him, and lo and behold, the old boy was dead and a new boy was born in his place. He was a work of art. Total transformation. Demon to angel... Yes, he killed her because I loved her, and I saved him because I hated him. God, I hated him. Until I loved him.” He lowered his head and Allison knew he wanted to weep.
“I love him, too, you know.”
“Love him? You’ll destroy him if you aren’t careful.”
“Destroy him? How?”
“You don’t know fragile these kids are. Before the surgery, they have no remorse. After, they’re penitent as saints. You have to protect them from too much guilt. They’re like sponges, especially in the beginning, soaking up everyone’s feelings. If you hate them, they hate themselves. That’s what did Oliver in. His mother’s grief became his. And I saw the way she watched him, like he was a bomb about to go off. He was better here where no one knew what he’d done. He needed to be shielded. But she took him home and you know the rest. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to lose him like I’d...”
“What?”
Dr. Capello didn’t answer.
“You lost another patient, didn’t you?” she asked. “Another kid? A kid who killed himself like Oliver?”
He still didn’t answer.
“How many kids?” Allison demanded. “Tell me how many kids died.”
“Five.”
Chapter 26
“Five,” Allison repeated. “Five kids? Five of your patients committed suicide?”
“Two killed themselves within a year of the procedure. Two died during or right after the operation—brain bleeds. One lived but...she wasn’t well. She ran away. I don’t think she’s ever turned up.”
He paused and took a weak, shuddering breath.
“Oliver was the last one. After his death, I stopped the experiment.”
“It took you that long?”
He raised his hand in a fist. “Dammit, Allison, it had worked. On Roland, on Deacon, on Thora—somehow I got them just right. I had proof right inside my own house the procedure was valid, that it had merit. Everything came together with them. The stars aligned. They were...”
“Lucky,” Allison said.
Dr. Capello lowered his fist. “I was shooting arrows in the dark,” he said. “Even a master archer will miss a target he can’t see.”
“You were shooting at children. It’s not right.”
“I never said it was right. Never! But it was necessary.” He nearly spat the last word out at her. Necessary. She’d never heard an uglier word.
He rested against the filing cabinet.
“I never meant to love them, you know,” Dr. Capello said, quiet again. “I never meant to love those awful kids. Especially not Roland. I planned on operating on him and sending him back into the system. His father could have him if he wanted him. Anybody could have him as far as I cared.”
He paused to take a breath. He was angry and that alone was keeping him upright.
“And then the damnedest thing happened,” he continued. “I went into his hospital room after the surgery and watched him sleeping, a bandage on his head and bruises on his eyes. He was just a little boy. That’s all he was. This skinny twig of a boy, just a little boy. He was in a coma for a week after the surgery. Longest week of my life.” Dr. Capello laughed to himself, a mirthless sound. “The operation damages the memory. When he woke up, he didn’t know his sister was dead.”
“You didn’t tell him the truth, did you?” Allison asked.
“I told him he killed her, but I told him it was an accident. That’s the memory he has now. Playing in the sand with Rachel, a hole opening up underneath, the sand covering her face... I made sure that was how he remembered it. As an accident.”
Allison nearly fainted with relief. Roland hadn’t lied to her, after all. He’d hidden things, yes, but he hadn’t outright lied. He couldn’t lie because even he didn’t know the truth.
“I knew,” Dr. Capello continued. “When I looked him in the eyes, it had worked. I’d turned the lion into a lamb. I told him Rachel was dead and that it had happened while he was playing in the sand with her. I said he shouldn’t blame himself, but he did. He blamed himself and he felt remorse and guilt and shame. And he cried. His little body shook so hard I had to sedate him before he hurt himself. First time in his life he ever cried real tears. Over and over, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Dad, I’m so sorry...’ A miracle of science.”
“Brave new world,” Allison said.
“Call the social worker who investigated Rachel’s injuries,” Dr. Capello said, his tone sharp, his eyes blazing with the last fire of his life. “She’s probably still got the pictures in her files. You want to see what Roland had done to her? You want to see the black bruises on the side of her face? You want to see her arm in a sling because he grabbed her so hard he yanked it out of the socket? You want to see the X-ray of her skull fracture? Do you?”
Allison didn’t answer. She was weeping far too hard to speak.
“And for all that,” Dr. Capello said with a ragged sigh, “I forgave him. I took him back home with me, and from that day ever after, he was my son and I was his father. I loved him and I protected him as best I could.”
“You protected him from the truth.”
“As he got older, he started asking me awkward questions. Kids are good at that. He wanted to know why he had to have brain surgery. He wanted to know why he remembered hitting Rachel and dragging her and throwing her against a wall. I had to tell him something so I told him that he had a genetic condition that caused lesions in his brain and those caused his violent outbursts. I told him I had cured him of it.”
Dr. Capello took another labored breath. Allison knew she was looking at a man who was not long for this world.
“But deep down he knows...something doesn’t add up. That’s why I wanted to keep him out of that monastery. I thought for sure they’d break him with their talk of sin and guilt. I thought he’d end up like Oliver, with a gun in his mouth and a bullet in his brain. But that’s not what happened. Instead, he finally forgave himself. He knew better than I did what he needed. And you...you fell in love with him,” he said. “You know how well he’s turned out.”
“I was a test, wasn’t I?” Allison asked. “Like Brien? You got Deacon a cat to make sure he wasn’t violent toward animals anymore? Did you bring me into this house as a test to make sure Roland wasn’t violent toward little girls anymore?”
His silence was answer enough for her. Allison nodded.
“And Thora?” Allison asked.
“Me,” he said. “I put myself to the test with her, as well. She falsely accused her last foster father of molesting her. I took a big risk for these kids. And I did so willingly. I love children. I loved you, too. I did. I do.”
She raised her hand to block out his words. She didn’t believe him. She didn’t want his lies anywhere near her.
“You can sit there and judge me all you want,” he said. “But you have benefitted from my work. The man you love wouldn’t exist but for me. And you would have destroyed it all with a temper tantrum.”
“I was scared he was going to kill me.”
“He’d die before he hurt a fly, thanks to me,” Dr. Capello said. “And you were going put all that at risk. Our family. You were always safe here.”
“You also gave a twelve-year-old girl electroshock therapy to shut her up. You could have killed me!”
“The machine was old,” he said. “But I knew it worked. I had played with it. The extent of the shock—that wasn’t meant to happen. There was a power surge, totally unforeseen. I never meant to harm you. I overreacted. I just wanted to make it all go away. For Roland’s sake. For the family’s sake.”
“Well, you certainly made me go away. That solved your problems.”
“Not my intention at all. You would have woken up a few hours later with a headache and no memory of what had happened the previous few days. That’s how it works. That’s what
was supposed to happen. And now you’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going to tell them what you know. You’re going to tell them what I did to you.”
“I’m not going to lie to them.”
“You’ll destroy them if you tell,” he said. “You have to realize that. None of them know they were born psychopaths. They all think cysts and tumors caused their violent behavior. You’ll make them hate themselves, and me, too.”
“I love Roland. Am I supposed to look him in the eyes and lie?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course you are. Lie through your teeth. Lie like your life depends on it. Lie like his life depends on it because it does, Allison. It does. It’s what I’ve been doing all their lives. Because I love them. Because that’s what you do when you love someone.”
He was weeping again, but her sympathy for the man was long gone. She’d seen what he’d done to Kendra, to Antonio, to Oliver and his mother.
“Children are dead because of you.”
“Don’t you understand how it works? Someone has to be the first. Like them,” he said, raising a thin arm to point to his cases of medical antiques. “The first to saw off a leg to save a soldier’s life. The first to drill a hole in the brain to relieve the pressure. The first to cut a womb open to rip out a baby. Look,” he said, shuffling over to the cases. He opened a door and pulled out a large steel object, something like a saw with some kind of hand crank on it. “You know what this is? Guess?”
She shook her head, too scared to speak.
“A rib-spreader. You cut open the chest and pry the ribs apart with it. This is one of the first ever used in a hospital in America. It’s demonic. Look at it. It pries the chest open. It’s a serial killer’s toy. But it’s saved lives. It’s saved thousands and thousands of lives. Roland killed a little girl, Allison, and didn’t bat an eyelash about it. Zero remorse. Zero empathy. Rachel would have been the first of many if I didn’t help him. But I did help him. I helped all of them... I loved all of them...”
The rib-spreader fell out of Dr. Capello’s hands as he collapsed onto the floor.
“Dad!” Allison cried out, and ran to him. She knelt on the floor next to his body slumped against the filing cabinet.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. He lifted his hands and put them on her shoulders as if he wanted to try to stand but couldn’t.
“I saved them,” he said. “I saved them and you’re going to destroy them.”
“You’re losing it. I’m going to call 911.”
“I can’t let you,” he said. “I won’t...”
He wrapped his hands around her throat.
Allison let out a scream of utter shock before his hands clamped so hard on her throat she could no longer make a sound. She tried to jerk away but couldn’t. He had little strength left in his body, but what he had left was concentrated in his hands clamped around her neck like an iron collar.
His face contorted in effort and his hands squeezed the breath from her body. She tried to scream but nothing came out. In the faraway distance she thought she heard someone calling her name, but she couldn’t answer. Stars swam in front of her face. Her lungs ached and burned. She beat her fists against Dr. Capello’s chest but couldn’t get him off her. So she kicked against him, kicked against anything she could find. The filing cabinet fell over, crashing into the display cases. Glass shattered, wood splintered, but nothing would break Dr. Capello’s vicious grasp from around her throat.
Frantically she grabbed at her pocket until she felt it, the can of pepper spray Deacon had given her. She pulled it out and let it fly, right into Dr. Capello’s eyes.
He screamed and collapsed on the floor in agony. The whole attic shook like a great fist was beating against the walls of the house. Was someone trying to save her? Or was that sound nothing more than the final beats of her dying heart?
She heard the voice again, someone shouting her name, and she tried to answer. Once free of the death grip on her neck, Allison could breathe again, but she couldn’t speak. She swallowed huge gulps of air, wheezing as she breathed, nearly vomiting in her panic and her pain. She fell onto her side. Through her watering eyes, she saw Roland yank his father to his feet and slam him back against the wall.
“She was going to kill you,” Dr. Capello said, his eyes bloodred and streaming tears. He coughed so hard it sounded like he was trying to vomit. Roland pushed his father away and ran to her, broken glass cracking to powder under the soles of his boots.
“Allison? Allison?” Roland knelt in front of her. He touched her face, stroking it gently.
“I’m all right,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
She struggled to her hands and knees. Her neck ached and her lungs were on fire but she could breathe, she could move. She was alive. Everything that happened next was a blur. She heard Roland calling his father’s name. She saw Dr. Capello trying to flee out the door. She heard the sound of a body falling down stairs. Allison grabbed the wall and used it to stand. She hobbled to the top of the narrow attic staircase and saw Dr. Capello at the bottom, sprawled on the ground, either dead or unconscious. Deacon appeared, falling to the floor, screaming, “Dad! Dad!” over and over, running his hands over his father’s body, trying to find the wound or the heartbeat. Thora stood by Deacon’s side, not touching her father, not touching Deacon. She looked up at the stairs and Allison met her eyes. Thora said nothing. She didn’t have to.
Dr. Capello was silent.
Roland took her into his arms and held her. She looked past his shoulder and saw the door hanging off the hinges. Someone had taken an ax to it.
And close by and growing closer came the sound of sirens.
Allison closed her eyes and didn’t open them again for a very long time.
Chapter 27
When Allison came to, she wasn’t sure if ten minutes had passed, ten hours or ten days.
She lay in her bed in her room, a white afghan over her. She blinked herself into awareness and tried to raise her head.
“Don’t move.” It was Roland speaking to her. She turned her head despite the order and saw him sitting in the white wicker chair at her bedside, the little bedside lamp glowing softly.
“I’m all right,” she said. “I think.”
“The EMTs checked you.”
“Am I okay?” she said.
“You fainted. The EMT said to let you rest. He said it didn’t look like you had any pepper spray in your eyes. You have some bruises on your neck but nothing broken. I need to get him.”
“No, stay. Please?”
“You were choked and you passed out. You need medical attention.”
Allison started to sit up. “Later.”
“Allison.” Roland said her name like a plea or like a prayer. She couldn’t say for sure.
“Is he dead?” she asked, suddenly remembering everything that had led her to this moment.
“Not yet,” Roland said. “Soon. Tonight.”
Allison closed her eyes, breathed, nodded.
“I don’t know what he said to you. Or did,” Roland said. “But—”
“Let’s not talk about it. It doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t sure if that was true but she needed to say it, needed to try to believe it.
“So he’s still here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Roland said. “The EMTs want to take him to the hospital.”
“He wouldn’t want to go.”
“I know. I ought to let them take him. After what he did to you.”
“No,” Allison said. “He’s just sick. Let him die here in his home in his bed like he wanted.”
And let it be quick, Allison thought but did not say aloud.
“It won’t be long now.” Roland’s voice was hollow, empty of emotion.
“Why aren’t you with him?”
“Because I’m with you.”
“I’m fine. Go to your dad.” She lay bac
k down again.
“No,” Roland said. “I’ll stay here with you.”
Allison swallowed a hard lump in her throat. It hurt but not enough to scare her. She’d be okay. Eventually.