“I . . . I ammmm an owl annnd I lllivvve livvvvve innnnn aaaa treeee.”
He nodded approvingly. “That’s the way. You’re a very good mimic. Now pretend that you’re with the girls at the lunch table and giggle and snicker and cackle and laugh. I want to see how amused all of them were after you ridiculed me.”
“I can’t . . . I’m sorry . . .”
He lifted the pillow and held it over her face.
Desperately, Laura began to laugh, shrill, high-pitched, hysterical bleating sounds. “Ha . . .ha . . . ha . . .” Tears spilled from her eyes. “Please . . .”
He put his hand over her mouth. “You were about to use my name. That is forbidden. You may only call me ‘The Owl.’ You will have to practice imitating the girls being amused. Now I am going to untie your hands and let you eat. I brought you soup and a roll. Wasn’t that good of me? Then I will permit you to use the bathroom.
“After that, when you are back in a safe sleep position, I am going to dial the hotel on my cell phone. You will tell the desk clerk that you are with friends, that your plans are indefinite, and to hold your room for you.
“Do you understand that, Laura?”
Her answer was barely audible: “Yes.”
“If you attempt in any way to seek help, you will die immediately. You do understand that?”
“Y-e-s.”
“Very well.”
Twenty minutes later the computerized answering system at the Glen-Ridge House was responding to a caller who had pushed “3” for reservations.
The phone at the front desk rang. The clerk picked it up and identified herself. “Front desk, Amy speaking.” Then she gasped. “Ms. Wilcox, how good to hear from you. We’ve all been so concerned about you. Oh, your friends will be so happy to hear that you’ve called. Of course we’ll hold the room for you. Are you sure you’re all right?”
The Owl broke the connection. “You did that very well, Laura. Some stress in your voice, but that’s natural, I suppose. Maybe you do have the makings of an actress.” He tied the gag over her mouth. “I’ll be back eventually. Try to get some sleep. You have my permission to dream about me.”
38
Jake Perkins knew that the clerk who had booted him out of the Glen-Ridge went off duty at 8:00 P.M. That meant he could go back to the hotel anytime after eight and hang around the desk with the other clerk, Amy Sachs, to see if anything had developed.
After dinner with his parents, who were enthralled with his account of what was going on at the hotel, he went over the notes he would be giving to the Post. He had decided to wait until the morning to call the newspaper. By then Laura Wilcox would have been missing a full day.
At ten o’clock he was back at the Glen-Ridge, entering the deserted hotel lobby. You could fly a plane through this place and not hit anyone, he thought as he walked to the front desk. Amy Sachs was there.
Amy liked him. He knew that. Last spring when he had been covering a luncheon for Stonecroft, she had said he reminded her of her kid brother. “The only difference is Danny is forty-six and you’re sixteen,” she’d said, then she’d laughed. “He always wanted to be in publishing, too, and in a way I guess he is. He owns a trucking company that delivers newspapers.”
Jake wondered how many people realized that under her timid, anxious-to-please exterior, Amy had a good sense of humor and was pretty sharp.
She welcomed him with a timid smile. “Hi, Jake.”
“Hi, Amy. Just thought I’d stop by and see if you’d heard from Laura Wilcox.”
“Not a word.” Just then the phone at her elbow rang, and she picked up the receiver. “Front desk, Amy speaking,” she whispered.
Then as Jake watched, Amy’s face changed and she gasped, “Oh, Ms. Wilcox . . .”
Jake leaned over the desk and motioned to Amy to hold the receiver away from her ear so that he could listen, too. He caught Laura saying that she was with friends, her plans were indefinite, and to please hold her room for her.
She doesn’t sound like herself, he thought. She’s upset. Her voice is trembling.
The conversation lasted only twenty seconds. When Amy replaced the receiver, she and Jake looked at each other. “Wherever she is, she’s not having a good time,” he said flatly.
“Or maybe she’s just hungover,” Amy suggested. “I read an article about her in People magazine last year, and it said she’d been in rehab for a drinking problem.”
“That would explain it, I guess,” Jake agreed. He shrugged. So much for my big story, he thought. “Where do you think she went, Amy?” he asked. “You were on duty all weekend. Did you notice her hanging around with anyone specially?”
Amy Sachs’ oversized glasses wiggled when she frowned. “I saw her arm in arm with Dr. Fleischman a couple of times,” she said. “And he was the first to check out Sunday morning, even before that brunch at Stonecroft. Maybe he’d left her sobering up somewhere and was anxious to get back to her.”
She opened a drawer and took out a card. “I promised that detective, Mr. Deegan, that I’d phone him if we heard from Ms. Wilcox.”
“I’m on my way,” Jake said. “I’ll see you, Amy.” With a wave of his hand he started for the front door as she dialed. He went outside, stood indecisively on the pavement, walked halfway to his car, and then returned to the desk.
“Did you reach Mr. Deegan?” he asked.
“Yes. I told him that I’d heard from her. He said that was good news and to let him know when she actually comes back for her bags.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Amy, give me Sam Deegan’s number.”
She looked alarmed. “Why?”
“Because I think Laura Wilcox sounded scared rather than hungover, and I think Mr. Deegan should know that.”
“If anyone finds out I let you listen in on her call, I’ll lose my job.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll say I grabbed the receiver when you mentioned her name and turned it so I could hear, too. Amy, five of Laura’s friends are dead. If she’s being held against her will, she may not have much time, either.”
Sam Deegan had barely hung up after speaking to Jean when he received the telephone call from the Glen-Ridge clerk. His immediate reaction was that Laura Wilcox was a remarkably selfish woman to have missed her friend’s memorial service, worried her other friends, and cost the limousine driver another fare by not cancelling. But even that reaction had been tempered by the unsettling fact that there was something suspicious about the vague story she had told the clerk and the clerk’s assessment that she had sounded either nervous or hungover.
Jake Perkins’ follow-up phone call cemented that impression, especially since Jake was emphatic that he thought Wilcox sounded frightened. “Do you agree with Ms. Sachs that it was exactly ten-thirty when Laura Wilcox called the hotel?” Sam asked him.
“At exactly ten-thirty,” Jake confirmed. “Are you thinking of tracing it, Mr. Deegan? I mean, if she used her cell phone, you’d be able to trace the area where the call was made, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Sam said irritably. This kid was a know-it-all. But he was only trying to be helpful, so Sam was inclined to cut him some slack.
“I’ll be happy to continue to keep my ear to the ground for you,” Jake said, his voice now cheerful. The thought that Laura Wilcox might be in danger and that he was assisting the investigation to locate her filled him with a feeling of importance.
“Do that,” Sam said, then reluctantly added, “and thanks, Jake.”
Sam pushed the end button on his phone, sat up, and swung his legs out of the bed. He knew that at least for the next few hours there was no question of sleep. He had to let Jean know that Laura had been in contact with the hotel, and he had to get an order from a judge to look at the hotel’s telephone records. He knew that the Glen-Ridge had caller ID. When he got the phone number, he would subpoena the phone company to find out the name of the subscriber and the locale of the antenna that had carried the call.<
br />
Judge Hagen in Goshen was probably the nearest judge in Orange County authorized to issue the order. As he dialed the district attorney’s office to get Hagen’s phone number, Sam realized it was some measure of the level of his own unease about Laura that he was now planning to disturb the sleep of a notoriously cantankerous judge rather than wait until morning to start trying to trace the missing woman.
39
Jean had set the volume of her cell phone at the highest level, afraid that when she went to bed she might miss a call. Sam had suggested that whoever was contacting her about Lily might go one step further and call her. “Hang on to the idea that this may be all about money,” he said. “Somebody wants you to believe that Lily is in danger. Let’s hope his next move might be to speak to you. If he does, we can trace the call.”
He had managed to calm her down somewhat. “Jean, if you let yourself get paralyzed with worry, you’re going to be your own worst enemy. You tell me that you confided to no one that you had a baby and that in Chicago you were known by your mother’s maiden name. But somebody found out nonetheless, and that may have happened recently or it may have happened nineteen and a half years ago when the baby was born. Who knows? You’ve got to help yourself now. Try to remember if you saw anyone in Dr. Connors’ office when you consulted him, maybe a nurse or secretary who figured out why you were there and who was nosy enough to find out where your baby was taken. Don’t forget, you’ve become a celebrity now, with your best-selling book. Your new contract with your publisher was brought up during your interviews. My bet is that somebody who has access to Lily has decided to blackmail you by threatening her. I’ll go to see the pastor of St. Thomas in the morning, and you start making a list of anyone you got friendly with at that time, especially anyone who might have had access to your records.”
Sam’s calm reasoning had the effect of snapping Jean’s growing panic. After she said good-bye to him, she sat at the desk with a pen and notepad and wrote on the first page: DR. CONNORS’ OFFICE.
His nurse had been a cheerful heavyset woman of about fifty, she remembered. Peggy. That was her name. Her last name was Irish and began with a K. Kelly . . . Kennedy . . . Keegan . . . It will come to me, I know it will, she thought.
It was a beginning.
The sharp ring of her cell phone made her jump. She glanced at the clock as she picked it up. It was almost eleven. Laura, she thought. Maybe she’s come back.
Sam’s message that Laura had called the desk clerk should have been reassuring, but Jean heard the concern in his voice. “You’re not sure that she’s all right, are you?” she asked.
“Not yet, but at least she did call.”
Which means that she’s still alive, Jean thought. That’s what he’s saying. She chose her words carefully. “Do you think that for some reason Laura may not be able to come back here?”
“Jean, I meant for this call to reassure you about Laura, but I guess I’d better level with you. The fact is that two people who heard the call have confirmed that she sounded distressed. Laura and you are the only two lunch table girls still alive. Until we know exactly where she is and who she’s with, you’ve got to be very, very careful.”
40
She knew he was going to kill her. It was only a question of when. Incredibly, after he left, she had fallen asleep. Light was flickering through the closed blinds, so it must be morning. Is it Monday or Tuesday? Laura wondered as she tried not to become fully awake.
Saturday night when they’d gotten here, he had poured champagne for them and toasted her. Then he’d said, “Halloween is coming soon. Want to see the mask I bought?”
He was wearing the face of an owl, each enlarged eye with a wide black pupil set in a sickly yellow iris, and edged with tufts of grayish down that darkened into deep brown around the pointed beak and narrow mouth. I laughed, Laura remembered, because I thought that was what he was expecting. But I could sense then that something had happened to him—he had changed. Even before he took off the mask and grabbed my hands, I knew I was trapped.
He dragged her upstairs, tied her wrists and her ankles together, and covered her mouth with a gag, being careful to leave it loose enough to be sure she didn’t choke. Then he tied a rope across her waist and fastened it to the frame of the bed. “Did you ever read Mommie Dearest?” he’d asked. “Joan Crawford used to tie her kids to the bed to make sure they didn’t get up at night. She called it ‘safe sleep.’ ”
Then he’d made her begin to recite the line about the owl in the tree, the line from that grade-school play. Over and over again he made her say it, and then he made her imitate the girls at the lunch table, laughing at him. And each time, she could see the murderous anger building in his eyes. “You all laughed at me,” he said. “I despise you, Laura. The sight of you revolts me.”
When he left her, he deliberately put his cell phone on the top of the dresser. “Just think, Laura. If you could reach this phone, you could call for help. But don’t do it. The cords will tighten if you try to open them. Take my word for it.”
She had tried anyway, and now her wrists and ankles were throbbing with pain. Her mouth was parched. Laura tried to moisten her lips. Her tongue touched the rough cloth of the sock he had taped over her mouth, and she felt bile rise in her throat. If she got sick, she would choke. Oh, God, please help me, she thought, panicking as she fought back the wave of nausea.
The first time he reappeared, there was some light in the room. It must have been Sunday afternoon, she figured. He untied my wrists and gave me soup and a roll. And he let me go to the bathroom. Then he came back a long time later. It was so dark, it must have been night. That was when he had me make the phone call. Why is he doing this to me? Why doesn’t he just kill me and get it over with?
Her head was clearing. As she tried to move her wrists and ankles, the dull throbbing became intense pain. Saturday night. Sunday morning. Sunday night. It had to be Monday morning now. She stared at the cell phone. There was no way she could reach it. If he let her call anyone again, should she try to shout his name?
She could imagine the pillow muffling the sound before it escaped her throat, imagine the pillow pressing over her nostrils and mouth, choking life from her. I can’t, Laura thought. I can’t. Maybe if I don’t upset him, someone will realize that I may be in trouble and try to find me. They can trace calls from cell phones. I know they can. They can find out who owns his phone.
That hope was the only chance she had, but it gave her the faintest trickle of relief. Jean, she thought. He intends to kill her, too. They say people can project thoughts. I’m going to try to send mine to Jean. She closed her eyes and imagined Jean as she had looked at the dinner, dressed in her royal blue evening gown. Moving her lips under the tape, she began to say his name aloud. “Jean, I’m with him. He killed the other girls. He’s going to kill us. Help me, Jean. I’m in my old house. Find me, Jean!” Over and over she whispered his name.
“I forbade you to use my name.”
She had not heard him come back. Even with the gag over her mouth, Laura’s scream broke the silence of the room that had been hers for the first sixteen years of her life.
41
Monday morning, around dawn, Jean finally drifted off into a heavy but fitful sleep in which vague, undefined dreams of urgency and helplessness pulled her to momentary consciousness. But when she became fully awake, she was shocked to see that it was almost nine-thirty.
She considered ordering room service, then vetoed the idea of having even a continental breakfast in this room. It felt cramped and depressing, and the gloomy colors of the walls, bedspread, and window drapery made her long for her comfortable home in Alexandria. Ten years ago, in an estate sale, she had bought a seventy-year-old Federal-style, two-story house that had been owned by the same recluse for forty years. It had been dirty and neglected and cluttered, but she had fallen in love with it. Her friends had tried to dissuade her, saying such an undertaking was a bottomless pit of financi
al woes, but now they confessed that they’d been wrong.
Beyond mouse droppings, peeling wallpaper, the soiled carpet, dripping sinks, and the filthy stove and refrigerator, she had seen the high ceilings, oversized windows, and generous rooms, and the spectacular view of the Potomac that was then obscured by overgrown trees.
She’d gone for broke, buying the house and having the roof replaced. After that she had done the minor repairs herself, scrubbing and painting and wallpapering. She’d even sanded the parquet floors that had been an unexpected bonus, discovered when she pulled up the ragged carpet.
Working on the house was therapeutic for me, Jean thought as she showered, washed her hair, and toweled it dry. It was the place I dreamed of living in when I was growing up. Her mother had been allergic to flowers and plants. With an unconscious smile, she thought of the conservatory off her kitchen where every day fresh flowers bloomed.
The colors she had used throughout the house were those that to her meant cheer and warmth: yellows and blues and greens and reds. Not a single beige wall, her friends joked. The advance on her last contract had made it possible for her to panel her library and office as well as remodel the kitchen and bathrooms. Her home was her haven, her retreat, her sense of accomplishment. Because it was not far from Mount Vernon, she had jokingly named it Mount Vernon, Jr.
Being here in this hotel, even totally aside from her need to find Lily, had brought back the painful memory of all the years she had lived in Cornwall. It had made her feel once again like the girl whose father and mother were the joke of the town.
It made her remember how it felt to be desperately in love with Reed and then have to hide the grief of his death from everyone. All these years I’ve wondered if I made a mistake in giving up Lily, she thought. Coming back here, I’m beginning to understand that without my parents helping me, it would have been just about impossible to keep her and care for her properly.
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