Paternity Unknown

by Barrett, Jean

  “All right, here’s the plan,” he said. “You wait here while I—”

  “Forget that. I’m coming with you.”

  “Lauren, let’s not argue about this.”

  “I agree. We’re wasting time, so let’s go.”

  “I’d feel better if you stayed here.”

  “And I’d feel better going with you,” she insisted. “Look, if you’re worried I’m going to go all emotional on you again, like back at the salvage yard, I promise I won’t.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s just—”

  “You think I’d be safer staying here on my own. Well, I wouldn’t be. It’s much safer if I stick with you. For both of us.”

  He had no answer to that.

  “Good,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and opening her door.

  Seconds later, they moved cautiously on foot up the drive. The farmhouse, less than a hundred yards away, came into full view when they rounded a bend. Using the pines as a cover, they studied the setting.

  In addition to the house itself, there were the remains of a barn that had collapsed into its fieldstone foundations, a rusted windmill that probably hadn’t operated in decades and a machine shed. Though its roof was sagging, the weathered shed was still intact, its double doors hanging open.

  There was a forlorn look about the whole place, including the house. As if it hadn’t been inhabited in years.

  “You see any sign of life?” Ethan asked her softly.

  “No.”

  If Sara’s kidnappers weren’t here, then their effort to find this place had been for nothing.

  Ethan, however, wasn’t ready to be discouraged. “I want to check out that shed first.”

  Screening themselves behind all the vegetation that had gone wild, they worked their way around the perimeter of the clearing until they reached the gaping doors of the shed. From this angle, the house was no longer visible. If anyone was watching from one of its windows, they could not be seen.

  Lauren followed Ethan into the gloom of the shed. It was empty except for a barrel of trash, an old croquet set with missing pieces and bales of rotting hay stacked against one wall. She didn’t know what he expected to find here.

  But Ethan, crouched down on the earthen floor of the shed, had already made a discovery. “Tire tracks here in the dust,” he reported. “Somebody’s been using the shed as a garage, and the tracks are recent enough to mean—”

  He never finished. At that instant something hidden in the shadows launched itself from the top of the hay bales. As it hurtled past Lauren, almost brushing her face, she gasped in alarm. Recoiling, she collided with the barrel. It overturned, spilling its contents.

  The cat—she realized that’s what had startled her—landed on the floor and, without pause, streaked away through the weeds. The animal had never made a sound, but the barrel had seemed like an explosion to Lauren. Had its crash been loud enough to be overheard at the house?

  Ethan was worried enough by that possibility to go to the open doors of the shed where he stood listening. Left behind, Lauren righted the barrel, knelt and began to pick up the trash.

  “I think we’re okay,” he decided, joining her back inside the shed. “As loud as the noise seemed to us, it couldn’t have been heard as far away as the house. But let’s not hang around in here. There’s nothing more to be seen.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, coming to her feet.

  The expression on her face when she looked at him must have revealed her excitement. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “What did you find?”

  “This,” she said, holding out an empty plastic bottle.

  “Is that—”

  “What you think it is, yes. A disposable baby bottle, with traces of wet formula still inside. And there were others like it in the trash barrel.”

  “That’s it, then. Proof this is where they brought Sara.”

  Lauren didn’t point out to him that the bottles weren’t conclusive evidence, that their contents could have fed some other baby. How could she say it when she, too, wanted to believe their daughter could be within their reach?

  “But what good does it do us?” she said, remembering the tire tracks and the absence of the vehicle that made them. “If this is where they kept their car, and it’s not here, then they’ve cleared out.”

  “Not necessarily. They might still be off somewhere and intending to come back. And if Sara wasn’t with them when they stopped at the gas station, then it could mean she’s in the house right now with whoever is taking care of her.” His jaw tightened. “It’s time we tackled the house.”

  The need to investigate the house itself, and the risk it involved, awakened butterflies in Lauren’s stomach. And when Ethan armed himself with a stout mallet from the croquet set, an action that said a weapon might be essential, those butter flies coalesced into a lump. Nerves or not, however, she had no intention of being left behind, not when she knew he was right.

  With Ethan leading the way, they plunged back into the shrubbery outside. Silence was necessary now as they made their way toward the house. From time to time, she caught glimpses of the farmhouse through the lush growth that shielded them.

  Typical of its kind and its era, it was a two-story, frame structure with a single-story kitchen wing off one end. Now that they were near it, she could see that, unlike the other buildings that had been allowed to deteriorate, the house itself had been kept in repair. But in the dwindling light, with the shades pulled down at all of the windows, it had a sinister look.

  Nor, when they circled the house, keeping the overgrown shrubbery between themselves and its walls, did it look any less forbidding from the back side.

  Ethan brought them to a halt behind a tangle of lilacs, where they spoke in undertones.

  “I’m going to try to get inside,” he said.

  Lauren eyed the back door located off a porch that stretched across the kitchen wing. It looked solid. “What if the door and all the windows are locked?”

  “They probably are.”

  “But if you break in, there’s no way to cover the noise.”

  “I’m not going to do that unless I have to. See the cellar doors over there? That’s how I’m going to get in. Maybe.”

  “You can’t go in there on your own. I’m coming with you.”

  “Not until I signal you no one is waiting down in that cellar. You stay right here until then. Got your cell phone in your purse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then if I don’t come out of there waving an all clear in three minutes, you get back to the car and out of here. You can call the sheriff when you’re on the road, but not until then.”

  Lauren wasn’t happy with his plan, but she was afraid if she objected to it, he wouldn’t let her accompany him at all. She knew how much he didn’t like her being here in the first place.

  Mallet in hand and bent over in a half crouch, Ethan sprinted toward the house. Even though the drawn shades made the windows blind and the distance he had to travel wasn’t far, she knew he was vulnerable out in the open like this. At any second, he could be challenged.

  He wasn’t. He reached his objective, the pair of old-fashioned wooden cellar doors. Would he find them locked? She watched as he tugged at a handle. The door lifted. He paused for a second, and she knew he was listening. Apparently satisfied, he eased the door higher until he was able to fold it all the way back. Then, still gripping the mallet, he vanished down into the dark cavity.

  Keeping her solitary vigil in the lilac thicket, Lauren waited. It was the longest three minutes she had ever endured.

  Not until his head appeared again in the opening was she able to draw a decent breath. When he beckoned to her, she quickly joined him.

  “Careful of the steps,” he whispered. “They’re steep and wet.”

  He turned, and she followed him down into the stone-walled cellar. The few windows here were small and dirty, admitting only the weakest of light. Lauren was able to
see very little in the deep gloom, but Ethan must have discovered an inside stairway or he wouldn’t have summoned her.

  He led the way across the earthen floor. The place was damp and smelled of mold and decay. They didn’t speak and there was no sound from overhead.

  Reaching the foot of a narrow stairway, they stopped to listen. The house wore the silence of desertion. But the still ness could be deceptive, cloaking a menace. For that reason, they crept up the stairs, Lauren close behind Ethan and fearing one of the old treads would squeak under their weight.

  That didn’t happen, but when he carefully spread the door open at the top of the stairway, it did creak softly. She caught her breath, but his action raised no alarm.

  When they emerged from the cellar, they found themselves in the kitchen. Even in the murky light, Lauren could see all the evidence of a hasty departure. Cupboard doors yawned, food had been left uncovered on the table, unwashed dishes were piled on the counters.

  It was a repeat of the scene in the cottage at the lake. And for the same reason. The occupants of the house had fled. It had all been for nothing, the effort she and Ethan had made to find this place, the caution they had so carefully exercised to get inside. Their silence wasn’t necessary now.

  “They’re gone,” she said, wondering how much more disappointment she could bear. “We’ve lost them again.”

  And Sara along with them.

  “Looks like it,” Ethan said, his frown registering his own disappointment. “Come on, let’s have a look at the rest of the place.”

  “It’s pretty obvious we’re all alone here. What’s the point?”

  “If they got out because they panicked, they might have decided it was too dangerous now to take Sara with them. They could have left her behind.”

  That was possible, if not likely. She and Ethan could afford to overlook nothing, because if Sara had been ruthlessly abandoned, left here all on her own—

  The thought was so horrifying that Lauren shuddered. Was her daughter somewhere in this house? It was both a hope and a fear.

  “And if not that,” Ethan added, “there’s a chance of finding something that could tell us where they’ve gone.”

  Her anxiety mounting, Lauren accompanied him in the search. They moved rapidly from room to room, switching on lamps as they went. Dining room, parlor, bathroom, downstairs bedroom. In none of them was there either a sign of their daughter or an indication of where her abductors might have taken her. All they did find was further evidence of a quick escape.

  They must have come straight back here after that business at the service station, Lauren thought, thrown their things together and gotten out. If only she and Ethan hadn’t been delayed hunting for the place, they might have caught up with them.

  But why had they been holed up here? Not because they were waiting for the delivery of a ransom. They’d never demanded one. Then what had they been waiting for? And why, why had they taken Sara in the first place?

  Useless. They were all useless questions without answers, bringing her no closer to her desperate need to be reunited with her daughter. A need driven by her memory of the viciousness of the man who had held her between the high walls of the trucks. The thought of her baby in the hands of someone like that chilled her.

  There was a door at one end of the parlor they had yet to investigate. Opening it, Lauren found herself gazing up into the dimness of an enclosed staircase.

  “The stairway to the second floor,” she reported to Ethan.

  “Let me go first,” he said, joining her at the bottom of the steep flight.

  She started to move aside and then hesitated. “Did you hear something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I thought I heard a sound up there.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I guess it was nothing.”

  But she was glad he still had the mallet in his hand as he preceded her up through the shadows.

  There was a small hallway at the head of the flight of stairs. It was occupied by nothing but a battered chimney cupboard that faced the stairs. Off one side of the hall was an open doorway. A glance inside revealed an unfurnished bedroom. It looked gray and hollow in October’s early twilight.

  At the other side of the hall was a narrow passageway. Lauren followed Ethan down its short length to the closed door at the end. When he closed his hand over the knob and turned, he met resistance.

  “Locked?” she asked.

  “Yes, and no key. Not on this side anyway.”

  It wasn’t necessary for either of them to say what had to be obvious to both of them. That, if the door had been locked, there was a reason for it. Possibly a vital reason.

  “Stand back,” Ethan said. “I’m going to see what I can do about getting us inside.”

  She retreated a few steps, giving him the space he needed. Raising one foot, he delivered a powerful kick just below the knob. The lock was an ancient one, the door equally old. It crashed open, banging back against the wall on the other side.

  Lauren came forward, looking over his shoulder into the room. It was another bedroom, but this one was furnished. A full-length mirror on the wall opposite the door reflected the last light of day that stole through the two windows.

  The mirror also reflected something else. Catching her breath, and then releasing it in a rush, Lauren stared at the body of a woman stretched out on the floor between a pair of beds.

  By the time she recovered from her initial shock, Ethan was inside the room and crouched beside the still figure. She swiftly followed him.

  It wasn’t until she rounded the foot of the first bed that she noticed the blood. It had pooled on the floor from an ugly wound on the side of the woman’s turned head. She had ei ther fallen and injured herself, or she’d been struck down. Brutally struck down, perhaps by whoever had locked that door.

  “Is she—”

  “I don’t know.” Ethan had his forefinger at the woman’s throat, searching for a pulse.

  She could still be alive. She could have made the sound I thought I heard at the bottom of the stairs. She could have heard us in the house and was trying to signal for—

  Another thought suddenly occurred to her. “Ethan, this isn’t the blonde. She’s someone else, someone much older.”

  “I know.”

  He recognized the woman. The hardness in his voice told her that. “It’s Hilary Johnson, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  She’s so small, Lauren thought, gazing sadly at the slight figure below her. Much too small to have been something like a housekeeper, even if others had performed the heavy work in Jonathan Brand’s mansion.

  It was an oddly disconcerting thought, maybe because Lauren realized on another level that Hilary Johnson didn’t deserve her sympathy. Not when her presence here was an almost certain indication now that the woman had played a role in Sara’s abduction.

  “I’ve got a pulse,” Ethan said, “but it’s a weak one.”

  “Then we’ve got to get help for her.”

  Lauren opened her purse and groped inside for her cell phone. She had no chance to use it.

  During the course of the long afternoon, they had been subjected to a series of unexpected events. Those events had not ended. The last one was dealt to them in that second when, from the direction of the hallway behind them, came a loud whump. The blast was so strong it rocked the floor under Lauren’s feet.

  Chapter Nine

  Ethan shouted something after her, but before he could get to his feet to stop her, Lauren had whipped out into the passageway. The sight that met her gaze down at its other end horrified her.

  The chimney cupboard had exploded like a fragile eggshell with the force of whatever device must have been planted behind its door. That it was incendiary in nature was obvious since flames were rapidly engulfing the hall. She could hear their roar, feel the intense heat they generated, see tongues of fire licking toward her along the old, dry wood of the floor. />
  All this registered in her mind within the space of a few seconds. Then, pivoting, she fled back to the bedroom, colliding with Ethan in the doorway.

  “The fire’s already blocked the stairway!” she cried. “We can’t get out that way!”

  He drew her into the room, closing the door against the smoke billowing along the passageway. It refused to shut properly after his earlier abuse of it. Smoke began to curl in little wisps around its edges and under its bottom.

  “Find whatever you can to stuff into the cracks while I see what I can do about getting us out of here,” he directed her.

  Lauren didn’t question what that might be. Wouldn’t permit herself to fear they might be hopelessly trapped. Panic was not an option. Urgency was.

  Tearing the quilt off one of the beds, she hung it over the door, pressing its folds in and around the edges of the door as best she could. Then, stripping the sheets from the mattress, she knelt on the floor and bunched them along the bottom of the door. It helped, but it wasn’t enough.

  Smoke started to seep through the barrier, stinging her eyes as she worked, invading her lungs. She heard glass shattering behind her, and when she turned her head, she saw Ethan at one of the windows. His arm and hand wrapped with a pillowcase, he had smashed out the lower pane of the window and was now picking away the splintered fragments that still clung to the frame.

  “Painted shut,” he explained his action. “It wouldn’t budge.”

  She got to her feet, started to join him at the window. “How far is it down to the—”

  She broke off, coughing on the smoke she’d swallowed. But he understood what she had tried to ask.

  “No need to worry about that. This window is over the kitchen roof. We’ll crawl out on that and then it should be an easy drop to the ground. Come on, I’ll help you through.”

  Lauren made her way swiftly to his side and then stopped again as memory seized her. “Hilary! We can’t just—”

  “I’m not going to leave her behind. Just get out there, and I’ll lower her down to you.”

  Aided by Ethan, Lauren managed to scramble through the opening he’d cleared and onto the ridge several feet below her. By the time she’d secured her footing on the roof, which mercifully had a low pitch, he’d gone back for Hilary and was sliding her limp body feetfirst through the window.