Hear the Children Calling

by Clare McNally

  “I hope she doesn’t tell Danny,” Kate said, lifting up a huge pumpkin. She noticed a little girl standing across the street, perfectly still, facing the window of the boutique. The pumpkin Kate held smashed to the floor.

  The child was Laura.

  “Kate?” Dorothy Williams came running through the store, weaving around the merchandise tables. The proprietress of the boutique still held the tape from a box she’d been unpacking. “Kate, what happened?” she asked. “Oh, look!” She frowned at the mess of smashed pumpkin.

  Kate blinked, and the child across the street disappeared into the crowd of passersby. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what happened.” She got on her knees and began to pick up the biggest pieces, fumbling with the slippery mess.

  “Well, let me get the mop,” Dorothy said.

  Kate carried the pumpkin pieces to a trash can. When she came back to the window, she gazed across the street for a few moments, as if she could bring the child back again. Of course it wasn’t Laura. It only looked like her.

  “Here,” Dorothy said, thrusting the mop at her. “If you ask me, Kaitlyn Emerson, you are a woman in need of a vacation. You’ve been so edgy these past few days.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” Kate admitted. “I’m having nightmares.”

  Dorothy’s brown eyes rounded with concern. “You poor thing,” she said. “Are you eating right? If you eat the wrong thing, it can have a negative effect on your brain.”

  “Oh, Dorothy,” Kate sighed, stepping down from the display to carry the mop back to the supply room. “Who would believe we’re the same age? You sound like my superstitious old grandmother.”

  “But you do look tired, Kate,” Dorothy insisted. “Why don’t you take the afternoon off? Things are a little slow today, anyway.”

  “Dorothy, I don’t know if—”

  But her boss was cutting her off with a quick wave of her hands. “Oh, I know,” Dorothy said. “Borgman’s Craft Emporium has received the most adorable collection of costume patterns. Have you made the boys their Halloween outfits yet?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Kate said.

  “Then go on over there and take a look at their selection,” Dorothy said. “Maybe concentrating on getting the boys ready for Halloween will put whatever other problems you have out of your mind.”

  Kate stared at her. God, how she wished it were that easy. But Dorothy was right. She’d been a nervous wreck all day, and she wasn’t much help to Dorothy at all.

  And if I make them something special, it will help them forget the scare I gave them the other night.

  Kate went into the back room and pulled her coat off an antique wooden rack. Slipping her arms into it as she walked to the front, she said, “Thanks, Dorothy.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dorothy said, opening the door for her. Soft notes blew into the store from seashell chimes. “Just stop over at Stephen’s Vegetable Mart and get me a new pumpkin.”

  Kate laughed. She strolled along State Street, looking everywhere for a sign of the little girl. She again thought of the possibility she had only looked like Laura, but only for a moment. She knew her own child, and that little girl across the street had been Laura. Maybe not Laura in the flesh, but an image sent to her as a cry for help. If only she could communicate with her . . . Somehow, something was preventing Laura from sending her complete messages.

  When she reached Borgman’s, she forced herself to stop thinking of Laura for a moment. She had two other children at home whom she loved dearly, and she couldn’t let her dedication to finding her daughter get in the way of her obligation to Chris and Joey. She paused to admire the craft shop’s window, where child mannequins had been dressed as witches, scarecrows, and mice. Inside, Kate went to a chest-high table laden with pattern books. Choosing one, she flipped open the huge tome to the costume section and tried to find one that would work for both her boys.

  Laura wanted to be a bunny on her last Halloween.

  Kate shook her head abruptly and realized she had been staring at a picture of a little girl with dark hair and eyes, wearing a bunny costume and looking very much like Laura. She quickly turned the page.

  She was shaking now, but she was determined to find a pattern and get started on Joey’s and Chris’ costumes. She finally chose a pair of dinosaurs, knowing how much her children loved the prehistoric creatures.

  Kate found the pattern in the files, then carried it to a row of brightly colored knits to pick out her fabric. Down the aisle, she could see a woman cutting yardage at a low table, chatting with another customer. There was no one else in the store.

  She found a perfect shade of green and with a moan managed to pull out the heavy bolt of fabric. It left a space on the rack about ten inches thick. Something made Kate glance at the opening, and with a cry of dismay she dropped everything to the floor.

  There was a little girl standing there, her round, dark eyes overflowing with tears. She spoke in a soft voice, “I’m scared.”

  “L-Laura?” Kate choked out her daughter’s name.

  The little girl reached toward her, over the double width of tables. Shaking, Kate tried to take her hand.

  Laura dissolved into thin air when Kate’s hand touched her. There was nothing left of her but a sense of icy cold that shot up Kate’s arm and grabbed at her heart, pulling her into blackness as she collapsed to the floor.

  16

  UNABLE TO GET ANY MORE INFORMATION FROM CRAIG Dylan, Jill Sheldon had despondently moved up the date of her departure. She was certain the detective was hiding something. What had those people done to him, to make him such a whimpering, terrified shadow of the man she remembered?

  Dozens of questions whirled in her mind as she sat on the flight home the next morning, staring out the window at the marshmallow puffs of clouds below. She would call Ronald Preminger and demand that he tell her what really had happened six years ago. On the logical side of her brain she knew he wouldn’t reveal a thing, but her heart told her she had to try everything she could in her search for Ryan. Craig had hinted at one hell of a coverup, and Jill wondered just how many people in Wheaton were in on it.

  When at last the plane bumped down at Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Jill stood up and pulled her overnight bag from the compartment above her seat. Other people were standing, too, retrieving their own belongings. But from the corner of her eye Jill noticed one man sitting perfectly still in his seat. That in itself wasn’t unusual—many people waited patiently for the plane to stop completely. But there was something about him that bothered her. He seemed young, his hair light brown and neatly combed, his face clean-shaven. If Jill had been asked to describe him, though, she would have faltered at his eyes. He was wearing dark glasses.

  Even so, Jill had the strange feeling he was staring at her.

  Ridiculous! Keep thinking like that and they’ll have you hallucinating just like poor Detective Dylan.

  She tucked herself into the line of departing passengers, exiting the plane as quickly as possible. She did not see the man take out a pen and jot a few lines down in a small notebook.

  In fact, he was completely forgotten once she drove onto Veteran’s Highway. Though it was night, Jill was too full of adrenaline to go home. Instead, she decided to head into Port Lincoln, to the museum. She decided she would call Ronald Preminger from there. If he had anything to tell her, she wanted to know it now.

  Jill often stayed after hours, able to think better when surrounded by the exhibits she had helped to design herself. She loved this place, set up in an old house just south of the town’s park. Putting all her energy and resources into it had been therapeutic, helping to fade out the horror of Ryan’s death, even if nothing could erase it completely. Jill always felt more at home here than in her small apartment.

  But tonight, an unfamiliar nervousness crept over her as she closed the museum’s front door behind herself. Something seemed wrong, out of place. She stopped and looked across the floor, h
er eyes scanning neat rows of exhibits softly illuminated by night-lights. Jill reached for a switch near the door and flicked it on. With the room brightly illuminated, she could see that nothing was out of place. Shaking her head at herself, she walked toward the small flight of stairs that led to her office.

  Jill could have teased herself all she wanted, but nothing would take away the odd feeling of dread that enveloped her. As she hurried by them, tubular bells jangled from their invisible strings, making her gasp. A hologram of a cat followed her movements, three dimensions trapped within two, and Jill wondered if someone else might be watching her. She went up the stairs, passing the closed door of the supplies closet and finally reaching her office.

  Jill sat for a moment and collected herself. Virginia had left a note on her desk saying the day had been very busy and telling Jill there were eleven tours booked for the next week. Jill put these aside, then reached to open the largest door in the old desk. She pulled out a false bottom and removed a locked file. It contained all her important papers, including the accident report, newspaper clippings, and Ryan’s death certificate. Armed with the new facts she’d obtained in Florida, Jill had wondered if there might be some clue here she had missed when she had read these as a grieving mother. Turning the combination lock, she opened it and spilled out the contents. She found the lease to her apartment; the deed for the museum; a copy of her own will; however, there were no papers on the accident.

  Jill reached quickly for the drawer, pulling it out far enough to see to the back. She had misplaced them, of course. But the desk was empty.

  “You didn’t misplace anything,” she told herself firmly. “You always put things in their proper place.”

  So, logically, this meant someone had gotten into her desk. But who? Jeffrey was the only other person who knew of its secret compartment. He had been the one who gave the antique desk to her, long ago when their marriage had been a happy one. But now she was the only person who knew the combination.

  The strange feeling of being watched overwhelmed her, and it took all her strength to beat it back down again. She took a few deep breaths and forced herself to think clearly. If anyone was in here right now, she would have been jumped already. There had been plenty of opportunity. Still, she was unwilling to stay here alone. Deciding she could phone Preminger just as easily from home, she stood up and slipped her jacket back on, entering the hall.

  The supplies-closet door was open.

  Jill stopped short, trying to remember whether it had been open just a moment ago.

  You’re tired, Jill. Of course it was open! You just can’t remember.

  She was almost to the stairs when she heard a sweet, childish voice.

  “Mommy, help me!”

  Jill froze. It seemed her insides had vanished in an instant, leaving an icy, dark void within her frame. She grabbed the banister, holding tightly.

  No! You’re hearing things.

  “Mommy! Mommy!”

  “Ryan?”

  Jill turned around, racing toward the supplies closet on legs that seemed made of lead. Through the darkness, there on the back wall she saw an image of her little boy. Ryan was there, hiding in the closet, cowering in fear.

  “Oh, God,” Jill screamed. “Ryan!” She ran in to him, flicking on the switch at the same time.

  Ryan was gone.

  In his place, there stood a young boy of about fifteen years old. His hair was ash blonde and curly as Ryan’s might have been, but his eyes were dark and his face was marred by acne scars.

  “You bastard,” she growled, barely able to get the words out. “You bastard! Who the hell are you?”

  She was screaming now, rushing toward the intruder with her fingers curled like talons.

  He stepped aside, sending a jar of mercury to the floor. The silver globbed together, shining in the light above. “Lady, don’t,” the boy cried. “Please!” He grabbed a beaker and held it up like a weapon.

  Jill stopped herself. “Who are you?” she asked again. “How could you be so cruel? Do you have any idea what kind of scare you’ve given me? I thought—I thought you were my son.”

  She covered her face, bursting into tears. The boy saw an opportunity and tried to rush out past her. But in a moment of fury, when her mothering instinct replaced all sense of logic, Jill reached out and grabbed the teenager. At the same time, her other hand curled around a dark, amber bottle. She threw him to the floor, surprised at how lightweight he was. Then she quickly uncorked the bottle and held it, at a forty-five-degree angle, right over his face.

  “You know what sulfuric acid does?” she asked.

  The boy’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, God, lady . . .”

  “It’d make a pretty big mess of your face, wouldn’t it?” Jill teased cruelly.

  “Please!”

  “You tell me something, kid,” Jill went on. “You tell me who sent you here and who told you to call me Mommy.”

  “I—I can’t!”

  “It’ll burn your face pretty bad . . .”

  “I’m afraid!”

  Something about his words brought Jill’s sense of decency back to her. With a sigh and a shudder, she righted the bottle again and replaced the cork.

  “It’s only peroxide,” she said, her voice free of the almost-demonic tone it had taken on a moment earlier. “Listen to me. I’m sure someone paid you to break into this place. They kidnapped my little boy and now they’re trying to stop me from finding him.”

  The teenager bit his lip, still sprawled on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “Tell me who paid you to do this,” Jill begged.

  “Can’t.”

  “What was the money for? Drugs?” Jill asked. “You’re in a lot of trouble. If I call the police . . .”

  The word “police” brought out the same reaction as the threat of being doused with acid. The boy shook his head wildly. “Okay. Okay. I’m a janitor’s assistant at the hospital. Some guys came in talking about a job they needed done. They took one look at me and said, ‘He’s just right.’ Then they told me some things to say when you walked by the closet. I guess it was supposed to scare you. I don’t really understand it. But they paid me fifty bucks—”

  Jill cut him off. “How did you get into my desk?”

  “They told me about the false door,” the boy said. “And the combination.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy cried. “Just some guys at the hospital.”

  “Guys?” Jill echoed. “Doctors?”

  “Looked like doctors to me,” the boy said. “I—I think I remember what it said on one of the name tags. If I tell you, will you let me go?”

  Jill could tell he was a boy who had already had many brushes with the law. Still, in spite of the cruel thing he had done, she felt pity for him. He was being used, much the same way she was certain Ryan was being used.

  “They’ll never know you botched up,” she promised, “Tell them I went a little crazy when I saw you, but don’t tell them I turned on the light. You can say you got away first.”

  The boy seemed to relax, his shoulders sinking back a little. “I can go?”

  “Tell me the name,” Jill ordered.

  “Sure, sure,” the boy said, standing at last. “I’m not one hundred percent certain. But it was something like Sampson, or Safson.”

  “I can find out for myself,” Jill said. “Get out of here, kid. And please, try to think who you’ll be hurting next time you try to earn money this way. You can’t begin to know what pain you’ve caused me tonight.”

  “I’m sorry,” the teenager said. “Really sorry.” He raced down the stairs on sneakers that made no sound.

  Jill sank to the floor, burying her head in her knees. She had no desire to go home now. The exhaustion and hunger that had claimed her earlier had vanished, replaced with a need to make sense of what had just taken place. Someone had paid a young kid to act like Ryan. It was pretty easy to see why: they wanted to s
care her out of trying to find him. But a question repeated itself in her mind: who could have known about the secret door and the lock combination?

  Jill ran over the name the boy had given her. Sampson, Safson . . .

  Something familiar about it.

  “Safson,” she whispered. “Saf . . .” She slapped the tile floor with the palm of her hand. “My God, I don’t believe it,” she cried, leaping to her feet.

  Safton was the name! And Ken Safton had been one of those friends from Jeffrey’s med school.

  17

  WHEN STUART MORSE CAME HOME FROM HIS OFFICE, Beth always greeted him at the front door and led him back to the kitchen. There, he would find Natalie fixing one of her fabulous meals, a ruffled apron tied over her jeans and sweater. It had become a tradition, and Stuart looked forward to it as the signal his busy day had ended.

  But tonight when he came home, the front hallway was dark. He pulled off his trenchcoat and hung it in the closet, looking up the staircase, then down the hall. “Beth?” he called. “Nat?”

  There was no answer. Because there was no smell of cooking food in the air, he did not walk back to the kitchen. Instead, he hurried upstairs to the second level. Maybe Beth had had a relapse, and was in bed.

  He opened her door. Light from a streetlamp illuminated her covers, laid carefully over her mattress. Stuart closed the door and went to his own room, knowing that Natalie sometimes let Beth crawl into their bed when she was upset. But the king-size platform bed was neatly tucked in.

  Now he was beginning to worry. Natalie would never go off without leaving a message.

  As he passed the door leading to the upper floor, he heard voices. A sigh of relief passed through him as he realized Natalie and Beth must still be up in the studio. But still he wondered how Natalie could have lost track of the time. She’d never missed a meal before, and knew what it meant to him to sit down with his family when he came home.