Natural Causes

CHAPTER 30

October 17

AUTUMN ON LONG ISLAND WAS PROFOUNDLY BEAUTIFUL. Dressed in an aqua running suit, Lisa Grayson loped through a tunnel of shimmering foliage, up the mile-long hill of Kennesaw Road, and onto the flat, gravelly stretch that led back to Stony Hill. She was perspiring, but not excessively so-especially considering that when she reached home, she would have completed her first half-marathon ever. Fantastic! she thought. Thirteen miles by a woman who not too long ago considered a brisk walk to the corner convenience store to be her physical limit.

"Too darn much… Too darn much…"

She sang the words nursery-rhyme style, in sync with her strides. The Boston Marathon was in mid-April, and she might well be ready. Her physical therapist knew the organizers of the race. If Lisa could do the twenty-six plus miles in anything under four and a half hours, he would see to it that the documented marathon time necessary to receive an official entry and number was waived.

"See how she runs… See how she runs…"

Some sweat dripped from her forehead into her eyes. Slowing just a little, Lisa reached her right hand into her jacket pocket.

Fist, she thought intently. Fist.

The Otto Boch myo-electric hand was truly incredible, but it had no sensory input. She had to rely on other messages to tell her the prosthesis was doing what she wanted it to. First she sensed the now-familiar tension around her elbow. The electrodes had been implanted there, in what remained of her forearm flexor muscles. Next she felt the firmness of the closed fist, pressing against her side from within the jacket pocket.

"Come on, fake hand," she said, panting in cadence. "Do your stuff."

She pulled her arm free of the pocket and sensed without looking that the lifelike fingers were clutching her balled-up handkerchief.

"Way to go, hand," she said, mopping her brow without breaking stride. "Way to go."

Over the two months since receiving the limb, she had made remarkable progress. In time, she had been promised by the physical therapist and the prostheticist, she would be able to pick up a cigarette ash without having it crumble. She would also be able to latch onto an object and dare anyone-anyone-to pull it away from her. The Bionic Woman! There were limits, to be sure. She had chosen the less obtrusive "cosmetic" skin over the more functional and more easily maintained metal pincers. In general though, the hand far exceeded her projections of what being an amputee would be like. And focusing on learning to use it had done worlds for her depression.

She still missed her baby terribly and thought many times each day about how life would have been with him. But she also knew that somehow, all she had been through had become a passage for her. In facing her tragedy, in working to overcome the pain and grief, she was growing up in areas that had not changed since the day she ran away from home.

And then, of course, there was her father. The transformation in Willis Grayson over the months since her return to Stony Hill was, if anything, even more striking than her own. He was mellower than she could ever remember-far less controlling and more willing to listen. And he went out of his way to spend time with her. She had never really believed the man was capable of change, but change he had.

She passed over the one-lane bridge at the base of the long dirt and gravel drive leading up to the house. The video-monitored security gate was closed, but the narrow pass-through alongside it was not. Four-tenths of a mile to go. The muscles in her legs were beginning to tighten up, but she could make it. She knew she could.

"Miss Grayson," a man's voice called out from behind her.

Lisa stopped and turned, still running in place. A young man in a gray uniform and hat stepped from behind a tree. He carried a Federal Express envelope beneath his arm.

"Meet me at the house," she said with a pant, keeping her distance and wondering where his truck was. "I want to finish this run."

"I can't," he said urgently. "I'm being paid to give this to you personally. This is the third day I've tried to meet up with you. Your father's security patrol will hurt me if they catch me again, and they'll be back here again any minute. We've got to hurry."

Bewildered, Lisa glanced at her watch, debated, and then stopped running.

"Okay, what is it?" she asked, still keeping a good twenty yards between her and the man.

"I don't know. I'm being paid to find a way to deliver this to you. That's all. Please, I hear a car now."

"Set it down right there," she ordered. "And then get away."

The young man hesitated and then placed the envelope on the grass by the road.

"Don't let them take this from you," he said. Then he whirled and sprinted off.

Through the still morning air Lisa could, in fact, hear a car approaching from the direction of the house. She snatched up the envelope and dashed back down the road until she found a copse dense enough to conceal her. Hidden there, gasping for air, she watched two of her father's security people cruise slowly past. By the time the motor noise had faded, she had recovered enough to tear open the Federal Express envelope. The enclosed, unembossed, white envelope had her name written on the outside in a meticulous, woman's hand. The note within was typed.