Dark Lie (9781101607084) (16 page)

He admitted, “I don't know what I expected to accomplish here.”

“Well, let's have a closer look.” Bert flicked the left blinker on, waited for a break in traffic, then turned into the narrow side street that ran beside the public phone. Past the first building he swung right into a gravel parking lot, where he stopped the Silverado. Turning it off, he got out.

Sam trudged after him, only marginally aware of the few other vehicles parked in the gravel lot, then the derelict building to his left as he headed diagonally across the street. Abandoned buildings made him feel depressed, the mess people made of them, breaking windows so they had to be boarded up with plywood, scrawling graffiti. . . . Sure enough, he saw graffiti printed on the concrete basement wall of this structure, but he turned his bleary gaze away.

He and Bert stepped up the curb and stopped at the yellow
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
tape. “Hey, Paula,” Bert said to the guard.

“Hey, Bert.” She barely looked at him.

“This is Mr. White.”

“Niceta meetcha.” She barely looked at Sam either. Sam took this as permission to pretend she wasn't there.

So did Bert, apparently, turning back to Sam. “Your wife's car was thereabouts,” he told him, sketching the positioning of the Kia with both hands swinging in air. “Like so, pointed thataway.”

“How the heck did it get up here on the sidewalk?”

“We don't know.”

Three times now Sam had heard Bert's gravelly voice say those words. He didn't like them. But he did like Bert's honesty. With mixed feelings he grumbled, “Well, at least you'll admit it.”

“First thing I learned as a cop. Know when you don't know.”

Sam stared at the cracks in the sidewalk. They told him nothing. He asked, “Is there anything we
do
know?”

“We know your wife's car was here. We presume she left it. But nobody's seen her that we've talked to. We knocked on doors for a block in every direction last night. Now the FBI's come in, they'll probably do it again.”

“They're here?”

“Heard it on the radio a little while back.”

“Where are they? What are they doing?”

He noticed that the impassive guard actually rolled her eyes, although she still didn't look at him.

The craggy old cop replied without expression, “They didn't consult me, but I can imagine. They're checking the bus station. Trying to get hold of the management of the local so-called airport and the guy who runs the taxi. Checking reports of stolen cars. Trying to figure where she went with the girl when her car failed.”

Sam burst out, “Dorrie is not a kidnapper! Why can't they get that through their heads?”

“They got hold of this thing by that end and—”

“But that's asinine! How did her car get so messed up? And why would she drive it over the curb and leave it on the corner?”

The old cop's scratchy voice kept getting lower. “Gotta admit it doesn't make much sense to me either.” Bert paused, then added gently, “Unless maybe somebody forced her off the road.”

Oh, God. Sam's breath stopped.

God, that was it. He'd grabbed her. The real kidnapper. The guy who had abducted the Phillips girl. The guy Dorrie was pursuing.

“No!” Explosively, Sam regained his breath. “No, that can't be it.” Shaking his head doggedly, Sam faced the gray-haired cop. “I mean, yes, it's a possibility, but there has to be some other . . .” Sam's frantic gaze caught on the pay phone. “Something happened to her phone. Maybe she wanted to use this one.”

“She could have just parked across the way like we did.”

Amazingly, the woman standing guard spoke. “That phone don't work. Hasn't worked for months.”

“Oh, for the love of mercy . . .” Scanning desperately, Sam focused on the boarded-up building across the street. He pointed. “Have you looked for her in there?”

“The old library?” Bert eyed it, chewing on his lower lip. “You'd practically need dynamite to get in there, they've got the old place sealed up so tight. The guys checked around, saw no signs of forcible entry.”

“So nobody could have gotten in there.”

“Nope. There's no access.”

TEN

Y
elling at Juliet, “Get the door!” I shoved our captor with all my might into the bathroom.

All my might doesn't amount to much, because lupus sabotages muscle tissue and also because, heck, I never had much upper-body strength to start with. Plus, this—this evil man whose name I knew but couldn't bear to acknowledge—He was solid. I didn't send Him flying. He took only one stumbling step inside the bathroom doorway before He turned on me with the knife, the white-hot fury in His face so incandescent it immobilized me. His uplifted knife might as well have been a sword of fire. Silver fire with a name. Pandora. Mother of all evil. In a moment I would die—

“Bitch!” He screamed, lunging to stab me.

And He slipped in the water under His feet.

He fell.

Whump.
With a splash, on His face in the water running over the floor. His knife flew into a corner. I heard His head hit the tile with a goodly whack.

And Juliet slammed the door just as I regained my wits and started to reach for it. I jammed the heavy bolt into place.

Juliet flung herself onto me, sobbing, arms around me in a tight hug.

My daughter. Hugging me.

Nothing had ever felt so good. And nothing had ever given me so much strength. In that moment I could have done anything. Anything. And would have, for her.

I patted her heaving shoulders. “We're not out of here yet, sweetie. Come on.” Already I heard Him stirring, swearing, floundering on the other side of the bolted door.

She heard too, and turned me loose. Grabbing her hand, I ran up the hallway to the back stairwell.

Her clunky shoes thunked, my sneakers thudded, echoes flew like bats in the darkness. We could see only dimly as we left the light from the bathroom transom behind us. We actually slammed into the barrier before we saw it.

“Ow!”

A wall rose where the doorway to the stairwell should have been.

A crude wall made of scrap lumber solidly screwed or nailed in place.

In that moment I knew we were still trapped.

We had to find a way out.

“About-face,” I tried to joke. We ran back past the bathroom, braving a nightmare clamor of pounding fists and barely human shouts. It was like dodging past the faceless monster in a very bad dream. Wincing, flinching, we ran away from threats distorted almost beyond understanding by rage.

“Should have knocked Him out,” I panted as we darted to the other end of the hallway.

Should have kicked Him unconscious, was what I should have done. Kicked Him in the chin. Or better yet, grabbed the heavy cover off a toilet tank and clobbered Him. Why had I lacked the good sense to beat His evil head in?

“. . . way we came in,” Juliet gasped over her shoulder, veering right as we came to the door of the room in which we'd been imprisoned.

Another dark, shabby hallway ran that way for maybe ten feet.

“It doesn't . . .” I was just about to say it didn't go anywhere when Juliet thudded around a corner into darkness.

“Damn!” she wailed as she banged up against another barrier. “Where's the knob?”

A door. Right. We'd come in this way. Through a door.

But it didn't feel like a door. It felt like a wall. A steely cold metal wall, impermeable, impregnable. I ran my hands all over it, standing on tiptoe, then crouching to the ground, and felt nothing except Juliet's searching hands bumping against mine. That, and the stark smooth metal under our fingertips, our palms.

In the bathroom, not nearly far enough away, our enemy's clamor changed shape, hardened like a flexed muscle, and focused into a single percussive blow. Rigid, I listened. There was a gathering silence, then another even harder
WHAM
, like a cannon firing.

“He's trying to kick the door down! Come on.” Clutching at Juliet, I ran back into the hateful room we'd started from. I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, blinking in the blaze of the electric light. Thank God He hadn't turned it off. Maybe too enraged to think of it. Or maybe the control was somewhere here in this room?

“Lock it!” Juliet cried. “Lock the door!”

“I don't know how. He's got it on some kind of remote control.” I limped a few steps and grabbed one end of the sofa. “Help me wedge this in front of it.”

Instantly she ran to the other end, put her shoulder to the sofa and heaved for all she was worth. She shoved that heavy thing in front of the door almost entirely by herself. My daughter. So quick, so strong.

Not like me. My strength had lasted only a moment. Now I felt as weak as the third cup of tea.

With the sofa in place, we stood panting and listening. Silence. Not a nice silence. Then
WHAM
down the hallway, and I heard the sound of shattering glass.

“He broke the transom!”

“The what?”

“The window thing over the—”

My flailing, drowning mind grabbed hold of something, I couldn't yet tell what, and I stood there with my mouth open.

“The bathroom
window
?” Juliet cried. “It's boarded over, and anyhow it's
way
too high to get out. Why did they have to make everything so
tall
?”

Window
.

That was the mental flotsam I was trying to grab.

I lurched into action, ordering, “Table. Quick!”

“Huh?”

“Table over there. Hurry.” I pointed toward the wall opposite the door, then found some strength again; I shoved the table there myself without waiting for her to help. I rammed it against the wall beneath the peephole.

I still didn't fully understand, but the peephole had to be connected to the hidden window somehow. I knew there used to be a window. Light in my face, affronting my guilty eyes as I lay on the sofa. Feet passing in the parking lot. I remembered now.

“Up,” I told Juliet. “On the table.” No way my disabled bulk could climb up there. “Hurry!”

Looking totally bewildered, my daughter climbed onto the table. As she knelt on top of it, I snatched the clunky shoes off her feet and handed one of them to her.

“Stand up, use that like a hammer—”

“Stinking bitches!” roared a crazed male voice right outside our door. “Dumb sluts! Pandora's going to butcher you!” Something, probably His foot, crashed against the wood. “Pandora's going to cut you bloody wide open and carve the dog parts out of you!”

Juliet went pale. “He's out,” she whispered.

“Listen to me,” I told her fiercely. “Hammer the paneling up there in the corner.”

As I pointed, the room light went out, leaving us in darkness thicker than fudge.

Juliet shrieked, then began to sob.

“Do it, girl!” I ordered, making my voice as commanding as I could. “Reach as high as you can and hit the wall as hard as you can. Now!”

She sure did. I heard that heavy clunky-heeled shoe whack like an ax, and with a stab of hope in my heart I heard wood splinter. The cheap paneling caved in. Daylight poured through the breach.

“Oh!” Juliet cried.

“Break through and get
out.
” I limped to the fridge, opened it, and grabbed a gun.

Whack, whack
—I heard Juliet striking at the paneling.
Hurry,
my mind prayed, but I couldn't spare time to glance back and see how she was doing. As I lifted the gun, the room's door opened a crack, pressing against the sofa, inching it forward.

With the pistol heavy and alien in my hand I flung my considerable weight against the sofa, trying to force the door closed again.

And I did it. Strength of panic. Safe. Safe for a moment. Door closed, blocked. Panting, I braced myself against the sofa, the gun I had appropriated sagging at my side as I swiveled, trying to face the enemy.

Whack
behind me, and a sound like angel bells, beautiful, glorious, the tinkle of glass breaking. Juliet had broken through the window—

Without even a yell or a curse for warning, the top of the door exploded in, shards of wood flying like bomb shrapnel. Over the top of the sofa my dream nightmare man came flying, shoulders first, smashing into me—incidentally, I think, because I happened to be in the way. I landed butt first on my back, my breath knocked out, seeing without quite understanding as He somersaulted to His feet, lunged at Juliet, grabbed her by the ankles, and flung her off the table.

She hit the floor headfirst.

I staggered to my feet and pointed my gun at Him. “Stop it!” I yelled.

He gave me that wooden look. “Dumb fuck,” He said, striding toward me, “you don't know how to use that.”

He was right, of course. My hand shook so badly I was afraid I'd hit Juliet if I fired at Him. But on TV guns were magic, right? Shoot one and everybody got scared and scuttled away except the police, who came running. I pointed the pistol in a vaguely upward direction, closed my eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

Click. Nothing happened.

I opened my eyes to find His face inches from mine, His glare freezing me witless. He grabbed the pistol by the barrel and wrenched it away from me. In the same swift movement He clobbered me on the head with the handle. Hard. Knocked me out.

* * *

“I'm sorry I dragged you out here,” Sam said as he and the craggy old cop walked back toward the parking lot where they'd left the Silverado. “I don't know what I expected to prove.”

The old guy gave him a wry look. “Nobody expects you to prove a thing. That's the FBI's job.”

“Just the same, I'm wasting your time.”

“What else would I be doing, making coffee?”

Sam sensed that the safest response would be not to respond. In silence he and the gray-haired officer crunched across the gravel back to the pickup truck.

Opening the passenger's-side door, Sam got in. Outside the day was turning sunny and fine, but in Sam's mind the weather was a snowing, freezing blank. He couldn't see farther than his next step—the old cop would drive him back to the Appletree police station, and after that, he just wanted to lie down and give in. Escape from this all-too-real nightmare. Sleep and never wake up.

As he sat in the car, blearily gazing at the hulking derelict that had once been a nice solid brick building, his glance caught once again on the graffiti. Too tired and discouraged to turn away, he automatically read:

CANDY GOT LAID HERE

Sam sat bolt upright, all thoughts of stopping, rest, and sleep forgotten. “Officer Bert,” he whispered to the man getting into the driver's seat next to him.

“Just call me Bert. I'm no proper cop anymore.”

CANDY GOT LAID HERE. That was what it said. Sam's nightmare had just worsened in a way, but in another way things were turning around. He had something solid to grab hold of now.

“Officer Bert,” he repeated without taking in a word the other man was saying, “who wrote that?”

“Who wrote what?”

Sam pointed. “Candy got . . .” He couldn't say the rest of it.

“Now, that's interesting.” Bert settled behind the steering wheel with the air of a man in no hurry. “That there particular message,” he drawled in his gravelly baritone, “has been in place for close to twenty years. The library staff scrubbed it off and within a day somebody painted it back on. They painted over it, painted the whole damn foundation, and within a couple days again somebody wrote it back on. They painted over it again and hired a guard and still somebody wrote it back on. And so it went for five, ten years. The library board won't admit it, but the scuttlebutt around town is that graffiti drove them out of this building.”

“But—who—”

“Nobody knows who put it there or who keeps putting it there and nobody has a clue who Candy is or—”

Sam whispered, “My wife.”

“—or was—” Bert stopped short, gawking at Sam.

Only marginally aware of the old cop's surprise, Sam found himself stumbling out of the pickup. As if drawn by a skewed gravitational force, he trudged past the few other vehicles parked in the lot, stopping when he reached the looming brick building. Almost close enough to spit on it, he took in the basement wall's message again, letter by letter.

CANDY GOT LAID HERE

Mostly numb, Sam began to feel anger stirring like molten lava in his core. At first he didn't recognize the fiery earthquake feeling, for Sam seldom became angry, and never had he felt such marrow-deep wrath at anyone. Then he comprehended, and focused: What bastard had written this thing? How could the man be human? How could anyone of humankind have done this to Dorrie? Okay, he knew now that Dorrie hadn't been a virgin when he'd married her, and he knew that, given some time to chew on the facts and swallow them and digest them, he could accept that some boy had made love to Dorrie and given her a baby. Heck, every boy who'd ever known Dorrie should have fallen in love with her.

Or—suppose it wasn't love. Okay, Sam considered that, again, given time, he could probably even accept—no, not accept really, but understand—if some young Romeo had found Dorrie physically attractive and had persuaded her to have casual sex with him. A teenager, either gender, is pretty much a mess of hormones sneaking around on uncertain feet. Nobody could blame Dorrie for wanting to find out what it was all about. With some boy, okay, Sam could handle that concept.

But this . . . this indecent braggadocio . . .

CANDY GOT LAID HERE

“
What
did you say?” asked a hushed, gravelly voice by Sam's side.

Sam had to shut his eyes for a moment before he managed to voice it again, rather harshly. “I said, my wife.”

* * *

“. . . now my whole freaking day is freaking ruined. It was supposed to be perfect, don't you understand, Candy baby. First the sugar and then the strawberries and then the cherry and finally the chocolate and the red red syrup running together, perfect and beautiful and tragic like in a movie, but the silly Candy girl had to go and break my lightproofing and my spy periscope and my window and now the way things are supposed to go is just all freaking fucked-up and little baby Candy has to sit in the corner while I get rid of dumb-ass Marie, it's all her fault. My sweet Candy girl wouldn't have done a single bad
thing
to my spy periscope if that ugly bitch hadn't butted her fat nose in. Now, silly Candy girl, just sit back and take a rest, hold still . . .”