I shot out of my swivel seat, slid it away from me, and pushed Mary out of my way, dashing for the coat rack in the corner by Mr. Coffeemaker.
“Leslie, Leslie, what is it?” All of them, asking at once.
“Oh my God, Patrick! They got in my house! They got in my fucking house! Get out of my way! Everybody, out of my way!”
I remember people yelling at me, remember seeing their concerned faces, and then I had my coat in my hands, I was throwing it on and digging for the keys in the pockets, searching desperately—
Then Sam Evans grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the doorframe, his eyes beaming with a medley of anger, fear, and concern.
The wind was knocked out of me. I stared at Sam and tried to break loose.
“What are you doing? No, I have to go, Sam, I have to get to Patrick! I have—”
“You can’t—”
“Let me go!” I yelled, thrashing, trying to break loose. “They broke into my house, dammit! They broke in, and no one answered the phone! They—”
“—out of here, Leslie—”
“—got Patrick, I have to—”
He squeezed his fingers into my shoulders, pulled me toward him, and slammed me into the frame again, harder this time.
The wind was again knocked out of me, and I saw stars now. My vision blurred, and I became dizzy. Through the haze and dizziness, I heard Sam’s voice, soft and commanding. The wooziness cleared moments later, and I relaxed in his grip, staring at him and breathing hard.
“You can’t go out there, Leslie. Can’t you see we’re all still here?”
I looked around fearfully and saw everyone looking at me. Luetta Saxton was there, a cup of steaming decaf in one hand, her eyes brimming. Her coat was off, and I suddenly knew why, but Sam completed the thought.
“It’s a blizzard out there, Leslie. We’re stuck here. We’re snowed in for the night.”
I panted helplessly in his grasp. “Oh my Go—oh my God, no.”
I stood there for an awful, pressing moment, then tore free of his grip and ran back toward my desk. People parted to make way for me as I ran, their eyes wide and confused.
I got halfway there when the world seemed to land on my shoulders.
You hung up the phone, Leslie. Justin is gone. You broke the connection.
I stopped dead in my tracks and almost fainted. I stood there staring at my green phone, swaying one way, then the other. Dizziness reclaimed me.
You hung up. The connection is gone. You’ll never get it back now.
I stood there for the longest moment of my life, and the room was dreadfully silent.
Oh my God. Oh my good Lord Jesus God.
CHAPTER 13
I COLLAPSED IN MY seat, panting and sweating, hands clasped around my head. I stared at the phone on my desk. The rest of the world seemed to have blurred out around it.
Think, Leslie. Think.
I felt panic chewing on me, threatening to eat me alive. I sensed I was teetering on the threshold, so perilously near to tipping. I was all nerves, blood racing, heart thumping, pulse beating. Falling over the threshold meant relinquishing all capability of rationale and action.
And that could not happen. Not now, here.
Patrick’s life was in jeopardy.
You have to think. Keep your head in it.
I heard voices all around me, muffled and distant, strangely incoherent. It was just me, trapped in my own game. I snatched up the phone and punched in Justin’s number. I got a busy signal. Justin’s phone was essentially off the hook now. He wasn’t aware the connection had been lost.
“Leslie, please tell us …” Mary began.
“Mary, I don’t have time,” I blurted, slamming the phone down, my voice shaky. I refused to look up. “All of you, there’s no time. There’s a man in my house—or there was a man in my house—and Patrick is in danger.”
Try calling home, Leslie.
I snatched up the receiver anew. My fingers quivered violently as I punched in my home number.
Relax, girl, relax. One button at a time now …
The line began to ring in my house, and a thousand thoughts roller-coasted through my head, mumble-jumbled like a tangle of spitting live wires. It rang twice, thrice, four times.
“Come on, Tammy, answer the damn phone. Answer it.”
It rang a fifth time, a sixth.
Again, again.
No one’s answering. This is my house. My son and the babysitter are there—supposed to be there—but no one is answering.
It rang a ninth time, a tenth …
“Were you on the phone with that one boy all that time?” one of the ladies asked, and I nodded nervously. Her eyes were deep with wonder.
“Keep all the lines open,” I announced loudly. “Don’t turn the recordings on. Justin might try and call back.”
The line rang again, and again. My anguish climbed a notch with every ring.
“Mary,” I said, still holding the phone to my ear, “get the state police on your line. Call the Sheldon barracks directly, don’t dial 911. Tell them my house has been broken into. It’s 19 Westfall Boulevard, second to last house on the left. Tell them my son and babysitter are inside. Then tell them where we are and to send someone for me so I can get home. And hurry.”
The confusion was evident on Mary’s face, but she by now realized that the situation was dire and offered no time for explanation. She sat at her desk and began punching in numbers on her phone.
Thank you, Mary, I thought. Thank you for not asking questions.
The line rang repeatedly in my ear, but no one answered. Broken, feeling like everything had been ripped out of me, I dropped the phone on the hook. I gasped in my seat and choked back a sob that escaped anyway, not knowing what to do. A tear broke loose and slid down my cheek. I wiped at it furiously.
Sam Evans came around the room and began massaging my shoulders. He spoke in a smooth, reassuring voice, trying to comfort me. “Try to relax, Leslie. Sit still for a minute and breathe deep, get your head.”
I closed my eyes and did what he said, inhaling long and hard. I kept my lids shut for a long time and saw countless images superimposed on themselves in the darkness.
Christ, I can’t believe this has happened …
I heard Mary’s firm voice across from me, speaking into her phone. “… that’s right, yes. We’re at the Reformed Church on the corner of Main and Fifth, and we’re snowed in. Our vehicles are snowed down in the lot. Yes. Okay, thank you.”
I heard her hang up, and I opened my eyes to see her.
Her eyes were bright and brimming. I saw hope shimmering there. The first sign of hope. She said, “The police are on their way to your house, and they’re sending a unit here. I was told they’ll be here within ten minutes.”
I nodded nervously, chewing a nail with ravenous fear.
“We’ll go with you,” Sam said behind me, still massaging my shoulders. “Mary and I.”
“Thank you,” I whispered in a choked voice, nodding.
My mind was still racing, trying desperately to reconstruct the entire picture and accept it as true.
Still can’t believe this, just can’t believe …
It had never occurred to me that I’d been on the line with little Justin Rudebaker all that time, my next-door neighbor. I’d have never recognized his voice because I didn’t know his voice. Everything fit now; all the puzzle pieces fell into perfect junction. All that stuff Justin had said about not knowing other boys in the neighborhood was true because Justin almost never came out of his house. The Rudebakers had been our neighbors for as long as I could remember, and that’s all they had been. Just neighbors. For some reason, I had never acquainted myself with them. The only reason Justin knew our home number was because he played with Patrick on occasion, but
that was strictly on occasion because Justin was rarely allowed outside.
And the far side of his house, where the laundry room was located—there were no doors on that side because that end of the house overhung the edge of the big hill, below which lay the highway. All their doors were facing our home. It all fit now, right down to the nuts, bolts, and screws.
And Justin, of course, had had no idea I was a volunteer at the Call-A-Friend network. And I, likewise, had had no idea he was a caller.
My heart was pounding, thundering. I thought about calling home again, but I knew there was no point in doing so. If Tammy hadn’t answered before, she wouldn’t now. My blood raced as I could do little more than wonder what had happened in my home. And to think Justin had called my house over an hour ago, before he’d called here. His neighbor’s place had been my place, and no one had answered then, either.
What in God’s name has happened tonight?
I quickly related the story to the other five people in the room. I told them how Justin had called and said a prowler was in his home, and how he’d ultimately turned out to be my neighbor. And that no one was answering at my place. They nodded collectively, and their faces grew increasingly distraught.
“I could get home in my Bronco,” I said, still sitting.
“Not now,” Sam objected, still standing behind me. “It isn’t worth risking your life when the police are already on their way. There’s eight or nine inches of snow already on the ground out there. The roads are covered, and the wind is blowing drifts everywhere.”
“Can they even get here, and to my house?” I worried out loud.
“Oh, yeah,” Patty Lunesta said, standing next to Mary. “Donald is with the Public Works Department. He says the state cops have these huge Rangers with heavy chains and snow plows mounted up front.”
“God, I hope so.”
“Just relax,” Sam told me. “Everything’s gonna be fine. You’ll see. You’ve got the rest of us by your side.”
“Want some coffee, Leslie?” asked Luetta in her beautiful, southern voice. I shook my head. I was shaken up enough already. A good dose of caffeine was the last thing I needed.
One of the phones rang across the room, and we all stared at one another. Patty answered, but it wasn’t Justin. It was just a girl.
Just a regular, run-of-the-mill phone call.
“Oh, dear,” Mary said, “what if kids keep calling in? We have to keep the lines available in case the boy calls.”
“She’s right,” Sam said above me. The concern was palpable in the room. Keeping the lines open meant accepting the incoming calls. You couldn’t answer the phone and then tell a child, already in a vulnerable state, that the lines were closed for the night. Only the well-tailored, after-hour recordings could do that.
“Okay,” Sam said. “We’ll need to keep two lines free at all times. That means just four can be occupied at once. Leslie and I will remain free while the rest of you answer the phones. If it’s not the boy, do your best to make the call a quick one. We’re all experienced, and I think we can handle it. Are we all on the same page?”
The others nodded in unison. In a deep sanction of my heart, I was thankful that Sam was here and that he was administering some control, some structure, to this nightmare. He was a leader, a thinker, and people listened when he spoke. If I made it through this with my son and babysitter unharmed, I’d owe him a tide of thank-you prayers for the rest of my life.
“They should be here soon,” Mary said, consulting her watch although a clock was mounted on the wall above the door. I glanced at my Lotensin. It was twenty past nine.
Mary was gnawing her lower lip and gazing past me. “I sure hope—”
Luetta’s phone rang. We were all drawn to it like gravity. Her hand fell onto the receiver, and she answered.
Seconds later, her expression widened, and she held the phone up in the air, looking at me.
“It’s him, it’s Justin.”
“My God,” I said, hurling my body out of my seat, toward her corner. I grabbed her phone and pressed it against my ear.
“Justin, Justin, are you all right?”
“Leslie?” His voice was trembling. I could tell right away he was crying.
“It’s me, Justin, it’s me, Leslie. Where are you? What’s happened?”
Slow down, girl, easy. Easy …
“I got in, inside a-around the b-back.”
“That’s my house, Justin. You’re in my house. It’s me, it’s Miss Calloway.”
He paused at that but not for long. I wasn’t confident he’d wholly registered what I’d said or even who I was.
He continued, “I got in through the back over here, by the kitchen. A window was b-broken, and the door w-was open.”
My house had been broken into, before Justin’s.
A joint robbery. Two houses on one street, on the same night.
The intruders had known of my absence as well as the Rudebakers’.
It was too much, too much to get your hands around—too much to hold onto without losing your grip and your sanity.
I knew Justin was using my kitchen phone because the reception was perfect. He’d abandoned his cordless somewhere.
His voice was shaking violently. “My feet are purple, Leslie. They’re purple.” I could picture the tears pouring down his face in glimmering rivulets.
“Okay, Justin, this is what—”
“I can’t feel them anymore, can’t feel them at all.”
God, I hope he’s not frostbitten.
I had to summon all the might in the world not to ask about Patrick or Tammy. The kitchen was at the back of my house. There were two ways out of it—into my living room and off to the dining room, but those exits were blocked off by wooden, swinging doors.
He hadn’t yet seen what lay beyond those doors.
“Your feet are numb from the snow, Justin, that’s all. Here’s what I want you to do. Climb up on the counter and dip your feet into the sink. Plug the drain and turn the water on, but don’t make it hot, or even warm. That’ll burn your skin because you won’t be able to feel how hot the water really is. Make the sink handle pointed straight ahead, so it’s not hot but not too cold. Then keep your feet in there. Okay?”
“Okay,” he answered, and I heard him jumping onto the counter.
“Keep your feet in there and try to wiggle your toes. That’ll get the blood flowing in your feet. Soon, your feeling should come back. You understand?”
“Uh-huh. I’m scared, Leslie, I’m still scared. Are those men gonna come after me here?”
“No, I don’t think so, Justin. Just stay where you are and stay on the phone with me. We’ve called the police, and they’re coming over there right now. They should be there any minute.”
“Okay.”
“And Justin?”
“Yeah?”
I bit my lip and forced it out. “Stay where you are until the police get there. Don’t leave the kitchen. Okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
My voice trembled with that last line, and new tears were trying to forge their way through … but I had to hold him in the kitchen. For his own good. Although my jackhammering heart tried to deny it with every anguished thump, I knew I couldn’t allow Justin to see what might lie beyond those swinging doors.
CHAPTER 14
THE POLICE ARRIVED HERE minutes later. Luetta took the phone and consoled Justin while Sam, Mary, and I bundled ourselves and hurried out to the street where the huge Ranger was waiting. The wind blasted us as we ran, driving powdery snow into our faces. I held one arm up to shield my eyes as our feet plundered through the deepening drifts.
The forecast didn’t call for this, I thought as we neared the street. Not something this bad.
Emblazoned across the side of the tall vehicle was the emblem of the Connectic
ut state police. The red flashers were whirling and twirling and throwing bloody stains across the snow-covered street. Seeing those flashing strobes and knowing that this vehicle was going to my house was enough to sap the strength from my legs. Mary and Sam had to help me step up into the backseat of the enormous Ranger.
The truck was moving before Sam had his door completely shut. A final serpent’s tongue of wind screamed through the opening and was snuffed out seconds later when he pulled the door closed.
The driver was alone. He turned partway around to acknowledge us. The near half of his face was bathed in intermittent blotches of red as the strobes jumped off the harsh snowscape around the Ranger. In those initial moments, his indifferent expression was revealed, then concealed in shadows, then revealed again …
The trooper was black. When he spoke, his calm, smooth voice reminded me of a steaming mug of cocoa on a cold and blustery day.
“Miss Calloway, folks, I’m James Trenton, with—”
“What have you heard?” I blurted. “Is my son okay? Have you heard anything?” I was sitting bolt upright in the backseat, between Sam and Mary. Each gathered my near hand in theirs and squeezed gently. The contact was warm and reassuring, but my heart was jabbing at my chest. I was scared. God, I was scared.
“Our men haven’t arrived at your house yet,” the trooper replied, facing forward again. He shifted gears, and the Ranger thrust ahead. His voice was dominated by the grating plow as it ground against the street surface. From the corner of my vision, I saw snow cascading to the right, hurtling through the air in huge, white waves. Ahead of us, the road was gone, sheathed beneath a shifting white carpet. I was amazed the trooper even knew where the road was.
“Naturally, travel is slow under these conditions, and many of these auxiliary roads have been shut down for the night. They should arrive any time.”
“You know where you’re going, I presume,” Mary said, raising her voice to be heard above the grinding plow.
“Yes, I do,” the trooper answered—I’d forgotten his name already—without turning around. He remained hunched over the wheel, one hand on the knob of the stick shift. I could see only the backside of his cheek, illuminated by the pulsating red flashers.
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