Two days later, when she returned to Spooky Mansion, as she’d come to think of Dr. Waters’s home, it took five long and annoying rings of the doorbell before it was finally answered—although answered was a tame description of the way he threw open the door and sent it crashing against the wall. Abby got the impression she might have interrupted something by the way he was dressed: rubber gloves reaching nearly to his elbows, a multicolor-spattered rubber smock and plastic goggles covering his eyes.
What could he possibly be doing, dressed like that? Conjuring up the cure to cancer, perhaps, or on the brink of some messy scientific breakthrough? Abby didn’t ask. First, because he didn’t look in the mood for idle chatter and second because she was certain the details would be beyond her comprehension. It was hard enough keeping up with her five-year-old son. She couldn’t imagine what went on in the head of a man who, at age ten, had solved one of the mathematic equations previously thought to be unsolvable.
One thing was for certain. If he hoped to give the appearance of a mad scientist, he was succeeding.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
A maaad scientist.
“I came to talk to you.”
Beneath the goggles, his eyebrows lifted comically. She couldn’t be sure if he was surprised that she’d dared to return or by the stupidity of her answer.
“You don’t take a hint, do you?”
“You mean the hint I got from the gardener?”
“So you figured it out,” he sneered. “That doesn’t make you a rocket scientist.”
He wasn’t the first to point out that fact. He was right, of course. She didn’t have a fraction of the intelligence he had been born with. “But Robbie might be. A rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or heaven knows what else.”
“That’s not my problem.” He ripped the gloves from his hands and yanked off the goggles.
Abby could only stare as she got a closer look at the man who had been called a human computer. He certainly didn’t fit her image of a brainy nerd. His face was creased with ragged lines and planes, his mouth wide and sensual, though it twisted now in a snarl. But it was his eyes that really drew her attention. Standing this near, she could see their color, a soft, gentle brown. They made her want to step closer instead of away, as if they held some secret that was vital for her to understand. Remembering the picture of him as a child with oversize glasses, she concluded that it must be contact lenses that gave him the impression of vulnerability.
Certainly nothing about him fit her image of a super-genius, though even as that thought registered, she realized how narrow-minded it was. How many people had unthinkingly said the same thing about Robbie, as if brain function was somehow related to hair color and weak vision?
She supposed it was just some misguided attempt to explain her unusual physical reaction to him. Her palms were sweating and her heart was beating a little faster, and her reaction had nothing to do with the visual daggers Dr. Waters was throwing at her. Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, her response to Dr. Waters the other day was the real reason she’d run away rather than confronting him about his identity. She was sure he’d be amused by her reaction if he knew, but she had no intention of letting him in on the secret. She couldn’t afford the contempt that was sure to follow her foolishness. She had to convince this man to help her.
“Dr. Waters, I have to talk to you about my son, Robbie. As I wrote to you in my letters, he’s a certified child genius. His IQ is off the charts. When he started preschool, his teachers thought he had a learning disability until they figured out that he was so far advanced. They gave him a slew of tests and each one came back with more startling results than the last.”
“Mrs. Melrose…”
Abby didn’t give him a chance to continue with the brush-off she knew was coming. “Toward the end of the school year, I got called in to a meeting with the principal of the elementary school Robbie was supposed to attend next year. I figured they might want to have him skip a few grades since he’s pretty much mastered the alphabet and counting to ten.” She could tell the sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Instead he told me that Robbie might be better off if he looked elsewhere for his education.”
She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop herself now that the words had begun to flow. “The school said that according to his scores, he might be able to skip elementary or even high school all together if he passed a few tests. Can you imagine him in college? He’s not even allowed to go to the store by himself.”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a glimpse of sympathy through his gruff exterior.
“They suggested home schooling as an alternative.” She laughed harshly at the thought of trying to teach Robbie herself, then paused for breath and to control the tears that threatened. “Although they used all these fancy words to explain their decision, the bottom line is that they don’t have any programs challenging enough for him. I haven’t told Robbie. He’d be crushed if he knew. He’s been looking forward to going to a real school since he could walk.”
She barely caught the wince he tried to hide. “There’s nothing I can do for him here, either.”
“That’s not true. Most of the higher level schools I’ve contacted have policies against taking students as young as Robbie and the lower level ones are worried that he’d be smarter than most of their teachers, not to mention the students. Then I read an article about your school and I knew you’d faced this kind of situation before.”
“What did it say?” he snapped, his eyes blazing.
“It was a story about Still Waters and the kind of kids who went there. I think it was written right after you’d opened.” He seemed to relax and she wondered at the cause, but didn’t pause to consider the reason. She had to make him understand. “Robbie would have fit right in. He is different from other children. He has different needs, a different future ahead of him.”
His face hardened before her eyes and she’d been so sure it had already been formed out of granite. “How terrible for you to have to deal with such a burden.”
She gasped, horrified that he’d gotten the wrong idea. “It’s not a burden.” Or if, secretly, it was occasionally almost too much to handle, it was a burden she carried with pride. “I’ll do whatever I can to help Robbie. He’s such an amazing child. He’s brilliant, yes, but he’s also got this wonderful sense of adventure and mischief. He’s a sensitive kid, worried about the future of everyone on the entire planet, and he asks the most thoughtful questions. Unfortunately I don’t have the answers for him.”
“What makes you think I do?”
“There are a lot of similarities between you and Robbie. You were both very young when your…gift was discovered.” Although she was certain both of them would sometimes consider it a curse. “You both have extremely high IQs.” She paused, searching for the right words. “You know what it’s like to be different from everybody else.”
At her words, he froze and she wondered what she’d said to put that look on his face. Then he smiled with malicious satisfaction as if she’d stepped into a trap. “Let me put this in a way you can understand,” he said, speaking slowly. “Go back to Pittsburgh. I can’t help you.”
Abby bristled at the familiar condescending tone, but strangely it was just the bolster she needed. Just because he was smarter than she was, didn’t mean he should underestimate her.
She’d been acting under the assumption that he hadn’t known about Robbie, but if he recalled where they came from, he must have read the letters she’d sent him. He undoubtedly knew everything. He’d probably known from the beginning. And she’d been wasting her time giving him background information he’d been aware of all along.
“I’m not going back until I figure out what to do with Robbie in the fall,” she told