Hear the Children Calling

by Clare McNally

  Danny sighed. “Kate, I remember that incident. I still say it was just a child who looked like Laura. The whole thing was coincidence.”

  “Like the time I saw Laura crying at the foot of our bed, only to find she was still in the throes of a nightmare in her own room?”

  Kate’s eyes challenged Danny for an answer. He didn’t respond.

  “Like the time Mandy Seacoff’s mother called to say Laura was comforting her sick daughter when all the time Laura was sitting right on this couch, watching television? Like the time—”

  Danny shot up from the couch. “All right,” he cried. “There were strange incidents. But they mean nothing now, because Laura is dead. And no amount of hoping is going to bring her back.”

  “Danny, I don’t think she is dead,” Kate said. “I think something happened to her and she’s trying to send the same kinds of messages to us. She’s in trouble, Danny, and I can’t ignore her.”

  Danny bowed his head, looking like a forlorn little boy despite his size. “Dear God, Kate,” he moaned. “You were doing so well these past years. I thought, after we had Chris and Joey, that everything would be all right.”

  “It won’t be all right until I find Laura.”

  Danny went back to the couch again, taking Kate in his arms.

  “I know you wish our little girl was still here—”

  “I’m going to bring her back again.”

  “Oh, Kate . . .” He said nothing more. Danny knew his wife was a stubborn woman, and if he pushed her, there was no telling what she would do.

  “Danny, help me?”

  “You know I will,” Danny said, kissing her softly. “Come up to bed, Kate. Come and rest. In the morning you’ll be thinking differently.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “It’s late, Kate,” Danny said. “We’ve had a hard time.”

  “I’m not crazy, Danny.”

  “I never said you were.” He stood up, leading Kate with him.

  Upstairs in their bedroom, Kate went to the window and pulled back the priscilla curtains. The full moon illuminated the beach below, where the dark rim of the bay rippled gently along the sand. Kate followed the sparkles of moonlight on water as far as the horizon.

  “She’s out there,” she said. “Somewhere, our little girl is out there waiting for us.”

  She let the curtains fall and shuffled over to the four-poster. She climbed in next to her husband, cuddling close to him.

  Danny reached to flick off the light, then turned in the blackness and embraced his wife. He wished at that moment that he could hold her like this forever, to protect her from the demons that toyed with her mind. For it had to be demons, even the psychological kind, that had brought about this renewed interest in Laura. And Danny didn’t want anything to hurt his beloved Kate.

  In a short time, hugging tightly, the two of them were fast asleep. And Kate found herself in the desert again.

  She was walking along a seemingly endless highway, dust kicking up around her feet. Sagebrush dotted the landscape about her and the glaring sun made her squint. She stopped abruptly when she came to the bleached skeleton of a long-dead animal. Slowly, the dream-Kate bent down to pick it up.

  The few tufts of fur that still remained tickled her hand as they blew in the desert wind. Kate dropped the skull. The dull thud reverberated endlessly, thumping noises that sounded like . . .

  . . . like running feet.

  Kate looked up, and there was Laura racing toward her.

  “Laura!”

  Kate began to run, faster and faster, down the long stretch of road. Laura ran toward her, her sleeveless dress fluttering around her, arms stretched out. But a few feet away, the child stopped.

  “Laura, come here,” Kate cried. “It’s Mommy. Come here, Laura. Let me help you.”

  Laura shook her head vigorously. “I’m not Laura,” she cried. “I’m not Laura!”

  She turned and ran away from Kate with a scream so loud it broke through the barriers of Kate’s subconscious, forcing her awake.

  For a long time, Kate lay trembling, staring at the stripe of moonlight that shone through a gap in the curtains. She wanted to wake Danny, to tell him she had seen Laura again, and that she sensed more than ever that their little girl was in danger. But Danny wouldn’t listen to her. He had made that very clear.

  So Kate cried silent tears for her daughter and made silent vows she would work on her own to find her little girl.

  Danny said nothing of the previous night at breakfast. The boys seemed to have forgotten all about it and were as wiggly and giggly as usual as they downed bowls of hot oatmeal with strawberry preserves on top.

  Kate thought that all was forgotten until Danny went to kiss her good-bye before leaving for work at the car-repair shop he owned.

  “I’ll call you this afternoon at the boutique.”

  He said good-bye to the boys and left.

  “Is Mrs. Ginmoor coming today?” Chris asked.

  “Yes, she is,” Kate said. “It’s a work day for me.”

  “I wish you could stay home.” Chris pouted. “I miss you when you go to work.”

  Kate went to Chris and hugged him. “I’ll come home early,” she promised.

  Before she could finish, the doorbell rang. A UPS man in a brown uniform greeted her. He handed her a large yellow envelope. It was from Walter Suskind’s Photography Shop. Kate opened it and pulled out a thick pile of eight-by-tens. From each, the black-and-white visage of her daughter smiled out at her. Kate carried them back to the kitchen.

  “Tell you what,” she said to Chris. “I’ve got some paperwork I can do at home today. I’ll tell Dorothy I won’t be in.”

  “Oh, boy,” Chris cried. “Joey, Mommy’s staying home today.”

  “Mommy,” Joey cried.

  Kate waved a hand at them. “But Mrs. Ginmoor is still coming,” she said. “I have to do work at home, so I’ll need her help.”

  Chris climbed down from his chair and went to hug his mother. “I’m just glad you’re home today,” he said.

  “Finish your breakfast, boys,” Kate said. “I’m going to be in my bedroom. You can just let me know when Mrs. Ginmoor arrives.”

  When the elderly sitter showed up, half an hour later, she was surprised when Chris answered the door.

  “Where’s Mommy?” she asked Chris.

  “Upstairs,” Chris said, frowning. “I knocked on her door, but she told me to go away.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Ginmoor said. “I hope she isn’t sick. Let me go up and check.” She went up the stairs, Joey and Chris tagging behind her. At the door to the master bedroom, she knocked and called out to Kate. “Kate, dear, are you ill?”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Ginmoor,” Kate called back. “Just very busy.”

  “The boys are worried about you.” She heard Kate groan, then a shuffling of papers.

  A moment later, the door opened. Kate grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was so caught up in paperwork. I’ll be staying home today, Mrs. Ginmoor. But I still need you to keep the boys out of my hair.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Ginmoor said doubtfully. She had never known Kate to reject her children this way. She glanced at the pile of papers Kate held in her arms. No, not papers. Photographs. She wondered what was on the other side of them.

  “Well, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Yes, Kate,” Mrs. Ginmoor said. “Come along, boys. Let’s get out the play clay.”

  Joey followed her obediently, but Chris stayed behind. He threw his arms around his mother and, in doing so, knocked the photographs from her arms.

  With a gasp, Kate fell to the floor and started gathering them up. Mrs. Ginmoor came rushing back to help her. “No, it’s all right,” Kate cried. “I can handle it myself.”

  “Oh, Chris, look at the mess you—” Mrs. Ginmoor stopped short. She picked up one of the photographs, then met Kate’s guilty eyes. It was an old picture of Laura, but it had been altered.
The soft baby curls had been lengthened, the brows darkened, the face shadowed along its edges to look thinner. All the pictures were altered in different ways, dozens of them, to look like Laura might if she were still alive.

  11

  JILL PACED THE BLUE CARPETING OF HER APARTMENT, following the same path through her living room, bedroom, and kitchen over and over. The hair she had clipped back so neatly that evening hung loosely now. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, mascara blended there by tears. She ached all over; she was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep.

  The police had escorted her back to the station for questioning, but after a time had finally determined she was just a casual acquaintance of Deliah’s and that the woman’s death was probably a freakish, tragic accident. Drawing her strength back together, Jill had managed to get home safely. After a weary climb up the flight of stairs to her apartment, it took three tries to unlock her door.

  Jill flopped into an easy chair and began to swivel it back and forth. It was so hard to believe: one moment, Deliah was alive; the next, she was gone. Worse, she hadn’t even tried to save herself. Why? What was going on in her mind when she saw that boat racing toward the dock?

  “She never finished talking to me,” Jill whispered. She wondered, with some shame, whether she was more upset about the accident or about the fact that Deliah was no longer around to answer questions. Now what was she supposed to do? She jumped from the chair, moving with newfound energy into her bathroom. The bright light stung her eyes, but when she had splashed cold water on her face, her weariness vanished. Whatever reason there was for Deliah’s death, it wasn’t the end of her hopes. Someone would answer her questions, and she had a good idea where to start asking them.

  Jill returned to her bedroom and opened the drawer of her night table. She pulled out a green leather address book filled with names of friends she’d made on Long Island, and then she finally unearthed an ancient, battered directory. Jeffrey had given it to her their first Christmas together, and in it she had listed all the people she knew in Wheaton, Michigan. There was a final entry listed, just a few months before she left for New York—the number of her local police station.

  If there was anyone to set her mind at ease, it would be Craig Dylan, the detective who had been in charge of investigating Jeffrey and Ryan’s accident. As Jill listened to the phone ring, she closed her eyes and tried to steady her nerves. The detective was going to think she was crazy.

  The line clicked.

  “Wheaton police.”

  “Hello, may I speak to Detective Craig Dylan, please?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dylan is no longer at this precinct,” the woman’s voice said.

  Jill rubbed her eyes wearily. She should have known it would be a waste of time. “I really need to speak with Detective Dylan,” she said. “Has he moved to another precinct?”

  “Are you a friend?” the woman asked chattily. “You’re a little late. Mr. Dylan moved away about, oh, five or six years ago.”

  Jill shot to her feet, her eyes opened wide; Six years ago—about the time of the accident!

  Calm down, Jill! It’s just a coincidence.

  “If you give me your name and number, I can have him call—”

  “It would be easier for me to call him,” Jill interrupted, quickly fabricating a story. “You see, we’re having a class reunion, and I’d like to invite him. He’d be terribly disappointed if he didn’t receive an invitation.”

  She heard the woman mumble something. “I’ve got a crowd here at the desk,” she said. “Trouble at the local gin mill. Here, I’ll give you Craig’s number. Just don’t say where you got it from, because I’m not sure I was supposed to give it out.” She rattled off the number.

  “That’s not a Michigan area code,” Jill pointed out.

  “It’s Florida,” the voice said. “Fort Lauderdale, Florida.”

  Jill hung up and dialed Craig Dylan’s new number.

  After just three rings, a woman’s weary voice came over the line. “Yes?”

  “May I speak to Detective Dylan please?”

  There was a pause.

  “Who—who is this?”

  “My name is Jill Sheldon, and I—”

  “What do you want from us?” the woman cut in.

  “I need to speak with the detective,” Jill said, confused by the woman’s tone. “I’m sorry to call so late, but it’s urgent.”

  She heard a man’s voice in the background and the woman saying who was on the line. There were words that sounded like an argument and then a man’s voice came over the line.

  “Mrs. Sheldon,” Craig Dylan said. “How did you find me?”

  “From your old precinct,” Jill said. “Please, Defective Dylan, something has come up regarding Ryan’s accident. It’s important that I talk with you.”

  “What—what’s wrong?” There was an uneasy tone in the detective’s voice.

  “I have reason to believe Ryan is alive,” Jill said. “There’s a very strong possibility that he wasn’t the child they found in my husband’s car. I remember you saying there were some questions about the case, but you never elaborated. I need to know now what you meant by that.”

  “I don’t remember saying anything like that,” Craig replied. “Mrs. Sheldon, what makes you think there was a mistake?”

  Jill told him about Deliah, ending her story with the woman’s accident.

  “Maybe I’m crazy to believe someone like that,” Jill said, “but I’ve got to find out for myself. And I don’t know of anyone else who can help me.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Craig answered. “Look, Mrs. Sheldon, there’s only one piece of advice I can give you: forget about Ryan. Forget whatever it is this Deliah person told you. Maybe Ryan is alive—I don’t know. I had doubts myself. But I can assure you the people responsible for the accident will not let you get to him. You want him safe? Forget about him. Because even if he is alive, they’ll kill him before they give him back to you.”

  “Who’ll kill him?” Jill demanded.

  “Forget about it, will you?” Craig said. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. These are terribly dangerous people. If they find out you’re looking for Ryan—”

  “Then he is alive,” Jill gasped. “Where is he? You’ve got to tell me where he is.”

  “I can’t,” Craig answered. “I just can’t!”

  Now Jill was screaming, tears running from her eyes. “You bastard! You can’t keep my little boy from me. Where is he?”

  It was Craig’s wife who came back on the line.

  “My husband doesn’t know a thing,” she said, her voice cold. “Please don’t try to call us again.”

  There was a click. Jill called into the receiver, but no one answered. They had hung up on her.

  “No, you don’t,” she said. Her hand was trembling as she redialed the Dylans’ number. This time, she reached a busy signal.

  She couldn’t let it go at this. The detective had indicated Ryan was in danger—and that meant he was alive. There was only one way she would ever get a straight answer: she would have to go to Fort Lauderdale to confront the man in person.

  It would be the only way to find out what he was afraid of.

  12

  THE SMALL SCHOOLHOUSE, TUCKED AWAY IN A remote mountain community in the Southwest, had room for only fifteen children. They were all about the same age, between eight and ten. Jenny Segal sat in the second-to-last row, right behind Tommy Bivers. She often stared at the curls on the back of his head and tried to send him thought messages. Ever since her own experience at the clinic, when unseen voices told her not to do what the grown-ups said, she had wanted to talk with Tommy and ask what made him fight back.

  “Pay attention, Miss Segal,” the teacher snapped.

  Jenny sighed and went back to work. She didn’t understand why she had to learn a lot of things, like calculus and physics. It was easy enough, but she didn’t understand what a kid was supposed to do with all this inf
ormation. Still, the grown-ups in her life kept insisting it was important, and she had learned not to argue.

  Until the other day.

  What had given her the strength to cause such a scene? What had given Tommy his strength?

  At last the bell rang and school was let out. As usual, Tommy took off with all his friends. Jenny’s own friends sidled up to her. As they headed down the sand-dusted main road that branched off into their own streets, Cissy Critchfield nudged Jenny and pointed to a lone figure up ahead. Jenny followed her gaze and saw one of the maintenance workers leaning against a lamppost. She never paid much attention to the workers at the center, but all the children knew this man. Well, he really didn’t seem much older than any of them. Fifteen, Jenny guessed. No one knew his name, and no one was brave enough to ask him. Jenny thought he had the scariest eyes she’d ever seen, blue so pale they seemed transparent. He often leered at the younger children, as if he knew his eyes were frightening.

  “Look at that creep,” Cissy said. “Look at those sloppy clothes. He’s always hanging around, staring at everyone.”

  “I wonder what he does here?” Jenny said.

  Another girl, Bambi Freed, put on a grin that was downright feral. “Do something to him, Cissy,” she urged.

  Cissy’s eyes gleamed. She focused them on the scraggy young man up ahead. A moment later, he threw back his head and let out a loud noise that sounded very much like a duck’s quack.

  “Stop it, you guys,” Jenny scolded. “How mean! Leave him alone.”

  “We’re just having fun, Jenny,” Bambi said.

  Jenny grumbled. “Well, have fun with someone else. Just ’cause you can make people do things . . .” Her eyes went very round suddenly, and she pointed at something over Cissy’s shoulder. Bambi started screaming, backing away. When she felt the tickling on her cheek, Cissy started to scream, too.

  “Get it off! Get it off of me!”