Mr. Peterson shakes his head, eyes shiny with tears. “That sounds like my girl.”
“Your girl’s a fighter,” Doctor Celano says. “So try to be as strong for her as you can. She’ll need you. The both of you.”
53
GWENDY OPENS THE DOOR to the house she grew up in, the only real honest-to-God house she’s ever lived in—with an actual garage and sidewalk and yard—and walks inside. The interior is dark and silent. She immediately turns on the overhead light in the foyer. Her father’s car keys lie on the hardwood floor, dropped in panic and unnoticed. She picks them up and returns them to their spot on the foyer table. Walking into the living room, she turns on the lamps at each end of the sofa. That’s better, she decides. Everything looks to be in its proper place. You would never even know by looking around what kind of chaos the morning had brought.
She walks upstairs, running her hand along the polished wood bannister where four empty red stockings hang. Halfway down the carpeted hallway, she glances into her parents’ bedroom, and that’s when any semblance of normalcy inside the house is shattered into a million jagged pieces. The bed sheet and blankets are pushed into a heap on the floor. One of the pillows and a significant portion of the white mattress sheet are streaked with dark splashes of blood and bite-sized chunks of a half-digested meal. Her father’s pajamas lie in a pile on the floor at the entrance to the small walk-in closet. The entire room smells sour, like food that has been left in the sun too long and gone bad.
Gwendy stands in the doorway, taking it all in, and then she springs into action. She makes quick work of the bed, stripping the sheets, blankets, and pillowcases. Bundling them together with her father’s discarded pajamas, she runs them to the basement, holding her breath, and dumps the dirty sheets and PJs into the washer. Once that’s done, she returns upstairs and sprays the bedroom with a can of scented air-freshener she finds in the bathroom. Then she takes down clean sheets and pillowcases from the top shelf of the closet and remakes the bed.
Standing back and examining her work, she remembers the reason she came to the house in the first place. She finds an overnight bag and packs a change of clothes for her father, a clean nightgown for her mother, and several pairs of socks. She doesn’t know why she adds the extra socks, but she figures better safe than sorry. Next she goes into the bathroom and gathers toiletries. Adding them to the bag, she zips it up tight and heads into the hallway.
Something—a feeling, a memory, she’s not really sure—makes her stop outside the doorway to her old bedroom. She peers inside. Although it’s long been converted into a combination guest room and sewing room, Gwendy can still picture her childhood bedroom with crystal clarity. Her beloved vanity stood against that wall, her desk, where she wrote her first stories, in front of the window. Her bookshelf right there next to a Partridge Family trashcan, her bed against the wall over there, beneath her favorite Billy Joel poster. She leans into the room and gazes at the long, narrow closet where her mother now stores swathes of cloth and sewing supplies. The same closet where she hid the button box all those years. The same closet where the first boy she ever loved had died violently right in front of her eyes, his head bashed to a bloody pulp by that monster Frankie Stone.
And that cursed box.
“What do you want from me?” she asks suddenly, her voice strained and harsh. She walks farther into the room, turns in a slow circle. “I did what you asked and I was just a goddamn child! So why are you back again!” She’s shouting now, her face twisted into an angry mask. “Why don’t you show yourself and stop playing games?”
The house responds with silence.
“Why me?” she whispers to the empty room.
54
MONDAYS ARE NOTORIOUSLY BUSY days at Castle County General Hospital, and December 27 is no exception. The nurses and orderlies are understaffed by nearly ten percent thanks to the holiday weekend and three members of the custodial crew call out sick because of the flu—but life marches on around here.
Gwendy sits alongside the bed in Room 233 and watches the steady rise and fall of her mother’s chest. She’s been sleeping peacefully for nearly a half-hour now, which is the only reason Gwendy’s alone in the room with her. Twenty minutes earlier, she finally managed to shoo her father into the hallway and downstairs to the cafeteria to get himself breakfast. He hadn’t left his wife’s side since they were reunited yesterday afternoon and was hesitant to go, but Gwendy insisted.
The John Grisham novel sits unopened on Gwendy’s lap, a coupon for granola bars marking her page. She listens to the intermittent beeping of the machines and watches the constant drip of saline and remembers dozens of other hospital rooms very much like this one. The windowless third-floor room at Mercy Hospital where her dear friend Johnathon had taken his final breaths, dozens of photographs and homemade get-well cards affixed to the wall above his head. So many other rooms in so many other hospitals and AIDS clinics she’d once visited. So many brave human beings, young and old, male and female, all united by one basic purpose: survival.
Ever since those days, Gwendy has loathed hospitals—the sights, smells, sounds—all while maintaining the utmost respect for those who fight for their lives there, and the doctors and nurses who aid them in that fight.
“. . . you will die surrounded by friends, in a pretty nightgown with blue flowers on the hem. There will be sun shining in your window, and before you pass you will look out and see a squadron of birds flying south. A final image of the world’s beauty. There will be a little pain. Not much.”
Richard Farris once spoke those words to her, and she believes them to be true. She doesn’t know when it will happen, or where, but that doesn’t matter to her. Not anymore.
“If anyone deserves that kind of a goodbye, it’s you, Mom.” She looks down at her lap, stifling a sob. “But I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready.”
Mrs. Peterson, eyes still closed, chest still rising and falling, says: “Don’t worry, Gwennie, I’m not ready either.”
“Oh my God,” Gwendy almost screams in surprise, her book tumbling from her lap to the floor. “I thought you were sleeping!”
Mrs. Peterson half-opens her eyes and smiles lazily. “I was until I heard you going on and on.”
“I am so sorry, Mom. I’ve been doing that, talking out loud to myself, like some kind of crazy old cat lady.”
“You’re allergic to cats, Gwendy,” Mrs. Peterson says, matter-of-factly.
Gwendy looks closely at her mom. “Oh-kay, and that must be the morphine talking.”
Mrs. Peterson lifts her head and looks around the room. “You actually convinced your father to go home?”
“Not a chance. But I did make him go to the cafeteria and get something to eat.”
She nods weakly. “Good job, honey. I’m worried about him.”
“I’ll take care of Dad,” Gwendy says. “You just worry about getting better.”
“That’s in God’s hands now. I’m so tired.”
“You can’t give up, Mom. We don’t even know how bad it is. It could be—”
“Who said anything about giving up? That’s not going to happen, not as long as I have you and your father by my side. I have too much to live for.”
“Yes,” Gwendy says, nodding. “You sure do.”
“All I meant is …” She searches for the right words. “If I’m supposed to beat this thing again, if there’s any chance at all, then I’ll beat it. I believe that. No matter how hard of a fight awaits me. But … if I’m not supposed to … if God decides this is my time, then so be it. I’ve lived a wonderful life with more blessings than any one person should possess. How can I possibly complain? Anyway, that’s all I meant … that’s the only way they’re going to stuff me in the ground.”
“Mom!” Gwendy exclaims.
“What? You know I don’t want to be cremated.”
“You’re impossible,” Gwendy says, taking down her backpack from the windowsill. “I brought you some of those li
ttle fruit juices you like so much and some snacks. Also brought you a surprise.”
“Oh, goodie, I like surprises.”
She unzips her backpack. “Eat and drink first, then the surprise.”
“When did you get so bossy?”
“Learned from the best,” Gwendy says and sticks out her tongue.
“Speaking of surprises—and I don’t know why in the world I woke up thinking about this just now—but do you remember the year we tried to surprise your father for his birthday?” She scoots herself up in bed, eyes wide open and alert now, and takes a sip from the small carton of juice.
“When we decorated the garage with all those balloons and streamers?” Gwendy asks.
Mrs. Peterson points a finger at her. “That’s the one. He was away fishing all afternoon. We crammed everyone inside and the big plan was to hit the door opener as soon as he pulled into the driveway.”
Gwendy starts giggling. “Only we didn’t know he’d fallen off a log and landed in the mud on the way back to his truck.”
Mrs. Peterson nods. “We’d swiped the automatic door opener from his truck so he’d had no choice but to get out.” Now she’s chuckling right along with her daughter.
“We were all hiding in the dark and when we heard the truck pull up and the driver’s door open and close …”
“I hit the button and up goes the garage door and there’s your father …” Mrs. Peterson starts laughing and can’t finish.
“Standing there with his fishing pole in one hand and his tackle box in the other,” Gwendy says, “and he’s naked as a jaybird from the waist down, those pale skinny legs of his caked with mud.” Gwendy throws her head back and laughs.
Mrs. Peterson places a hand over her heart and struggles to get the words out. “I’m covering your eyes with one hand and waving your father back to his truck with the other. I look over and see the expression on poor Blanche Goff’s face …” She snorts out a giggle. “I thought she was going to have a heart attack sitting right there in her lawn chair.”
And then both women are clutching their sides and howling with laughter—and neither one of them is able to get another word out.
55
WHEN MR. PETERSON WALKS out of the elevator and hears raucous laughter coming from somewhere down the hallway, his eyes narrow with annoyance. Whoever’s making all that racket better not wake up my wife or there’s going to be hell to pay.
It’s not until he turns the corner by the nurses’ station and sees the door to Room 233 standing wide open with a cluster of smiling nurses gathered outside that he realizes it’s his wife and daughter making the racket.
“What’s going on in here?” he asks, walking into the room with a puzzled expression on his face.
Mrs. Peterson and Gwendy take one look at him—and burst out in another fit of laughter.
56
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, AN orderly raps on the door. He’s a big fellow with a warm smile and a thicket of dreadlocks crammed into a bursting-at-the-seams hairnet. “Sorry to break up the party, folks, but I’m here to take Mrs. Peterson down to Imaging.”
“Winston!” Mrs. Peterson says, her face lighting up. “I thought your shift was over.”
“No, ma’am.” He shakes his head. “Not until I’m finished taking care of my favorite patient.”
Visibly touched, she says, “Thank you, Winston.”
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” Mr. Peterson says, squeezing his wife’s hand.
She looks up at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers and gives him a little squeeze back. “I’m ready,” she says to the orderly.
“I’ll be here, too,” Gwendy says, doing her best not to cry.
“I know you will.” Mrs. Peterson pulls her other hand out from underneath the blanket and holds up a small white feather. Her hand looks very thin and delicate. “Thanks again for the loan, sweetheart. I’ll take good care of it.”
Gwendy smiles, but doesn’t risk saying another word.
57
BACK HOME, GWENDY SLIDES the button box into the safe and pushes the heavy door shut behind it, listening for the audible click as the lock engages. Then she spins the dial, once, twice, three times, and gives the handle a good hard yank just to make sure. She’s almost to her bedroom when the doorbell rings.
Freezing in the hallway, she holds her breath, willing whomever it is to go away.
The doorbell rings again. A double-ring this time.
Gwendy, still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to the hospital earlier, pulls her cellphone out of her sweater pocket. She punches in 9-1-1 and hovers her finger over the SEND button. Creeping down the hallway, she eases into the foyer, careful not to make any noise, and peeks out the peephole.
The doorbell rings again—and she almost screams.
Stepping back, she unlocks the deadbolt and swings the door open.
“Jesus, Sheriff. You could have called before you—”
“Another girl’s gone missing. Right down the road from here.”
“What? When?”
“Call came in about an hour ago.” Sheriff Ridgewick reaches down to his belt and adjusts the volume on his radio. “The girl’s father said she was ice skating at the pond with friends. Some of the older kids had a bonfire going and maybe twenty-five or thirty people were there. Another parent was supposed to be watching her, but she got to talking with a neighbor, and you know how that goes. No one noticed the girl was missing until it was time to go.”
“Your men checked the ice?” Gwendy asks, knowing it’s a dumb question even before it leaves her mouth.
“We did,” he says, nodding. “But it’s been solid for at least six weeks now. No way she fell in.”
“So now what? You search the area—and what else?”
“I’ve got officers combing the surrounding woods and side streets. We also set up roadblocks in a couple of locations, but if whoever took her stuffed her in the trunk and started driving right away, they’re long gone by now. The rest of my people are knocking on doors up and down View Drive, asking folks if they’ve seen anything suspicious the past few days.”
Gwendy’s face drops. “I think you better come in, Sheriff.” She takes a step back to give him room. “I have something I need to tell you, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
58
THE BLONDE REPORTER FROM Channel Five holds the microphone in front of Sheriff Ridgewick’s face as he speaks. She’s wearing a fluffy light blue winter beanie that matches her coat and her make-up is perfect, despite the whipping wind and freezing cold temperature. The sheriff, eyes watering and cheeks raw, looks tired and miserable.
“. . . is currently underway for Deborah Parker, a resident of the nineteen-hundred block of View Drive. Miss Parker is fourteen years old and a freshman at Castle Rock High School.”
A color photograph of a smiling teenage girl with metal braces and dark brown curly hair appears in the upper right-hand corner of the television screen.
“She’s five-foot-two-inches tall, weighs one hundred and five pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen earlier this evening at approximately 7:30 PM. ice skating with friends at Fortier Pond. If anyone has any information as to Deborah Parker’s whereabouts or witnessed anything out of the ordinary in the Castle View area, please contact the Castle Rock Sheriff’s Department at …”
59
GWENDY HAS NEVER LAID eyes on the man standing outside of the sheriff’s office before, but she can smell his press credentials a mile away. It also helps that she can see the mini-recorder he’s palming in his left hand.
“Congresswoman Peterson,” he says, cutting her off by the entrance. “Any comment on the missing girls?”
“And you are?” she asks.
He pulls a laminated ID card out from under his jacket and extends it as far as the lanyard will permit. “Ronald Blum, Portland Press Herald.”
“I’m here this morning to be briefed by Sheriff Ridgewic
k. I’ll leave it to him to issue any official statements.” She starts to walk away.
“Is it true that there’ve been other unsuccessful recent attempts to abduct young girls here in Castle Rock?”
Gwendy pulls opens the door and lets it swing closed in the reporter’s face. He shouts something else, but she can’t make it out through the heavy glass.
The stationhouse is buzzing this morning. A handful of officers sit at their desks talking on the telephone and jotting down notes. Several others are gathered in front of a bulletin board, examining a large map of Castle Rock. There’s a line at the coffee machine and another in front of the Xerox copier. Gwendy spots Sheila Brigham in her cubicle and heads that way.
The veteran dispatcher is busy talking to someone on her headset, and judging by the annoyed look on her face, she’s been stuck on the line for quite some time. She sees Gwendy approach and covers the microphone with her hand. “Go on back. It’s a shit-show here today.”
Gwendy waves thank you and walks down the narrow hallway. This time the door to Sheriff Ridgewick’s office is closed. She knocks three times for luck.
“Come in,” a muffled voice says.
She opens the door and steps inside. The sheriff is standing at the window, staring outside. “That reporter get you on the way in?”
She nods. “I didn’t have much to say.”
“I appreciate that,” he says, turning around and looking at her.
“He asked if there’d been any other attempted abductions in Castle Rock recently. I almost fainted, but I don’t think he noticed.”
“He’s just fishing,” the sheriff says, leaning back against his desk.
“I guess, but it was very unsettling after what I told you last night.”
“He doesn’t know anything about that. Nobody does. Yet.”
“You’ll tell the others today?”
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