by Nora Roberts
Dr. Crampton. Her father’s best friend, her own surrogate father. She thought of Alice with jagged despair. How would Alice ever get over it? How would she ever accept it? No one, Clare thought, understood better than she herself what it was like to lose a father.
Chuck Griffith, Mick Morgan, Biff Stokey How many more?
Ernie. She closed her eyes, grieving as she thought of his mother.
But there was still a chance for Ernie. He was afraid, and the fear was healthy. Maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to convince him to help her.
She wondered if she’d killed Mick. She prayed she had. The bitter venom of hate stirred and helped clear her head. Yes, she prayed to God she’d killed him. Atherton would have to work to explain a dead deputy.
The tears had passed and so, she was grateful, had the panic. Carefully, she turned her head to study the room.
It was no bigger than ten by twelve and smelled of stale, humid air. Occasionally, she could hear a skittering sound and tried not to think about what was making it.
There was a table and four chairs. A few cigarette butts littered the floor around them. She understood she was feeling better when she pined for a quick drag from one of the butts.
A disgusting thought but a normal one, she decided.
How the hell was she going to get out?
She twisted one way, then the other, hissing at the pain, and discovered they hadn’t even left her enough mobility to sit up. Her wrists were already raw and bleeding. She had to pee.
Clare nearly succumbed to a bout of hysterical laughter and forced herself to lie still and concentrate on breathing until it passed.
The sound of a car engine broke her control again. She was screaming for help when the door opened and Dr. Crampton came in.
“You’ll only hurt yourself, Clare.” He propped the door open with a rock so that the sunlight and fresh air could pour through. She blinked against it. He had his medical kit in one hand, and a McDonald’s takeout bag in the other. “I’ve brought you some food.”
“How can you do this? Dr. Crampton, you’ve known me all my life. I grew up with Alice. Do you know what it’s going to do to her when she finds out what you’ve done? What you are!”
“My family is my concern.” He set both bags on a chair, then dragged it to the bed. He hated this, despised it. Once he had wrested control from Atherton, they would go back to the pure way. There would be no more mistakes. No more waste. “You’ve injured yourself.” He clucked his tongue as he examined her wrists. “You’re courting infection.”
She had to laugh. “So, you make house calls to your victims. Keeping us alive for the sacrifice. You’re a real humanitarian.”
“I’m a doctor,” he said stiffly.
“You’re a murderer.”
He set the bags on the floor, then sat. “My religious beliefs don’t infringe on my dedication to medicine.”
“This has nothing to do with religion. You’re sick and sadistic. You rape and kill and enjoy it.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.” In his competent way, he opened his bag and took out a fresh syringe. “If I were a murderer, I would kill you now, with an overdose.” His eyes remained patient, even kind. “You know I couldn’t do that.”
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“I’m what I’ve always been.” He took cotton to dab on antiseptic. “Like the others, I have opened myself to possibilities and renounced the so-called Christian church, which is based on hypocrisy and self-delusion.” He pushed up his glasses, then held the syringe up, squirting out a bit of the drug to test.
“Don’t.” Her eyes fixed on the needle. “Please, don’t.”
“I’ve seen great things, Clare. I know, believe me, I know that a man’s salvation can’t be based on self-denial, but on indulgence and vitality.” He smiled at her, but his eyes glittered with a fervor she didn’t want to understand.
“This will make you feel better. Trust me. When you’re calm, I’ll dress your wounds and help you eat. I don’t want you to be in pain or to worry. It’ll all be over soon.”
She twisted, screaming, but he clamped a hand on her arm and slid the needle gently under her skin.
* * *
Time drifted, misty and dreamlike. Docile with the drug, she sat unresisting while Crampton cleaned and dressed her wrists and ankles. She even thanked him, with a blank, polite smile, when he fed her the hamburger.
In her mind she was a child again, sick with the flu, dressed in her nightgown with the dancing kittens on it. She went with him, floating, when he took her outside to urinate. He tucked her back into bed and told her to sleep. Obediently, Clare closed her eyes. She didn’t feel him tie her again.
She dreamed of her father. He was crying. Sitting at the kitchen table, crying. Nothing she could do or say seemed to comfort him.
She dreamed of Cam, of making love to him on the kitchen floor, aching with need, stunned with pleasure. Her body was slick with sweat and naked as it slid over his.
Then she was tied to a slab, no longer hot with needs but cold with fears. And it was Ernie who mounted her.
When she woke, she was chilled with drying sweat. Nauseated from the drug, she turned her face into the pillow. But she was too weak even to pray
“She hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning.” Cam rubbed a hand over his face as he talked to the state police. “Her house was unlocked, nothing was taken. Her clothes, her jewelry, her tools, all her I.D. are still there.” He paused to drag smoke into his already raw throat. “I’ve contacted her brother, her friends. No one’s heard from her.” He fought against a sickness in his gut as he detailed her description. “White female, aged twenty-eight. Five ten, about a hundred fifteen pounds. Red hair, medium short, with bangs. Amber eyes. No, not brown. Amber. No scars. She could be driving a new model Nissan three hundred, red. New York license number Baker Baker Adam four-four-five-one.”
He made the trooper repeat everything. When he hung up, Bud Hewitt was standing by the doorway. “Half the town’s out looking.” Feeling inadequate, Bud glanced at the coffeepot. “Want some?”
Cam figured his blood was already ninety percent caffeine. “No, thanks.”
“You call the press?”
“Yeah. They’ll be running her picture.” He rubbed his hands over his face again. “Fuck.”
“You ought to get some sleep. You’ve been at this for better than twenty-four hours.” Bud slipped his hands in his pockets. “I know how you feel.”
Cam looked up then. “I know you do. I’m going to drive around some more. You man the desk?”
“Sure. Hell of a time for Mick to get sick. We could use him.”
Cam only nodded. “I’ll be in radio contact.” The phone rang, and he pounced on it. After a brief conversation, he hung up. “The warrant came through to check Mona Sherman’s bank records.”
“Want me to take it?”
“No. I’ve got to do something. I’ll check in about a half hour from now.”
In double that, he was pounding on the door of Mona’s apartment.
“All right … Christ. Wait a goddamn minute.” She opened the door, sleepy-eyed, still tying a thin, flowered robe around her waist. Before she could speak, Cam shoved the door open and slammed it behind him.
“We’re going to talk.”
“I already told you what I know.” She dragged a hand through her tousled hair. “You got no right busting in here.”
“Fuck my rights.” He pushed her into a chair.
“Hey. One call to my lawyer, pal, and you can lose that tin badge of yours.”
“You go ahead and call him. You might want to mention accessory to murder.”
Watching him warily, she pulled the robe back over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ever done real time, Mona?” He put his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned toward her. “I’m not talking about a night or two in county. I mean the real thing. Ten to twenty
in Jessup.”
“I ain’t done nothing.”
“You made a couple of hefty deposits. Smart thinking to lock them into CD’s. You’re a real financial wizard.”
“So?” Her tongue slid out over her lips. “Business has been good.”
“The first one was made the day before you talked to me. The second one, the day after. Hell of a coincidence.”
“Yeah.” She reached for the pack of cigarettes beside her. “So?”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Like I said—” She choked off the words when he slid a hand around her throat and squeezed.
“I’m a busy man, Mona, so let’s not waste time. Why don’t I tell you how it went? Somebody paid you to throw a new scent in my path. All that bullshit about some Haitian doing Biff because he’d queered a drug deal.”
“Biff was a mule, just like I told you.”
“I figure he moved it, all right. That’s about all he had the brains for. The rest is shit. Now tell me who paid you to talk to me.”
“I came to you on my own. I wanted to help is all.”
“You wanted to help.” He stood back, then kicked over the table. The lamp crashed to the floor. “You wanted to help,” he repeated, shoving her back when she tried to dart out of the chair. “They didn’t tell you about me, did they? About this problem I have. I was a cop down in D.C. for a long time. Had to give it up for a nice quiet job in a small town. Know why?”
She shook her head. He didn’t look like a cop now. He just looked mean.
“Well, I have this control problem. When someone starts lying to me, it makes me crazy.” He picked up a nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam and threw it against the wall. Glass exploded and released the ripe scent of liquor. “I just start breaking things. And if the lying keeps up, I lose it. One time I threw a suspect out a window.” He glanced over at the window behind her convertible sofa. “We’re on the third floor here, aren’t we?”
“That’s bull. I’m going to call my lawyer.” She scrambled up to grab for the phone. “You’re crazy, that’s all. I don’t have to take this crap.”
“Right and wrong.” He clamped a hand over her wrist. “I’m crazy, all right. But you’re going to take it. Let’s see how far you can fly.” He dragged her toward the window while she struggled and shouted. She managed to grab the sill and fall to her knees. “I don’t know who it was. I don’t.”
“Not good enough.” He hooked an arm around her waist.
“I don’t. I swear. He just called. He told me what to say and mailed me the money. Cash.”
Cam hunkered down beside her. “I want a name.”
“Biff’s the only name I knew. He was a customer, just like I said.” She inched away until her back was to the wall. “Couple years back, he told me about this, well, kind of club or something. Said they’d pay me two hundred for the night. So I went.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” Eyes wide, she tumbled down to one elbow. “I swear I don’t. I was blindfolded. It was kind of kinky, you know? Biff picked me up, and we drove out of town, into the country. Then he stopped and blindfolded me, and we drove some more. After a while we had to walk. In the woods or something. He didn’t take the blindfold off until we got to this place. They did rites and stuff there. You know, Satanism. But mostly it was just a bunch of guys who wanted some ass and thrills.”
“I want descriptions.”
“They wore masks. The whole time. I never knew none of them but Biff. It was weird, sure, but the pay was good. I went back every couple of months.”
“Okay, Mona.” He helped her up, though she cringed back. “Let’s sit down. You’re going to tell me all about it.”
Chapter 30
Alice Lice tidied up the kitchen for lack of anything better to do. Behind her Blair paced back and forth. It had been a long week, she thought, for everyone. No one believed that Clare had just lit out. That was fine for someone like Sarah Hewitt, but not Clare. It didn’t make sense.
The big sculpture she’d been working on was still standing out in the drive. Like a sign. People walked by it and stopped and traded speculations on a daily basis. Min Atherton had even taken Polaroid pictures of it and showed them off at Betty’s.
The mayor had called a special town meeting, offering a reward. It had been a moving speech, too, Alice remembered. All about taking care of your own and looking out for your neighbor. The mayor could talk as good as a tent evangelist. There’d hardly been a dry eye in the town hall.
Except for the sheriff. He’d been dry-eyed. And haggard, she thought now. It was clear that he hadn’t been doing much sleeping or eating in the six days since Clare had disappeared. He’d gotten up at the end of the meeting to answer questions from the townspeople and the reporters who had crowded the small auditorium. Not just local people either, Alice reflected, but big-city reporters from D.C., New York, and Philadelphia.
She ran the dishcloth under the water, then wrung it out to wipe off the counters. The air was hot and still, the temperature more suited to August dog days than June. But no one had thought to turn on the air conditioner. Clare’s mother and her new husband were staying at the house, and so were the LeBeaus. Nobody complained about the heat.
She glanced over at Blair and felt a kinship that had already replaced the longtime crush.
“I could fix you something to eat,” she offered. “A sandwich maybe, or some soup.”
“Thanks. Later maybe. I thought Angie and Jean-Paul would be back by now.”
“They’ll be along.” She spread the cloth over the lip of the sink. It was a helpless feeling, not being able to offer more than ham on rye or Campbell’s chicken and rice. “It doesn’t do any good not to eat. I could fix something up. The others’ll be hungry when they get back.”
He started to snap but stopped himself. Alice was as hollow-eyed and jumpy as the rest of them. “Fine. That’s fine.” They both rushed into the garage at the sound of a motorcycle. Before Cam could climb off, Blair was beside him.
“Anything?”
“No.” Cam rubbed his gritty eyes, then swung his rubbery legs off the cycle. He’d been riding most of the day, down back roads, over old logging trails, covering ground that had already been covered and covered again.
“I’m making sandwiches,” Alice said. “You come in and have one before you go again. I mean it, Cam. You need fuel just like that machine of yours.”
Cam sat down on the cycle again as Alice hurried back in. “How’s your mother?” Cam asked Blair.
“Worried sick. She and Jerry are driving around.” He looked helplessly at the sculpture that towered behind them. “Like everyone. Christ, Cam, it’s been almost a week.”
He knew exactly how long it had been, to the hour. “We’re doing a house-to-house, search and interviews. Now that Mick’s on his feet again, it’ll go easier.”
“You don’t really believe someone’s holding her in town.”
“I believe anything.” He looked across the street, to the Buttses’ house. That one he would search personally.
“She could already be—”
“No.” Cam’s head whipped around. His eyes, shadowed and weary, sharpened. “No, she’s not. We start here, and we spread out, and we go over every inch of these hills.” Cam looked down at the ground. “I didn’t take care ofher.”
When Blair didn’t respond, Cam understood his friend thought the same thing.
Blair stood where he was, struggling to be calm as Cam lighted a cigarette. His research had gone well. Too well. He knew much too much about what could be happening to his sister. What might have happened already. He couldn’t afford to break down now. “I’d like to go out on the next search. I know you’ve got experienced men, but I know the woods around here.”
“We can use everyone. Have to use everyone,” Cam corrected. “I just don’t know who I can trust.” He looked up at the sun. It was straight up noon. “Do you know what today is?” He turned his head ag
ain and looked at Blair. “It’s the summer solstice. I didn’t realize it until I heard it on the radio.”
“I know.”
“They’ll meet tonight,” he murmured. “Somewhere.”
“Would they take a risk like that, with the search and the press?”
“Yeah. Because they want to. Maybe they need to.” He swung onto the bike again. “There’s somebody I’ve got to see.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“It’s better that I go alone. It’s a long shot.” He kicked the engine. “I’ll let you know.”
“It’s outrageous. Absolutely outrageous.”
“I’m sorry, Miz Atherton.” Bud had his cap in his hands, running the brim through his fingers. “It’s procedure, is all.”
“It’s insulting, that’s what it is. Why, the very idea of your coming into my home and searching all over it, as if I were a common criminal.” She planted herself in the doorway, floral bosom trembling. “Do you think I’ve got Clare Kimball tied up in the basement?”
“No, ma’am. No ma’am. And I sure do apologize for the inconvenience. It’s just that we’re looking through every house in town.” He gave a little sigh of relief as the mayor came down the hall.
“What’s all this?”
“An outrage. Why, James, you won’t believe what this boy wants to do.”
“We’re conducting a house-to-house search, Mr. Atherton, sir.” He flushed. “I got the proper warrants.”
“Warrants!” Min plumped up like a broody hen. “Did you hear that, James? Warrants. The very idea.”
“Now, Min.” He put a soothing hand on her shoulder. “This has to do with Clare Kimball’s disappearance, doesn’t it, Deputy Hewitt?”
“Yes, sir, Mayor.” Bud always preened a bit when Atherton called him Deputy Hewitt. “It’s nothing personal, and I’ll be in and out in just a few minutes. Just have to take a look around and ask you some questions.”
“You step a foot inside this house, I’ll take a broom to your behind, Bud Hewitt.”
“Min.” Atherton gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “The man’s only doing his job. If we don’t cooperate with the law, who will? You come right on in, Deputy, go through from attic to cellar. No one in town wants to get to the bottom of what happened to Clare more than my wife and myself.”