Night Corridor (26 page)

Harold? She'd never seen him wearing this coat. He always wore his new down-filled coat. And then, on the second step from the top, he raised his head and smiled at her. "Hello, Caroline."

No. Not Harold. A bigger man than the landlady's nephew. For a long moment she couldn't speak. Then, finding her voice, she said pleasantly, "Hello. You're Harold's friend." She tried to return his smile, but the muscles in her face felt frozen. "You helped him carry my trunk upstairs. Are you working here?"

But she knew of course in her deepest self that that wasn't why he was here. Not even close. She also knew she'd seen him long before that day he'd helped Harold upstairs with the trunk. That realization hit her as she watched him get out of the green car and walk up the walkway; something in the way he moved had jarred a memory loose, but the memory floated just out of reach. Not answering her question, he just kept coming in those big boots…
Clomp…clomp
…and then was on the landing, turning to face her. "He said you'd be here."

He had large features, longish dirty blond hair escaping the cap. Big, dangerous hands protruded from the cuffs of his jacket. Wide forehead, intense pale eyes.

"Who…who said I'd be here?"

"Harold. He tells me everything about you. I knew that first day you moved in you'd been in Bayshore. Anyway, I just followed your bus. You haven't been quite true, have you, Caroline? But at least I know you haven't laid with him."

"Who? I don't know what you're talking about." She tried to keep the waver from her voice.

"Don't lie. I saw you kissing him before you both went inside the building. I followed you in. I was outside your door last night and I heard you send him away. That was very lucky for you. Not so lucky for him. I didn't come to your rescue just so you could defile yourself with another."

Her heart thumped in her chest. Jeffrey. What had he done to Jeffrey? Oh, God. "How did you get a key to the building?"

She heard only a trace of French accent in his words. She had heard it that night he put Mike Handratty in the hospital, but it hadn't registered. He spoke English well, but the rhythm was there.

"Easy," he said. "Harold always hangs his jacket in the staffroom, the key in his pocket. I had a copy made."

He was bragging, thinking she would be impressed at his cleverness.

"I had planned for us to go last night at midnight. But you ruined that." Anger flared in his eyes like a dark flame fanned. The flame went out. "But what does that matter now? We're together, and that's all that matters."

She remembered that Harold had called him Danny. She didn't remember his last name, only that it was French.

"Yes," she half-whispered. The floating memory snapped into place and a vision of the men at Bayshore shuffling about in the yard below her barred window flashed at the forefront of her mind, like a movie frame. That was where she had first seen him. At Bayshore mental institution. Down in the yard with the other male patients. He didn't shuffle like the others, though, but strode when he walked, shoulders thrust forward, a man with purpose, yet going nowhere.
Like a speared bull looking for the source of its torment
.

Those weren't her words, but little Martha Blizzard's. Martha had a different way of seeing things and people. Just like she saw her husband waving goodbye to her after she struck him in the head with the baseball bat. Danny wasn't a particularly big man, but his very presence was fierce and enormous and terrifying. She tried not to let her fear show.

The man who stood before her had been an inmate, just like herself. Why was he here? Even as she asked herself the question, cold fear like spread in the hollow of her stomach, like melting ice. The small voice in her head was urging her to run. But how? Where? He was blocking her path to the stairs. The window was behind her.

She should not have come here alone. She wished she had taken Mrs. Bannister up on her offer to go with her, but too late now for second thoughts.

"All is forgiven, Caroline," he said, moving toward her. She recoiled instinctively, and he stopped, looking hurt. She could see him fighting his natural bent to rage. Slowly, the clenched fists relaxed and he smiled, a chilling smile. "It's my fault, I know. I shouldn't have waited so long, but I couldn't come for you until the time was right. You can see that, can't you? Did you like your Christmas gift, Caroline? I saw you admiring it in the store."

He'd been looking in the store window, watching her. He killed Natalie Breen and took the pin because he thought she wanted it. Oh, God. He was insane, a murderer. She had doomed that lovely woman to a terrible fate the instant she walked into her store.

He read her thoughts and his face darkened "She was giving your name out to strangers. I couldn't allow that."

"I understand. Please. I have to go now." She took a step to go past him, but he blocked her way.

"Don't make me angry at you, Caroline. I don't want to be angry with you. Believe me, you don't want me to be. Now listen to me. Those other women…I thought they were the right ones too, but I was wrong. They lied. They wanted to take love away, see, so I treated them like the whores they were. And I made sure they told no more lies. They deserved to die. My mother was a whore, you know."

He said this so matter-of-factly, he might have been telling her his mother knitted socks. She said nothing.

And then, suddenly, he slipped a hand under his jacket and withdrew a large knife from a sheath attached to his belt, and the saliva dried up in her throat and mouth. The curved blade gleamed in the cold milky light from the window and froze any words she might have uttered.

"You're not like that, are you, Caroline?" he asked in a deadly soft voice. "You wouldn't take love away."

"No, no, I wouldn't," she said, her voice a strangled whisper. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she knew he was a killer and that she had to be very careful of what she said and how she said it. But it was so hard to think with this din inside her skull, when everything in her wanted to run, screaming. But she knew she wouldn't get far before he plunged that knife into her.

"Good, Caroline. I knew you weren't like the others."

For some reason, she was remembering Harold telling her he was from some little place where the population was largely French. Information that might be helpful to her at some point, though she couldn't imagine how. She thought of William, who'd also been French. A man who'd been good and caring, and would never intentionally hurt anyone. This man before her was a monster. What had happened to him to twist him into this dark, fiendish creature who killed so easily.

Poor Natalie Breen. How frightened she must have been before he killed her. As frightened as I am now.

He had mentioned his mother, a woman for whom he held only disdain. What could she say that might connect with him? Yet she knew from experience it was possible to turn against one's parents. Maybe she would learn something that would save her. The knife gleamed dangerously in his hand.

She had to try.

"Does your mother still live in Petit Ridge?" she said, her mind suddenly throwing out the name of the place. It was merely a stall for time, time in which someone might come to her aid. But the hope was small.

At her question, a frown crossed his broad forehead. "How did you …? Ah, Harold. Of course. Well, never mind about my mother. Do you think I don't know what game you're playing, Caroline? You think you can outsmart me? Don't waste your time trying. I've had my head shrunk by the best of them. You're disappointing me. I thought you'd be different. I thought you'd understand."

"Really, it's not a game. You said she was a—a whore. Is that why you hate her?" She made her voice soft and caring, in the way that Lynne had so often spoken to her. If she could keep him talking, someone could still show up here, the owner or one of the workers. She let that small hope get bigger.

"My mother is dead. We have to go now, Caroline. Earl is waiting."

"Earl?" Who was Earl?

"Enough questions. The car is out front." He stepped aside to let her pass. "You go first. Don't try to run. If you do, you'll be sorry. Go on now. Walk ahead of me. And walk normally. Smile and talk as if we were old friends. Which we are, you know? We're destined to be together. You and me and Earl. A real family."

Fifty-Eight

Lynne drove slowly up Glendon Street, searching the houses for the one Caroline grew up in. She looked for number 264. There. There it is. She pulled up at the curb. Caroline shouldn't be alone to do this.

Seconds before, Lynne passed a grey Mustang going in the opposite direction, but had no way of knowing Caroline, who Danny had ordered to lie down in the seat, was in it and paid the car little attention. Mrs. Bannister gave her the address readily, even describing the place to her. She was concerned about Caroline, she said. She gone to exorcize old demons. The landlady was concerned about her. She wasn't alone.

Looking up at the house with its brown trim and gingerbread decoration, Lynne thought it had a definite charm. She noted the For Sale sign on the lawn. Caroline had come here to exorcize old demons. It was a good sign. But was she ready for the emotional impact stepping into the past would have on her? She'll handle it, Lynne told herself, but was glad she'd come just in case she needed moral support. Caroline was strong, but this would be tough for anyone who'd gone through what she had.

Lynne had a surprise for Caroline, her reason for dropping in on her this morning. She'd located the family that adopted Elizabeth. Oddly enough, they lived not that far from here. Being a psychiatric nurse gave her access to a couple of friends in important places. Not that she planned to do anything with the information, other than to tell Caroline that her daughter was well loved, and happy. She deserved that much, she thought, as she parked the car and got out.

Assuming Caroline had gotten permission from a real estate agent to go through the house, Lynne walked up to the front door. She rapped once and was about to knock again when the door creaked swung open. Strange.

She went inside. "Hello?" she called out, her voice creating a hollow sound the came back to her. She took another step and her eye caught the woman's leather glove on the foyer floor, palm up, slightly curled like a disembodied hand.

She bent down and picked it up, recognizing it at once as part of the pair she'd given Caroline for Christmas. She felt its buttery softness in her hand, looked inside to confirm the designer's name on the tag, along with the color midnight blue.

The silence of the house screamed at her. Caroline had grown up within these walls. How difficult it must have been for her to stand here, where I am now. All those memories must have come flooding back like a great tsunami.

Lynne went through to the kitchen, boots clicking hollowly on the floors. She felt the blast of cool air even before she noticed that the window was wide open. Who would leave a window open in January? Especially considering they were renovating.

A bad feeling began to niggle at her, just beneath her breastbone. She went into the living room. At the foot of the stairs, Lynne called up, "Caroline?" But only the echo of her voice in the empty house, answered.

She looked down at the two sets of damp footprints on the stairs. The smaller prints were quite clear, some covered by a larger set. Both coming and going. Had someone followed her here?

There were footprints in the foyer, too, but they could be anyone's. Obviously men had been working in here, and they might even have showed the house to prospective buyers while Caroline was here. But the niggling beneath her breastbone was becoming a very real fear.

She still held the glove in her hand and now she shoved it in her bag. The dropped glove was no small thing. It was a damn cold day and Caroline wouldn't have gotten far before realizing she had dropped it somewhere. She would have come back here to find it. She'd dropped it deliberately, hoping to provide a clue. The best she could do in her situation. What situation? came the ominous question. You're getting ahead of yourself. Quit it! She's probably home by now.

She remembered seeing a store on the corner. She drove back and phoned Caroline's number. The phone rang and rang. She finally hung up, thanked the clerk and left.

Lynne Addison sped through the streets of St. Simeon, heading for the police station. At the same time Art Lawrence, assistant baker at Big Bakery stood in the parking lot behind the old red brick building that had been there for fifty years, staring with a sick feeling at the empty space where his pride and joy, the '77 dark grey Mustang had been parked while he was away on Christmas vacation, in Hawaii.

Fifty-Nine

"You say this friend of yours, Marilyn …?"

"Caroline," she snapped at the policeman behind the desk. He had a blond crew cut and looked twelve. "Caroline Hill."

He raised an eyebrow at the sharpness of her tone. "Sorry. She's been missing for—less than an hour." He almost grinned at her and Lynne had to rein in her fury, and the urge to smack him, which wasn't likely to help her cause. She made herself calm down. She had broken all speeding records getting here, expecting to hear sirens behind her at any second. She was sweating under her coat, despite the cold day.