She read on, through descriptions of tests on students and supposed “sensitives,” through the piles of data and the secondhand accounts of paranormal events. The book seemed desperate to prove something, but in the end she found nothing that convinced her of the existence of anything other than coincidence. And yet something was beginning to form in her mind, the raw substance of a possible answer. She flipped through another of the books about alleged poltergeist phenomenan and psychokinesis, looking for something she had read earlier.
Finally she found it, a passage about a young woman named Esther Cox who had lived at the turn of the century. Esther became the center of attention when a supposed poltergeist began terrorizing her family’s home. Loud banging noises occurred at all hours. Boxes flew around the rooms. Water boiled in the girl’s presence. Fires burned all over the house, resisting efforts to put them out. Esther’s sister had a boyfriend, and it was rumored that this boyfriend had tried to rape Esther one night, and the strange activity had begun at that point. A best-selling book on the subject was written by a man named Walter Hubbell.
Esther was described as a plain and psychoneurotic girl under eighteen years of age. She lived at home in poverty, sharing a bed with her sister. A girl who had already exhibited signs of mental instability; a rape or attempted rape could likely have pushed her over into a full-blown psychosis. She might have caused the pranks herself, Jess thought, and not even been consciously aware of it. In fact it was very likely. Most supposed poltergeists were connected with adolescents in some way. Strange events in “haunted” houses always seemed to occur when the teenage son or daughter was around, and disappear when they left.
Put it together with what we know to be true. There was a biological theory, lately advanced, that introduced the idea of gradations of mental illness. Many researchers believed that a group of genes were responsible for the majority of mental diseases such as schizophrenia, and that it was possible to inherit one or several of these genes without becoming a full-blown schizophrenic. This person would become a “schizotypal personality,” and would exhibit a milder form of the disease. Such a person would be suspicious of others, prefer isolation to groups, would be preoccupied with unusual ideas such as UFOs or belief in the paranormal.
And anyone or anything that encouraged those beliefs would only serve to reinforce them.
Which led her back to Sarah. A girl who had very likely inherited one or more of the “schizophrenic genes” from her mother. A girl with developmental problems, regressed to an earlier childhood stage, experiencing delusions of grandeur, omnipotence, a powerful need to have control over herself and her world. At such a young age, she had been taken away from an abusive family. Isolated. Poked and prodded. And naturally those rumors, the stories her family had told, would persist. You couldn’t stop things like that, even in a medical environment. All it would take were a couple of superstitious orderlies.…
Convinced that she had finally found what she was looking for, Jess packed up her bag and returned the books to the reference room to be reshelved. Sarah was not a true schizophrenic, of that she was sure. She had not been misdiagnosed, exactly; it was simply a matter of degree. The girl could have a milder form of the illness, which would become more or less severe depending on the circumstances, hence her remarkably quick “recovery.” She would be suspicious of people trying to help her, exhibit odd behavior, even fits. At the same time she would seek out attention, crave acceptance. She would believe herself to be gifted, even psychic, and she would perpetrate any sort of prank or trick to prove it to others.
As she walked quickly through the deepening twilight, leaves crunching under her feet, Jess tried to imagine that Wasserman would not have come to the same conclusion. Impossible. He was an expert in the field; surely he would be familiar with the latest theories.
Then why had he treated Sarah so roughly? Why had he kept her from the proper treatment for this type of disorder? Why had he isolated her, put her in restraints, treated her so heavily with drugs? And most of all, why had he brought in a young graduate student and risked exposing all the mistakes he had made?
But those were questions for another time. Right now Jess felt as if some great crisis had been turned away, an abyss looked into and then avoided. She would concentrate now on continuing to gain Sarah’s confidence and they would see from there.
First thing tomorrow.
—16—
The private helicopter landed at Downtown Manhattan Heliport (DMH) at 6:43 p.m. An attendant scurried tree and opened the passenger door, and then held his hand out to assist those disembarking. A white-haired man and a blonde woman in business attire climbed off the fold-down steps and nodded to the attendant. They looked like wealthy middle-aged lovers on a date, but they were not. Far from it.
The man, who carried an attaché case and wore a very expensive blue silk suit and red tie, slipped the attendant a bill while the woman hurried inside, clutching her jacket around her shoulders. The evening air was chilly with a breeze coming off the water. The attendant was pleased when he had the chance to look down at his hand; the bill was a fifty. He hurried after them, to see if there was anything else he could do.
The DMH is located on Manhattan’s East River, and provides its users with breathtaking views of the New York and New Jersey skylines. The heliport’s main terminal contains an operations control center, pilot and VIP lounges, and a passenger waiting area. Because of its proximity to Wall Street, it is often used to transport documents for investment and law firms and large banks, and the occasional high-powered business meeting is held in a pair of private rooms above the lounge, overlooking the water.
The man’s name was Steven Berger, and the woman was Philippa Cruz. Berger, as the head of business development for Helix Pharmaceuticals, was the fund-raiser, the salesman. Cruz was the brains. At the tender age of forty-two, she was the lead investigator and head of the project team, with an M.D. from Harvard Medical and a Ph.D. in biology from Duke. But she did not fit the stereotype of a geeky researcher; today she wore a pin-striped Brooks Brothers power suit, impeccably tailored, with clean lines and the timeless look of quality. Her straw-colored hair was cropped short and groomed in a rake-fingered, mussed style.
Berger might have been accused of trying a bit too hard to project money and importance. To Cruz, it was effortless.
They arrived at one of the private function rooms and were shown inside, the first of their party to appear. Berger and Cruz had met others here on several different occasions, so they were familiar with the layout. This time, a table had been set for six, though there would be only two other guests.
“Something smells delicious,” Cruz said. The air held the scent of curry and wine. She removed her jacket and draped it over one of the mission-style wooden chairs, and then drifted over to the wide stretch of windows and stood next to one of three lush, potted Boston ferns. Lights blinked on in the deepening dusk. It was a hauntingly lonely, breathtaking scene, one that she rarely had the time to appreciate properly. She rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms.
A waiter knocked on the door and then entered, asking them what they would like for drinks. Berger ordered a Bombay, while Cruz ordered a Manhattan. “How appropriate,” Berger said when the waiter had gone. Cruz smiled.
“Only one,” she said. “I want to make sure we remain focused. This promises to be an interesting evening.”
Steven Berger placed his attaché’ case on the table. He removed his wire-rimmed spectacles and rubbed at the indentations in his nose, then set them back again. “An interesting