The Carolyn Chronicles, Volume 1

by Derek Ciccone

  Russ Anderson, the head of security at Daniel’s House entered the room. He was a tall, forty-something man in a dark suit with loosened tie. He quickly introduced himself to all present parties, and he barely finished before Heidi was asking the question on everyone’s mind, “How the hell could this happen?”

  “Where is my daughter?” Chuck asked, sounding more like a demand.

  “I can’t answer that at this time,” he said, and Billy braced, expecting Chuck to pounce like a lion. But Lindsey took his hand in hers. Good move.

  “I can rule out any type of foul play. They weren’t abducted, which was our initial fear.”

  “So you’re saying that they left on their own?” Guy asked, disbelief in his voice.

  Anderson took a seat behind his small desk and took it from the top. An emergency situation related to another patient, Owen Kearns, had diverted the attention of the hospital staff. Ryan and Carolyn had been in the game room with Owen when the medical staff arrived. They had been in there for some time, which was known because there had been an earlier disruption when Carolyn ran into a wall to prove her painlessness, causing a nosebleed. Chuck just shook his head.

  “So your children were unsupervised for a brief period of time, but the last thing we would have expected was for them to use this time to, for lack of a better word … escape. We also know that Ryan used a disguise, and the ID of Billy Harper, to get through security.”

  Heidi glared at Guy. “Maybe if you didn’t have to act like Mr. Big Shot and played by the rules.”

  “This isn’t a prison—this is where we live. For seven months! And guests in our home shouldn’t have to sign in and out.”

  Billy wondered how the boy had gotten his ID. It must have been when they took the photo together. Did he take it with this in mind? Or did it get dislodged, and Ryan was being opportunistic?

  Anderson interrupted the bickering, and had the group gather around his desk. He played them a video on a laptop. “It’s from the security cameras in the lobby,” he informed.

  Billy watched as Ryan, looking twice the size he’d looked just hours earlier, and now had dark hair tucked under a baseball cap, strolled through the hospital lobby. And of equal importance, he was holding Carolyn’s hand.

  “That’s my suit,” Guy pointed out, but had nothing further to add.

  Carolyn briefly stopped walking, and Billy recognized her “statue mode”. It’s when she becomes overwhelmed and momentarily shuts down. But after a few words from Ryan, they were on the move again. She didn’t seem coerced or threatened. Whatever was going on, she was a willing participant. But Ryan was the leader, and Billy detected a fearlessness in him. But not the kind Carolyn had, in that it was all she knew. Ryan reminded him of himself during the time he’d hit rock bottom, when he’d developed an attitude of not giving a shit anymore, and having nothing to lose. This worried Billy.

  Heidi let out a yelp when she watched her son walk out the front of Daniel’s House and into the cold February night. Her feeling of helplessness resonated throughout the room.

  Anderson pushed a button, and the camera view switched to the street-level outside the hospital.

  All eyes went to a yellow taxi cab that inexplicably stopped in the middle of the busy street. The driver popped the trunk for his passenger and helped him remove his luggage. Another cab pulled up behind, this one a brown and white Toyota with Boston Cab inscribed on its driver-side door. The driver began yelling at the other cab, who was holding up traffic, something about how this wasn’t Haiti, followed by a slew of ethnic slurs.

  “Typical Bostonian cabbie—better at shouting than driving,” Anderson commented with a shake of his head.

  Billy took note of the cabbie. He was older—maybe early sixties—milky white skin, bundled in a loud green Boston Celtics jacket, which he wore with an old-fashioned derby hat.

  They continued to watch, wondering what this bout of cabbie-on-cabbie road rage had to do with the missing kids.

  And that’s when they saw them.

  As the men continued to argue, Ryan still clutching Carolyn’s hand, moved to the second cab and got into the backseat. Moments later, the dispute apparently over, Green Jacket returned and they drove off.

  Chuck and the Borchers looked physically ill. Their children, one with a life-threatening medical condition, the other also with physical challenges, were out there all alone and there was no way they could protect them, or even know where they went. Billy thought of his own children, and his stomach clenched. It literally almost killed him when they were taken from him. And while Carolyn might not be his daughter, their bond was just as strong.

  He also felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t been able to spend the time she needed this past year, as she dealt with her mother’s loss—stick together, remember? And now she was clinging to the person who would provide that attention. Unfortunately, they had no idea where that person was leading her.

  Anderson shut the video off. “We’re working with Boston Cab to identify the driver and locate where he took them. I’ve also contacted the police, who have issued a bulletin to look out for Ryan and Carolyn, and they’re aware that there are serious health issues involved.”

  After a long pause, Heidi said, “Don’t bother.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know where Ryan’s going.”

  “You do?” Guy asked his wife with a puzzled look.

  “He’s a teenage boy—which means it’s about a girl. He went to the Valentine’s Day dance at his school.”

  “You think this is about Scarlet?” Guy asked.

  “That girl wouldn’t give up her spring break for Ryan, but he’s willing to risk his life to get to her. To win her back.”

  “And Carolyn’s life,” Chuck reminded.

  “That’s the part I don’t get—why would he bring Carolyn with him?” Billy asked.

  “She was just a prop to get him out of the hospital,” Heidi responded.

  “Did you just call my daughter a prop? Like some expendable piece of furniture,” Chuck was overheating.

  Heidi caught herself. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that he’s gone through so much, and fought so hard, and now that he’s so close to being able to go home, he’s putting it all at risk … for a girl who could care less about him. His immune system is still too weak!”

  She began to cry, and Guy comforted her.

  But she found her inner-fighter, and turned to Anderson. “Notify the school that I’ll be there to pick my son up. Have the hospital send an ambulance, but keep it quiet—no sirens. He’s been embarrassed enough.”

  She stormed out of the room.

  Guy looked to Anderson. “And you might want to send the police … to protect my son from his mother.”

  Chapter 15

  Chuck was not one to sit back … especially when it came to his daughter. An old hockey coach once told him that the best defense is a good offense.

  He and Lindsey made their way to the hospital lobby. There was no appearance of a security lock-down or panic. Nothing sinister had taken place. Just two very determined and inventive kids finding their way to freedom. But the explanation still didn’t sit right with Chuck.

  “Carolyn is not a prop,” he said.

  “She was just upset—her child is missing.”

  “I meant that Carolyn is never a tag-along. She’s always a partner in the crime. To say she was a prop, suggests that she wasn’t invested—whatever the reason they left, Carolyn is behind it as well.”

  “So you don’t think he went to his school dance to woo back his girl? I was sort of hoping that was true—kind of romantic, don’t you think?”

  “If the kid went through all this trouble to hide the breakup from his family, not wanting to upset anyone, especially his mother, then why would he completely reverse course? He’s smart enough to know what a spectacle this will be.”

  Lindsey nodded. “I agree—but you’re thinking as an adult. Once
the teenage hormones kick in, the crazy isn’t far behind.”

  “Heidi was right about one thing—wherever he’s headed, the kid is too weak to get there. He wasn’t holding Carolyn’s hand for her sake, it was to keep him steady.”

  “All the more reason we need to find them as quickly as possible.”

  “And the best way to do that is by identifying the cab they left in and the driver.”

  “Which is exactly what security is working on. Why don’t we let them do their job, and in the meantime, let’s go grab that romantic Valentine’s Day dinner we missed out on … in the hospital cafeteria.”

  “I say we cut out the middle-man. Especially since the cab company is going to be covering their ass. But cabbies know other cabbies, and they talk to each other. Let’s go hit up a couple guys out front, and see what they can tell us.”

  Lindsey’s expression said she doubted the strategy, but went along with it.

  They finished passing through the lobby, and out the entrance of Daniel’s House. A cab pulled up to the curb, the same type of Boston Cab that the kids left in. This would be a good place to start.

  The driver rolled down his window and shouted in their direction, “Hey, Slick—no date tonight? Get in, and I’ll take ya to where all the girls are.”

  But he wasn’t talking to Chuck or Lindsey. A stylish, middle-aged man in a tan, ankle-length London Fog coat headed in the direction of the cab. “I’ll settle for a ride home.”

  “Where ya headed, Slick?”

  “Cambridge.”

  “No girls in Cambridge—just a bunch of stuffy Harvard professors,” he said with a laugh. “Unless that’s what you’re into.”

  Chuck studied the driver. The derby cap, the green jacket, the unmistakable voice with rugged Boston accent straight out of Good Will Hunting. He and Lindsey looked at each other. “That’s him,” she confirmed.

  A stroke of luck, but that luck was about to strike midnight if he took off with London Fog.

  “I got this,” Lindsey said, and began moving in the direction of the cab. Chuck didn’t like it, but he was too late to stop her.

  She nudged up next to the man before he could enter the cab, which startled him. “I hear you’re going to Cambridge,” she said, in a seductive voice that Chuck had never heard before. Definitely not the one she uses when she teaches nursery school.

  He gave her an extra long look. “Um … yeah.”

  “What a coincidence, me too. Do you mind if we share the ride?”

  He pondered the request, but then thought better of it. “I don’t think so.”

  She moved even closer. “I’ll make it worth your while … if you know what I mean.”

  “I think you mean you’re a prostitute, but I’m sorry, I’m a happily married man,” he said. He then nudged her away and started to get into the cab.

  “I think you misunderstood,” she said.

  “You were very clear.”

  The man’s attention went to the fast-approaching man. A very large man. “Excuse me, but did I hear you call my friend a prostitute?”

  The man grew frustrated. “What are you, her pimp?”

  “What if I am?”

  The driver was losing patience. “Either get in, or take your threesome somewhere else. There’s one of those no-tell-motels a couple blocks down if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “It’ll just be a twosome,” Chuck said, and physically lifted the man away from the cab by the back collar of his coat, and set him down on the curb. “I was here first—that’s my cab,” he protested, but it was too late. Chuck and Lindsey had closed the door behind them.

  “Where ya headed?” the driver asked.

  “Just drive—I’ll figure it out on the move,” Chuck said.

  The cabbie shrugged. “It’s your dime,” he said, and pulled out into traffic.

  He flicked on the radio to a hockey game. “The Bruins have sucked since Borcher retired. Don’t know why I still bother,” he made conversation.

  “Did you tell that to his son?” Lindsey asked.

  “Not following, toots. Whose son?”

  “Guy Borcher. You picked up his son, Ryan, about an hour ago. He was with a little girl.”

  The driver twisted his neck back and looked to Chuck. “Sounds like your working girl has had a few too many tonight.”

  Chuck held his stare on him. “I’ve decided where I want to go—back to Haiti.”

  “I take that back—maybe both of you need to lay off the sauce.”

  “It’s what you told the other driver in the video, right? That he should get on his AIDS raft and go back to Haiti?”

  “What video?”

  “The one where I saw you pick up Ryan Borcher and the little girl. Now I need to know where you took them.”

  “I pick up a lot of people—I can’t remember all of them.”

  “They were underage.”

  “I’m a taxi driver—not a bartender. I don’t check ID.”

  “Maybe I’ll report you.”

  He laughed. “Good luck with that, buddy. But for the right price, my memory might get better.”

  Chuck grabbed him by the back of the Celtics jacket, and almost pulled him into the backseat. “I’m not your buddy, and that girl with Borcher is my daughter. So either you tell me where you took them, or I’ll decide what the right price is on your head. And you don’t want that.”

  “I didn’t take them anywhere.”

  Chuck tightened his grip. “One last chance.”

  “I swear I didn’t take them anywhere,” he pleaded.

  “I saw them get into this cab—now stop lying!”

  “They did, but the older kid had me drive around the block and drop them off here, back in front of the hospital.”

  Chuck released his grip. Ryan wanted people to think they left the area, when in fact, they never really left. But why?

  Chapter 16

  Billy and Dana stood outside the security office. “We have their escape plan—we’ve just got to follow it.”

  Dana looked at him like he had three heads. “What escape plan?”

  “The Peanut Butter & Jelly book—the one where the girls escape the hospital because they’re scared to have their tonsils out.”

  “And you think they are using that as their blueprint?”

  “It was Carolyn’s favorite.”

  “Except one little minor detail. In the book, if I recall, the girls made it believe they left the premises, but were actually hiding out inside the hospital. In real life, we saw video of them driving away in a taxi.”

  “I didn’t say it was a perfect match. Do you have a better idea?”

  “I believe in the instincts of a mother. And if Heidi is convinced her son went to his high school dance to see his ex-girlfriend, then I’ve got to think that’s the most likely scenario.”

  “Normally I’d agree, but I’m not so sure in this case. Why would he take Carolyn along? He needed her to help him get out of the hospital, I believe ‘prop’ was the word she used. But once he was out, she became a liability. Traveling with her would draw attention—trust me, I know all about that. And what was she going to do at a high school dance, other than get in the way?”

  “Knowing Carolyn, she’d probably have all the boys fighting over each other to be their Valentine.”

  “I say we re-trace their steps, from Ryan’s room to the lobby. I wouldn’t be surprised if she left behind some clues, intentional or not.”

  They began on the oncology floor, but that turned out to be a dead end, as it had been locked down. Security was always airtight after the fact, Billy thought, annoyed.

  But they moved ahead. There was only one corridor out, and in Ryan’s weakened state they were more likely to take the elevator than the stairs. They rode it down to the main lobby, finding no clues along the way.

  They walked through the lobby holding hands, Dana playing the role of Carolyn. They stopped at the spot she momentarily froze, and Billy
viewed the room from that vantage point. But there didn’t seem to be anything that stood out that might have frightened her, or caused her to pause.

  They exited into the cold night air, just as Ryan and Carolyn had done. Billy took in the area surrounding the hospital, including the busy street. Traffic was heavy, as many folks were finishing up their Valentine’s dinners and heading home for either dessert or disappointment.

  When he saw it he smiled.

  “What is it?” Dana asked.

  “I just remembered that you never answered my question.”

  “Are you sure this is the best time for that?”

  “There is no good time—that’s why they put the ‘in sickness and in health’ line in there. In good times and in bad.”

  “I just think we should focus on finding Ryan and Carolyn.”

  “I know where they are.”

  She looked surprised. “You do? Then tell me.”

  “Not until you answer my question.” He pulled out the ring from the pocket of his tweed jacket.

  “Dana Boulanger, will you marry me?”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, and she tried to play it cool, but her enthusiasm boiled over. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Billy Harper I will marry you!”

  They kissed for what felt like the first time, and when they pulled away, Dana asked, “So what now?”

  “I think we book a hall, get a license, send out some invitations … ”

  “I was referring to finding Carolyn and Ryan.”

  “Oh, them. Well, I guess we should probably tell their parents where they are.”

  Chapter 17

  How’d you know they were here?” Dana asked Billy, standing in the small bleachers surrounding the ice rink.

  “Because it’s Valentine’s Day.”

  “Not following.”

  “It’s about love.”

  “Don’t you think Ryan is a tad old for Carolyn?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way—but the same concept. They were simply doing whatever it took to get to their true love. The one they’d been forbidden from.”