Shadows (1992) by Saul| John

Author:Saul| John [John, Saul,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-02-09T15:48:29.578000+00:00

A Study of Suicide

Among Genius Children

Her hands trembling, she turned the title page and glanced at the precis of the thesis.

Her eyes swept over the words, which told her that the student who had authored the thesis had spent the last year carrying out research on the psychological evaluations of gifted children who had taken their own lives. The purpose of the thesis was to construct psychological profiles that could serve as an early warning system to identify suicide-prone children before it was too late.

Her hands trembling, Jeanette flipped quickly through the thesis.

She paused at a chapter heading halfway through:

Barrington Academy: Six Case Histories

As she began reading, she felt a chill in her blood. Was it really possible that six of the Academy's students had killed themselves in the last five years?

Except that it wasn't six.

It was seven now, for the research for the thesis had obviously been completed before Adam had died a little more than a week ago.

Jeanette stood quite still at the copier, a strange hollowness forming in her stomach.

She had to read the thesis, had to know what this graduate student had discovered, had to know whether, if she'd seen the thesis even two weeks ago, she might have saved her son.

And yet she couldn't read it now, couldn't even scan the chapters.

She waited until her hands steadied. When she had regained some semblance of calm, she began copying the thesis.

Instead of making the usual five copies, this time she made six.

One for each of the jurors on the student's panel.

And one for herself. Though it violated the rules of the college, she would slip it into her purse and take it home with her that afternoon.

That night she would read it, and try to discover how the Academy could have lost so many students in so short a time.

Amy Carlson was sitting by herself at a corner table of the Academy's dining room, facing the wall, struggling to force down her lunch. She'd ignored Josh MacCallum when he'd tried to coax her to sit at their regular table, refusing even to answer him as she walked past him with her tray gripped in her hands.

After she left the lab, she'd gone back to her room, slipping unnoticed into the house through the back door and scurrying up the stairs before Hildie Kramer or anyone else could spot her. Once in her room, she'd scooped Tabby up from her pillow, then flopped down on the bed, cradling the cat in her lap, petting it and talking to it as if by heaping affection on Tabby she could somehow make up for the pain that was being inflicted on the creature in the laboratory.

And there she'd stayed until lunchtime. skipping the rest of her morning classes.

But when noon came, she decided she'd better go down to the dining room, even though she didn't feel like eating. Otherwise, someone--Josh, probably--would come looking for her, and she still didn't want to talk to him, or anyone else.

So she'd gone

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