The Door to December

him after the beating, then I suppose nothing he did would cause her to leave. So she's probably still been seeing him.'
     'Unless he got tired of her,' Marge said.
     'From what I've heard of him, he'd never get tired of someone he could dominate and terrify.'
     Marge nodded grimly.
     Checking his watch, anxious to get away now, Dan said, 'You told me Dylan McCaffrey was brilliant, a genius. Would you say the same of Hoffritz?'
     'Probably. In fact, yes. But his genius was a darker variety, twisted, bent.'
     'So was McCaffrey's.'
     'Not half as twisted as Hoffritz,' she said.
     'But if they started working together, with substantial — maybe even unlimited — funding, with a human subject, with absolutely no legal or moral restrictions, they would be a dangerous combination, wouldn't they?'
     'Yes,' she said. A pause. 'Unholy.'
     The word — 'unholy' — seemed like uncharacteristic hyperbole, coming from Marge, but Dan was sure that she had chosen it carefully.
     'Unholy,' she repeated, leaving him without a doubt as to the depth of her concern.
    * * *
    In the hall bathroom, with some iodine and a Big Patch Band-Aid, Laura was able to take care of the small wound on Earl Benton's hand, where Melanie had bitten him during their struggle.
     'It's nothing,' he assured Laura. 'Don't worry about it.'
     Melanie was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the green-tiled wall. She couldn't have been more unlike the hellion who had lashed out at them in the bedroom a few minutes ago.
     'A human bite is more likely to become infected than that from a dog or cat or virtually any other animal,' Laura said.
     'You soaked it good with the iodine, and there's hardly any bleeding. Just a shallow bite. Doesn't even hurt,' he said, though she knew it must sting at least slightly.
     'Had a tetanus shot lately?' Laura asked.
     'Yeah. I was doing skip-tracing work last month. One of the guys I tracked down took exception to being found, pulled a knife on me. He didn't do much damage. Took about seven stitches to close it. That's when I had the tetanus booster. Real recent.'
     'I'm so sorry about this.'
     'You already said.'
     'Well, I am.'
     'Listen, I know the girl didn't mean it. Besides, it's part of the job.'
     Laura crouched in front of Melanie and examined the redness on the child's left cheek. It marked the spot where she had punched herself in the midst of her frenzy. It would develop into a bruise, given time. At the open neck of her blouse, scratches showed on her throat and chest, where she had clawed herself. Her lip was still puffy and sore-looking, where she'd bitten it this afternoon at the end of their hypnotic-therapy session.
     Dry-mouthed with fear and worry Laura said to Earl, 'How can we possibly protect her? It's not just some faceless enemy out there that wants to get at her. It's not just government agents or Russian spies. She wants to hurt herself too. How can we protect her from herself?'
     'Somebody's got to stay with her, watch her every minute.'
     Laura put a hand under her daughter's chin, turned her head so their eyes met. 'This is too much, baby. Mommy can try to deal with the bad men out there who want to get their hands on you. And Mommy can try to deal with your condition, help you come out of this. But now ... this is just too much. Why do you want to hurt yourself, baby? Why ?'
     Melanie stirred, as if she desperately wanted to answer but as if someone were restraining her. Her stricken mouth twisted, worked, but soundlessly. She shuddered, shook her head, groaned softly.
     Laura's heart literally ached as she watched her pale and slender daughter struggle unsuccessfully to cast off the shackles of autism.

20
    Ned Rink, the ex-cop and former agent for the FBI, who had been found dead in his car in the hospital parking lot earlier in the day, owned a small, tidy, desert-style ranch house on the edge of Van Nuys. Dan drove there straight from his meeting with Marge Gelkenshettle. It was a low house with a flat roof that was covered with white stones, set in the middle of a particularly flat part of the San Fernando Valley, on a flat street of other low, flat houses. The shrubbery — with typical southern California, chlorophyllic exuberance — was the only thing that relieved