Nightshade (39 page)

THOUGH THE TV was on, Dan Pullman was neither watching it nor listening to the vacuously pretty blonde who was earnestly reporting the news of a low-sodium diet in the same solemn tones in which she’d discussed a plane crash a few moments earlier. Instead, the police chief’s attention was fixed on the special edition of the
Granite Falls Ledger
that had been on his doorstep when he arrived home ten minutes ago. Most of the front page was taken up by an unsigned piece, obviously written by Gerry Conroe, suggesting that if the local police were unable to solve the disappearances of both Emily Moore and Kelly Conroe within the next twenty-four hours, it would be time “to look to new leadership at our police department.” The
Ledger
was certainly keeping accounts tonight, Pullman thought sourly. Why not just demand that he resign right now and be done with it?

His phone rang as he tossed the paper aside, and for a moment he was tempted to ignore it; Heather’s friends knew better than to call on his line, and if it were something important from the department, the message would come over the radio that sat on the end table next to his recliner. When the phone rang at his house, it was usually either someone calling to criticize something he’d done, or to demand that he deal with a situation that was beyond the purview of his department. On the other hand, he knew there was a remote possibility that this particular call might be from someone as fed up with Gerry Conroe as he was, and phoning to offer support. Which wasn’t really fair, he silently chided himself as he reached for the receiver. This time, at least, Conroe had a legitimate reason to be unreasonable.

“Hello?”

“Becky’s gone, Dan.” The man at the other end of the line spoke only the three words, but Dan recognized Frank Adams’s voice at the first syllable. Frank had been his best friend since they’d had a fight in second grade, and hardly a day had gone by since then that they hadn’t talked to each other.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Dan said.

Frank Adams reconstructed the fight Becky had with her mother. “I’m not going to pretend Becky hasn’t ever taken off before,” he said. “She has, and frankly, there have been times when I couldn’t blame her. God knows I’ve wanted to take off myself plenty of times over the years. But before, she’s always cooled off in an hour or so and come back home. You know Becky — she’s a good kid, but she doesn’t have a lot of friends. The only place I thought that she might go was out to the Hapgoods’ to see Matt.”

“Did you call there?” Dan asked.

“That’s why I’m calling you. Joan said she hasn’t seen Becky, but she also told me that Matt’s not there. And after what happened to Kelly Conroe . . .” Frank Adams’s voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to finish his sentence for his friend to get the message.

“Frank, there’s absolutely no hard evidence that Matt’s done anything wrong. Just a lot of gossip and innuendo, and people wanting quick answers.”

It occurred to him to give Frank the same speech he’d given Gerry Conroe last night, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Frank Adams wasn’t Gerry Conroe, and in all the years he’d been running the Granite Falls police department, Frank had never presumed on their friendship for any kind of favor. Once, he’d even insisted on being given a speeding ticket Tony Petrocelli was about to tear up on the basis of his friendship with the chief. “You do that, and I’ll report you to Dan myself,” Frank warned Petrocelli. Though Frank had never told Dan about the incident, Petrocelli had.

“Let me make a few calls, and see what I can find out,” Pullman said now.

“I know I shouldn’t be calling you yet — ” Frank began.

“You shouldn’t call your best friend when your daughter’s missing?” Pullman cut in. “If that’s all you think of me, maybe I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” He started to hang up, then added one more word, just to let Frank know he wasn’t really mad at him: “Jerk!”

“Asshole,” Frank replied, just as he had since the fight in second grade.

Both men hung up, and Pullman immediately picked up the phone and dialed Joan Hapgood’s number.

*                                     *                                     *

CYNTHIA WAS JUST pouring herself a glass of Bill’s favorite sherry — something Joan had always declined when he’d offered it — when the phone rang. For a moment Cynthia was tempted to ignore it; she hadn’t liked the way Frank Adams spoke to her when he called a few minutes ago, and had no wish to speak to him again. He hadn’t been rude, precisely, but she heard an accusatory note in his voice. Still, if she didn’t answer, he might take it into his head to drive out here, which appealed to her even less than speaking to him on the phone. She picked up the receiver on the fourth ring, and was careful to keep her voice neutral. Not cold, but not overly friendly either. “Hello?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then: “Joan?”

Not Frank Adams.

Reaching into her sister’s memory, Cynthia quickly identified the voice of the police chief. “Oh dear, Dan,” she said, her voice taking on an overtone of concern. “Is this about the little Adams girl?”

“Frank just called me,” Pullman replied. “He tells me Matt isn’t there?”

The question hung in the air for a few seconds before Cynthia responded. “No, I’m afraid he isn’t. He came home from school, but then went out again.”

“Do you know where he went?”

Cynthia felt a twinge of annoyance. “No, I don’t. But surely you don’t believe he could be interested in Becky Adams, do you? Such a — ” She was about to say “homely girl” but quickly edited herself. “ — shy little thing. Not the sort Matt would be interested in, no matter how much she chased him.”

Dan Pullman’s brow furrowed deeply. What was Joan talking about? Becky chasing Matt? He couldn’t imagine Becky Adams chasing any boy, least of all Matt Moore, whom she’d known all her life. And there was something strange in her voice, too. Though it sounded like Joan, it didn’t sound quite right. “What makes you think she was chasing him?” he asked.

There was a barely perceptible silence before Joan Hapgood spoke again. “All the girls chase him, Dan. Just like all the boys used to chase my sister. Don’t you remember? The boys always flocked around Cynthia just the way the girls flock around Matt.”

Pullman’s puzzlement deepened. Cynthia? He hadn’t heard her name mentioned in quite a while. And didn’t she know that the boys had sniffed around her sister because Cynthia had a reputation for doing pretty much anything any of them had in mind? “I’d never really thought Matt was much like his aunt,” he said carefully.

“Don’t be silly,” Cynthia replied. “He’s exactly like Cynthia! Good looking, and charming and — ” She caught herself. “But of course you’re not interested in Matt, are you? It’s that Adams girl you called about. But I’m afraid I can’t help you any more than I could help her father. I simply haven’t seen her.”

Dan was about to hang up when he realized that Joan hadn’t asked about her mother. In fact, Joan hadn’t called all afternoon to ask whether he’d found any sign of Emily Moore. “Joan, are you all right?” he asked.

“Of course I’m all right,” Cynthia replied, and after a moment added, “I mean, given the circumstances.”

Even after he hung up, Pullman’s eyes remained fixed on the phone. Something wasn’t right. Everything Joan Hapgood had said sounded a bit off, as if there were someone else in the room with her, making her try to act as if nothing was wrong.

But who? Matt?

But Matt was barely sixteen years old, and as far as Pullman knew, neither his mother nor anyone else had ever been the least bit intimidated by him. No one, anyway, except Eric Holmes, and Pullman was no more inclined to believe Eric’s story now than he had been last night. But he was certain that something was wrong at the Hapgood house. Getting out of his chair, he tiredly began putting his uniform back on, meanwhile working on a mental list of things to do before he actually went back out to see Joan Hapgood. Given what her attorney had told him just last night, he knew he’d better have a lot more to go on than just a feeling that something wasn’t right out there. So first he would have a talk with Frank Adams, and Phyllis too, if she was sober enough to be coherent. Then he’d have a look around and see if he could find Becky in the usual places kids went. And finally he would call Trip Wainwright — better to take him along than have Joan call him herself.

It was going to be a long evening.

*                                     *                                     *

HE DIDN’T BELIEVE me, Cynthia thought as she put the phone down. He’s going to come out here and try to take my son away from me. But he won’t . . . he won’t take Matt away.

I won’t let him.

CHAPTER
27

FINGERS OF PANIC reached out of the darkness toward Matt, but before they could find a hold on the fringes of his mind, he managed to pull away, to force himself to ignore the suffocating blackness that had not only blinded him, but threatened to drive him into a terror so deep he knew he might never escape. The panic had become a living thing — he could feel its presence circling him in the darkness, relentlessly stalking him as it waited for a moment of weakness in which it would be able to slip through the barriers he’d put up.

Escape.

He had to find some way to escape, to get to the trapdoor in the ceiling. Kelly Conroe, with one of her arms broken and her body so badly bruised that she couldn’t bear the pain, had retreated back into the sanctuary of unconsciousness. Matt was certain that if he didn’t find a way to get her out, she would die.

Like his grandmother had died.

Twice, he’d made a circuit of the perimeter of the chamber, feeling his way along the wall like a rat sniffing its way through a sewer. Twice, he’d come to his grandmother’s corpse. Twice, he’d felt his fingers sink into her cold flesh. The first time, his belly had contracted in a spasm of retching, and his mouth filled with bile.

“What’s wrong?” Becky had whispered, hearing him coughing and gagging. Though she’d kept her voice so low it was almost inaudible, it seemed to Matt to echo off the walls, resounding so loudly that he was certain his mother would appear at any moment.

“It’s okay,” he whispered back when he trusted himself to speak. “I — I just ran into something, that’s all.”

The second time he touched his grandmother’s rotting flesh, he shuddered silently but managed to control his stomach.

But how much longer could he hold the panic at bay? It grew stronger, loomed larger in the blackness. He could feel it sinking its talons into his mind, but as he shook it off, he lost his orientation. Then every direction seemed the same, and when he once more found a wall, he had no more idea of where he was than he’d had before. “Becky?”

“I’m over here.”

Her voice seemed to be off to the right, but Matt wasn’t certain. “Where?” he asked. “Keep talking. I have to find you.” As Becky continued whispering, he moved toward her voice, reaching out into the darkness. Finally he touched her, and felt her recoil in the blackness. “It’s only me,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I have an idea,” Matt said. “I don’t know if it will work, but I can’t think of anything else.”

“What is it?”

“We’ll start from one of the corners. You’ll get on my shoulders, and when we get to the trapdoor, you can lift it up.”

“I’ll fall!” Becky protested.

“No, you won’t,” Matt assured her. “I can hold you up, and you can balance yourself by holding on to the ceiling.”

“But what if — ” Becky began, but Matt didn’t let her finish, afraid that if he didn’t assert himself, he might lose what little confidence the darkness hadn’t yet robbed him of.

“We have to try it,” he said. “Come on.” Holding Becky’s hand, he groped his way through the darkness until he came to one of the walls, then edged along it until he was in a corner. He knelt down, crouching low, facing the wall. “Climb up on my shoulders,” he told her. “Put your right foot up first, and lean against the wall. When I tell you, pull your other foot up. Then straighten up, and once you can balance yourself, I’ll stand up. Okay?”

“I — I guess,” Becky stammered.

Matt crouched down, and a moment later felt one of Becky’s feet touch his back. “Higher,” he said. She lifted it up, and he used his hand to guide it onto his shoulder. “Okay, now lean forward, and pull your other foot up.” He felt Becky’s weight bear down on him, and then, just as he thought he might collapse under the pressure on his right shoulder, she quickly lifted her other foot, found his left shoulder, and balanced her weight. “Good,” Matt grunted. “Now, try to stand up. Just do it slowly, and feel your way along.”

“Okay,” she said a few seconds later. “I’m standing up. Now what?”

“Now I’m going to hold onto your ankles. Try to stand up,” Matt told her. Straightening his back, he flexed his knees. For a second he thought it wouldn’t work, but then he was able to straighten up until he was standing upright. “Can you touch the ceiling?”

“Uh-huh,” Becky grunted.

“Okay. I think I know where the trapdoor is, but you’ll have to tell me when you feel it.” He took a step away from the corner of the room, then another. He concentrated on moving toward the center of the room, but in the absence of light, he couldn’t be sure exactly where he was.

After he’d taken four steps, Becky said, “I feel it!”

“Try to lift it!” Matt replied. He straightened up, locking his knees, and she shoved at the door.

It rose just enough for a faint glimmer of gray light to show through a crack, then fell back into its frame.

“What happened?” he gasped.

“I can’t lift it,” Becky moaned. “It’s too heavy!”

“Try again,” Matt said.

Once again Becky struggled to raise the trapdoor, but again its weight defeated her. This time she lost her balance, but as she dropped down, he managed to break her fall by wrapping his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice choking as she clung to him. “I just couldn’t do it!”

“It’s okay,” he replied, trying to think of another solution. There was only one he could come up with. “You’re going to have to hold me.”