The Home

FOUR

Bondurant stood outside the padded room known as Thirteen, though no number was posted by the door. The room seemed to him more like "Room 101" from the George Orwell novel 1984. In the novel, Room 101 was where characters faced their ultimate fears. Here at Wendover, the room was where Dr. Kracowski practiced his alternative therapies. The end results were similar.

"Is she conscious yet?" he asked through the open door.

"She's fine." Kracowski straightened from leaning over the bed that held the patient. The doctor was six-four, thin and pale, eyes dark and intense. He put his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat as if he'd read an instruction manual on scientific posturing.

On the bed, a cotton blanket pulled up to her chin, was the girl. Bondurant noted with relief that her chest rose and fell evenly with her breathing. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyelids twitched, but other than that, she looked like any healthy thirteen year old. He wondered what she was dreaming.

"She responded to the therapy," Kracowski said. "She suffered a little trauma, but when she comes around, she'll be farther along the road to recovery."

Bondurant wasn't sure he wanted to know more about the technique the doctor had used this time. Womb therapy, Kracowski had explained, where they smothered the subject in pillows and urged her to be reborn. It sounded as sacrilegious as all his other therapies. Bondurant might as well enter a metaphysical bookstore and throw a dart at the shelves. Reiki, qi gong, channeling, past-life regression, primal scream, and dozens of other healing modalities made their way into the alphabet soup of Kracowski's treatments. Some of those were marginally accepted but to Bondurant's mind all were as flaky and godless as traditional psychotherapy. And Kracowski did it all in the name of that ultimate devil's tool, science.

Kracowski also had his own original techniques, crafted from pieces of obscure disciplines and arcane spiritual beliefs. Those were the ones that scared Bondurant the most, but Kracowski kept them hidden away in his mental medicine bag. All Bondurant knew was that the new treatments were linked to the machinery in the basement and the solemn-faced visitors who checked on Kracowski's progress. Silent investors, with silent motives.

"How many know about this?" Bondurant asked.

"Four. Swenson. You. Me." He pointed at the girl on the bed as if he'd almost forgotten her. "And her."

Swenson. The knot in Bondurant's stomach loosened slightly. Paula Swenson was carrying on an affair with Kracowski. She'd certainly not want to mess up her chances at marrying into the doctor's millions by blabbing about a little mishap. The woman's marital odds were as poor as those of the several others who'd shared Kracowski's bed and research methods over the past few years. But Swenson didn't know these things, so she would keep her lips tight, if no other part of her vulgar body.

Kracowski felt under the blanket for the girl's wrist and checked her pulse. "Fifty-five," he said. "She won't remember a thing."

"You didn't drug her, did you?" Bondurant felt the edge in his voice, and knew his tone was bordering on insubordinance.

"You know I'm not a believer in drugs, Francis. For many of these children, that's part of their problem."

"I didn't think so. I'm just always afraid of things that will leave a… trace."

"The only trace I want to leave is the mark of healing." Kracowski's eyes grew cold as he looked at the girl. She may as well have been a rare moth pinned to a cork board.

Bondurant paused at the door and looked down the hall to make sure no one was coming. Few of the staff were allowed access to the counseling wing. But some were too inquisitive for their own good. Starlene Rogers, for one. Always asking why the kids were taken from group therapy for individual treatment.

"I'm just being careful, Doctor," Bondurant said. "That's what you hired me for."

Kracowski made a scissoring motion with two fingers. "And don't forget how easily the strings can be cut."

Bondurant looked up at the younger man, hoping his hatred was concealed. Kracowski was a philanthropist, but his philanthropy ended with the giving of money. He rarely spoke of the spiritual work of Wendover Home, that of setting children on the path to God.

Bondurant suspected that Kracowski was a Catholic, or, heaven forbid a Jew. But without Kracowski's backing, Wendover Home would have folded years ago, and the children would be scattered among various institutions, their chances for salvation further dimmed. And the doctor's newfound supporters had made the accounting ledgers a good bit healthier.

The girl's eyelashes fluttered and she rolled her head back and forth. A small moan escaped her lips. She tried to sit up, and Kracowski nodded in approval. Her eyes snapped open. She looked scared and confused like a trapped animal.

"It's okay, Cynthia," Kracowski said. "You're safe now. We won't let them hurt you."

Bondurant wondered who they were.

Cynthia stared at the bare, padded walls as if expecting them to close in on her. She shivered under the blanket, though the room was warm. Bondurant thought he heard footsteps, checked the hall, and saw it was empty.

"Where did they go?" the girl asked her voice brittle.

"Away," said Kracowski. "Far away."

"Are they coming back?"

"No," said the doctor. "Not anytime soon."

Bondurant tried to remember more about the girl. Cynthia. Cynthia Sidebottom. Bondurant wasn't good with details, since that wasn't part of his mission. But this child was one of the most damned truly troubled an unrepentant sinner. Her case file said she suffered from depressive disorder, but her arrest for prostitution told Bondurant more about her than did the reams of psychiatric analyses. This child was clearly hellhound.

Cynthia sat up and rubbed her head as if wiping away some half-remembered dream. She leaned forward, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed. "Where's the dyke?"

"You mean Dr. Swenson?" Kracowski asked.

"Whatever, yeah."

"Dr. Swenson wants to help you. We all want to help you."

Cynthia stared at the walls again. For a moment, nobody spoke, and Bondurant heard the bell in the opposite wing. The children would be returning to their dorms for a little community time before supper.

"If you want to help me, give me a fifty-dollar job and let me catch a bus back to Charlotte." She licked her lips in an obscene gesture. Bondurant pretended to ignore her, knowing she was only trying to shock them.

Kracowski's fists clenched then he smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. "Cynthia, you're resisting. You know that's not appropriate."

"Neither is your father act," she said. "Why can't you just use big words like all the other doctors, talk around me a while, then let me go?"

Kracowski knelt before her, his frame folded up like a sleeping stork's. "Because I'm the doctor who wants to fix you."

"What if nothing's broke?"

Kracowski leaned his face closer to hers and whispered something that Bondurant couldn't hear. The girl grew pale and glanced wildly at the walls.

"Don't let them get me," she said. "Doc, you got to help me."

Kracowski's mouth creased into a smile, a sick thing that seemed to throw the rest of his face into shadow. "That's why I'm here, Cynthia. To help."

To Bondurant, the doctor said "I think it's time Cynthia returned to her room. We'll monitor her condition over the next several hours, but I believe she's fine."

Bondurant waited nervously while Kracowski scribbled a few notes on a clipboard. Cynthia raised herself from the bed and Bondurant took her arm to help steady her. As the blanket fell away, Bondurant noted with satisfaction that the girl was fully dressed. Not that he suspected Kracowski would delve into such distasteful sins. But strange things happened in this room, some of which might eventually spread their blight onto Bondurant himself.

Kracowski said, "Remember, Cynthia, your treatments won't be effective if you speak to others about them. It's just between you and me and Dr. Swenson. Understand?"

The girl nodded the color slowly returning to her cheeks. "Yeah. Like a secret. I'm good at keeping secrets."

"So I've discovered." Kracowski gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You're coming along fine."

"I'll get born one of these days," the girl said then gave another furtive glance at the corners of the room. "If they let me."

Bondurant didn't understand the strange relationship that Kracowski had with the children. He wasn't sure what to make of the coded language used in the treatments, and he didn't want to know too much. But the doctor insisted that Bondurant bear witness, perhaps as a special punishment, though more likely to make sure that Bondurant was aware of the stakes.

If any state officials came snooping around, Bondurant's job was to show the benevolent face of Wendover. As for what happened in the shadows of the old building, that was a matter for God to pass judgment upon. Bondurant was certainly in no position to judge, not with a six-figure salary and a respected place in the community at stake.

He led Cynthia down the hallway toward the opposite wing. They passed Starlene near the intersected corridors of the main entrance.

"Hello, Cynthia," Starlene said, throwing a quizzical look at Bondurant.

"Hey," the girl said, sullen now, as if the treatment and near-death had left her too weak to make her usual biting remarks.

"Cynthia has been receiving tutoring today," Bondurant said. "She's going to be one of our shining students."

"By missing class?" Starlene said.

Bondurant evaded the woman's gaze. She couldn't read minds. She was a worker bee, one of the counselors, nothing to worry about. She hadn't worked at Wendover long enough to learn not to ask questions. And if she got too curious, it was a simple matter to dig into her background records and find some excuse to fire her. If worse came to worse, accusations and allegations about her could surface.

"Dr. Kracowski is an expert in several fields, Miss Rogers," Bondurant said. "Ph.D.'s in Physics, Education, and Psychology, with an emphasis in Child Development and Behavioral Science. Not only that, he finished the pre-med program at Johns Hopkins. I think he, of all people, is qualified to make decisions in the best interest of the child. Isn't that right, Cynthia?"

Cynthia nodded, staring down the dark hall that led to the Green Room, the dormitory where the girls lived.

Starlene said to the girl, "You look ill, honey. Are you feeling okay?"

Bondurant fumed. The counselor was practically ignoring him, displaying open disregard for his authority.

"I'm all right," Cynthia said. "They said they would leave me alone."

Starlene cupped the girl's chin and looked into her eyes. "If you ever have any problems at all, you just come see me, okay?"

A small speaker mounted in the hall clicked on, and after a few seconds of hiss, Miss Walters's voice said, "Starlene Rogers, you're wanted in the Lake Cottage."

"Remember what I said." Starlene walked down the short flight of steps to the rear door, her shoes echoing off the lath walls. Bondurant couldn't resist watching in anger. Despite her charitable manner, she wasn't properly beholding to her superiors. Bondurant would have to talk to Kracowski about her.

Bondurant's stomach clenched. Starlene was beyond the reach of his rage, at least for the moment. But the girl was available, and her short-term memory was scrambled, one of the aftereffects of Kracowski's treatments.

"Come," he said, pulling her by the arm toward his office. "We've got some paperwork to look over."

Bondurant's palms sweated in anticipation of gripping "The Cheek Turner" and delivering one more child unto salvation.