Cold Heart (35 page)

The day was warm and golden. The air was redolent with balsam fir and lilacs, just beginning to flower. A pair of robins performed a mating dance on the lawn near her storage shed. One of those perfect spring days that made Maine winters bearable.

One year ago she had been right here. Down on her knees in the dirt. A sudden inexplicable sense of doom had overcome her and she had risen to her feet and raced to the front of the house, calling Zach's name.

On the grass at the edge of the lawn, where the ground dipped into the roadside drainage ditch, lay Zach's baseball bat. His baseball was never recovered.

She opened her shed and discovered her tool bucket just inside the door. Carrying it to the center of her garden, she slipped on her kneepads and knelt. The familiar position and the smell of damp earth revitalized her. But at the same time the familiar scent threatened her determination. She took out her garden claw and scratched at the weeds that were making inroads into her carefully planted perennials.

She stared at the tines of the claw as they traced finger patterns in the dark soil, as though the tool were guided by someone else's hand. Suddenly her determination to break free of her mental prison was shattered by fear and grief.

What am I doing here?

How could I possibly come back to this place?

She bore down on the tool, burying it deeply, jerking it along. The rasping sound grated on her ears.

I'm here because I have to be.

Because if I wander aimlessly through the house for one more minute, I'll go mad.

Because if I don't come out here and do this then Zach's kidnaper wins.

Because then the son of a bitch takes both my son and my life.

Wasn't that what Richard was trying to do as well? Beat Zach's kidnaper? Beat him by burying himself in his work every day? Beat him by having another child?

Audrey couldn't bear that thought.

Even if another baby wasn't a betrayal of Zach, how could she possibly consider having another child? How would she ever keep him safe?

One year today.

She remembered Zach cavorting around her that day. He was more full of life than any six-year-old should be. Shouting and tumbling. Grass stains on his T-shirt. Sunlight glinting in his eyes. The yard barely contained his exuberance. She and Zach were impossibly close, even for a mother and son. She always sensed when he needed her. When he awakened in the night. With each passing day their closeness had grown and evolved until Zach had often finished her sentences for her.

The vision of another child flashed through her mind.

She blinked.

The image was gone as quickly as it appeared but its shadow hung just behind her eyes. It was a picture of herself at the age of nine or ten. Bright blue eyes and a cockeyed smile. She was holding a small doll in her hands as though in offering.

Suddenly, like a knife, jagged pain slashed through her abdomen. Lightning struck, blazing outward in fingers of golden fire.

She clutched at her belly. Her teeth chattered. Her hands shook where they grasped her light cotton blouse. She struggled to get to her feet, then decided against it, digging her kneepads into the soft loam of her garden instead.

The agony was volcanic. Intense. It electrified every nerve ending in her body. Sparked her synapses like strands of flickering lights on a Christmas tree. The pain flowed over and through her. Minutes later, when it finally drained away, she was weak as a kitten. She clutched her arms tightly about her, like a long distance runner fighting a cramp.

The day seemed dimmer, out of focus.

What the hell was that?

Never in her life had she experienced such pain. Not even during childbirth. And the pain had struck so suddenly, out of the blue.

What in the world could have caused it?

Just as she began to relax from the first attack, another wall of flame crashed down upon her. Pain raged through her like an out-of-control fever. The agony was a chemical explosion that erupted inside her body and burned its way out through her skin.

She glanced frantically at the unplanted earth, wondering if she should lie down and hope for the terrible seizures to pass.

Dare she do that?

No.

Maybe something was horribly wrong inside. Maybe she was bleeding internally or something had ruptured.

She needed help.

She remembered the birthing techniques she had learned years before. She took short, shallow breaths and tried to relax.

After an eternity, the second attack passed. She struggled to her feet and stumbled across the lawn toward the door, praying to get inside before another blast of pain struck.

She was halfway up the back stoop when the agony lashed her yet again. Worse than the first two. Much worse.

Her fingernails clawed the wood banister. The muscles in her arms tightened into steel bands. She doubled over. Her cheek rested on the splintery stair rail, one foot on the landing, one on the top step. She eyed the door, only two paces away.

Her body shook so violently she was afraid she might collapse in a heap of boneless jelly. But as the pain eased once more, she staggered into the house.

She dragged a kitchen chair over to the wall phone, not wanting to be caught standing when the next attack struck. She knew more were coming.

She grabbed the phone and pressed the autodial button for Richard's office. He answered on the third ring.

“Help me. Oh, God, it hurts so bad” was all she managed before the next wave of pain thundered over her and left her moaning into the receiver. She heard Richard, as though from a great distance. Telling her that he was on his way. That he was calling the hospital.

The phone crashed to the floor.

The pain rose inside her. It swelled like a molten rush of lava. Burned its way through her, singed her body, torched her soul.

As the wave crested, she drifted far away, deep down inside herself. Reality dissolved into thin echoes of sound and sunlight and the surflike pounding of her heart. She thought she heard, for just an instant, a child's voice.

And the sound of a child's feet, pattering along.

She opened her eyes but she was alone.

She didn't know if she had been delirious for minutes or hours. But the sun hadn't moved and neither Richard nor the paramedics had arrived. And the pain didn't seem to have lessened all that much.

What was that voice she'd heard?

She closed her eyes and clasped both hands again across her belly. She drew her knees up to her chest, her feet rested on the edge of the chair.

Pattering feet again.

The voice.

And then darkness.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

COLD HEART

A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2002 by Chandler McGrew

Map copyright © 2002 by Hadel Studio.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-48084-2

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