“Family doctors,” Helen said, her voice different now, “look after kids. What do you think, Blake?”
“Frankly I’m not sure,” Cutter admitted. Her using his first name was a good sign — she was finally buying in. “But right now we’re checking the cases histories in the files of the three dead doctors and looking for a tie-up, any connection at all.” To Roy, he said, “We’d like to add you into the mix, Dr. Ryan.”
“Anything you need,” he said.
Helen drew in another big breath and let it out. “I suppose I should thank you, Chief Cutter.” The informality of “Blake” was gone suddenly. “And even you, Roy... because you make my case better than I ever could. Our son is much better off in my custody now, for obvious reasons.”
Ryan began, “Helen, that’s not the way to—”
Cutter cut in. “Mrs. Ryan... upon my recommendation, no judge in this state would release your boy from here — for one thing, it might void the current custody agreement.”
“I’ll sign off on that!” Helen blurted. “I’m only thinking of Richard’s safety.”
“If you lived out of state,” Cutter said calmly, “perhaps Richard would be safer with you. But you are in Atlanta, apparently well within the reach of this madman, I’m afraid.”
She was shaking her head, the blonde hair flying. “Peachtree Heights is a small town, Chief Cutter — you have a minuscule force. The Atlanta police are entirely more qualified to—”
Cutter cut in again. “I am a former NYPD captain and I’ve assembled an elite, educated, well-trained and experienced team. Please don’t underestimate our capabilities. But even granting some of your concerns, a judge will understand the situation completely. This compound, walled-in as it is, and with our ability to patrol and guard here, make protecting your son an achievable priority. And if necessary, we have relationships with the Atlanta PD and the various suburban agencies and can draw support from those circles.”
She was sitting up straight now. “And, what? I’m supposed to stay out of this until you say otherwise?”
“I’m afraid you don’t have any choice, Mrs. Ryan. Not unless you want to expose your son to the possibility of extreme danger.”
“I could fight it,” she said tightly. “My father...”
“Your father has money,” Cutter said, “and connections. No doubt about it. If that’s the way you want to go, it’s your prerogative.”
Ryan said, with some acid in it, “For all his wealth and power, darling, your daddy and his legal fleet weren’t able to take Richie away from me before. You said so yourself.”
“Bastard!”
“Bitch.”
Cutter said, “May I make a suggestion? You have an impressionable young man across the room there, watching TV, who I’m sure loves you both and would not benefit from hearing language like that, or seeing two people he loves going at each other’s throats.”
Both Mr. and Mrs. Ryan hung their heads.
Roy said, “You’re right.” He looked at her across the endless divide of a single couch cushion. “Honey... I’m sorry. But for now, Richie’s better off here.”
She looked sharply at him. “Then I’m staying right here. With my son. Until this situation is resolved. If he’s safe here, I’m safe here.”
Her husband seemed amused. “You’re comfortable, being under the same roof with me?”
“Oh, you’ll be quite safe from me, and I from you. I’m not about to abrogate our separation agreement, Roy. There are plenty of extra bedrooms here and, with so many police patrolling, plenty of prying eyes to keep everybody honest. And I’m sure any judge will understand my desire to be with my son in these circumstances... don’t you agree, Chief Cutter?”
Cutter, arms folded, grinned at the pair. “I’m quite sure any judge would heartily agree, Mrs. Ryan.” He went over and plucked his windbreaker from the chair and climbed into the jacket. “For now we’ll have four men outside the place, round the clock. We’ll keeps tabs on the phone calls coming in. This character with his newspaper-clipping note doesn’t seem like the telephone type, but you never know.”
As Cutter put on his Stetson, Ryan rose. “You need to put somebody on the phone here in the house, Blake?”
Cutter shook his head. “We can set that up with the phone company.” He got a card out of his breast pocket and a pen from his jacket, jotted his home number down. “If you can’t get me at the PD, call me there. Any hour of the day or night. You have a gun, Roy?”
“No. Not in a house with... a young boy.”
“I understand that concern. But you may want to reconsider in these circumstances. Can you line up other docs to fill in with your patients? I want to keep that gate closed with as little coming and going as possible. You got enough food on hand to stay in for a while?”
Ryan nodded, then walked the chief to the door and asked him, “What should I tell the medics filling in for me?”
“Say you’ve got the flu.”
“That typically doesn’t last longer than a couple of weeks.”
Cutter gave Ryan a hard look. “Let’s hope that’s more time than we need.”
Chapter 3
Roy Ryan shut the door behind Chief Cutter and turned, looking across the big open room divided by the curving stairway, a space welcoming if a bit shabby, past the cozy areas and occasional windows letting in moonlight. His son was off to the right watching a cheesy live-action super-hero on TV; on the couch his estranged wife sat facing the dancing orange and blue of the fireplace flames. She fit in here, a warm woman despite her cold upbringing, a beautiful specimen of the female sex whose features had delicacy but also strength, her blonde hair glowing in the firelight.
He couldn’t help himself — he still loved her. But she had let him down — putting her controlling old man before the needs of their little family, and the son who embarrassed that other, larger family, one of Atlanta’s most powerful and socially prominent.
Helen’s father, Alexander Parsons, was the second-generation head of Georgia National, the USA’s leading manufacturer and marketer of tissue, pulp, packaging and building products. They made everything from toilet paper to paper cups, from office supplies to drywall. Also, a lot of money — her father’s favorite paper product, one of the few he did not himself directly manufacture.
Among the family’s supposedly public-spirited (and tax write-off) enterprises was a clinic in Atlanta where Roy had been set up with a practice whose patients were only the “right” kind of people. When Roy tried to expand to include a free clinic for, well, the “wrong” kind of people (in Helen’s father’s eyes) that had caused a nasty breach.
But it still hadn’t been enough to make Roy break away. That took the Parsons family’s increasingly short-sighted attitude about Richie, who they bounced from one expert to another and had privately tutored, denying the boy any access to other kids his age.
The back-breaking straw had been their decision to have the child institutionalized, which Helen had gone along with. Roy considered his wife’s compliance a betrayal of both himself and their son, leading to their separation, and in turn to the custody battle. Fortunately, a judge — unimpressed with the Parsons political power and outraged by a child diagnosed only marginally as “special needs” being institutionalized — gave Roy custody to the child with only limited visitation rights to Helen.
He crossed the room and joined her on the couch, maintaining that unpassable border of a center cushion. Her chin bobbed up almost imperceptibly, the blue eyes not leaving the flickering flames, a mild acknowledgment of his presence beside her. Almost beside her.