Free Seven Wonders Book 3 by Peter Lerangis Page A

don’t believe in hate. But this is the one man I can safely say the world would be a better place without. This man is . . . is a monster!”
    â€œDad!” I’d never seen him like this. I glanced helplessly at Dr. Bradley, who was speechless. “Okay, Dad, I know what you’re thinking: This guy kidnapped my son. But as crazy as it sounds, he wants to save our lives. My friends and I—we have a condition. It’s going to kill us—”
    â€œBy the age of fourteen,” Dad said. “Like Randall Cromarty. Like all those kids your mother and I researched.”
    Cromarty. I remembered one of the last things he’d said to me over the phone on the day I was taken: Did you see the article I sent you about that poor kid, Cromarty? Died in the bowling alley near Chicago . . . He was always talking about these not-so-random tragedies, kids who were dying for no apparent reason.
    â€œResearched?” I said. “You knew about G7W all along . . . and you didn’t tell me?”
    â€œIt would have scared you,” Dad said. “You were a kid. Instead, your mom and I tried to do something. We dedicated our lives to finding a cure. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I have been financing McKinley Genetics Labs all these years.”
    â€œYou never told me—all those plans and you never told me !” I said. “Dad, please. Let them take care of Professor Bhegad. You have to talk to him. We’ve been at a secret institute devoted to the study of G7W. He did find the cure!”
    Dad barked a sad, bitter laugh. “He told your mother that lie, too. Which was why she ended up in the bottom of a crevasse in Antarctica.”
    â€œHe knew Mom?” I said.
    Professor Bhegad’s eyes flared with urgency, but he was too weak to speak.
    â€œHe killed her, Jack,” Dad said. “The man is a murderer.”
    â€œNo!” I said. “It’s not true! She—”
    â€œShe went to meet him at a secret lab in McMurdo Sound and never came back.” Dad barreled on. His entire body shook as he stood over Professor Bhegad, blocking the EMTs’ path and ignoring their pleas in Mongolian. “Then, years later, he came for you. First my wife, then my son. When I got home from Singapore, you were gone. They said there was a man at the hospital, posing as a priest. An obese man with a red beard.” He turned, peering at Torquin.
    â€œNot obese,” Torquin muttered. “Large bones.”
    â€œDad, please, listen to me!” I tried to pull Dad away from Professor Bhegad, but he held on to my arm. “She’s not dead.”
    Dad’s eyes were filling with tears. “You always believed that, Jack. I never had the heart to contradict a little boy’s optimism. But she fell hundreds of feet—”
    â€œInto a crevasse,” I said. “No one found the body, remember? Because there was no body. Because the whole story is wrong. It was faked, Dad. I don’t know how or why. But I’ve seen her. We’ve spoken. Trust me on this. She’s alive.”
    Dad’s body went slack. He looked at me through hollow, uncomprehending eyes. “That’s impossible.”
    â€œAnne . . .” Professor Bhegad murmured, struggling to get the words out, “was . . . my trusted associate. Lovely, smart . . . but impatient for the cure. Afraid for Jack’s life. Our research was too slow for her . . .” He took a deep breath. “She thought . . . the Karai and Massa should join forces, to go faster. I told her . . . impossible to heal a rift centuries old. But she was young . . . persistent. She confided to me that she had contacted the Massa. This was a breach. I had to bring it up . . . to my superior.”
    â€œThere’s someone higher than you at the KI?” Aly asked.
    The professor nodded. “The Omphalos. A