Under the Boardwalk

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "He didn't run away," Chris said flatly. He held up a pair of athletic shoes for Hallie to see. "These are his good shoes," he explained. "He wears his old cruddy ones to work 'cause they get wrecked. But he always wears these whenever he's not working. The other ones are really skanky."

  Kyle picked up something from Zac's paper-strewn desk. Hallie saw it was a few dollar bills paper-clipped together. "His allowance money," Kyle explained.

  Chris went to his room to start calling all his friends again, hoping for some news about Windy and Zac.

  Hallie and Kyle stopped on the landing of the house's main stairway.

  "So when I last saw Windy, she was on her way here. And when Zac left for work yesterday morning he had no idea he wasn't coming back," Hallie said.

  "No question. Zac wouldn't leave that stuff behind even if he was just spending the night somewhere. He would have taken his shoes and his money along. So something happened between the time you saw Windy, and Zac left work, and the time they both left false messages for me to throw me off track."

  Kyle leaned tiredly against the wall, framed in a ray of sunlight from a window high on the wall above them. Next to him hung a painting of a dashing young man dressed in the style of the prosperous nineteenth-century ranchero. Except for his deep Spanish coloring, the handsome, world-weary young man in the painting was a twin of the one who stood before her.

  "Who is that?"

  Kyle looked at the painting. "My great-grandfather on my father's side," he said after a moment.

  "Arturo. He built the amusement park."

  "Right. That was much later than the time of this painting, of course."

  She walked slowly down the stairs, stopping to examine each of the many paintings and photographs along the way. She spotted a photo of a rosy-cheeked elderly lady with Windy's warm smile.

  "That's Rose Aidan Madrigal," Kyle said from over her shoulder.

  Hallie turned around. "She planted the plum trees," she murmured.

  "Yeah," he said.

  She put her hand on his back, to comfort him, or herself, she wasn't sure which. "That's where you all get your green eyes."

  "I suppose. There's a lot of Irish in her family. I don't know the details—" He started to say something more, but bit it back.

  "The kids would know," she finished for him.

  "Yeah," he said wearily. "The kids would know." He sighed. "I guess we take it for granted. I suppose not everybody has roots that run as deep as ours."

  "Nope." She felt an aching emptiness, a sense of longing that went back as far as she could remember. "That's why Windy and Zac love it here."

  "Yup."

  They heard a car pull up on the gravel driveway and went outside.

  It was the news van, and a cute blonde reporter and a cameraman were getting out.

  "We can do it here," the woman said, pointing to the picturesque front porch.

  The interview went quickly. The reporter explained off-camera that they would cut in with pictures of Windy and Zac, and then started questioning them. She asked Hallie about the amnesia, and then Kyle gave descriptions of the missing kids. But the reporter kept coming back to Hallie, apparently finding it hard to believe she really couldn't remember anything about what had happened.

  Hallie just gripped Kyle's hand as hard as she could, and kept her cool, even when the reporter almost flat-out accused her of faking her memory lapse.

  This was for Windy. She could do this.

  ~*~

  At midnight, tendrils of fog hovered around the adobe house, shrouding the carved saints as they stared impassively down on the veranda, as they had stared for centuries. Now they watched with their unblinking eyes as the man below paced back and forth, back and forth.

  Please, God, Kyle prayed. He stopped there. What else could he say? He wasn't much for praying. He lived in the here and now, unlike his little dreamers, Windy and Zac. But they had been gone since Monday afternoon, and at Tuesday midnight he wasn't one step closer to finding them. If only Hallie could remember what had happened in that missing time, maybe they could figure it out.

  He thought of Hallie, lying asleep in the attic bedroom. Even if she couldn't remember, she still could help. Only she would jump to the conclusion that that phone message from Zac was some kind of James Bond secret code. She and Zac looked at things the same way. They were alike in spite of all her protestations to the contrary. They both saw wonder in every stray deer and old building. Kyle shuddered as thought of all the things that could happen to his kids out there in the world, unprotected.

  Please, God, he prayed. Keep them safe until I can find them. He paced some more.

  ~*~

  At two a.m. Hallie woke to the feel of a breeze blowing in through the open window. She rolled over in bed with a creak of old springs. Somewhere far below the window she heard an answering sound: the steady tread of boots pacing across the Saltillo tile on the veranda, back and forth, back and forth.

  She went back to sleep and dreamed again of her emerald-eyed prince. But this time he was the one alone in the darkness, hopelessly searching for something just beyond his reach.

  ~*~

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning Kyle was still pacing: this time back and forth across the kitchen floor. At the kitchen table, Hallie and Chris made a half-hearted attempt at a breakfast of cold cereal.

  Chris got up and poured his cereal down the garbage disposal. He dropped the ceramic bowl in the sink and it broke in two. He started crying.

  Kyle went over to him and wrapped his arms around him. Chris sobbed into his shoulder. "Hey, kid, hold on," Kyle said. "We're going to get through this."

  They all jumped at a knock at the door. Kyle sprang to answer it. "Oh, it's just you," he said.

  Alec O'Keeffe came in. "Good morning to you, too." He plopped a box on the kitchen table.

  Kyle mumbled his thanks to Alec, who dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Think nothing of it, man. So, what're you planning to do next?"

  Kyle leaned over and looked into the box of flyers. "Keep looking. But someone's got to stay here in case they call the home phone."

  "I can do that," Chris said firmly.

  Kyle smiled at him. "Okay. That's a good job for you."

  Alec handed Kyle a scrap of paper. "Some phone numbers," he explained. "Missing children's organizations."

  Kyle took the paper and stared at it for a minute, then he straightened up. "All right," he said crisply. "Let's get moving. We've got a lot to do."

  ~*~

  At the park, Kyle waited downstairs while Hallie clocked in. She taped a flyer up next to the time clock, then went down the hall to Tom's office.

  The office was empty—well, Tom wasn't there, but she supposed a junk-filled room with a one-armed seven-foot gorilla in the corner could hardly be called empty. After tripping over a stack of files in the middle of the floor, she managed to find her name on the assignment chart on the wall. "Looks like it's 'HH' for the rest of the week," she murmured.

  She added a flyer to the stack of papers on Tom's desk before leaving.

  ~*~

  At the fog-shrouded haunted house Charlie sat out front, as always, filing her nails. Kyle handed her a flyer.

  Charlie took the flyer while Hallie leaned up against the control panel by the stool and watched. "Yeah, the cops were already here this morning asking everybody about them," Charlie said. She looked at Zac's picture. "The poor kid." She shook her head sadly.

  "You said yesterday you haven't worked here that long," Kyle said. "But did you get a chance to meet Zac?"

  "Yeah. Julian—that's my husband—and I just moved up here from down south last month." She looked out at the promenade. "We thought we'd make a fresh start here. It seemed like such a nice little town, you know?"

  "Yeah. Not the kind of place where kids get kidnapped."

  Charlie looked startled. "Kidnapped?" Her hands stopped their incessant filing. "You don't think Zac ran away?" />
  Kyle's attention sharpened. "Why?" he asked quickly. "Do you think he did? Did he say anything to you?"

  Charlie looked confused. "Gee, I dunno. I just thought, well, I guess the way the sheriff asked questions." She paused, as if reconsidering. "Well, I guess the cop never actually said he'd run away, but I just assumed when he asked about whether Zac was having trouble at home and that kind of thing." She looked at Kyle out of the corner of her eye.

  "Why?" Hallie interjected. "Was Zac having trouble at home?"

  "I dunno," she said. She seemed to think hard about it.

  "Don't worry about offending me," Kyle said. "Anything you can think of might be helpful. Even something small."

  Charlie laughed nervously. "Gee, I feel like I'm getting grilled."

  Kyle echoed her nervous laugh. "Just the facts, Ma'am." He paced around in front of the ride, as nervous as yesterday, Hallie noticed. "I'm sorry, Charlie. It's just that we're all going crazy looking for them, and it would be great if we could find some clue, you know?"

  "Sure," Charlie said, relaxing back onto her stool. She puckered up her brow again, thinking. "Let's see, we did get to talking sometimes. You know, you work for hours and hours here, and sometimes the fog doesn't burn off by midday, and the weather stays real gloomy, and the tourists go back to their bed-and-breakfasts and curl up by the fire and leave you sittin' out here with nothing to do. Like I told the sheriff, Zac would stop by and bring me gum and soda and stuff—always going out of his way to be nice to people like that. Even though his family's some high-class big shots he never acted like he was better than the rest of us. He'd just talk to you real natural, like equals. Oh." All of a sudden she seemed to realize who she was talking to. "Sorry, Mr. Madrigal. I didn't mean anything by that. I just mean he was a nice, helpful kind of kid."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "What did you talk about?" Hallie prompted Charlie.

  "Kid stuff, mostly. His school, little projects he was into—he's a real creative kid, you know."

  "Yup. Any particular projects?"

  Charlie shrugged. "You know how kids are. It's video games one week and skateboards the next."

  "Did he ever seem upset about anything?"

  "Zac?" Charlie looked at her sideways. "Upset? He was always a cheerful kid, you know, one of those people with a big grin and a new joke to tell you every time he saw you."

  "Hmmm, I know somebody like that," Hallie said. Like someone who was right now pacing around the front of the ride like a caged lion.

  "What about Zac's projects?" Kyle asked again. "Can you think of anything about them?"

  "No. Um—" Charlie looked at something behind Kyle.

  Kyle and Hallie turned around to see a woman with a couple of little girls in tow.

  "I'd better let you get to work," Kyle said. "Listen," he added to Charlie. "Give us a call if you think of anything, okay?"

  Charlie nodded.

  Kyle half-smiled at Hallie and walked away.

  "How scary is the ride?" the woman customer asked Hallie.

  "Huh?" She tore her eyes away from Kyle's retreating back. The two little girls with the woman looked to be about kindergarten age, eyes huge in their little faces as they craned their necks back to stare at the haunted house.

  "Is the ride scary?" the woman repeated.

  Hallie looked doubtful. "Maybe the carousel would be a better idea."

  "Caree-what?" one of the girls asked.

  "A merry-go-round," the woman explained. "With pretty horses that go up and down." She glanced up at Hallie.

  "That way," Hallie pointed.

  "Ooh, horses!" the little girl exclaimed. "Can we feed the horses, Mommy? I have a carrot in my lunch." The girls scampered off.

  "Not real horses," their mother explained with a laugh, following after them.

  Feed the horses. The little girl's voice in unknowing imitation of Zac's desperate plea echoed inside her head. What did Zac mean? She remembered Kyle's deep drawl: "This isn't the Maltese Falcon, honey."

  "Hey, Charlie," she said. "You know those projects Zac was always working on?"

  "Yeah. I always fell asleep in class in school, so I never understood half of what he was talkin' about."

  "Did he ever say anything about a project with horses?"

  "Horses?" She thought a bit. "No, can't say that I remember him saying anything about horses. Why?"

  "Hey! What about the rides, like, for example, the carousel?"

  But she just looked blank. "Not that I remember. And if he did, I think I'd remember. He talked so much. He was a friendly kid, like I said. But you could ask Jan and Steve, they work the carousel most days."

  "And did you ever see Windy?"

  But there Charlie just shrugged. "I don't remember her. She must not have worked the same shifts as me." She stood up. "Here come some people, so I'll go in the back now."

  "I can't imagine how that guy's holding up," she said. "Them Madrigals may be rich, but all the money in the world wouldn't help if you lost your kid."

  ~*~

  On her lunch break, she grabbed another of Mama Thu's hot dogs, and was glad the flirtatious guy wasn't on duty this time. The sun was out, and tourists streamed along the promenade, some stopping to sit on the benches that gave perfect close-up views of the waves. She gazed out at the pristine white sails dotting the deep Pacific blue of the bay. The seagulls swooped and arced over the beach in the warm breeze.

  She grabbed flyers from her knapsack and taped one to the back of every bench along the promenade, and asking every tourist sitting on a bench if they recognized the faces on the flyer. All she got were a couple of "I saw them on the news last night," and curious looks at her, the woman with amnesia who was probably hiding something.

  So she headed for the carousel.

  When she stepped into the carousel building, she had to cover her ears against the roar of the music blaring from the ride.

  "It attracts customers," someone shouted from behind her.

  She turned around. A man in a ride operator's uniform grinned at her. "What?" she asked.

  "The music," he said. He gestured to the air around them that was filled with the ear-piercing waltz.

  "Well, it definitely gets your attention," she shouted back. "I'm Hallie Reed." She handed him a flyer.

  "I'm Steve," he said. "That's Jan." He pointed to a woman standing on the carousel platform. She waved back.

  Steve pressed the button to start the ride and the platform, and Jan, began to move. Jan drifted by, holding onto one of the outside poles. "I hear the 'Carousel Waltz' in my sleep," she shouted over the roar with a grin.

  "Let's talk over here," Steve said to Hallie. He pointed to a spot just outside the building, still within sight of the control panel.

  "They like to keep the volume high to add to the atmosphere," he explained when they were outside the building and were able to talk a little more easily. He looked down at the flyer in his hand. "Yeah. You're the one with amnesia."

  Hallie started to correct him, but then just nodded. "Yeah." She thought of something. "So the music machine—is it a band organ?"

  The guy shrugged. "It's a cd player hooked up to big speakers. Why?"

  "Nothing. So have you seen anything unusual around recently?"

  "You mean something to do with Windy and Zac?"

  "I mean anything—even something small."

  "Nothing springs to mind—except seeing the boss kissing you, of course."

  Hallie blushed. "That was you? I was so flustered I didn't even get a good look at you."

  "Yeah, I got the impression I wasn't the most important thing on your mind." He grinned at her.

  Hallie cleared her throat, and tried to sound like she knew what she was doing. "Other than that little, um, incident, have you noticed anything?"

  He shook his head.

  "Have you seen any strangers hanging around?"

  Steve looked at the line of tourists in front of the ride. "Strang
ers?"

  "I guess that's not a good question. I mean anybody who acted strange, lurked around for no good reason?"

  "Oh. You mean drooling axe murderers."

  She sighed. "Yeah. I guess that's what I mean."

  "Nope. Not a one. I've already been through these questions twice."

  "Twice?"

  Yeah. First with the police, and then with Mr. Madrigal. Sorry I can't help you."

  "I guess they've covered the park pretty thoroughly. Sorry to bother you. Oh—." She thought of something. "Did anybody ask you about a gray pickup truck?"

  "Yup. That too. But I don't usually leave the park during the day, so I don't know how many cars might come and go from the parking lot while I'm working. And anyway, somebody could park down on Main Street and walk—it's only a few blocks."

  The carousel stopped and a new group of passengers got on. Hallie and Steve went back inside.

  "Do you mind if I look around at the ride?" she asked.

  "Help yourself," he said, and went back to work.

  Hallie circled around the carousel. She squatted down and looked at the undercarriage of the platform. Nothing.

  She looked up at the ceiling, brightly painted to imitate a circus tent. Nothing unusual there. Well, what did she expect to find? It was a dead end.

  She looked up again. Tom's office would be right overhead, above that circus-tent ceiling. She still had a little more time left on her lunch hour. She sighed, and went out the back door of the carousel and made her way upstairs.

  She stopped at the rack of timecards. Down the hall she could hear the creak of a chair in Tom's office.

  She looked at the timecards. "Miller, Sara; Martinez, Mary," she muttered. "Here we go: Madrigal, Christopher; Madrigal, Windy; Madrigal, Zachary." Today was Wednesday. She picked up Zac's card. Sure enough, he'd clocked out at 11:30 Monday morning, and hadn't been in since.

  She looked at Chris's card. On the day Zac disappeared Chris had worked the whole day, with a check-out time of 5 p.m. Chris had called them after he got off work, and his message had been on the tape after Zac's. So Zac had called before then. None of this was news.