He was injured.
He needed healing.
I played guitar for him.
A healing song.
For the Mahpee.
Cam had no idea what that meant, only that it was a spark of connection—a synapse within his complex mosaic of neurons. He knows Lev Calder—or at least a member of his internal community does—and that knowledge is somehow tied to music.
So now Cam plays.
It’s two o’clock in the morning when he finally gleans enough from his musical memory to understand. Lev Calder had once been given sanctuary by the Arápache Nation. No one searching for him will know that, which means he has the perfect place to hide. But Cam knows. The heady power of that knowledge makes him dizzy—because if it’s true that he’s traveling with Risa and the Connor, then the Arápache Reservation is where they’ll be—a place where the Juvenile Authority has no authority.
Had Risa known Connor Lassiter was alive all along? If she had, it would explain so many things. Why she could not give her heart to Cam. Why she so often spoke of Lassiter in the present tense, as if he were just waiting around the corner to spirit her away.
Cam should be furious, but instead he feels vindicated. Exhilarated. He had no hope of battling a ghost for her affections, but Connor Lassiter is still flesh and blood—which means he can be bested! He can be defeated, dishonored—whatever it will take to kill Risa’s love for him, and in the end, when he has fallen from Risa’s favor, Cam will be there to keep Risa from falling as well.
After that, Cam can personally bring the Akron AWOL to justice, making himself enough of a hero to buy his own freedom.
It’s three a.m. when he slips out of the town house, leaving his semblance of a life behind, determined not to return until he has Risa Ward under his arm and Connor Lassiter crushed beneath his heel.
Part Four
* * *
The Scent of Memory
“FOUNDLING WHEELS” FOR EVERY ITALIAN HOSPITAL?
By Carolyn E. Price
Feb 28, 2007
Italy tests out the “foundling wheel,” a concept first introduced in Rome in the year 1198 by Pope Innocent III.
A well-dressed, well-looked after three- or four-month-old baby, maybe Italian, or maybe not, and in excellent health, was abandoned on Saturday evening in the “foundling wheel,” a heated cradle that was set up at the Policlinico Casilino. The foundling wheel was created for women to put their infants in when the child is unwanted or is born into seriously deprived conditions.
The baby boy is the first to be saved in Italy thanks to an experimental system that was devised to stop babies from being abandoned in the street. The baby “foundling” has been named Stefano in honor of the doctor who first took charge of him.
For health minister Livia Turco, the project is “an example to follow.” Ms. Turco’s colleague, family minister Rosy Bindi, wants a modern version of the foundling wheel “in every maternity ward in every hospital in Italy.”
The head of the neonatology department at the Policlinico Casilino, Piermichele Paolillo, notes: “We wouldn’t have been surprised to find a newborn in the cradle, but we didn’t expect to see a three- or four-month-old baby . . . . Who knows what lies behind this episode . . . ?”
Published with permission of DigitalJournal.com
Full article at: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/127934
The Rheinschilds
Finally a time to celebrate! Tonight the Rheinschilds dine at Baltimore’s most expensive, most exclusive restaurant. This splurge is long overdue.
Sonia holds Janson’s hand across the table. They’ve already sent the waiter away twice, not wanting to be rushed with their order. Bubbles rise in their champagne flutes while the bottle of Dom Pérignon chills beside them. This night must not pass too quickly. It must linger and last, because they both deserve it.
“Tell me again,” Sonia says. “Every last bit of it!”
Janson is happy to oblige, because it was the kind of meeting worth reliving. He wishes he had found a way to record it. He tells her once more of how he went into the office of the president of BioDynix Medical Instruments and presented to him what he considers to be “his life’s work”—just as he had presented it to Sonia a few days before.