Crazy in Chicago Read Online Free PDF Page A

still got a lot of legwork left to do, looking into sightings, abductions and any evidence I can find. Now I’d like to . . .”
    â€œCome right in.” Dr. Jones extended his arm towards his office door. He smiled expansively. “I’m sure I can answer all your questions.” He glanced at a mirror on the wall and straightened his tie.
    Cody quelled the spurt of irritation. He didn’t want to talk to Dr. Jones now. That wasn’t why he’d come. But it was too good an opportunity to miss.
    He nodded, and Dr. Jones smiled again. He opened his office door and urged Cody to enter. Cody started for the door, Dr. Jones behind him.
    â€œOh, Roberta, would you bring us some coffee? Right away, please.”
    Cody glanced back. He saw Roberta’s sunny expression darken as Dr. Jones shut the door in her face.
    * * *
    Cody frowned as he turned into Dr. Jones’s office. Was this one of the frustrations Roberta had referred to the other night? Despite the fact that she ran the office, had organized the conference, and presumably assisted Jones with his research and books, he treated her like a mere gofer.
    Cody raised his head, then froze. Huge black eyes stared at him with a sinister combination of speculation and malice. They latched onto him and held, demanding something that only he could provide, something that he had no choice but to surrender.
    For a moment, a strange yet familiar terror grasped him by the throat, cutting off his breath. His fists clenched and he gritted his teeth. Finally, with an act of will, he dragged his gaze from those mesmerizing eyes.
    Freed from their grasp, he took a deep breath, then looked again. He realized the eyes belonged to a gigantic, gray, E.T.-like head, surrounded by a swirl of cosmic purples, blues, greens and silvers.
    Only a painting, he told himself. But what a painting. Easily eight by six feet, it filled the wall, dwarfing Dr. Jones’ desk beneath it and blotting out awareness of anything else in the room.  
    Uneasily, Cody perused the painting, careful to avoid the pull of those terrifying eyes. Even without looking, he could feel the malice, mixed with equally unsettling regret and longing. What kind of a mind would conceive of such a face? And perhaps more important, how could anyone go to bed at night with that image in his mind?
    â€œStunning, isn’t it?”
    Cody broke away from the picture’s hold and looked at Garnet Jones. The man nodded proudly. “I painted that a year ago, following my third abduction by aliens. The image plagued me, haunting my days and my nights. But once I got it down on canvas, it seemed to lose its power. It’s like that with many alien experiences. Only when we face up to them and explore them do they lose their power to disturb us.”
    Cody nodded uneasily. He didn’t know, actually. But it would explain the many individuals he’d met or seen at the conference, individuals with white, haunted faces who seemed driven to tell their stories to anyone who would listen. He’d had doubts about many of their stories, but still they disturbed him on some level he could not pinpoint.
    Dr. Jones, however, was a different case. The man sat down in a sumptuous leather chair behind his desk. Cody noted that the chair matched the expensive carpeting and furnishings of this office, in contrast to Roberta’s dreary space. For years Jones had made a lucrative living from his highly-publicized abductions. He had documented the experiences of countless others and had become an “expert” of sorts, milking his own and others’ experiences for financial benefit. He definitely had a motive for promoting belief in aliens and UFOs.
    Cody resisted the swell of dislike for the man that surged through him, a dislike that had begun with Dr. Jones’s first curt question to Roberta. Assuming a professional mask of politeness, Cody sat down in a chair to one side of the desk and