Carrying the plastic box with him, Doyle pushed open a sliding door and stepped around the driver’s seat. He opened a second door and strolled over to the picture table near the park’s soccer field. Making sure no one was watching, he opened the box, took out the twig, and carefully placed the HIMEMS in the middle of table. The hybrid dragonfly was a Blue Darner with a long body, strong, transparent wings and bright blue spots on its abdomen.
The dragonfly had been captive in the box for several weeks and seemed startled to be outside. Doyle felt that he understood the dragonfly’s surprise; he had also been a prisoner, and it was a shock to be back out in the world. Slowly, the insect moved its two pairs of wings, feeling the wind and the afternoon sunlight. Doyle tapped his finger on the table, and the startled insect flew away.
Doyle returned to the ice cream truck, stepped into the compartment, and activated the HIMEMS program on the computer. The first image on the monitor showed something dark, with a rough texture, and Doyle guessed that that the dragonfly was resting on a tree branch. He attached a joystick to the computer and gently pushed the lever forward. The dragonfly responded like a toy airplane, taking off and heading east. Doyle could see the parking lot and the tops of some trees.
In San Diego and San Francisco, he had learned how to control the hybrids. You couldn’t direct precise movements, but you could send the dragonfly in a general direction and then make it stop and hover. Using a HIMEMS meant that he didn’t need to draw attention to himself as he watched the children. Doyle had escaped his fleshy, fumbling body. At that moment, he was a dark angel, floating above the children, watching three boys wander away from the play area.
The Chinese grandparents were leaving, and Ana checked her watch. It was almost five o’clock. She would let the boys play for a few more minutes, and then she had to get home and start making dinner. Cesar was still playing with the blond girl, but Roberto and two other boys his age had gone over to the park building. They stood near the doorway-probably watching some older boys play basketball.
Something passed through the air near the edge of her vision. When she looked up, she saw an insect right above the swings. What did they call that in the United States? A dragonfly. In Brazil, sometimes they called it a
As the dragonfly darted away, Cesar approached her carrying the dump truck. “Broke,” he said in English, and held up the toy.
“No. It’s all right. I can fix it.”
Ana turned the truck over and began to scrape sand away from the dumping mechanism. When she looked up again, Roberto and one of the boys had disappeared, but the third boy still lingered in the doorway.
The second boy came out of the park building, but Roberto wasn’t with him. A minute or so passed until the fear switch clicked in Ana’s brain. She stood up and asked the blond nanny to watch Cesar for a minute, please. She strolled past the swings to the dead grass. The two little boys had been standing near the doorway were coming toward her, but when she asked-”Where’s Roberto? Where’s my son?”-they shrugged their shoulders like they didn’t know his name.
She reached the open doorway of the park building and peered inside. The basketball room had a polished wooden floor and two baskets-a hollow room with echoes bouncing off the bare walls. Two half-court games were being played: one involved two teams of El Salvadorans, and the other game was between a group of teenage boys with bushy hair and slogans on their T-shirts.
Ana hurried down the center line of the basketball court as the games continued on either side of her. When she walked out of the doorway on the north side of the building she found a small parking lot and the street. Ana took a few steps forward and looked in every direction, but she couldn’t see her son.
“Roberto,” she said quietly, almost like a prayer, and then a feeling of panic overwhelmed her and she began to scream.
The first step in the sequence of events leading to Mrs. Brewster’s death was announced by a soft beep and a text message on Michael’s handheld computer. Mrs. Brewster was staying at Wellspring Manor House and a security guard there was watching her movements.
