Andrew Neiderman - Deficiency

"Nevertheless, it's eerie. Anyway," he added while the other man checked out the motel manager, "we'll have a bit of a problem with that doctor, Dr. Barnard. I still don't understand what you were trying to do there, taking her and that bartender out to the old Feinberg property. I had her under control, had her believing I had taken her into my confidence. I don't know why you didn't trust what I told you from my interviews. Now that she has escaped..."

"Who's going to believe her after you speak to the press?" he asked Dennis.

"Well, I'll have a bit of a time with her. She did attend to two of his victims, remember? She is no fool, as you now know, and if she wants, she can contradict intelligently. I'll need a little more help," he added with a wry smile.

"To pay for a complete coverup. I'm sure your people will understand the added costs."

He looked at the other man who looked at him and nodded.

"Whatever it takes," he said. "Just do it. This is your territory." Dennis smiled.

"Good." He turned to the other man who stepped forward and looked at Garret Stanley's body.

"What do you want done with him?"

"Done? Oh. Send him back to the research center, of course."

"We'll see to it," Will Dennis said nodding.

"Good."

Mike returned.

"A mess," he said. "Ugly. Major cleanup, Doctor."

"Just do it," he said.

"At least it ends here," Will Dennis said nodding at Garret Stanley's body.

"Yes," he said. "It ends here."

"Let's get on the phone," Mike told his partner and they went out to the office.

"I guess my having that police sketch put in the paper wasn't a mistake after all, was it, Doctor?" Will asked, smiling with an annoying arrogance. "I guess we're not all country bumpkins after all."

"Apparently not."

"If I had done it earlier, using Dr. Barnard's description, all of this might have been avoided."

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty," he said.

Dennis nodded.

"Well, I hope this is all going to be worth it someday, Dr. Stanley." He smiled.

"Oh, it will be. I'm sure. In fact, it's already worth it in so many ways. I'd better get going. I have lots to do."

"I bet. Don't forget to put a good word in for me with those people in high places we discussed. I guess I'll have enough money now to launch a senatorial campaign and you'll be able to count on my vote when you need it."

"Absolutely," he said. "We both want the same things."

"Oh?" Will Dennis smiled. "What's that?"

"More. Always," he said as he started out. "You and I. We'll always want more."

He nodded at him and walked out of the motel.

The moment he did so, he felt like a man who had just been freed from a long prison sentence. Never had he experienced such a surge of elation. I'm gigantic, he thought. He did all he could to contain himself and not scream it at the night sky. I really will go on forever.

He watched the agents in the office behind him talking on the telephone, one on the land phone, one on a cellular, both working diligently to clean up the mess he had left behind. The whole world was working for him. At least for now, he thought as he made his way toward the vehicle he knew belonged to him, to Dr. Garret Stanley.

Finally, he didn't have to share his identity with any other living thing. It was as if he had thrown off a heavy weight, taken off a shackle. He could breathe easier.

At least for now, he thought again.

He didn't like the sound of that.

There was some threat still looming. It was like a pebble in a shoe. He could feel it and he knew he had to get rid of it.

What was it?

He drove off, his forehead a bit bruised, but folded in deep thought as he struggled to determine the answer. It came, right from Will Dennis's lips. All he knew at the moment was it was out there, waiting for him. And once again, he could be the predator.

Terri had her head down on her folded arms. She was at Curt's bedside. He had been sleeping when she entered the room. An hour earlier, she had been with Darlene Stone in the emergency room. Except for emotional trauma and exhaustion, the woman was well enough to go home. Terri arranged for her to have some sedation and told her to just go home and rest. She would talk to her in the morning.

"Don't we have to speak to the police?" she asked.

"I'll take care of all that, Darlene. Just rest," Terri told her. Darlene's mother and her mother's live-in boyfriend came to pick her up. Terri did need a half dozen stitches. The bandage made the wound look much more serious than it was. Exhausted herself, she somehow garnered enough energy to go up to see Curt. First, she would assure him she was fine and then she would tell him the story, she thought. Finding him asleep, she made the mistake of lowering her head and closing her eyes.

A gentle nudge on her shoulder awoke her. For a long moment, she forgot where she was. Then it all came rushing back. She turned and looked up at Will Dennis. Instantly, her heart began to pound.

"Let's go down the hall and talk," he said. "There's an empty room two doors down."

She hesitated and gazed at Curt, who was still asleep.

"I promise. I'll tell you everything now," Dennis said. "Nothing more is going to happen to anyone. It's all right," he added.

She rose slowly.

"It's all right? Funny way to describe the events of the day," she told him. He turned and walked to the door. The highway patrolman who had been with the ambulance was standing in the hallway speaking softly with another highway patrolman. The two stopped to look her way.

"I found your vehicle, Doctor," the patrolman said. "It was in the parking lot here. The keys are in the ignition."

"Yes, well, it won't start," she said looking at Dennis.

"Take care of it, will you, Paul?" Will Dennis told the patrolman. He nodded and left with his partner. "Right over here," Dennis said leading her to the empty room.

She entered behind him and he pulled the one chair out for her to sit. She did so and looked up at him.

"Let me begin by telling you he's dead," he said.

"Who? Dr. Stanley or his creation?"

"His creation. That's the more important matter."

"That's a matter of debate. In my opinion Dr. Frankenstein was as bad as the monster he created. Do you know what he intended to do to us, Darlene Stone and myself? Do you know why he took us down that dirt road to that deserted tourist house?"

"I've passed all that on to his superiors," Will Dennis said.

"His superiors?" She laughed. "That's like telling Hitler what Goebbels did."

"Whatever. It's out of my hands now and I'm not terribly upset about that." She narrowed her eyes and sat up firmly.

"Why should I believe anything you say, Will? You lied to me about all this, and if I didn't happen to have Garret Stanley's cell phone, I doubt I would have known."

"Probably not," he candidly admitted.

She brought her eyebrows together.

"What was your involvement here?"

"I'm sorry. I told you as much as I thought you could know without being in any danger yourself. I didn't know what was going on until late in the situation myself, Terri," he said. "After Kristin Martin died and was diagnosed, I was contacted by people pretty high up the ladder. They told me basically to cooperate with Dr. Stanley, that he was the lead man in this pursuit of this unusual perpetrator. I wasn't given great detail, just that someone very dangerous was on the loose and if the whole story got out, it would create even more havoc in our small community than we already had. I was on a need-toknow basis and prohibited from telling anyone else what I had been told.

"When you called me about Paula Gilbert that night, I was in a real panic myself and that was when Dr. Stanley was forced to meet directly with me. I told him you didn't know all that much more than I did, but he convinced me he could ask you and any witness or any person in contact with the perpetrator questions that would give him essential information."