by Sharon Sala
“I’m not crying, honey. I’m just tired. How about you?”
Justine nodded, then pointed to Amy Anne. “She’s sleepy, too, aren’t you, Amy Anne?”
Mary turned around. Amy Anne was sitting cross-legged in the bed, picking at a raveling thread on the blanket. She held her breath, hoping that Amy Anne would talk. She didn’t get the words, but she did get a brief moment of eye contact before Amy Anne nodded.
“Okay…” she said. “Then let’s get some sleep, what do you say?”
“Is the man going to come back?” Justine asked.
“I don’t think so. At least not again tonight. But you don’t worry. I’m here and I won’t let anything happen to you again.”
She gave each little girl a hug and then started tucking them back beneath the covers before stretching out in front of them, using her body as a shield between them and Howard Lee.
She was almost asleep when she felt the brush of a small hand against her arm. Tears welled behind her eyelids as she felt the hesitancy of the touch. Justine was too far away to reach her like this. It had to be Amy Anne. Without speaking, she reached for the tiny fingers and then covered them with her own. There was a moment when she thought she felt hesitance, then quietly, without disturbing the covers, Mary felt the child scooting just a tiny bit closer.
For now, it was enough.
It was raining. Daniel stood at the living room window, watching it fall and praying with every breath in his body that Mary was still alive. There was a growing ache in his gut and what felt like a permanent knot at the back of his throat. He kept alternating with the need to break something or break down and cry. Bobby Joe had gone home hours earlier with a promise to pick him up first thing in the morning, and now he was left alone with the horror of his reality.
He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes after two in the morning. He needed to sleep, but resting while Mary was missing seemed somehow disloyal. However, tomorrow would be hell if he didn’t. Reluctantly, he went upstairs to their room and laid down on the bed without undressing. Within minutes, he’d succumbed to exhaustion.
“Daniel…come and get me.”
“Mary? Mary? Is that you?”
Daniel turned toward the sound of her voice, trying desperately to fight his way out of the dream.
“We’re alive, Daniel. We’re all alive.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Justine and Amy Anne, but we’re running out of time. Please, Danny…come and get us before Howard Lee takes us away. We want to go home.”
Daniel woke with a gasp and sat straight up in bed.
“Mary?”
He’d said her name out of reflex, although he hadn’t expected an answer. He knew he’d been dreaming, but it wasn’t like any dream he’d ever had. It seemed as if he’d heard her as clearly as if she’d been lying right beside him. As for the mention of the two little girls, that was weird. What had she called them? Oh yeah…Justine and Amy Anne. And Howard Lee? Who the hell was Howard Lee?
Dismissing it as nothing more than part of the nightmare in which they were caught, he still made a mental note of the names. He would call Reese Arnaud tomorrow and see if any progress had been made. Chances are he’d heard the girls’ names on the news and then forgotten them until his subconscious had drawn them up into his dream. As for a man named Howard Lee, he couldn’t believe it meant anything. As much as he wanted to think he and Mary were soul mates, he didn’t believe in psychic communication.
Too awake now to go back to sleep, he got out of bed and walked to the window. It was still raining. The wet streets had taken on a look of obsidian—their dark, mirrored surfaces a reflection of his soul.
Time passed slowly, and still he couldn’t get the sound of Mary’s voice out of his mind. It had been so vivid, and the dream so specific. If only he dared believe. He swiped a hand over his face and then turned away from the windows, and as he did, his gaze fell on the bed. It was so damned big—and too empty without her.
Without warning, he started to cry. Please God, don’t let me spend the rest of my life without her in it.
Reese Arnaud was at his desk by 5:00 a.m., pouring over the computer printout that had come from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He couldn’t believe how many people in the city of Savannah owned white vans. He’d quit counting at four hundred and thirty-seven. What was frightening was the thought that the man they were looking for might not even be a resident of Georgia. If that was the case, then the names on this list could be moot.
He poured himself a third cup of coffee as he downed the last bite of his sausage biscuit, then flopped back in his chair. Someone told him yesterday that Bobby Joe Killian was asking questions at the supermarket where Mary O’Rourke had been abducted and that Daniel was with him. It didn’t make his job any easier to know that the man he called his friend didn’t trust him to bring his wife home. That he had turned to a P.I. with a less than perfect reputation made it worse. Then he frowned. That wasn’t entirely the truth. Truth was, Reese couldn’t blame him. The little girls had been missing for more than six weeks, and they hadn’t had a solid lead until the sketch. If it was his wife, he wouldn’t want to wait in the wings, either. He’d be turning over every known perp on the streets and yanking until one of them squealed.
Heartsick and exhausted, he took a long drink of the coffee and then went back to the list, marking off all the names of owners with vans that were more than ten years old.
A short while later, his phone rang. He picked it up without thought, his focus still on the pages.
“Savannah P.D.”
“Arnaud…this is Williams in Vice. Got a little piece of video with a person on it you might want to see.”
“Unless she’s six feet tall and naked, I don’t think so,” Reese muttered.
The detective chuckled, then dropped another line that got Reese’s attention.
“It’s not a she, it’s a he, and he’s stealing medicine from the third floor of Savannah Memorial.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” Reese asked.
“Well, one of the guys here in Vice thought the perp looked a little like that man in the sketch you’ve been circulating.”
Reese stood abruptly. “I’m on my way.”
A short while later Reese was sitting alongside Detective Williams, as well as two other detectives, viewing the tape.
“What do you think?” Williamson asked.
Reese leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Holding the remote, he hit Rewind, then Play. It was the fourth time he’d viewed the piece of tape and still he couldn’t be sure.
“I don’t know,” Reese said. “The tape quality is poor. The images are grainy. It’s a tall, blond man, but we don’t have a real clear view of his face.”
“Yeah, I know,” Williams said. “But you don’t see a crazy haircut like that every day.”
Reese nodded, eyeing the man’s bone-straight hair. Williams was right about that. It looked like someone had turned a bowl upside down on his head and trimmed off everything that stuck out from under it.
“I’d feel better about it if he’d smiled for the camera,” Reese muttered.
Williams frowned. “What?”
“Oh, nothing,” Reese said. “It’s just that he’s supposed to have this goofy set of teeth. Distinctive enough to set him aside from the crowd, you know?”
“Yeah, okay. So what do you want to do about this?” Williams asked.
Reese frowned. “What does the hospital have to say about the tape? Anyone there identified the man?”
“They’ve shown it to the nurses on the third floor, but identification is a bust. Supposedly he looks like someone named Barry, who’s an ex-husband of one RN. Also, someone else said he looks like their brother, but that’s a dead-end too because the brother is in the Navy and stationed in the Black Sea. Another said he looked a little like one of the janitors, but that man wasn’t even on duty when the robbery went down.”
> Reese thought of the janitor angle. It made sense.
“It has to be someone who knew the layout of the floor,” Reese said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because my daughter, Molly, had her tonsils out there two years ago. They only have minimal medications on site. The main pharmacy for the hospital is on the first floor.”
Williams glared at the two detectives nearby. “Why does he know that and we don’t?”
They shrugged and grinned.
“What did he steal?” Reese asked.
Williams looked at his notes. “Some antibiotics. No hard drugs like you would expect.”
“What kind of antibiotics?” Reese asked.
“Ummm…ampicillin and something I can’t pronounce that the doctor said is used for people who are allergic to penicillin. Also, some hypodermic syringes.”
“Oh damn,” Reese said, and got up from the chair.
“What?” Williams asked.
“One of the little girls who’s missing…she’s allergic to penicillin. Her mother says she was wearing a Medic Alert bracelet.”
“Oh man…if this is the guy who took them and he’s stealing medicine, then that means the girls are sick.”
Reese grinned. “No…it means that the girls are alive.”
“Oh yeah…right!” Williams said. “So what are you going to do?”
“Before we jump to too many conclusions, I need a list of employees at the hospital and I want the clerk at the supermarket to look at this tape. If she thinks it’s the man who snatched Mary O’Rourke, then at least we’ll know we’re looking for the same perp for all three abductions.”
Bobby Joe Killian swerved off the street and into the drive in front of Daniel’s house. He stomped the brakes, leaving a streak of black rubber on the pavement as he killed the engine.
Daniel was coming out of the house before Bobby Joe could get out of the car.
“Hurry,” Bobby Joe said.
“Why?” Daniel asked, as he slid into the seat.
“You know that pretty little clerk at the supermarket?”
“The one who witnessed Mary’s abduction?”
“Yep.”
“What about her?” Daniel asked.
“She’s going on her way to the police station to look at a tape.”
“A tape of what?”
“Not sure,” Bobby Joe said, as he peeled out of the driveway and back onto the street.
“How do you know this?” Daniel asked.
Bobby Joe grinned. “We were still in her bed when she got the call.”
“You slept with her?”
Bobby Joe shrugged. “Yeah, why not? She’s pretty, she’s single and she asked.”
“Isn’t that some kind of conflict of interest?” Daniel asked.
“Not for me,” Bobby Joe said.
“Yeah, right. What was I thinking?”
Chapter 13
Reese was still in Detective Williams’s office, waiting for the supermarket clerk to arrive when Bobby Joe and Daniel showed up. His first instinct was to give Daniel a hard time for getting mixed up with Killian, and then he looked at his face. The man looked haunted. It was enough to temper his greeting.
“You guys lost?” he asked.
“I want to see the security tape from the hospital robbery,” Daniel said.
Reese didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “How the hell did you find out about that?”
“A little birdie named Carol told me,” Bobby Joe said.
Detective Williams eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “You know Carol Shane?”
“Intimately.”
“Well hell, Killian, is there no woman safe from you in the city of Savannah?”
Bobby Joe grinned. “I have yet to hear a complaint.”
Ignoring the byplay between Williams and Killian, Reese turned to Daniel.
“Look, friend, I understand where you’re coming from, but trust me, it won’t make you feel a damn bit better to see it. We’re not even sure the man we’ve got on film is the same one who took Mary.”
Before Daniel could answer, another detective yelled from across the room.
“Hey, Williams. There’s a woman here named Carol Shane who says you’re expecting her.”
They all turned to look at the young blonde who was waiting in the doorway. Williams got up to go meet her, but Bobby Joe beat him to it. In seconds, he was at the door and kissing the woman on the cheek.
Williams snorted beneath his breath. “He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?”
“He’s a friend,” Daniel said. “He came when I called.”
Williams looked taken aback. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just—”
“Never mind,” Daniel said. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but getting Mary back.”
“And those two little girls,” Reese added.
“If they’re still alive,” a detective remarked.
Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets and then looked at the floor. When he spoke it was so low, Reese had to lean forward to hear him.
“According to Mary, they’re still alive,” Daniel muttered.
Reese jerked as if he’d been hit.
“What the hell do you mean? Have you talked to her? Did you get a ransom call?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Daniel said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”
“Damn it, Daniel, talk to me.”
“Look, I dreamed it, okay?”
“What do you mean, you dreamed it?”
“Last night…I saw Mary. She was telling me she was okay and that the girls were alive. She said Justine and Amy Anne. Are those their names?”
Reese paled. “Yeah. But you could have heard that on the news and forgotten it until last night in your sleep.”
Daniel nodded. “I know. It was just so real.”
Williams yelled at Bobby Joe. “Hey, Killian. Save the Romeo stuff for later and escort Ms. Shane to the front row-seat we’ve saved for her.”
Bobby Joe cupped a hand underneath the woman’s elbow and walked her across the room. “Detectives…this is Carol Shane. Be nice. She’s nervous, okay?”
Williams glared at Bobby Joe and then helped the woman to a chair in front of the TV and VCR.
“Ms. Shane, we appreciate you coming in like this. There’s no reason to be afraid, and the tape we want you to see is very brief. There’s nothing violent on it. Just a man going in and then leaving a room. What I want you to do is look at his face and tell us if he’s the same man who abducted Mary O’Rourke yesterday.”
She glanced nervously at each of the men and then nodded before fixing her gaze on the blank television screen. Williams hit the remote and immediately, the screen was filled with images from the robbery.
Daniel tensed as Carol Shane leaned forward, and like before, they replayed the same bit of footage several times before they asked for her answer.
“Well, Ms. Shane, what do you think?” Reese asked.
Carol looked up. “I can’t be sure, but it certainly looked like him. Not many people wear their hair like that, and although there wasn’t a real good shot of his face, I’d say it was him.”
“Are you sure?” Williams asked. “Remember, you only got a brief look at him yesterday at the supermarket.”
Bobby Joe stepped forward and laid a hand on Carol’s back.
“Oh no, that’s not exactly true, is it, honey?”
“What do you mean?” Reese asked.
Carol was fidgeting with the hem of her T-shirt as she looked up at the men ringed around her.
“Well, it’s like I told Bobby Joe last night…the man who took that woman…uh…he’s a regular in the store.”
Reese cursed beneath his breath. “Why don’t we know this?”
Carol Shane looked like she was going to cry.
“I told the first officer on the scene that I’d seen him before, but that I didn’t know his name.”
“Te
ll him what else you told me, honey,” Bobby Joe urged. “You know…about what he’s been buying.”
“Oh! That!” Carol said. “I’ve been working at Vinter’s for almost a year and I’ve seen him off and on from the start. Only he used to buy stuff like a single man buys. You know…frozen dinners, Hamburger Helper, stuff like that. Only lately he’s started buying stuff like people buy when they have kids.”
“Like what?” Reese asked.
“Like fun cereal with marshmallows in it and different juices and lots of milk. Oh…and frozen chicken nuggets, weiners, little individual kid snacks.”
“Did he ever say anything to you?”
Carol shook her head. “No. He doesn’t even look at me. Just looks down, digs the money out of his wallet and leaves.”
“Can you remember him ever paying by check?”
“Not to me.”
“How can you be sure?” Daniel asked.
“Because I know a lot of my regulars and he’s the only one I used to see fairly often that I didn’t know by name.”
Reese stood, and then helped Carol Shane to her feet.
“Okay, Ms. Shane. Thank you so much for coming in. If you remember anything else, please give me a call.” He handed her his card and then nodded at Bobby Joe.
Bobby Joe winked at Daniel. “Be right back,” he said, and walked her out of the office.
Daniel turned to Reese. “So what do you think?”
“I think we’re probably looking at the same man.”
“And…”
Reese frowned. “Without a name, we’re right back where we were this morning. We’re looking for a man who drives a white van. The fact that he’s buying kid food at a supermarket and stealing antibiotics that one would ordinarily administer to children only tells me that the girls are probably alive. The fact that he’s stealing medicine isn’t a good sign that the girls are well, but at least they’re still breathing. That’s more than we knew two days ago.”
Daniel shoved a hand through his hair in frustration.
“How many names on the DMV list?”
“You don’t want to know,” Reese muttered.
“Actually, yes I do,” Daniel said. “I’m dying here.”