The Midnight Hour

by Karen Robards

  Whoever it was ran on around the bend, and out of sight.

  It was a long moment before Grace was able to glance away from the spot where the figure had disappeared. The next object that registered with her confused senses was the soft, squishy, furry thing she had stepped on to cause her fall, which now lay just a few inches from her right hand.

  It was a teddy bear.

  Jessica’s teddy bear, to be precise, the one she had owned since she was a tiny girl. The one she loved. The one that, up until at least tonight’s bedtime when Grace had seen it there as she bade her daughter good night, had been perched on Jessica’s bedside table ready to watch over Jess as she slept.

  Now it was lying in the grass beside the road, button eyes staring sightlessly up into the dark night sky.

  Chapter

  3

  “WHAT TIME DID YOU LAST see your daughter, Judge Hart?” The gray-haired, sixty-ish patrolman—J. D. Gelinsky, according to the name badge on the breast pocket of his blue uniform—was polite, even deferential, as befitted Grace’s status as a member of the local judiciary. She didn’t know him, although he looked vaguely familiar, and she guessed that she had seen him around the courthouse once or twice. Bexley had its own police force to tend to traffic matters and the other petty crimes that occasionally occurred in the small city, and she doubted that its officers made many appearances in Juvenile and Domestic Court. At any rate, he seemed to know who she was, which was both good and bad. A stickler for paperwork and punctuality, she had a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense jurist. Not all cops appreciated that. Especially if they had a tendency to be late, or ill prepared, when they came to court.

  Licking her dry lips, striving to present a calm, professional demeanor, Grace thought that, at the moment, she didn’t feel much like a judge. What she felt like was a mother, an increasingly frightened mother whose beloved only child was missing. A mother who had awakened in the middle of the night to find her daughter gone and a stranger fleeing her house.

  It was possible that the two circumstances were not connected.

  She shivered, icy with the acute sense of foreboding that had caused her to call the police.

  Had Jessica merely snuck out again—or had something far more sinister befallen her? The former was still possible, but her mother’s intuition was on red alert.

  She felt that Jessica was in danger.

  “Around ten. I went into her room to say good night.” The careful evenness of her voice was belied by the nervous movements of her fingers digging deeply into the nappy brown fur of the teddy bear, which she held on her lap. Her palms, scratched in her fall, burned; her skinned knees stung. Wearing hastily donned khaki slacks, a black turtleneck, and black flats, Grace sat on the gold damask couch in the formal living room, perched on it, really, on the very edge, as if she would spring up at any moment. Officer Gelinsky sat solidly in the armchair opposite her, pen in hand, pad on knees, his gaze on her face. His stolidness was driving her insane. He behaved as if Jessica being missing was of no greater importance than a report of a burglary, or one more stolen car.

  Grace felt as if the cold were sinking clear through to her bones. The house had seemed warm earlier, she remembered. Before she had discovered Jessica was gone. Now it felt like the inside of a refrigerator.

  Perhaps, she thought, striving to maintain self-control, the chill in the room had something to do with its cool color scheme: the walls were painted a deep Wedgwood blue, the heavy silk curtains were blue-and-gold striped, and the carpet was an Aubusson that was predominantly blue. The floor around the rug was highly polished dark wood, and the fireplace mantel was of carved white marble. Everything was well polished, immaculate, and looked cold to the touch. The only warm note in the room was the painting above the fireplace.

  It was a pastel likeness of Jessica at six. Jessica with her light brown hair in two braids, wearing a white pinafore over a yellow gingham dress, her blue eyes—so like Grace’s—huge and solemn.

  Grace could not stop glancing at that portrait. The tightness in her chest intensified another degree every time she did.

  Where was Jessica?

  “And she was in bed at that time?”

  They had gone over this once already, when Officer Gelinsky and his partner had first arrived. Now the partner, a blond woman in perhaps her mid-thirties whom Grace was sure she did not know, was upstairs checking out Jessica’s room, while Officer Gelinsky led Grace through the events of the night for a second time.

  “Yes. She was in bed.”

  “What made you decide to check on her when you did?”

  “I don’t know. I . . . woke up. I don’t know why. And I went in to check on Jessica. And she wasn’t there.” Grace clutched the stuffed bear on her lap tighter, oblivious to the tingling in her sore palms. Mr. Bear, that was what Jess had always called him. She stole a sidelong glance at the portrait, and felt her throat constrict. “Jessica—this is her teddy bear. It sat on the night table by her bed. It was lying outside, near the road. I stepped on it. Whoever I was chasing must have dropped it. He must have been in her room. I’m afraid he may have done something to Jessica.”

  Burgeoning fear added urgency to her words.

  “Don’t worry, Judge Hart. If she’s out there, we’ll find her. I’ve already called it in, and by now the whole force should be aware that your daughter’s missing. She’ll be priority number one until she’s found.” His gaze dropped back to his pad, and he cleared his throat. “You say that the man you chased—it was a man?—was alone, is that right?”

  Grace took a deep breath, fighting to remain calm. Hideous visions of Jon-Benet Ramsey were starting to dance in her head. A tale of a predawn intruder, a missing child, then later, a body . . .

  You’re being ridiculous, she told herself sternly. It was just this mother-sense she had that something was wrong.

  “Whoever I chased was alone. I think it was a man. I . . . can’t be one hundred percent sure. It looked like a man. But I can’t be sure.”

  “But you are certain your daughter was not with him?”

  “Yes, I am certain of that.”

  “And you say your daughter has left the house at night before without telling you?”

  The admission was just as humiliating the second time as it had been the first.

  “Yes. She’s snuck out at night twice in the last few months. She’s a freshman in high school this year, and . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as the blond officer came back into the room, shaking her head significantly at Officer Gelinsky. Grace closed her mouth and felt her muscles tense.

  “Do you mind if I take a look through the rest of the house?” the woman asked her. Sarah Ayres, read her name tag.

  The Ramsey child’s body had been found in the basement. . ..

  Stop it, Grace told herself fiercely. Jessica was all right. Of course she was all right. She had to be all right. Grace swallowed, fighting to keep her voice steady. “No. I mean, please do. Do you—shall I show you around?”

  Officer Ayres exchanged looks with her partner. “No, thanks, I can find my way,” she said, and left the room.

  Grace felt cold sweat break out on her forehead.

  “When you went out the front door—you said you went out the front door, didn’t you?—was it locked?” Officer Gelinsky glanced down at his notes again as he spoke.

  “No. It was not locked. It was locked when I went to bed, but it wasn’t locked then.”

  “Which led you to assume that the . . . individual . . . you were chasing had been inside your house.”

  “That—and the teddy bear. It’s Jessica’s teddy bear. Whoever it was must have taken it from her bedroom and then dropped it when I started chasing him. I don’t see any other way it could have ended up where I found it.”

  “Maybe your daughter carried it outside and dropped it. If not tonight, then earlier.”

  Grace shook her head. “She loves Mr. Bear. He was on the night table beside he
r bed when she fell asleep, I’m sure of it. And she wouldn’t take him outside in the middle of the night, much less drop him and leave him.”

  “Hmmm.” Officer Gelinsky looked down at his notes again. When he glanced up at Grace, his gaze was sharper than it had been before.

  “How would you characterize your relationship with your daughter, Judge Hart?”

  Grace was surprised, yet not surprised. This was the turn the conversation had to take to uphold the nightmare. She wet her lips. “Why . . . good. Very good. Most of the time. Well, we’ve had a few . . . differences of opinion . . . since she became a teenager, but . . .”

  There was a knock at the front door. Both Grace and Officer Gelinsky glanced toward it and rose at the same time.

  “I’ll get it.” Dropping Mr. Bear onto the couch, Grace hurried into the front hall. Officer Gelinsky followed her.

  The knock sounded again, just as Grace’s hand curled around the cold brass knob. Turning it, she pulled the heavy door open. The porch light was on—every light in the house was on by this time, and the neighbor across the street had called to ask if everything was all right—allowing her to clearly see the man who looked at her through the fine steel mesh of the old-fashioned screened door. A glance told her that he was maybe an inch over six feet tall, stocky, with thick black hair and a bushy black beard that obscured his lower face. With his back to the light, she could see the glint of his eyes but not their color. He wore a shabby green army jacket, a pair of jeans, and ancient-looking white sneakers.

  “Mrs. Hart? Uh, Judge Hart?” His gaze moved beyond her as he spoke, presumably to acknowledge Officer Gelinsky, before returning to her face.

  “Yes?” One hand rose to the base of her neck. Was this bad news? It came like this, she had heard. The cop at the door . . . Dear Lord, please no, she prayed. Not Jessica . . .

  “Detective Dominick Marino, Franklin County Police. I have a young woman I think may be your daughter in my car.”

  “What?” A wave of relief so strong it made her knees go weak hit Grace. For a moment her hand tightened around the knob, clinging to it for support. Then she let go. “Thank God! Is she okay?”

  Pushing through the screen door, she rushed past him toward the cars in her driveway even as he answered. He turned to follow her progress with his gaze.

  “Ah, basically.”

  The wind had picked up, Grace noticed distractedly as she ran down the front steps and along the sidewalk to where first a police car and then, behind it, a battered blue Camaro were parked. The police car she ignored. It had been there earlier. Officers Gelinsky and Ayres had arrived in it. Reaching the Camaro, she touched the still-warm hood, tried the locked door on the driver’s side and the passenger door behind it, then bent down to peer through the rear window.

  It was impossible to see anything in the nearly pitch-black interior of the car.

  A dark-haired man in a brown leather bomber jacket got out of the front passenger side, standing in the vee formed by the open door and the car, one arm resting on the roof. She straightened to speak to him.

  He forestalled her. “If that’s your daughter in there, you better start keeping closer tabs on her. What is she, fourteen, fifteen? She needs to be home in bed at night, not out roaming the streets.”

  Taken aback by the blunt censoriousness of his words, Grace merely blinked at him for an instant without replying. He was as disreputable looking as the cop on her porch, she registered, though he was beardless.

  What did he know about anything?

  “Could you unlock the door?” Recovering her power of speech, Grace ignored his words completely, then was distracted by the sight of her daughter as she glanced down. The car’s interior light was on now, illuminating Jessica in the rear. Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a skimpy blue sweater, shoulder-length hair with its center hot-pink streak falling away from her face, her daughter was curled limply in the far seat, her head pillowed on the blue vinyl arm rest in the middle. Her eyes were closed, and her arms dangled off the seat toward the floor. From all appearances, she was either asleep or unconscious, and only the fastened seat belt kept her in place.

  Grace’s fear, which had been swamped by relief for the few brief moments since the announcement that Jessica had been found, returned full force, though in a scary new form.

  “Jessica?” Grace tried the door handle again without success. She rapped on the window. “Jessica?”

  Her daughter did not respond in any way. The small dome light in the roof of the car provided just enough illumination to enable Grace to see the artificial rosiness of Jessica’s cheeks. The fragile bones of her slender, pointy-chinned face appeared almost skeletal in the ghostly light. Her parted lips were dry and chapped looking, which they hadn’t been when she had gone to bed only a few hours earlier.

  “Jessica!” she said again, then, straightening: “Unlock the door, please!”

  This time it was a command, addressed to the cop—she assumed he was a cop—across the roof of the car. He had been watching her without making a move to help as she tried to get to Jessica. Now his gaze met hers, his expression impossible to read in the shifting shadows.

  “Don’t get in a panic. She’s drunk, not dead.” His voice was dry.

  “She has diabetes.” The tightness in Grace’s chest grew until it felt like an iron band squeezing her lungs. She sucked in air, fighting against the compression that threatened to cut off her breath. For Jessica’s sake, she had to stay in control, both of her emotions and the situation.

  The lock popped up with an audible click. Opening the rear door, she leaned into the car, touching Jessica’s flushed cheek. The familiar fruity breath that signified high blood sugar was as unmistakable as the smell of booze that hung around her daughter like a cloud.

  “Jessica! Jess!” On her knees on the car seat now, Grace took hold of her daughter by the shoulder and shook her. Jessica’s lashes fluttered.

  “Mom?” It was a drowsy, slurred question.

  “Jess!”

  Jessica’s eyes closed again, and she seemed to sag. Grace shook her, gently slapped her cheek. “Jess!”

  This time there was no response.

  The door on Jessica’s other side opened.

  “Jesus, lady, if she’s diabetic, you sure shouldn’t be letting her run wild.” The cop was looking at her with disapproval across Jessica’s limp body. He was black-haired, swarthy-skinned, unshaven, and unkempt looking. His eyes were narrow as they met her gaze. The brows above them were thick and bushy and almost met over his nose as he frowned at her. “That’s neglect, pure and simple.”

  “I did not let her do anything.” Jessica’s needs were too urgent to allow her to waste time on this imbecile. “Look, her blood sugar’s too high. She needs to go to the emergency room. Right now. Can you help me put her in my car?” Grace’s outward calm was at odds with the burgeoning panic she felt inside.

  The cop stared at her for an instant.

  “Get in. We’ll drive you.”

  He withdrew from the car, slamming the door, then bellowed, “Dom!” as Grace clambered into the back seat, sliding close to her daughter. Jessica’s skin felt cool and dry, with a slight roughness like a snake’s hide, a roughness that was not usually present.

  Oh, God, please let her be all right!

  “Jess?” Her voice quivered.

  “She needs to go to the hospital?” The cop from her porch—Dominick Something—looked in the open rear door through which Grace had entered. His obnoxious partner was already sliding into the front passenger seat.

  “Yes,” Grace said firmly. She had herself in hand again.

  “Put on your seat belt,” the obnoxious one ordered, as Dominick Whatever-his-name-was slammed the rear door and got into the front seat. The inside of the car went dark as he closed his door. Grace put on her seat belt and reached across the small space separating her from her daughter to clasp Jessica’s unresponsive hand.

  “Is she in shock or som
ething?” Voice uneasy, Dominick looked at her through the rearview mirror as he started the car and reversed down the driveway. Apparently his partner had alerted him to the diabetes before he got into the car.

  “I don’t—Oh, I forgot to lock the house!” Only as the car pulled out onto the street did Grace remember her open front door. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have concerned her much—Bexley was very safe—but given the events of the night . . .

  It surprised her to discover that, from the knock at her door until now, she had almost forgotten the intruder. Her concern over Jessica was paramount.

  “The officers who are there will see that everything’s closed up tight.” This was the second cop, Mr. Obnoxious himself, who was in the process of shrugging out of his leather bomber jacket. “Here, put this around her.”

  He passed the jacket to Grace over the back of the front seat. It was still warm from his body and smelled faintly of leather and man. His gaze met hers. His expression was impossible to read in the darkness of the car’s interior, but Grace could sense his disapproval. It was palpable.

  “Thank you.” For Jessica’s sake, Grace accepted the coat gratefully, despite the donor’s urgent need for an attitude adjustment, and tucked it around her daughter, who had not moved. Had it not been for the faint, regular sound of her exhalations, Grace would have been terrified for her daughter’s life.

  “You’re welcome.” Mr. Obnoxious had slewed around with his left arm resting along the top of the seat so that he could watch them.

  “So how bad is she?” Dominick kept glancing at Grace through the rearview mirror. She wished he would keep his eyes on the road. His job was to get them to the hospital in one piece, not to monitor her mothering skills.

  “I don’t know.” It took tremendous effort to keep her voice even, Grace found. She looked at her daughter’s huddled form. Jessica was either deeply asleep or unconscious. If she had been aware, if she had even an inkling that she was being rushed to the hospital, she would have protested furiously.

  Jessica hated to surrender to her disease in any way. And she considered going to the hospital surrendering.