When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [48]
Kit blew out air. “I knew something was going on. I uh, I am an FBI agent, Frannie. I told you that last night. That’s also why I’m here in Colorado. I’ve been working on this case for three years.”
Frannie turned pale and stumbled over her words. “What? What case is that? Am I part of a case now?”
“Don’t go crazy, stay calm. Listen to me. It started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least I think that’s where it started. A doctor named Anthony Peyser was performing experiments, trying to speed up human development, or so we believe.”
“You mean he was trying to effect human evolution, Kit? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Something on that order. We don’t know for sure. I don’t know for sure. Peyser and a team of students he handpicked were into something important. There was a breakthrough of some kind. Then they got in serious trouble in Boston. They were accused of experimenting on humans—vagrants, street people, occasionally a student who needed extra cash. The end justifies the means sort of thing. You’ve probably read about small labs, even university research centers, accused of the same thing recently. The army has done some pretty bad things.”
“Yeah, I have heard about it. Who hasn’t? So you knew about this outlaw group of doctors all along. That’s why you believed me about the girl, isn’t it?”
“I trust you—period. That’s why I believed you. How about trusting me a little now?” he finally said. “Deal?”
“We’ll camp here for the night,” Frannie answered.
She was tough when she had to be. But he sort of liked it.
Chapter 48
I NEEDED TO THINK about it some more, but I already suspected I was all right with what Kit had told me so far. Basically, I did trust him. I liked what I saw in his eyes.
“I’m going to the grocery store,” I told him, as I started back into the woods near our camp. “Want anything?”
“Denver Post, M&Ms with peanuts, Prozac,” he joked.
“You’re in charge of the fire.”
Kit nodded, made a grunting caveman sound, then gave me another of his patented smiles. I continued to be a little amazed at how well we were getting along.
There was a stream less than a hundred yards from camp. I strung a line on the portable fishing rod I carry in my pack. The stream was bubbling and boiling down the rocks. It eddied into a little pool I knew from another time up here. Maybe a hike with David.
Worms were thick in the leaf mold near the stream. I hooked one, tossed the line out onto the dark water. Waited for dinner to swim along.
It took only a few minutes for me to catch a good-sized rainbow trout. I cut and tied my line, left the fish in the water, then restrung the pole. The fish was only about fourteen inches, but a half hour later I hadn’t caught another, and it would be dark soon.
One medium-sized trout would have to do for dinner. I’d brought along a couple of tomatoes and potatoes, so it wouldn’t be too bad.
I had an eerie, sixth sense that the girl was close by. When she’d shown herself before, it almost seemed as if she were teasing us, maybe even leading us up here. Why? Did she want to be found? Or maybe show us something? What, though? Where she lived? How she lived? Some other secret she needed to share?
I took the trout out of the cold stream, killed it quickly with a rock, refilled the canteen, and headed back.
I found Kit at the campsite. The FBI agent. Out here on a big case that he wouldn’t talk very much about. Well, somebody could definitely hide a lab up here. Stoned-out hippies had been hiding in these hills for years.
“Nice fire,” I said. It was a beauty.
“No Match-light either.”
He’d taken the potatoes out of the pack and they were already baking in the coals. A domesticated man—what fun! I handed him the canteen of water and showed him the fish. He whistled his approval. A frontier woman—what fun!
I was gutting the fish on a flat rock with a Swiss Army knife and Kit was licking his handsome chops when I said, “I might be willing to share my trout with you—on one condition.”
I had his attention.