Robin Cook - Crisis

"Now I recommend you boys remove yourself from the neighborhood," David said, taking the gun from Aesop.

"This ain't over," Franco muttered to Jack as he and Antonio walked away. The basketball players parted to allow them through.

" Warren warned me about you," David said to Jack. "He said you were prone to get into trouble and that he'd had to save your ass on more than one occasion. You're lucky we saw these honkies hanging around while we were playing. What's the deal?"

"It's just a misunderstanding," Jack said evasively. He touched his finger to his lip. There was a spot of blood.

"If you need some help, you let me know. Right now you better get some ice for that fat lip, and why don't you take this gun? You might need it if that asshole shows up on your doorstep."

Jack declined the gun and thanked David and the others before climbing into the car. The first thing he did was get the canister of pepper spray out. Next, he looked at himself in the rearview mirror. The right side of his upper lip was swollen, with a bluish cast. A trickle of congealed blood ran down his chin. "Good God," he murmured. Warren was right, he did have a penchant for getting himself in compromising circumstances. He cleaned off the blood as best he could with the bottom of his T-shirt.

On the way back to the Bowmans', Jack considered fibbing and saying his injury was from basketball. Bruises were not uncommon with as much as he played and the fact that basketball was a contact sport in his experience. The problem was that Craig and Alexis were going to be downcast after the day's testimony, and he didn't want to add to their burden. He was afraid they might feel inappropriately responsible if he told the truth.

Being as quiet as possible, Jack used the key Alexis had given him to come in the front entrance. He was carrying his clothes and shoes in his arms. His goal was to slip downstairs and quickly shower before running into anyone. He was eager to ice his lip but it had already been long enough since the injury that another fifteen minutes was hardly critical. As he silently closed the front door, he stopped with his hand on the doorknob. His sixth sense was nagging him; the house was too quiet. Every other time he'd entered, there'd been background noise: a radio, a ringing cell phone, children's chatter, or the TV. Now there was nothing, and the silence was foreboding. From having seen the Lexus in the driveway, he was reasonably sure at least the parents were home. His immediate concern was that something had gone wrong at the trial.

Continuing to clutch his clothes against his chest, Jack moved quickly and silently down the hall to the archway leading into the great room. He leaned through the opening, expecting the room beyond to be deserted. To his surprise, the whole family was there on the couch, with the parents at either end. They appeared as if they were watching television, but the TV was off.

From his vantage point, Jack could not see any faces. For a moment he stood still, watching and listening. No one moved or spoke. Mystified, Jack stepped into the room and approached. When he got about ten feet away, he tentatively called out Alexis's name. He didn't want to disturb them if it was some family thing, but he couldn't seem to walk away, either.

Both Craig's and Alexis's heads shot around. Craig glared back at Jack. Alexis got to her feet. Her face was drawn and her eyes were red. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

"So there you have it," Alexis said. She'd told Jack the story about how she and Craig had come home after the trial had been recessed to find their terrified daughters bound and gagged with duct tape. She'd spoken slowly and deliberately. Craig had spat out a few gory details, like the fact Tracy had been dragged from the shower stark naked and rudely struck.

Jack was speechless. He was sitting on the coffee table, facing his sister and her family. As the story unfolded, his eyes jumped from Alexis, who was anxious, fearful, and concerned, to Craig, who was beside himself with outrage, to three children who were shocked and clearly traumatized. All three children were sitting silent and immobile. Tracy had her legs tucked under herself and her arms folded across her chest. She was dressed in oversized sweat clothes. Her hair was frizzed. There was no bare midriff. Christina and Meghan both had their arms clutched around their legs with their knees jutting up into the air. All three had raw, red bands across their lower faces from the duct tape. Tracy had a split lip.

"Are you guys all right?" Jack asked the children. It appeared to him that only Tracy had been physically abused, and thankfully, it looked minor.

"They are as well as can be expected," Alexis said.

"How did the intruders get in?"

"They forced the back door," Craig snapped. "They were obviously professionals."

"Has anything been stolen?" Jack asked. His eyes rapidly scanned the room for any damage, but everything seemed to be in order.

"Not that we can determine," Alexis said.

"What did they want then?" Jack asked.

"It was to convey a message," Alexis said. "They gave Tracy a verbal message to give to us."

"What?" Jack asked impatiently when Alexis didn't elaborate.

"No autopsy," Craig snapped. "The message was no autopsy or they'd be back to hurt the kids."

Jack's eyes rocketed back and forth between Craig and Alexis. He could not believe his offer to help could have caused such a situation. "This is crazy," he blurted. "This can't be happening."

"Tell that to the kids!" Craig challenged.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. He looked away from the Bowmans' faces. He was crushed he'd been the cause of such a disaster. He shook his head and looked back, particularly at Craig and Alexis. "Well, fine then, no autopsy!"

"We're not sure we're ready to give in to this kind of extortion," Alexis said. "Despite what's happened, we're not ruling an autopsy out. It seems to us that if someone is willing to go to the extent of threatening children to block the autopsy, that's all the more reason to do it."

Jack nodded. The thought had occurred to him as well, but it wasn't for him to put Tracy, Meghan, and Christina any more at risk. Besides, the only culprit that came to his mind was Tony Fasano, and his motivation could only involve fear of losing his contingency fee. Jack looked at Craig, whose anger had seemingly lessened a degree as the conversation progressed.

"If there's any risk at all, I'm not for it," Craig said. "But we're thinking we can eliminate the risk."

"Have you called the police?" Jack asked.

"No, we haven't," Alexis said. "That was the second part of the message: no autopsy, no police."

"You have to call the police," Jack said, but his words rang hollow since he'd not reported either his confrontation with Fasano et al. the previous day or his confrontation with Franco a half-hour earlier.

"We're considering our options," Craig explained. "We've been talking it over with the girls. They are going to stay with their grandparents for a few days, until this trial is over. My mom and dad live up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and they are on their way down here to pick them up."

"I'll probably be going along with them," Alexis said.

"You don't have to, Mom," Tracy said, speaking for the first time. "We'll be fine with Gramps and Grandma."

"No one knows where the girls will be," Craig explained. "They'll stay out of school at least for the rest of this week and maybe for the year since there's only a few days left. They've promised not to use their cell phones or tell anyone where they are."

Jack nodded, but he didn't know what he was agreeing to. It seemed to him he was getting mixed messages. There was no way the risk for the children could be completely eliminated. He was concerned that Alexis and Craig might not be thinking clearly under the stress of the trial. The only thing Jack was certain of was that the police had to be notified.