Piercing the Darkness (63 page)

“Hey, what’s happening over there?”

“I’ve got to go. Please get that stuff to me!”

“Okay, you’ve got it.”

Bernice hung up and then ran into the front office. “Cheryl, get your keys! We’ve got to find Betty!”

Cheryl half-rose from her desk, still wondering what was going on.
“What . . .”

Bernice grabbed her purse and dug for her own keys. “You go down to the bus station and see if she’s there. I’ll check at the Post Office. If you find her, stall her and call my pager.”

Cheryl got up and grabbed her coat. She had no idea what this was all about, but Bernice was so frantic, it had to be important.

LUCY BRANDON UNLOCKED
her front door and stood back to make sure Amber went inside. “Go ahead, Amber.” No response. “Amethyst, go inside, and quietly.”

Amethyst complied, moving rather stiffly, a pout on her face. She went to the stairway in the front entry and sat down on the first step, her chin in her hands. Then she glared at Amber’s mother as Lucy closed the door and hung up her coat.

“How dare you bring me home!” she said finally in a low, seething voice.

Lucy was angry enough by now to directly face this creature. “I had to, and you know it! Miss Brewer refused to have you in the class anymore.”

Amethyst bared Amber’s teeth in an animal-like snarl. “She knows not what she wants! First I was invited, and now I am rejected! Miss Brewer is a turncoat and a fool!”

Lucy bent low over Amethyst and spoke directly to her. “And you are a filthy, destructive, disrespectful little imp!”

Amethyst snarled at her.

Lucy slapped her soundly across the face. “Don’t you snarl at me, you little monster!”

But Amethyst began to laugh a fiendish laugh. “Why are you slapping your
daughter
?”

Lucy wilted a little. She didn’t know what to do. “I want you to get out of my daughter. I want you to leave her alone!”

Amethyst smiled haughtily. “Your daughter is mine. She invited me in, and now I have her. She is mine.” Then she pointed her finger right in Lucy’s face. “And you are mine as well! You will do as I say!”

Lucy felt a terrible rage and even raised her hand, but had to stop.

Amethyst taunted her. “Go ahead. Slap her again.”

“No! You won’t do this to us!” She called, “Amber! Amber, wake up! Amber, answer me!”

“She can’t hear you.”

A formula, a tradition from Lucy’s past, came to her mind. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!”

Amethyst raised her eyebrows in mock horror. “Oh, now you’re throwing that name around! Ha! What is He to you?”

Lucy didn’t know why she grabbed Amber’s body. It was an unthinking, desperate act. She was trying to find her daughter in that little body somewhere. “Amber!”

SMACK!
Lucy stumbled backward, her hand to her face, stunned. Like a wild animal escaping from a cage, Amethyst bolted from the hallway. Blood trickled from Lucy’s nose; she dug in her pocket for a handkerchief as she ran around the corner into the dining room, bumped against the table, recovered, went through the kitchen doorway. She could hear silverware rattling to her right.

Amethyst had opened the cutlery drawer. Amber was holding a knife to her own throat. “Stop or I’ll—”

But this was Amber’s mother, wild with rage and maternal instinct. Lucy clamped onto the arm holding that knife and jerked it away with such force that Amber’s entire body came up from the floor as Amethyst screamed. Lucy slammed into the counter behind her, bruising her spine. The hand would not release the knife.

The drawer flew open; butcher knives, steak knives, utensils all shot across the kitchen and clattered against the opposite cupboard doors.

Amethyst snarled, cursed, spit in Lucy’s face. Her strength was incredible.

Lucy worked the knife loose. It fell away, hung in midair, spun, came at Lucy point-first.

“Aaww, Mommy!” came Amber’s voice.

Lucy spun away as the knife went past her and dug into the dining room carpet. She fell to the floor with Amber still in her arms.

Amber screamed a long, anguished scream of terror. “Mommy . . . Mommy!”

Lucy held her tightly. The blood was still dripping from Lucy’s nose. She wiped it away with her hand.

“Mommy . . .”

“I love you, Amber.” Lucy wept in pain and fear. “I’m right here, honey. I have you.”

“Mommy, why do I do bad things?”

“It’s not you, sweetheart. It’s not you.”

“I don’t know why I’m bad!”

Lucy held her tightly. For now, she had her daughter back. “Shhh. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you.”

BERNICE AND CHERYL
returned to the office two hours later with nothing to show for their frenzied efforts. Bernice had checked with the Post Office, but the clerk on duty knew nothing of any strange woman coming through; another clerk may have seen her, but was now gone for lunch. Cheryl searched the bus station and even waited for the mysterious Betty Smith to appear, but there was no sign of her. There was, however, an eastbound bus that left only moments before Cheryl got there. Both ladies had searched up and down the streets between the
Clarion
and the bus depot, but Betty Smith/Sally Roe was gone.

As soon as Bernice came in the door, Tom and George were full of questions.

Bernice talked as she hung up her coat. “Paste Jake’s ad on
page 4
and shove over the Insurance box; just yank those personals and put them alongside the classifieds this time. Go to twelve point instead of sixteen for that notice, and change ‘howl’ to ‘bark,’ we’ll get a pun out of it.”

“Yeah,” said George, “I thought of that.”

They were content for now. Bernice checked the fax machine, nestled against the wall in the front office, next to the photocopier. They’d received a transmission—the long ream of paper poured out of the machine and lapped upon itself several times on the floor. She carefully tore it off and then found the first page.

Cheryl was there to see it too. There, looking vacantly over her ID number in a police photo, was Betty Smith, alias Sally Beth Roe.

“I’d better call Marshall,” Bernice said in a weak voice. “He’s going to love me for this.”

Cheryl asked, “What about Sara Barker? Sally Roe stayed in her
boarding house. Maybe she knows something about Sally’s plans.”

“Call her.”

Bernice contacted the Cole residence in Bacon’s Corner. Ben Cole was there this time.

“Did you get that fax?” he asked.

“Yes, Ben, thank you very much, and thank Bev too. I need to talk to Marshall.”

“Well, he’s still out, hunting for information.”

“Well, I have some for him. Have him call me, will you? I’ll either be at the
Clarion
office or at home.”

AT THE ELEMENTARY
school, Mr. Woodard was all smiles and pleasant as he handed the
Finding the Real Me
curriculum across the office counter to Kate Hogan. “There. Actually, a subpoena wasn’t necessary. I know we would have found it sooner or later.”

“Well, it never hurts to jog somebody’s memory a little,” said Kate. “Thanks a lot.”

She hurried to her car, the thick binder under her arm. That she actually had possession of this document was almost beyond believing. Now the question was, would it answer any questions or confirm any hunches?

As soon as she got into her car, she flipped the curriculum open to the title page.

The publisher: Omega Center for Educational Studies, Fairwood, Massachusetts.

The title:
Finding the Real Me: Self-Esteem and Personal Fulfillment Studies for Fourth-Graders.

The authors: Dee Danworth and Marian Newman.

She read every word on the title page, and quickly skimmed the introductory pages for any leads, anything that might tie in Sally Roe. So far, nothing.

Well . . . if it was there, she was going to find it. She started the car, and headed back to the Coles’ house.

WHEN BERNICE CALLED
Hank Busche, she was close to tears. “She
was right here, Hank, right under my nose, and I didn’t see it; it never occurred to me! Her life is in danger, and we could’ve helped her, and I let her get away!”

Hank was just as shocked and dismayed. “It’s incredible. I talked to her when I was over at Barkers’, and I could feel a tug from the Lord then. I just knew she was here with a real need.”

“We’ve just got to pray that we find her, that she writes to me or calls or
something
!”

“I’ll get on the phone. We’ll get something going.”

TRISKAL AND KRIONI
soared high over the town of Ashton, their wings rushing, shedding rippling, sparkling trails of light. The prayers were beginning all over the town, and the Spirit of God was stirring up even more.

“There now,” said Krioni. “This should make a difference in Bacon’s Corner!”

“Let’s just hope it isn’t too late!” said Triskal.