relative could get his or her hands on a sizable trust fund or become heir to a wealthy and magnificent throne. There was no money or power to be had. There was just her cold, hard father and the complete and utter loathing with which he had been filled when the doors at Lakeshore Hospital had closed behind his wife for the first and last time. She was still there now, diagnosed as an advanced schizophrenic as she rambled nonstop about the things she saw on a daily basis. The problem was that no one else could see them and nothing—no amount of therapy or drugs or anything else the doctors used as treatment—could make her mother stop talking about them.
She went to the window and stared outside again. This seemed to be the spot for her lately, although from one moment to the next she couldn’t have said what transpired on the street below. She stood here, she thought about . . . things , and she waited.
Perhaps this was her punishment. Because what had she done for all these years but lie? To her friends, to her employers, to herself.
My mother passed away.
That had been the first lie, the one she’d started using when she was only ten years old, not long after her mother was institutionalized and her father had packed up her and the house and moved away from everyone who’d known them. He stayed at the same job and now, as an adult, she knew that it was because of the medical insurance. He was trapped there until his wife died or the coverage ran out. Well, her mother didn’t die, and by the time the insurance maxed out and the state had to step in, fifteen years later, he was too close to a pension to leave and as set in his ways as old concrete anyway.
That lie had continued into adulthood, long past the point where she should have been able to face her genetics and think things through, decide for herself if she was going to empower herself over her own life or if that control would be relinquished to some elusive DNA coding. But she hadn’t taken control. She was a coward, a weakling, and she lied to everyone , friends—although she had damned few of those—coworkers, even Vance.
Yes, even him.
How is it right, she wondered now, to lie to the same man you say you will love for eternity? To look him in the eye when he asks and say, without blinking or worrying about it or hesitating—
“My mother’s dead.”
If
Then, of course, the moment of supreme surprise—although it was like watching a silent film, they could still almost feel it—when the tracks were finally exposed and the rescuer’s head appeared over the edge of the platform as he hoisted a sick and shaken Klinger into view.
“Stop,” Eran said. “Go back a bit. I think we can get a decent view of the guy’s face.”
Dave did as he was told, frame by frame, until—
“Oh, yes,” Bheru said as the three of them stared at the screen. On it, fully facing the camera, was a tall, light-haired young man. He was filthy from head to toe, but even through the black streaks on his face and the muck caked in his hair, they could all see that without a doubt it was the same guy who had rescued Jack Gaynor yesterday morning. “You were right.”
“Great,” Eran said as he straightened. “But how in the hell are we going to find him?”
E leven
T he visions had driven her mother insane.
They absolutely had. This was real life, not a mystery movie where some poor schmuck or pitiful woman was wrongly locked away so a conniving relative could get his or her hands on a sizable trust fund or become heir to a wealthy and magnificent throne. There was no money or power to be had. There was just her cold, hard father and the complete and utter loathing with which he had been filled when the doors at Lakeshore Hospital had closed behind his wife for the first and last time. She was still there now, diagnosed as an advanced schizophrenic as she rambled nonstop about the things she saw on a daily basis. The problem was that no one else could see them and nothing—no amount of therapy or drugs or anything else the doctors used as treatment—could make her mother stop talking about them.
She went to the window and stared outside again. This seemed to be the spot for her lately, although from one moment to the next she couldn’t have said what transpired on the street below. She stood here, she thought about . . . things , and she waited.
Perhaps this was her punishment. Because what had she done for all these years but lie? To her friends, to her employers, to herself.
My mother passed away.
That had been the first lie, the one she’d started using when she was only ten years old, not long after her mother was institutionalized and her father had packed up her and the house and moved away from everyone who’d known them. He stayed at the same job and now, as an adult, she knew that it was because of the medical insurance. He was trapped there until his wife died or the coverage ran out. Well, her mother didn’t die, and by the time the insurance maxed out and the state had to step in, fifteen years later, he was too close to a pension to leave and as set in his ways as old concrete anyway.
That lie had continued into adulthood, long past the point where she should have been able to face her genetics and think things through, decide for herself if she was going to empower herself over her own life or if that control would be relinquished to some elusive DNA coding. But she hadn’t taken control. She was a coward, a weakling, and she lied to everyone , friends—although she had damned few of those—coworkers, even Vance.
Yes, even him.
How is it right, she wondered now, to lie to the same man you say you will love for eternity? To look him in the eye when he asks and say, without blinking or worrying about it or hesitating—
“My mother’s dead.”
If
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