Endless Fear (35 page)

Children had the oddest sense of indestructibility. She had no real idea how dangerously high these cliffs were, no concept of erosion. If something looked solid, it was. God, they might have lost her, too, he reflected, shivering at the thought. “Are you cold, twerp?”

“
Nope.” She strode ahead with all the aplomb of her seven years. The group followed at a solemn clip.

Nearing their destination, Spencer was struck by an unwelcome memory. This weather, like a bad omen, was unerringly similar to the dark stormy day that had been Lily’s last. Sweat dampened his chilled flesh. Of all the details he couldn’t bury about that dreadful day, why had one he’d completely forgotten come to haunt him now? He had no answer, only gut wrenching dread.

Five feet from the precipice, he signaled for everyone to halt. Squatting, he asked July, “Where was the earring?”

She scanned the cliff in both directions, seemed to visually measure the distance from the house, then shrugged at Spencer. “I think it was right there.” Her finger was aimed at a disturbed section of ground directly in front of them, but her face was twisted in confusion. “I left Barbie to mark the spot. Where is she?”

The doll was missing as surely as April. Spencer wanted to rush to the ledge, but made himself deal with July first. He gave her a hug, then set her away from him. “You’ve been a big help. I want you to stay back with Mom now. Okay?”

Her lower lip trembled, but July nodded and retreated into her mother’s waiting arms. Tension hung in the air as thick as the fog that had kept them from this moment throughout the night. The women stood back. The men proceeded to the precipice.

“
Spread out,” August instructed. He knelt and inched close to the edge. The others duplicated his moves. “Watch your footing. It looks to be eroded along here.”

As if to stress this, a clod of soil beneath Walter O’Brien’s shoe fell away, unbalancing him. He swore and scooted backward.

“
Careful…” August warned.

Like a marine in a battle zone, Spencer dropped to his belly. The leather strap of the binoculars dug into his nape, the glasses themselves jabbed against his chest. He pulled them free and snaked forward on ground that felt something like spongy sandpaper. Pebbles rattled down the bluff.

Taking a deep breath, he stretched his neck over the lip of the cliff. His eyes slammed shut. He was terrified to look, more terrified not to. Wet earth and brine invaded his nostrils as the roar of the surf reached up and hammered against his ears. How often in his life had these smells and sounds lent him comfort? Not now. For the first time, these natural phenomena failed to ease his distress.

Bracing himself, he lifted his eyelids and scanned the rocky shore below. He saw rocks and water and two wheeling gulls, but no human body. Breath exited his burning lungs with a sputter.

Karl was to his right, and Spencer now noticed that a bushy fir tree seemed to completely block his view of the shore. He started to assure Karl there was no sign of April when the man turned puzzled blue eyes to him and pointed to the fir. “Whaddaya make of this?”

He’d spoken so softly Spencer doubted anyone else had overheard. Belly-crawling closer to Karl, he trained the binoculars on the tree. Its branches had fresh breaks and a few of its roots were partially dislodged as though something—or someone—had tugged or clung hard enough to the tree to cause this damage. April. With his heart contracting he glanced at Karl and could tell he had come to the same conclusion.

Fear battered Spencer’s soul as he slowly played the field glasses across the roiling waters below.

From his position just beyond Karl, Thane shouted, “Hey, that looks like a ledge down there. And there’s something white on it.”

“
Barbie!” July shouted.

The ground shook with running feet.

Spencer felt his heart leap.

Heard his mother yell, “July, no!”

He whirled around in time to see the child sprinting toward Thane.

As Spencer scrambled to his feet, Karl lunged for her and missed. She darted too close to the bluff. Rocks rumbled downward. Horrified gasps rent the windy air, and everyone seemed to move at once.

A split second later, a wild-eyed Cynthia grasped the child by the shoulders and hauled her away from the bluff. “July Margaret Farraday, don’t you ever do that again!” she reprimanded with a quavering, breathless voice that parroted the terrified murmurs of all present.

Now everyone hastened to Thane. Spencer reached him first. His heartbeat was as quick as July had been a moment before. He dropped to the ground and again stretched out on his stomach. “Karl, Thane, grab my legs. I want a better look at that ledge.”

He lifted the binoculars and peered through them, concentrating on the face of the cliff. What little light there was originated at his back and altered the true character of the rocky wall. Shadows adopted false depths, and the last vestiges of the blanketing fog darted like teasing fan dancers, blurring and obstructing the thing he most wanted to see. He shifted positions several times.

Gripping the metal tighter, he attempted to stifle the frustration needling him, but only managed to pain the tender flesh circling his eyes. He was about to give up when a break in the cloud cover released a shaft of light. At last. He craned his neck for a better look. There, in the center of the round magnified lens, he spotted the doll.

“
It’s Barbie, all right,” he told the men. “And she’s definitely on a shelf of some kind.” After endless hours of desolation, Spencer felt a stirring of hope. April was not there, but this ledge would have supported her.

August squatted beside his shoulder. “Do you think it’s an entrance to one of the tunnels?”

He sat up and shakily handed the glasses to his stepfather. “You tell me.”

August wasted no time joining him on the ground, employing the binoculars.

Spencer felt a panic like claustrophobia. The wind wasn’t strong enough to steal his breath, and yet, he found it difficult to fill his lungs. Perhaps, he rationalized, the odd sensation arose from the close proximity of the group; everyone seemed to be huddled around August and him like sheep waiting to be shorn.

“
Yes, by God!” August’s shout startled him. “It is one of the original entrances to the caverns. And look…!” He grasped Spencer tightly around the neck, stuffed the binoculars into his palm, and pointed to the ledge. “Right next to the doll. Is that what I think it is?”

Spencer held the field glasses in a death grip and perused the area around the doll. Suddenly, a glint of light winked at him. He blinked. His hand stilled. He could barely believe his eyes—it looked like… A shuddery laugh escaped as he lowered the glasses and turned a hope-filled gaze toward his stepfather.

“
Is it…?”

“
I’d swear…”

“
Do you think it means…?”

For a moment all Spencer could do was nod. Then standing, he dragged his stepfather up with him. “Pray it does, August. Pray it does.”

“
For heaven’s sake, will the two of you tell us what you’ve found?”

At the sound of his mother’s voice, Spencer cocked his head toward her. She had stepped forward, away from July, away from the huddled group. Her face was as ashen as the sky.

For the first time since this ordeal had begun, a grin parted Spencer’s lips. “It looks like April’s other earring.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Everyone spoke at once. Voices collided in surprise, then speculation tempered with hope. For all but one, the discovery of April’s second earring was good news. For that person the find caused shock, then apprehension spiked with panic.

No! No! April couldn’t be alive wandering around in the caverns leading to Calendar House, perhaps making her way at this very moment into the basement, perhaps remembering. Have to get back. Have to stop her.

But…running ahead of the others would be a mistake—an open admission of guilt.

Must calm down. Must think.

The person inhaled slowly and deeply, then exhaled with restraint, all the while watching the others. No one had moved toward the house yet. Indeed, most appeared to not fully comprehend the meaning of the earring on the ledge. Absorbing this fact brought a lessening of tension, a sharpening of reason.

Need a head start. The woods are less than twenty feet away. And…not a soul has counted heads. In all this confusion I could surely make it to the cover of the trees and return undetected.
Without another thought, the person edged to the rear of the group, dashed into the woods, and headed for the house.

No one knows the passageways like me. They’ll waste precious seconds in that black maze. By the time they discover the right tunnel, it’ll all be over.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“
Daddy is April in one of the smuggler’s tunnels?” July’s expression was a tangle of hope and excitement.

August squatted before his young daughter and pulled her onto his lap. “Maybe…”

Spencer ignored the note of caution in his stepfather’s tone, ignored the warning voice inside his own head. The hell with not getting his hopes up, they were already lifting with frightening speed. April
had
to be in the caverns. She
had
to be alive. “Let’s go find her.”

Within seconds, they were hastening enmasse toward the house.

August strode beside Spencer, his face crinkled in thought. After a moment he said, “We’ll need crowbars to pry the boards off the tunnel accesses.”

“
Not necessary.” Spencer informed him. “Last night, Thane and I found a cave opening that isn’t boarded up.”

“
What?” August jerked to a stop. His brows dipped incredulously. “Are you certain?”

His surprise struck Spencer as being completely genuine, and he realized he had never really considered August capable of doing April harm. Urging him to continue walking, Spencer quickly and quietly explained discovering the blanket-covered cave access.

The only thing that kept August from stopping again was Spencer tugging him along. He sputtered, “W…what’s going on?”

Spence shrugged. He had his suspicions, but now was not the place, nor the time to share them. The wrong person might overhear.

Plus, August was too worried about his elder daughter to have to reckon with the fact that someone in the household may have tried to kill her. Let them find April first, then they could deal with the rest.

“
We’ll still need the crowbars. I’m not certain all the accesses lead to the same outlet. We can’t be sure she’s in the cavern you and Thane explored.”

August consigned the task of securing the right tools to Karl.

“
I’ll help you get the stuff.” Thane volunteered. “Come on. We can cut across to the tool shed from here.” The two men set off at a run.

As the others neared Calendar House minutes later, Spencer realized he was not going to be able to put off telling August about his call to the Sheriff. Sitting on the porch steps were a man and a woman. He didn’t know either. The man, however, was easily identifiable in his San Juan County Sheriff’s uniform. As she rose and brushed at the seat of her brown corduroy pants, Spencer guessed the female might be April’s psychiatrist, Nancy Merritt.

“
Dr. Merritt,” August confirmed, stepping toward the couple. He glanced at the deputy with lifted brows. “Murphy, what are you doing here?”

Before Deputy Murphy could answer, the doctor asked, “Has April been found?”

“
No yet,” Spencer answered impatiently. He felt like a race horse being held at the gate against his will.

Forcing a polite smile, he introduced himself to the doctor, a thin woman, plain by nature and design. Her brown hair was cropped around her face as unattractively as a stocking cap, but, for all their lack of enhancement, hers were the warmest brown eyes Spencer had ever encountered. “We have reason to believe April is in one of the several old tunnels that extend from beneath the house to the cliffs beyond. We’re going there now.”

“
By all means,” Dr. Merritt said. “Let’s proceed.”

But the deputy wasn’t about to be shuffled aside. “Mr. Garrick.” He cut in front of Spencer, glanced down at a notepad, then up. “I’ll take it this April is the same missing person you called in about.”

Spencer felt his mouth go dry. The last thing he wanted to do right now was answer any of this man’s questions. “Yes,” he said, dodging to one side of the guy in hopes of getting past him.