“Don’t,” Todd said, pulling Lauren to him again. “Don’t.”
“I should have known,” Lauren protested. “I should have guessed from the—”
“Stop it,” Todd interrupted, squeezing her shoulder. “Nothing will be gained by blaming yourself.” He turned to Conway. “Tell us what happened,” he said. “Everything.”
The lieutenant crossed his arms. “Apparently, Mrs. Baker was walking her class down the corridor a little before noon.” He looked over at Ellen, who nodded her agreement. “Drew and Scott were at the end of the line. According to Scott, as they passed through the front vestibule, a woman approached them, explaining that she was a kindergarten mom who needed help bringing some things in from her car.”
This time he looked at Scott, who also nodded. “Then both boys followed the woman outside to a white station wagon parked in the driveway. Suddenly, the woman grabbed Drew, threw him in the backseat, and sped away. Scott ran into the school to get Mrs. Baker. And that’s about all we know,” Lieutenant Conway concluded. “Unfortunately, the kid’s descriptions of the woman and the car are less precise than we’d normally hope to get.”
Lauren pressed a hand to her mouth. A moan, deep and low and full of pain, escaped from her lips and she leaned against Todd. “I-I want to go home,” she whispered. Maybe it’s a mistake, she thought. Maybe they had already dropped Drew off and he was waiting for her at the apartment.
But Lieutenant Conway misunderstood her reasoning and nodded. “I’ve already talked to the D.A.’s office about setting up a wiretap at your house—if that’s okay with you?” When Lauren didn’t say anything, he continued. “Officer Ling will take you both over there now. We’ll keep, a policeman and a VWA—”
“A VWA?” Todd asked.
“Victim witness advocate. A support person provided by the state to answer your questions and help you get through this.”
Lauren and Todd both rose slowly to their feet. “Fine,” Todd said, putting his arm around Lauren’s shoulders. “Anything—” His voice cracked and he took a deep breath. “Anything we can do.”
Dan stood too and gestured toward the door. “I’m going to need some more information if you’re up to it, Lauren.” His dark eyes were full of sympathy. “Some of it’ll be a repeat of what I already know,” he shot a glance at the lieutenant, “but for the record, I’m going to need details on your work, the witches, the break-in—and on Drew. A full description of him, pictures, dental records …”
Dental records. Lauren stumbled and Todd caught her arm. Dental records.
Lauren lay stretched out on her bed, fully clothed, daring the medication to take affect. Two policemen, Ms. Maher—the victim witness advocate—and a telephone man were in the living room with Todd, waiting for some crazy person to call demanding a ransom in exchange for her son. Tears slid down her cheeks, wetting the pillow. She felt empty and hollow yet full of pain, as if someone had ripped out her insides and left her a vacant, aching shell.
She had told Dan everything she could think of that might be relevant—even though he already knew most of it. Then she told it all over again to Detective Zaleski. She described Drew and tried to remember exactly what he had been wearing that morning. Todd gave them a recent photograph and telephoned Drew’s dentist. Conway called both the state police and the FBI. When a state trooper and an agent from the FBI’s regional office showed up, she told the story twice more.
They also wanted to know about the status of Todd and Lauren’s marriage. How long had they been separated? Was a divorce imminent? How was Drew dealing with the situation? Was there any chance of a reconciliation? Lauren and Todd were sitting on the couch, holding hands. At that question they looked at each other for a long moment. Lauren finally dropped her eyes and whispered, “It’s always a possibility.” Then she burst into tears.
When she couldn’t stop crying, Todd called her doctor and got a prescription for sleeping pills. Lauren had protested that she needed to be awake and aware in case there was a call, but Todd assured her he would rouse her if there was any need. Completely exhausted and bereft, she had finally agreed, sure that no matter how many pills she consumed, she would be unable to sleep.
To her surprise, Lauren felt swirls of seductive, velvet sleep wrap around her. The swirls called to her, urging her to come rest with them. She fought. She fought as long and as hard as she could and then, with a sigh of submission, she let the swirls take her.
But they took her to a place she didn’t want to go.
She was standing amidst an angry crowd on the edge of a rocky outcropping. The wind cut through her thin cloak and the chill of the earth seeped through the holes in her boots. The sky was steel gray and overcast, the same color as the ocean that lapped at the bottom of the hill.
Along the steep promontory lumbered a cart. It was crammed full. Several women and one child clung to each other as the overloaded conveyance jerked up the rutted trail. Confused, she stared down the hill. Her stomach wrenched with fear and her hands began to tremble when she saw that Drew was the child in the cart. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know why, but she knew with the certainty of the dreaming that Drew was going to die—and that it was her fault.
As the cart crested the hill and came to a stop under the thick, spreading limbs of an ancient oak tree, the crowd roared.
“Mommy!” Drew called to her over the bellows of the crowd. “Mommy!”
Lauren tried to run to him, to snatch him from the cart and the hangman’s noose. But hands grabbed at her. They held her feet and her shoulders and her hair. She was immobile. She was forced to stand facing the horrible oak.
As the noose was slipped around Drew’s neck, Lauren felt the rough hemp on her own skin. “No!” she cried, straining to escape her captors. “Drew!”
“Mommy!” Drew called again, reaching his arms toward her, his eyes huge against his pale face. “Mom—” His last word was cut off as the noose broke his windpipe. He dropped his head, shuddered, and was still. Until the wind picked up his small body and he swung gently from the branches of the towering tree.
Twenty-Five
LAUREN BOLTED STRAIGHT UP IN BED, SCREAMING Drew’s name.
Todd rushed in from the other room. He immediately stretched his long body against the length of her own and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s going to be okay, Laurie,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “You’ve got to believe he’s going to be okay.”
“No!” Lauren cried, punching Todd’s chest and shoulders. “He’s not okay! I know it—I just know it. We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to help him. My baby, my baby …” she moaned. The vision of Drew’s body hanging from the tree was so disturbing, Lauren covered her eyes to block it out. But she could not make the image go away. It was a sign. A horrible, terrible sign. She began to shake uncontrollably and tears poured through her fingers. She struggled to stand up, but Todd held her fast.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Todd said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “We’ve got to let the experts—”
“He needs me!” Lauren cried. “I’m his mother.” She wrenched from Todd’s arms, flinging her body with such force that she hit the wall next to the bed with her shoulder. She yelped in pain and collapsed to the floor. Todd knelt down next to her and took her in his arms again. This time she didn’t pull away; she stayed where she was and sobbed like a child who had lost her mother. Or a mother who had lost her child.
Lauren felt another presence at the bedroom doorway but didn’t look up. She heard mutterings about “doctor” and “something stronger,” but she couldn’t take in anything except her pain. Please don’t let Drew die like Dorcas, she prayed. Please don’t let my mistakes harm him the way Faith’s mistakes harmed her child. I’ll find out what Faith did and make sure I don’t do it, she bargained, knowing it was senseless. I’ll stop working on Rebeka Hibbens. I’ll never read anything about the seventeenth century again. I’ll move from the state. I’ll do anything. Anything
…
Somewhere around the edges of her black anguish Lauren felt Todd’s arms around her, heard his voice whispering in her ear. She was vaguely aware of someone else kneeling next to her and of a sharp prick on her arm. Then she fell into a darkness so deep and so thick that she knew she would never emerge. And she was glad.
When she did open her eyes, it was daylight and she had the strange sensation that many days had passed since she had last been awake. Disoriented and groggy, Lauren glanced down and saw she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. What was she doing in bed? Why was she—
As the memories flooded back, she cried out in pain. The bedroom door opened in response to her cry. She turned toward the sound, expecting Todd, anxious for news. But instead of Todd, Drew hurtled himself at her. He wrapped his bony arms around her neck and buried himself within the curve of her body.
“Mommy,” Drew sobbed. “Mommy.”
Todd stood in the open doorway, tears streaming down his cheeks, a huge grin on his face.
Lauren had been in a drugged sleep for almost forty-eight hours, and while she slept, Drew had been found by a law student on her way to the Suffolk University library. He was huddled behind several garbage cans in an alley on the back side of Beacon Hill.
“I’m lost,” he called to the student as she passed by, a backpack slung over her shoulder. “You look like my mom. Can you help me get home?”
The young woman took him down to the police station, where he was immediately recognized. By early afternoon, he was back at the apartment, waking his mother. His clothes were dirty and there was a long scrape on his cheek, but other than that he appeared to be unharmed.
According to Drew, the woman who abducted him had been very nice, although he thought it strange that “her hair changed to red” after they got to a building “near lots of other buildings.” She promised if he was a good boy and did everything she asked, he would get to go home soon. So he did what she asked—mostly staying quiet and keeping his eyes closed—and then, on the second night, when she thought he was sleeping, he pushed his cot up to the window of his basement room, broke the locked window with a hammer, and slid his little body out into the alley. He had seen someone do it in a movie.
Although Drew grudgingly admitted to being “a little” scared, he maintained that it hadn’t been all that bad. He told them the woman, her hair alternately long and blond or short and red, had brought him Peking ravioli for dinner both nights and put him in a rec room with a VCR and “a zillion” videos. But he sobbed for a long time in Lauren’s arms—as did she—and was unwilling to leave either Todd or Lauren’s side.
“It’s over,” Lauren told Deborah awhile later on the phone. “All of it: Rebeka Hibbens, my dissertation, the Immortalis.” Holding the portable phone to her ear, Lauren walked into the hallway and peeked into the living room where Drew and Todd were pressed together on the couch watching television. “Drew’s back and he’s safe and that’s the way he’s going to stay.”
There was a long pause before Deborah said, “I understand.”
Lieutenant Conway—they were now calling him Steve—and two state troopers had just left. Although it had been dark for hours, it was the first time since Drew’s return that afternoon that the three of them were alone. But before she could revel in the return of her family, Lauren had wanted to spread the word that she was cutting herself off from the witches. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at the unruly tufts of Drew’s hair rising helter-skelter over the back of the couch.
“I’m really glad everything worked out so well,” Deborah was saying warmly. “And if any of it had anything to do with us, words can’t possibly convey how sorry I—we all—are.”
Lauren went back into the kitchen, both to keep from disturbing Drew and Todd and to keep them from overhearing her conversation. She understood the message in the kidnapping, and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure there was no reason for anyone to send her a message again.
“To tell you the truth,” Lauren said, “I think it was about my involvement with the coven—and that’s why there’s going to be no more involvement.” Dropping into a chair, she was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. “The police are opening an investigation into Jackie’s death.”
“They were here for hours yesterday and came back again this morning,” Deborah told her. “They talked to Bram too.”
“I guess you know they’re far from convinced of your innocence.”
“They made that quite clear,” Deborah said dryly, then changed the subject. “So tell me what happened. Drew’s okay?”
“Amazingly so. The clever little monkey escaped through a window.” Lauren barked a laugh without humor and wondered if Deborah was already familiar with what had transpired.
“There wasn’t a note?” Deborah asked. “No message?”
“Oh, there was a message all right—and it came through loud and clear.” Lauren shifted in her chair to look out the window, but all she saw was her own disheveled reflection in the dark glass. “The police are more than a little mystified. On one hand, they think it might have been a professional job. ‘Very slick and clean,’ the detective said. But the lack of a ransom demand and the fact that the woman was dumb enough to allow Drew to escape, don’t fit with a professional MO. So they’re going to keep the case open with a high priority. Both Drew and I are under twenty-four-hour surveillance. I assume they’re watching you too.”
Deborah’s sigh was audible over the phone line. “I wish there was something I could do to make up for this mess I seem to have gotten you into.”
“Well,” Lauren said slowly, “as a matter of fact, I could use a couple of favors.…”
“Name them.”
Lauren looked into the black glass and tried to comb her messy hair with her fingers. When she saw she was just making it worse, she turned her chair. “I’d really appreciate it if you could get out the word that I’m not going to be writing Rebeka Hibbens, or reading the chronicle, or going to any of your rituals.”
“Have you told your publisher or professors yet?” Deborah asked.
“Tomorrow,” Lauren said. She figured Gabe and Paul Conklin, who had taken over as her committee chairperson after Jackie’s death, would be more than supportive, but she was not at all anxious to break the news to Nat—or to dwell on the financial repercussions of her decision.
“I’ll call everyone in the coven as soon as we hang up,” Deborah promised. “And I’ll ask each one to mention it to anyone who might be remotely interested. What’s the second favor?”
“It’s actually more of a question,” Lauren said, then she briefly described the dream she had had about Drew. When she finished there was a pause on the other end of the line.
“And your question is?” Deborah finally asked in a voice that sounded faintly alarmed.
“What I want to know is—well, do you know if Faith Osborne was responsible for Dorcas’s death?”
“I thought you were abandoning your research.…”
“This isn’t about the book,” Lauren said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve got this idea that if I can find out how Faith endangered her daughter, then I’ll be better able to protect Drew.”
Deborah was silent for a long time, and when she spoke her voice was thoughtful. “You’re right, it was Faith who caused Dorcas to be hanged.”
Lauren’s chest constricted and she forced herself to take a series of deep breaths. How had she known this? Faith had never been mentioned in any of the books she had read, and yet her subconscious had somehow guessed what had happened. “How?” she demanded.
“I’m not free to say just yet,” Deborah said slowly. “Give me a day or two to think it through.”
“But you have to tell me now,” Lauren said. “We have to break off all contact after this. I can’t—and won’t—chance anyone thinking I’m still involved with you or Rebeka Hibbens.”
“Understood,” Deborah said. “I won’t do anything to je
opardize your safety.” Then the phone went dead in Lauren’s hand.
Lauren walked slowly into the living room, sorry she had brought up the dream and trying to decide what to tell Todd about her conversation with Deborah. There had been far too many secrets between them of late, and if they were going to reconcile—as she was starting to believe they might—it was a bad way to start. But he would be furious at the idea of her having even the most fleeting contact with anyone in the coven.
“All taken care of?” he asked, a wide smile filling his face.
Lauren smiled back and dropped a kiss on Drew’s head. “Yup,” she said, sitting next to her son and putting her arm around him.
They watched television together in companionable, and grateful, silence. When Drew’s head fell to her shoulder, Lauren looked up at Todd. Their eyes met and a stab of pure physical desire torched her body. Todd gently untangled their sleeping child from her arms and carried him to his bedroom. Lauren followed.
As she watched Todd pull the covers over Drew, she thought about what troopers both her boys were. Todd had been steadfast and optimistic from the first moments at the school. He’d never broken down and had soothed her when she did. He’d stayed awake during the entire ordeal, never once blaming her for what had happened. On the contrary, he had repeatedly assured her that none of it was her fault.
Drew had been just as tough. After his emotional return, he had sat through interminable interviews and helped with the tedious job of working up a composite sketch of the kidnapper with a patience and calmness she wouldn’t have believed possible. Even Steve Conway had remarked on Drew’s composure and maturity.
Suddenly, Todd’s knees seemed to give out. He dropped to the side of Drew’s bed and buried his head next to his son’s. His shoulders began to shake in silent, racking sobs.
Lauren went quickly to his side and wrapped her arms around him. “Come on, babe,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Come with me.” Todd stumbled to his feet and she helped him from Drew’s room to hers. To their room, she thought. It had always been their room.
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