Rude Awakening (15 page)

I decided I couldn't stay in the house any longer. So, putting Anthony in charge of ‘headquarters', now my house atop Mountain Falls Road, I got in my Jeep and started driving. I wasn't sure where I was going, but anywhere was better than hanging around Clovis Pettigrew. I admit to feeling a bit of shame for leaving my wife there with her, but not enough to stop me.

I called Charlie Smith on my cell phone. ‘How's it going?' he said when he answered, having seen my name on the caller ID, I reckoned. You just can't sneak up on a person anymore.

‘Same-o, same-o,' I said. ‘Except Clovis Pettigrew showed up at my house and sorta took over.'

‘That's Dalton's mama, huh?' Charlie said. ‘Haven't had the pleasure.'

‘
Pleasure
,' I said, tasting the word in my mouth. ‘Not a word one would associate with Clovis Pettigrew.'

Charlie laughed. ‘I sorta heard that.' Sobering, he said, ‘What can I do here to help?'

I shook my head. ‘Hell if I know. Come morning, I'm calling in the state police and maybe the FBI.'

‘You called in an Amber Alert?' he asked.

‘Yes,' I said, probably a little testily. I mean, I'm not a total dullard. Changing the subject because I didn't have much more in the way of news about any of my missing people, I said, ‘You know that guy you were telling me about who died cleaning the bathroom for his wife?'

‘Yeah, real shame,' Charlie said.

‘I got to remembering I had something similar to that about fifteen years ago over in Bishop,' I told him. ‘Lady reported her husband was unconscious, got there and he was dead as a doornail. Seemed he'd mixed Clorox and ammonia while cleaning a small half bath downstairs. No window. That's what this was, right? Bleach and ammonia?'

‘Yeah, that's weird. But I guess it happens. Just goes to prove that cleaning is a woman's job,' Charlie said and laughed.

‘No shit. But try proving that to your wife.'

‘Well, at the moment I got Luanne convinced I'm either too tired or too stupid to do anything more than play with the kids. We'll see how long I can keep that going.'

I shook my head. Lucky bastard. That's the thing about being married to a psychiatrist. She rarely, if ever, buys that B.S.

He had to do something, he knew that, but he didn't know what. Chasing that stupid girl and the boy through the woods had proved to be a little more than he could handle. Even that stupid girl had been able to either outrun or outwit him. Something else that could be laid at the feet of Jean MacDonnell. He had been very sharp eight years before. Sharp enough to have outwitted a four-year-old boy and a girl dumb enough to think she could have an acting career in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for God's sake.

He threw his flashlight across the barn, hitting a bale of hay; the lack of breaking glass and cracking plastic did little to appease his current mood. He wanted to kill something, and he couldn't even kill a damn flashlight.

Charlie checked on the whereabouts of his officers, then sat back down and got to thinking about what Milt said. How could two men
accidentally
kill themselves in
exactly
the same way? He wondered what the statistics were on people killing themselves by mixing ammonia and bleach.

He didn't want to go home, not with this poor little kid on the loose somewhere, but he really didn't see what he could do to help. Maybe if he went by the sheriff's office, he could find something to do to help out. Or maybe he could get into Milt's records and look up that old accident.

Mary Ellen came to. There were stars above her, a sliver of moon half-hidden by a cloud. Very pretty, she thought, as she lay there staring upward. It took a full few minutes before she began to wonder why she was laying on hard ground and looking up at the sky.

When she looked around, she realized that she was on a small, rocky precipice overlooking a much longer drop in to, as far as Mary Ellen could see in the darkness, a black abyss. Then the sounds of the waterfall penetrated her brain and she realized where she was: somewhere between the cliff and the pool of water at the bottom of the waterfall. Mary Ellen smiled. She was balanced in space, halfway between earth and Heaven.

She tried to push herself up with her right hand and groaned, landing back on the ground. Her right hand wouldn't support her, and the pain caused by leaning on it brought a clarity to Mary Ellen's brain that she hadn't felt in some time. And, with that clarity, she was able to say quite clearly and succinctly, ‘Well, shit.'

When, for the third time, he passed the tree with the knothole that looked like Richard Nixon's profile, Dalton decided that he might be going in circles. He'd been a Boy Scout, almost made it to Eagle Scout, and normally he'd have done fine getting lost in the woods. But that was only if he had on his own pants, the ones with his keys on the key chain with the mini compass. The pants he was wearing certainly didn't have a compass. Checking out the pockets, he found two fuzzy wintergreen Life Savers, a ticket stub to the ‘Way off Broadway' production of
Die Hard: The Musical
, and what appeared to be a grocery list, consisting of bread, Boone's Farm apple wine, cheese, Bud Light, aspirin, Ripple and Alka-Seltzer. Dalton wondered if Luther, the former owner of the pants, had a drinking problem.

He was leaning against Richard Nixon's profile when he heard it. A slithering sound. A sneaky sound. Dalton whirled around, reaching for a sidearm that wasn't there.

Emil picked up his cell phone and dialed Jean's number. She answered. ‘I decided to kill the boy. When I found out he wasn't yours—' he started.

‘No, please!' she said on the other end.

‘Already done,' Emil said. ‘Now I'm coming for
your
son. After that, who knows? Your husband? Who else do you love, Jean MacDonnell? I'll be glad to kill them all!'

When I got home, all hell had broken loose. Seemed that the kidnapper had called again, but he didn't stay on the line long enough to trace it. Jean was hysterical, sitting on the couch crying and being held by Clovis Pettigrew. Now that's a sight I never thought I'd see. Anne Louise was on the other side of Jean, patting her back and looking ineffectual, a look not common for her. DeSandra was pacing in front of the fireplace and talking to herself.

I'd left Anthony Dobbins in charge, and he was now standing in the doorway to the living room, trying not to watch what was transpiring inside.

‘What's going on?' I asked him.

‘Ah, we got a call, Sheriff,' answered Anthony.

‘The kidnapper?' I asked, surprise evident in my voice. I really had thought that the first call was a prank.

‘Yes, Sir.'

‘What'd he say?' I asked.

Anthony looked into the living room and didn't say anything.

‘Anthony?' I asked again, ‘What did the man say?'

My deputy sighed and then looked at me, more at my mouth than at my eyes. I've never known Anthony to not look me in the eye.

‘Anthony?' I said again.

‘He said he killed the boy, Sheriff,' Anthony said softly.

My gut clenched up bad. I thought I was gonna be sick. Pulling myself together, I asked, ‘Where's the body?'

Anthony shook his head. ‘He didn't say. He just said . . . Well, Sir, he said he was coming for your boy next. And then you. Seems he's really got it in for your wife, Sir. He said he'd kill anyone she was close to.'

I walked into the living room and pulled Jean out of the clutches of the well-meaning women. She threw her arms around my neck and I held her like I'd never held her before. To Anthony, I said, ‘Go get my boy. Bring him down here. Then nobody goes anywhere, understand?'

‘Yes, Sir,' Anthony said, then took the stairs two at a time.

I knew from her file that her blindness had been the psychological result of trauma as a young child. She'd seen her mother in bed with another man and, like the rock opera
Tommy,
she'd been told she'd seen nothing. And, from that day on, she didn't. Dr Hawthorne had brought this out, but by the age of fourteen, the damage to the eye muscles was permanent, and even with extreme exercises she was only able to get back a bit of her sight. Looking at her now, I could only assume that the thick glasses were the positive end result of her time with Dr Hawthorne. But I wondered what else had transpired in that two-year period? Was there a negative end result as well?

Milt had gone home by the time Charlie got to the sheriff's office. Gladys was still there, as well as Lonnie Sturgis, both on the phones. Charlie went back to the interrogation room, which also served as Milt's file room. The files were never locked, unless they were holding someone for interrogation. One thing about Miss Gladys, Charlie thought, the woman does know how to run a filing system: in chronological
and
alphabetical order. Milt had said the case was from fifteen years back, so Charlie went back eighteen, just to be on the safe side. He had no name, so the alphabetical system didn't do him any good. He pulled up a chair from the interrogation table and set to work.

Dalton whirled around, toward the sound of whatever it was in the bushes, wishing like hell he had his sidearm, which was currently safe in the locked glove compartment of his car, in a parking lot somewhere in Tulsa.

He crouched by the tree and began to pray.

Holly and Eli snuck through the brush; Holly bent over, Eli holding her hand for dear life. Holly could feel his little body shaking as they approached the clearing from where they'd heard Eli's mother's name called.

Sticking their heads through the brush and into the clearing, they heard a scream. They both screamed back.

NINE

D
alton stopped screaming when the apparitions
started
screaming. He stood up and the apparitions stopped screaming as well, before a small voice said, ‘Unca Dalton?'

In a daze, Dalton walked forward and Eli burst out from the bushes to fling himself at his uncle. Reflexively, Dalton picked up his nephew in his arms, holding him tight. Behind him, a young woman stood up, a menacing look on her face. ‘Who are you? Let go of him!'

‘He's my unca Dalton!' Eli shouted and then started to gasp for breath.

Holly rushed toward him and handed him his inhaler.

‘Who are you?' Dalton demanded.

‘Are you part of the rescue team?' Holly asked.

‘What rescue team?' Dalton asked.

‘Weren't you looking for us?'

‘I don't even know who you are. And what are you doing with my nephew? Where's Mary Ellen?' Dalton demanded. ‘Where's Rodney?'

‘Who's Rodney?' Holly asked.

Dalton put his nephew's feet back on the ground, his hand resting on the boy's shoulder, holding him close. ‘If you ask another question, I'm going to shoot you,' he said. ‘Now,
you
answer
my
questions. I'm a duly appointed deputy in Prophesy County and
I
ask the questions!'

‘Like hell you do!' Holly said, hands on hips. ‘How do I know you're really related to Eli? You could be part of Mr Smith's gang! Eli, come here!'

‘Eli, stay!' Dalton said. ‘Who's Mr Smith? Never mind that, who are you?'

Eli pulled away from his uncle, planted his feet firmly on the ground and moved his arms like an umpire yelling safe; instead, Eli yelled, ‘Stop!'