Mark automatically sifted out all shootings, stabbings and anything else that wasn't out of the norm.
This reduced the number to a more manageable several dozen.
When he looked over the list, Mark noted that there was a disproportionate number of stories in the newspaper the Super Nova. Since that particular paper specialized in Bigfoot sightings, Bat-Gal attacks and other improbable news items, he disregarded those articles.
Of the rest there were only a few stories worth noting.
A body in a bad state of decomposition had been found on a hiking trail at Yellowstone National Park three summers before. Like the Judith White victims, the organs had been consumed. Park officials had attributed the death to a bear attack. The local medical examiner had agreed.
A similar story was reported in a local Arizona paper a few weeks after the Yellowstone article. A search for two lost college students had ended in a grisly discovery. The boys' remains were found at their campsite. According to the paper, both had been eaten by wild animals. It was concluded that they were victims of a pack of ravenous coyotes.
That was it. There were other deaths, but after those two cases-for the past two and a half years-there was nothing that fit Judith White's modus operandi.
Although they seemed pretty thin, they were all he had. Mark put both stories in the maybe file. Sighing defeat, he began a more conventional search.
That the formula had been altered wasn't in question. Since Mark had returned to Folcroft, an independent lab had confirmed the GenPlus results. To alter the formula meant access to a laboratory. Mark reasoned that it was possible Judith White was staffing a secret lab somewhere.
He sifted through the personnel records of anyone who had worked for BostonBio or its earlier incarnation, the Boston Graduate School of Biological Sciences. Both had been involved in the research that had altered Judith White's DNA. It was possible that she had found an ally from one of the old research teams.
Much of the personnel had been scattered around the country. Some were in Europe. A few from BGSBS had died or retired. In the end, Mark had nothing more than a list of names. He dumped them into the mainframes for analysis. Maybe the CURE system could find something worthwhile.
Once he was done, Mark leaned back in his chair. His head touched the wall. For a minute, he closed his eyes.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But Judith White's lab had to exist. And since his search had turned up no mysterious deaths or disappearances in the genetics field, it was safe to conclude the lab was still in operation. Judith White's pattern suggested that she would have severed the link once it was no longer useful to her. Which meant that she was keeping it open for some reason.
The thought gave Mark a chill.
A needle in a haystack. But this particular needle was there somewhere, waiting to be found. It was just a matter of weeding through each individual piece of hay to find it.
Opening his tired eyes, Mark looked at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. Just after three o'clock.
His blinds were closed tight on the night. Dawn was still a few hours away.
Climbing out of his chair, Mark stepped out of the office to stretch his legs.
Folcroft was asleep. The lights were off in the administrative wing. The glow of the stairwell exit signs was all there was to guide him. Through a hall window, he saw the nearly empty employee parking lot. His own car was parked in the last space far from the building. It was new, and Mark wanted to avoid parking-lot dings. Dr. Smith's beat-up old station wagon was parked in its usual place-the first spot near the building.
When he saw his employer's car, Mark shook his head.
The assistant CURE director didn't like the thought of Dr. Smith staying at his desk all night. The older man had been through more than his share of crises in his day. He had earned the right to a good night's sleep.
If nothing else, Harold W. Smith was a shining example of dedication.
"I hope I have as much stamina when I'm your age," Mark muttered quietly, leaning on the window frame.
From his vantage he could see down Folcroft's long driveway. Beyond the high walls, a pair of headlights sliced the night. A lone car was making its way up the road.
The driver was likely a Rye resident. How many times had he driven by the open gates of the ivy-covered sanitarium and never given it a second glance? Folcroft had been home to America's most damning secret for four decades, and yet no one in Rye had ever learned the truth.
Another example of the genius of Dr. Smith. When he was first setting up CURE, he had selected the perfect cover. He had not tried to hide out in the middle of nowhere, where remoteness itself might inspire curiosity. Folcroft was sitting right there for all the world to see.
"Hiding in the open," Mark said, yawning.
His tired mind drifted to one of the articles he had glanced at an hour before. Without even thinking, he breathed mist onto the window. One lazy finger squeaked through the fog. It moved automatically. Until he was finished, Mark hadn't been aware he was drawing a picture.
When he was done, Mark blinked.
The image was illuminated by the dull amber glow of the parking-lot lights. Mark's wandering finger had traced a small stick figure in a little dress. The arms were extended wide. Around them he had drawn a pair of bat's wings.
Judith White was highly intelligent. She'd know enough not to leave a visible trail. But if Dr. Smith's information was correct, she couldn't curtail her appetites. She would have to mask them. Hide them.
Make them look like something other than what they were.
Mark looked at the picture once more. It was fading now. As the fog evaporated, the wings disappeared. The bat creature he had drawn became a girl once more.
All at once, something clicked in Mark Howard's brain. Like the melting fog on the windowpane, his weariness fled.
"Hiding in the open," he repeated.
It was so obvious he was angry for not having seen it. And if he was right, he might have just narrowed the search for Judith White's secret lab.
Feeling the thrill of discovery, Mark turned on his heel and raced back up the dark hall.
THE WARM LIGHT of the rising sun brushed over the threadbare carpet, illuminating the figure asleep on the old leather sofa. The scattering night shadows were slinking slowly off into dusty corners as Harold W. Smith sat up.
Smith had stayed at his desk until the middle of the night, stealing just a few hours' sleep before dawn.
He checked his cheap Timex. Six o'clock on the dot.
He wasn't concerned that he had missed any fresh news.
As was his habit on those other rare instances when he had taken a few hours to sleep on his office couch, Smith had set his computer to beep loudly if the mainframes learned anything new. Mark Howard was also in the building. Since neither Mark nor his computers had awakened him, Smith assumed the crisis hadn't worsened.
Before checking the latest computerized digests, he allowed himself the luxury of a trip to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, freshly shaved, teeth brushed and wearing a clean white shirt, he settled in behind his desk.
The screen-saver function switched off the moment his hands brushed his keyboard. As if on cue, a new message popped up on his screen. It was from Smith's assistant.
Smith opened the file. When he saw the contents, his brow sank low.
"What the devil?" he said to the empty room. He was still frowning a moment later when his office door opened.
Mark Howard hurried in, face flushed with excitement.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" Smith asked, indicating his computer with a tip of his head. If it was a joke, his tone made it clear he wasn't amused.
Mark shook his head. "I think I found her," he blurted as he came across the room. "Or, rather, her pattern. She's been there all along, Dr. Smith. Right under our noses. Exactly like you thought. Did you have a chance to look at any of that stuff I sent?"