Chamberlain didn’t answer.
“So tell us where they are, Chamberlain. Tell me where the kids are.”
“I don’t know where they are. I had nothing to do with their kidnapping.”
“So you’re not going to tell us? You’re going to leave them there? Let them die before their parents can find them? What kind of man are you?”
Chamberlain was silent.
“Did you feed them, Chamberlain? Have you taken care of them? They’re only five and six years old. Did you hurt them in any way?”
Chamberlain was mute as he stared back at Larry.
Tony moaned. They weren’t getting anywhere with this guy. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
It was almost morning when Tony made his way back to Sharon’s house. There was no real need for him to be there anymore. They had their kidnapper, and didn’t expect any more ransom calls. Larry had gone home to shower and have breakfast with his wife. But the fact that those children were still out there made it impossible for Tony to relax.
He knocked lightly on the door to the kitchen, and it was quickly opened. Lynda Barrett stood there, looking as tired as he did. “Tony. Any word?”
He shook his head. “He won’t talk. I’ve tried everything. Boudreaux doesn’t know anything about the kids. My gut tells me that Chamberlain acted alone, but he won’t tell us a thing.” She ushered him in. Jake was leaning against the counter next to Ben, and Sharon sat listlessly at the table, her eyes swollen from tears and exhaustion.
“He wouldn’t tell you anything?” Sharon asked, looking up at him. “Are they alive? Are they with anyone? Are they being taken care of?”
“They said there were rats there and that it was dark!” Anne blurted from the doorway. “It didn’t sound like anyone was with them. They’re all alone, and he’s going to let them die there!”
Sharon got up and set her hands on Tony’s shoulders. “Tony, we’ve got to find them,” she said, her voice pleading. “”We can’t just leave them there. You’ve got to help us.”
He nodded. “I was thinking. Maybe it’s time to call a press conference. We need to get the whole community involved. Maybe somebody knows something.”
“Good idea,” Lynda said. “I’ll set it up right now.”
Sharon looked hopeful. “You can use my office. There’s a phone book in the bottom drawer.”
Lynda and Jake went into the office.
Tony looked down at Sharon, wishing he had the magic that would bring her child back. “Sharon, you need to get some sleep. You haven’t slept in days.”
“Neither have you.”
“That’s not really true,” he said. “I slept on your couch while I was here. You’ve got to rest. There’s nothing you can do right now.”
“You think they’re dead, don’t you?” Anne asked in a raspy, breathy voice.
He frowned and turned around. “No. I don’t.”
“But they could be. That may be why he won’t tell you. There’s no urgency, because they’re dead, and—”
“They’re not dead!” Sharon cried. “I know they’re not. If Christy were dead, I’d know it. I’d feel it, somehow. But she’s out there!”
Ben pushed off from the counter and faced Tony squarely. “I want to talk to him. Maybe he’d listen. Maybe he’d tell me.”
“Ben, I’m telling you. I’ve worked on him all night. I’ve done everything short of beating it out of him.”
“Well, I could beat it out of him!” Ben shouted.
“No, you couldn’t. He’s a stubborn man. It’s only going to hurt him tomorrow at his arraignment, and I’m hoping the judge will put enough fear into him to make him talk, but we can’t wait. I’ve got him in the worst holding cell the city owns,” he told them. “Not a nice place. Then again, it’s not nearly as bad as I’d like for it to be, but there are laws about cruel and unusual punishment.”
“You ought to have him in a cage, chained to the bars,” Ben grumbled.
Sharon shook her head and went to the stove. “I made breakfast for everybody, Tony,” she whispered miserably. “But no one was very hungry. Do you want some? It’s still hot.”
He had to admit that he was hungry. “Yeah, I’ll take some, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Sharon seemed relieved to have something to do. She dipped out some scrambled eggs and bacon and pulled some biscuits out of the oven. Tony watched as she poured him some orange juice and set it on the table. “This is Christy’s favorite breakfast,” she whispered. “We have it every Saturday morning. I made it thinking . . . hoping . . . that she’d be home to eat it.”
Her voice cut off, and she covered her face.
“I was thinking,” Tony said quietly. “When you have your press conference, maybe we could ask anyone who’s willing to help look for the children to meet at, say, ten o’clock, and with some supervised effort, we could go over St. Clair with a fine-tooth comb. Search every abandoned building in town. Every hotel room. Knock on doors, ask questions . . .”
Sharon looked hopeful. “Do you think anyone would come?”
“Are you kidding? As bad as your church friends have wanted to do something, I’d say that we’ll have so many people we won’t know what to do with them. Until now, all they could do was pray. Now they can start doing something useful.”
Sharon’s expression didn’t change as she watched him for a moment. “Prayer is useful, Tony,” she said quietly. “It’s the most useful thing they could do. Bar none.”
He looked up from his plate. “Well, I know. I mean . . . you obviously believe that . . . but I just mean . . .”
“God’s listening,” Sharon said. “Whether we can see what he’s doing about it or not. He is listening.”
Anne and Ben were stone quiet as they all looked at her, wanting some of her reassurance, desperate for the faith that she still held.
Tony ate quietly for a moment, not sure what to say. Prayer had never seemed more useful to him than action. It was a foreign concept, even though Larry had told him many times how prayer had helped him with things that were out of his control. Sharon, like Larry, seemed too intelligent to fit Tony’s preconceptions of the prayer-and-Bible-study crowd.
Lynda and Jake came back into the room in a few minutes. “All right, Sharon,” she said. “The press conference is set for 9:00 A.M., on your front lawn. I called Paige, my secretary, and she’s going to call all of the television stations in the Tampa Bay area, as well as the newspapers and radio news directors. This is big news, so I think there will be a phenomenal turnout.”
Sharon looked up at the clock, then ran her fingers through her hair. “We’re going to ask people to meet at ten o’clock to start an organized search.”
“Good idea,” Jake said. “I was thinking about going up in the plane again. I could direct people to sparsely populated rural areas from the air. It might help.”
“Right now we’re going to have some new posters made,” Lynda said. “These will have the girls’ pictures, as well as Chamberlain’s. Maybe someone has seen him, and they’ll remember. Every member of the media who shows up will want a picture, and we’ll need to pass them out to everyone who helps. And we’ll need a number people can call to report anything they know. Are your phones still hooked up here, Tony?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We can get someone to man them.”
“All right. Then we’re in business.” She started for the door, with Jake behind her.
Sharon sighed. “Thank you, Lynda. Thanks, Jake.”
“We’re gonna find your kids,” Jake told the three forlorn parents in the room. “Hopefully before the sun goes down today.”
While the others stacked flyers and planned what to say to the press, Tony hooked up a second VCR to the television and watched a video of the girls, looking for thirty-second clips of both girls to edit out for distribution to all of the television stations. They had already distributed photographs, but now it seemed that th
e public needed to see the children moving, laughing. Maybe it would pull their heartstrings, as it did his. He sat on a chair right in front of the television, his elbows propped on his knees, and his chin on his clamped fists as Christy and Emily climbed on a sliding board at a park, laughing and waving to the camera.
Their size startled him, and he told himself that he had seen them before they were kidnapped, and they hadn’t seemed so tiny then. But now they were in such huge danger. He watched as little Christy slid down, then turned and walked back up the slide, all the while singing, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he . . .” She stood at the top of the slide, then took a leap, and fell into sand. She looked as if she’d hurt herself and quickly got up, dusted off her knee, and looked up at the camera as though she wished her father would cut it off.
“I don’t feel like performing right now,” she said, lips trembling. “Turn it off.”
He did, and it quickly flashed to another scene, where she was “performing,” both she and Emily decked out in Anne’s clothes, high heels, and jewelry as they sang a song they had made up, complete with bad choreography.
Christy seemed to be singing, or imagining, or laughing in every frame, and he sat helpless for a moment as tears sprang to his eyes. Was she singing or imagining or laughing now? What must be going through those little girls’ minds?
The thought that they could already be dead hit him like a sledgehammer between the eyes, and he shook his head and swallowed hard. They couldn’t be. They had to be alive. If he was any kind of cop, he’d find them.
The scene switched to a Christmas shot, when they were both sitting on the floor opening presents, with Jenny behind them. It must have been a Christmas that Sharon had spent alone. He wondered how she had filled it, and wished he had been there to help. He had been lonely last Christmas, too.
The perfect shot of the girls came when they were outside on Christmas morning, both donning their new roller blades, and trying to stand straight without falling as they wrapped their arms around each other and smiled at the camera. He pressed “pause” and froze the scene, and for a moment, just stared at those two little happy, innocent faces.
It was almost more than he could bear, and he sat still, fighting the tears in his eyes, fighting the fears in his heart.
Just hang on a little longer, girls, he told them silently. I’m gonna find you real soon.
Then, trying to pull himself together, he quickly turned on the second VCR and copied the scene to be splashed across television screens, both locally and nationally, until they were able to find the children.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Both children were getting weaker, and Christy could feel Emily’s fever as she leaned her head against her. Christy, herself, was having chills, even though the cat was helping her to battle them.
Her lips felt like scabs, and she saw as the light came through the window overhead that Emily’s were cracked. The five-year-old looked deathly pale. Her eyes seemed sunken in.
What had happened to Daddy? Why hadn’t the man come back?
She looked around the filthy bathroom and saw the dead rat that the cat had killed last night. She turned her eyes away from it, unwilling to look at it any longer. The cat purred on her lap, and she stroked him. “You did good,” she whispered weakly.
She looked up at the broken window through which the cat had come, and wished she could climb up there. She was a good climber, she thought. But both of their hands were so tender, and they didn’t have much energy.
The cat meowed and looked up at the window, as if wishing he could get out.
“It’s too far, boy,” Christy said, though she didn’t know what gender the cat was. “You can get down from there, but not back up.”
But the cat got off her lap and sat back on its haunches, as if readying itself to pounce. It leaped onto the commode tank, and from there fixed its eyes on the closest plant a few feet up. He pounced, then bobbed in the hanging pot of dried leaves and dirt for a moment, shook off a spiderweb, then looked up, evaluating its next move.
It leaped again to the next plant, sending it swinging, then to the next higher one, and the one above that. In moments, the cat had reached the window.
Christy’s eyes widened. She sat up, and shook Emily. “Emily, wake up.”
Emily stirred slightly, but was too lethargic. “Emily! I have to show you something!”
Emily opened her eyes. “What?”
“The cat. It climbed back up and got out the window. Maybe we could climb, too.” She stood up and, feeling dizzy, leaned back against the commode. After a moment, she recovered her balance and took a step toward the wall where the cat had found the first foothold. “I think I can do it. I’m a good climber. You are, too, Emily.”
Emily surveyed the wide space between the plants. “I’m not that good. That’s high, Christy. Besides, we’re too heavy. What if they won’t hold us?”
“They will,” Christy said. “They have to. I can do it, and if I make it, I can come around and get you out. Or go for help.”
“No,” Emily whined. “Don’t leave me here by myself. I’m scared.”
“I promise I won’t leave you,” Christy said.
“But what if you can’t move the stuff in front of the door?”
“I will,” Christy said. “I’m strong. Daddy always says so.”
“But if you get out, and you can’t move the stuff, you won’t be able to get back in. I’ll be all by myself.”
“You’re what they call a pestimist,” Christy said.
“I am not! What is that, anyway?”
“It’s somebody who thinks of so many bad things that they become a pest.”
“I am not a pest! I’m just scared!”
“Yeah, well, you’re a scaredy-cat, too.”
Emily started to cry, and Christy was instantly filled with remorse. She went and sat back down beside her, and put her arm around her. Emily was burning with fever. “I’m a scaredy-cat, too,” she admitted. “That’s why I want out. But don’t worry. I won’t go. I’ll stay here with you.”
Emily rubbed the tears from her eyes and looked up at the window. “I wish the cat could talk, and he could tell somebody we were here.”
“I wish he could bring us some food and something to drink.”
“I wish he would come back and keep me warm. I’m so cold.”
“I wish he would come back and keep you company while I climb out.”
“Maybe he will come back,” Emily whispered weakly. “Maybe he just had to go to the bathroom. You promise you won’t leave me?”
The conversation was exhausting Christy. Looking at the window, she wondered if she could make it even if she wanted to. “I promise not to do it right now.”
Emily didn’t need more. She just laid her head against her sister’s shoulder, and waited. . . .
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Sharon couldn’t believe the number of people that had convened on her front lawn in less than an hour. Through her living-room window she saw television vans, setting up local, live broadcasts. A conglomeration of cords all led to a cluster of microphones on the front steps of her home. She turned back to Anne and Ben.
“This is a little unnerving,” she said quietly. “But the publicity has to help.”
“It will,” Ben assured her. “Somebody has seen something. If we can just get the word out, we’ll find them. I know we will.”
“I guess we can each say a few words. Which one of us should go first?”
“You go first,” Anne said quickly. Tears came to her eyes, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think I can get anything out. You’re the professional. You’re so good at talking to people . . . you’ll say the right thing.”
Sharon looked at Ben. “But Ben, you’ll speak, won’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You go first.”
Lynda came in the side door. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Sharon said. “
Are they?”
“It looks like it. One of the stations told me they’re doing a feed to CNN. This is going to be national news.”
“Really?” Sharon asked. “Why?”
“Look at it from a news directors’ point of view. A kidnapper is caught before he tells where the kids are. Every heart in America will be wrenched over this, and someone will be able to tell us something. Let’s get to it.”
Sharon sighed and almost wished she had changed clothes and put on some make-up, but she just wasn’t up to it. She called into the other room. “Jenny? Are you ready?”
Jenny came in carrying Bobby. “Mom, do we have to go out there? There are so many of them.”
“Yes,” Sharon said. “The whole family’s doing this. We’re in this together.”
Sharon took a breath, bracing herself, and opened the front door. The crowd began to hush as she walked up to the cluster of microphones. Slowly, Anne and Ben came out behind her, then Jenny and Bobby, then Lynda.
Sharon stepped up to the mikes and cleared her throat. “We called you all to come here today, because . . .” She stopped, cleared her throat again. “Because our children, Christy and Emily Robinson, have been kidnapped. As you know, their kidnapper was apprehended early this morning. But he has yet to reveal the location or the condition of our little girls.”
Her voice cracked, but she struggled on. “We have every reason to believe they’re alive . . . and we need the help of the community to find them. If you’ve seen anything, please call 555–3367 and report it. If you know of any place in your area that might be a good hiding place, please call. We’re depending on this community to get our little girls back. They’ve been missing for days now, and we don’t know if they’ve eaten, or if they’re being taken care of. But we do know that the person we believe to be the sole kidnapper is not taking care of them anymore. Time could be running out . . .” She stopped, braced herself, and got too emotional to go on.
Ben stepped up to the microphones and touched her shoulder gently as she turned away. “I’m Ben Robinson, the father of Christy and Emily. We’re asking anyone who can take the time today to please meet at Roosevelt Park at 10 A.M. We’re going to start a citywide search for the girls. And girls, if you can hear me, please know that Daddy is looking for you. We’re going to find you . . .”
Ulterior Motives Page 25
