Bogeyman

by Gayle Wilson

  “What are you doing?”

  Blythe’s voice. Near enough that he knew she was no longer on the stairs.

  “The window’s unlocked.” He turned and found her standing behind him in the middle of the room.

  “I’m not sure it can be locked. It was put in to replace the original entrance to the root cellar. Since the door at the top of the stairs does have a lock, I don’t think anyone cared whether the window did or not.”

  For a woman like Ruth, who had lived in Crenshaw her entire life, that made sense. In these circumstances, it hadn’t.

  “You think the door at the top of the stairs was locked.”

  “I checked it when we came back up this afternoon.”

  But as soon as she’d seen the open door, she’d thought Maddie might be down here. That must mean the child knew how to turn the button.

  “But she could have unlocked it. Maddie knew how to do that, right?”

  “I…I think so. She’s seen all of us lock and unlock them dozens of times. But if she did…?”

  Then where was she?

  Without attempting an answer, Cade walked back to the stairs. Despite their steepness, he took them two at a time, bursting through the door at the top and practically running out of the utility room.

  Before he reached the middle of the kitchen, he had an answer to the question that had driven him up here at a run. The button on the knob of the back door had also been turned, so that it, too, was unlocked.

  “What is it?”

  Blythe’s question was in reaction to his race to the kitchen. She hadn’t yet noticed the lock. When she did—

  “Oh, my God. Maddie.”

  Again she attempted to move past him, but he grabbed her arm, holding on to prevent her from reaching the door. “There may be prints.”

  She turned to look at him, her eyes questioning. “Prints?” And then, when she realized what he was suggesting, she asked, “You think someone else unlocked the door?”

  “Why would she go outside?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she was scared. Maybe she had another night terror.” She struggled to pull her arm from his grasp.

  “So she goes out into the dark? And the cold?”

  He’d been shocked at how cold it was out there. If the little girl was wearing only that sweatsuit—

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what she did. I just want to find her. Please, Cade,” Blythe begged, her other hand coming up to flatten against his chest as she struggled to make him release her. “Please, please, just, please God, help me find her.”

  26

  “Y ou aren’t seriously thinking somebody got into the house through that basement window, are you?”

  Hoyt’s question was one of many Cade had been asking himself in the hours since Maddie’s disappearance. And all the others were even more unpleasant than this one.

  “What I’m thinking is a little girl is missing. You have another explanation for what may have happened to her?”

  “You said the back door was unlocked.”

  “From the inside. And it had been locked. I checked them myself.”

  All except the basement door he hadn’t been aware of. If someone had come in through the basement window and found the door at the top of the stairs unlocked, they wouldn’t have gone out the way they’d come in. Why go to all that trouble when you could simply unlock the back door and walk out with the child in your arms?

  Had that happened while Cade had been waiting at the front door for Blythe to let him in? He believed now that whatever Doug had seen in the woods might have been a diversion intended to direct their attention outside the house.

  Had the killer already been inside when Cade had taken the time to lock the front door behind him? If so, who or what had Doug seen?

  “You’re in the house,” Hoyt went on. “You got a deputy outside. And you’re trying to tell me somebody comes in, snatches the kid from her bed, and then just walks out with her. That, my friend, would take balls the size of Detroit.”

  Or a psychosis equally as large.

  “What I’m telling you is that she’s missing. That’s all I know for a fact right now.”

  After he’d ordered the dispatcher to call everyone back on duty, he’d sent Doug on foot into the woods where he’d seen movement. By that time, more than twenty minutes had passed. As he’d expected, neither Doug nor the deputies who had quickly joined him out there had found anything.

  He and Blythe had searched every inch of the backyard and the outbuildings. Then, on his belly, Cade had searched the crawl space under the house. Using the powerful utility flashlight from his patrol car, he’d directed a beam into every dark, cobwebbed corner while Blythe and Ruth had frantically looked through the house again.

  Finally, with all his deputies already out combing the community, Cade had appealed to the law-enforcement units of the neighboring communities as well as to the members of the volunteer fire departments to join in the search. Word had spread like wildfire, as it always did when someone was in danger.

  By daylight, with so many other people looking for Maddie, Cade had had to deny his own need to be physically involved. No matter how much he wanted to be out in the woods, he knew he would better serve her—and her mother—by organizing the volunteers into teams and assigning them to particular areas.

  He’d dispatched half a dozen deputies to Smoke Hollow as soon as he’d determined Maddie wasn’t on the Mitchell property. He’d sent two more out to the Comstock place. Another team, composed mainly of volunteers, was combing the woods behind the Mitchell house. Their instructions were not only to look for the child, but to check for any sign that someone had, in actuality, been out there last night. And volunteers were once again searching the outbuildings and the house as Cade continued to mobilize the available forces.

  As of yet—almost four hours after they’d discovered she was missing—no one had found any trace of Maddie. As minutes turned into hours, Cade had had to deal with the reality that any chance they had of finding the little girl alive was rapidly fading.

  If she had walked out that back door on her own—something he found hard to believe, given the conditions—she couldn’t have gotten far. Not barefoot and without a coat. Dressed as she was, hypothermia was as much a danger to her as was whoever had killed Sarah and Abel. Either way, the longer this went on, the less chance they had of finding Maddie Wyndham alive.

  If she’d been abducted, there would be no reason for the killer to hold on to her. Cade believed he’d had one intent from the night he’d set fire to the Wright place. He had meant to kill Maddie because, for whatever reason, he thought she represented a threat. Why then would he delay in attaining his objective, once he had her in his possession?

  “So what can I do?” The mockery had disappeared from Hoyt’s tone, maybe because he’d discovered Cade wasn’t wedded to any of the elements of the case the former sheriff found so hard to believe.

  Cade’s eyes rose from the map on which he’d been gridding search areas to meet those of his mentor. He started to suggest that Hoyt pray, but considering the old man’s unconventional views, that would come across like sarcasm. There were already a multitude of prayers being sent up on Maddie’s behalf by people on a more personal basis with the Almighty than Hoyt Lee.

  Hoyt Lee’s talents lay in other directions. Cade might as well take advantage of them.

  “Tell me what else I should be doing.”

  Something sparked in the faded blue eyes, but the former sheriff nodded. “You ask the state to put out an alert?”

  “A couple of hours ago, but we got nothing to give them except her description. They’ve listed her as a possible abductee.”

  “Description’s a place to start.” The old man leaned over the desk, turning the map Cade had been working on to face him. “Put one of your teams out here.”

  He jabbed a finger down in the center of a triangle formed by the Hollow, Abel Comstock’s house, and the western frin
ges of the community. Densely wooded and impenetrable except by foot, this was the area through which many believed Sarah’s murderer had traveled the night she’d been taken from her bed.

  Would the killer repeat that pattern in this abduction? Why wouldn’t he? Cade thought. It had worked before. That was why he’d already sent so many men into the Hollow.

  “Anything else?”

  Hoyt looked up from the map. “Ask the state for their tracking dogs. May be too late by the time they get ’em here, but…if a body’s all we’re gonna find, they can help with that, too.”

  Despite the despair Cade had felt as time ticked away, hearing those words spoken so dispassionately made him sick. He wasn’t ready to concede that Maddie was dead. Not until someone actually found the body Hoyt had made reference to.

  “He used running water before to wash away the evidence,” the ex-sheriff went on. “May not work as well today. Too much technology. But maybe he don’t know that.”

  “You’re thinking he’s going to take her to a creek or a river?” Cade forced his mind away from the reality that that might be after he killed her.

  “It’s what he did before.”

  Hoyt was right. And that was something Cade should have thought of. He turned the map, looking at areas colored blue. There were a half-dozen tributaries of the Alabama River within the boundaries of the county alone. With a car…

  With a car, the bastard could be anywhere by now.

  Cade had always believed Sarah’s murder had been an act of rage. Sheer impulse. Unplanned.

  Maddie’s abduction was different. The killer had had days to make his plans. Everything he’d done, no matter how risky or audacious, had seemingly worked.

  And right now, Cade was no closer to knowing who he was than he had been the night of the fire when Blythe had seen that sinister shape at the back of her property.

  “Maddie? Where are you, Maddie?”

  As Blythe struggled through the tangled underbrush, one of the branches she had tried to push aside struck her face. Although she had flinched away in an attempt to protect her eyes, she was oblivious to the pain of the scratch, aware only of the relentless passage of time.

  Ahead of her she could hear other searchers moving through the woods, but they were no longer calling her daughter’s name. That change had occurred within the last half hour, and although no one had articulated aloud the thought that had driven it, she knew what they believed.

  They were all aware of how cold it was. And they had undoubtedly heard the truism cited in dozens of abduction cases—that the first few hours were critical. Too many hours had passed since she’d discovered Maddie was missing.

  “Where are you, baby? Answer me, Maddie. Answer Mama, please. Nobody’s mad at you. There’s a new doll waiting back at the house for you. Sheriff Jackson brought it last night after you were asleep. You just need to tell me where you are.” She stopped again, straining to hear some response.

  She knew, because Cade had told her before he’d left for the Sheriff’s Department, that there were teams spread out all over the community. Just as there were in these woods.

  Still, she had to do something. She was incapable of sitting inside her grandmother’s house and waiting.

  “Maddie?” As she paused again to listen, the noise made by someone approaching from behind her caused her to turn. Delores was picking her way through the rotten leaves and deadfall, holding the neck of her old, black wool coat together with a gloved hand. She wore a cloth cloche, held on by a plaid scarf she’d tied in a knot under her chin and tucked into her collar.

  “Miz Blythe, you come on home now. That baby ain’t out here. Mr. Cade told you that. They’ve already searched these woods. Even if she was here, she’s not here now. There ain’t no sense in you being out here.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “Then do something that makes sense. Something that might do some good.”

  “You tell me what that is, and I’ll do it. Don’t you understand—” Blythe’s voice broke.

  “’Course, I do. ’Course, I understand.” The old woman pulled her into her arms, holding her tight. “That baby’s like my own grandchild, but you ain’t helping her out here. You know that.”

  Blythe nodded, the rough wool of Delores’s coat brushing her cheek. She straightened, rubbing her nose with the back of her bare hand. Her face was cold to the touch. She was cold, freezing despite her jacket. And Maddie, poor Maddie, had been wearing only that thin little sweatsuit.

  “I have to do something,” she said again.

  “I know. I know you do,” Delores said, “but I’m thinking that there’s something you can do better than this. Something I’ll bet nobody else has thought of.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Delores held out her hand. Without a second’s thought, Blythe put hers into it, feeling the housekeeper’s fingers close around hers reassuringly. “You and me are gonna look for that baby another way. A way ain’t nobody else looking for her.”

  Delores knocked again on the clear storm door of the neat brick house she’d driven them to. “Tewanda? You home?”

  The delay as they waited for the Hardy woman to answer seemed interminable to Blythe. Just like every second that passed since Maddie had been gone.

  Maybe Cade was right. Maybe what Tewanda did was smoke and mirrors, but other than physically combing every square foot of Davis County herself—

  “Miz Simmons? What y’all doing here?”

  “You haven’t heard,” Delores said, her voice flat.

  “Heard what? Y’all come on in.” Juggling her little boy onto her hip, Tewanda opened the Plexiglas door. “What in the world’s the matter?”

  “She’s gone,” Blythe said, bringing Tewanda’s eyes to her face. “Maddie’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where, Ms. Wyndham?”

  “That’s what you got to tell us,” Delores said. “You got to tell us where she is so they can get her before he does—You got to do it now, Tewanda. There’s no time to waste.”

  The young black woman took a step backward, shaking her head. “Miz Simmons, I’m not sure I can do what y’all want. I told you it doesn’t work that way.”

  “There isn’t anything else,” Blythe said, feeling the hope she should never have allowed to form beginning to slip away. When it had, there would be nothing left. “You have to try.”

  Dark eyes, full of concern, studied her face for a minute. Then, without saying a word, Tewanda held her baby out to Delores. Although he started to scream the minute she released him, she didn’t look back.

  “In here, Ms. Wyndham,” she said, leading Blythe into the kitchen. “Sorry for the mess.”

  She cleared a stack of folded laundry, most of it baby clothes, off an otherwise spotless table. She laid the garments on the counter near the sink. Then from one of the upper cabinets she took the same candle she’d used that day in Ruth’s kitchen and put it in the center of the table.

  Picturing those small, pale hands clasped in the slim brown ones that were moving now with such efficiency brought tears to Blythe’s eyes. She couldn’t allow images like that into her head. There was only room there for the here and now. She couldn’t think of anything else until every possible means of finding her daughter had been exhausted. And if this one didn’t work—

  “We need to sit down. You go on and sit over by the wall.” As she gave those instructions, Tewanda moved around to all the windows, closing the mini-blinds.

  Gradually the room took on the same twilight-like gloom Ruth’s kitchen had had. Tewanda took a match out of a holder on the stove and used it to light the candle. Almost immediately the slight medicinal smell began to scent the air.

  “Ms. Wyndham, you do understand—”

  “Don’t. Just tell me whatever you can. And if you can’t tell me anything, then…then, please, tell me that, too.”

  Tewanda sat down in the ladderback chair on the other side of the table. Eyes earnest, s
he said, “It’s not a matter of trying. No matter how much you might want to get something or reach somebody that doesn’t mean you’re going to make the connection. You have to understand…” She hesitated again, but perhaps she read the desperation in Blythe’s eyes. “Maybe I can tell you something. She trusted me once…”

  Blythe nodded because she was afraid the unsteadiness of her voice would betray her. As the fumes from the candle filled the space around them, the same doubts she’d had that first day came rushing back. What was she doing here when Maddie was somewhere out there, possibly in the hands of a madman?

  She’d been a fool to listen to Delores. She was an educated woman, someone who had trouble believing in the more mystical aspects of the theology she’d been raised in. Why would she be sitting here with a self-proclaimed fortune-teller while everyone else in this town was out looking for her daughter?

  Tewanda didn’t reach across the table to take her hands as Blythe had expected. She lowered her head instead, closing her eyes and clasping her fingers together in front of her heart. They trembled like a leaves in a wind.

  After a couple of deep inhalations, she shook her head. Blythe’s heart seemed to hesitate, heavy with dread.

  “It’s so hard.”

  “What’s hard?” Blythe had asked her to tell the truth. Now that it seemed she might, she didn’t want to hear it.

  “Getting everything else out of my head. Letting him in.”

  “Him?”

  “Maddie probably doesn’t know where she is.”

  Of course. If the killer had taken her somewhere, especially if he’d transported her part of the way by car, the four-year-old could have no idea of her location.

  Blythe nodded again, but she wasn’t sure the psychic had seen her agreement. Almost before she’d finished her explanation, Tewanda had again closed her eyes.

  After what seemed an eternity, she said, “He’s close. Closer than anybody knew. Except Maddie.”