In the Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

finished, Tayte had heard the word more times than he cared to, and if he didn’t already know that turbulence was a state of flow in which the instantaneous velocities exhibit irregular and apparently random fluctuations - he did now.
    Who is this guy?
    He figured the idea was that if you knew what you were experiencing and knew what caused it, then it wouldn’t scare you.   But the logic was flawed to Tayte’s mind.   He knew exactly how Dirty Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum worked, but he still knew he’d need a change of underwear if it was pointed at his head.   When the lesson finished, the captain signed off with that well oiled phrase, “There’s really nothing to worry about...”   Yeah right.   Tayte could picture the cheesy grin on his face as he said it.
    Another violent jolt saw Tayte’s fingernails stabbing back into his armrests, preceding the sweat beads that broke across his brow as the plane suddenly dropped.   He felt lighter, then heavy again as it levelled out.   His stomach churned.   He still couldn’t believe he’d passed on lunch, however dire the offerings in front of Kapowski had looked, but he was glad now that he had.
    It was all going so well.
    At one point he’d even come close to real sleep, drifting to the rhythm of the riddles he had no answers to, convincing himself over and over that he had the right James Fairborne despite the obvious incongruities.   His research had been meticulous.   He was confident of his findings no matter what further issues they raised, and now, of all those concerns, the dominating question that stood on the shoulders of the rest and kept waving at him was: who is Susan Fairborne?
    He knew as much as records allowed, but he expected them to show James Fairborne and his wife, Eleanor.   Their children: Katherine, Laura and George.   Instead, he’d found James and his wife, Susan, and two completely different children: Allun and Lowenna.   The copy of the transcript in his briefcase was very clear.   James’s marriage to Susan Forbes on Saturday, March 12th 1785 was unquestionable.   So what happened to the rest of the family?   Why are there no records?   Why only James?
    Tayte knew well enough that records are sometimes lost or filed incorrectly.   Names were frequently misspelled, either because they were written in some difficult to read, idiosyncratic style, or simply because the scribe recorded the information badly.   Any combination of such things made records harder to find - sometimes impossible to find.   But so many?   Only one person out of seven with records intact?   It was too much for Tayte to write off as coincidence.
    Something else had started to puzzle him too, but he could no longer think straight.   The plane was audibly banging now and moving in all dimensions.   Tayte couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any religious inclinations, but he suddenly found himself thinking, dear God, get me through this!   He pictured his Ford Thunderbird, all alone in some strange parking lot, and wondered whether he would ever see it again.
     
    It was some time later when Tayte became aware that something else was annoying him.   Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.   It felt like an injection stabbing into his right arm, just below the shoulder, only the injection kept coming and the applied force grew until he felt himself rocking from side to side under the weight of the heavy needle that just kept jabbing and jabbing into his arm.
    No records...   The injections became painful.   What happened to them?   He began to feel desolate.   Eleanor?   The children?   A cloudburst of despair washed over him and he sensed the answer was not good.   The injection came again, but he no longer cared.   He began to sob at the sheer hopelessness.   Then over the sobbing he heard another voice.   The nurse?
    “Hey!”   The voice was familiar.
    The needle jabbed into his arm again only now it felt more