So when the intruder, who was still standing partly behind the door, silently waved Todd to move toward Janice, Todd knew he had to act. With his right shoulder Todd plowed into the open door, which sent it hurling against the intruder like a solid wall. At the same time Todd ducked and swung as hard as he could with his left hand, punching the guy in his right side, directly in the kidneys.
“Oh, God!” shouted Janice, clutching the baby and turning away to shield her.
Bent over, Todd assumed the very worst, expected a blast. He kept diving forward, swung at the intruder again.
“Janice, run! Get out of here!”
Then it came. Not a gunshot, but a powerful blow. Todd felt it on his shoulder, this powerful explosion of pain. The guy had hit him with the butt of the pistol, the thick metal smashing into him. He stumbled, and next he both felt and heard it on the side of his head, a huge thunk that reverberated through his body. Oh, shit, he realized. I'm falling. Todd opened his eyes. Saw alternately a flash of white, a burst of black. Crap.
He threw out his hands, tried to catch himself as he tumbled onto the tile floor.
“Todd! ” yelled Janice.
Oh, Christ. There was nothing he could do. He'd lost, that was already more than clear, and he felt a powerful blow on his left side. The bastard was kicking him, hammering him with his foot. The air rushed out of him, and Todd collapsed, tumbling into a quiet black world.
14
With the baby swaddled in several blankets, including the pure white one, Paul pulled shut the front door of the house. He hadn't expected any of that, not only the woman's resolve and strength, but the guy. Where in the world had he come from? Dear Jehovah in heaven, he muttered to himself as he scurried through the snow and down the front steps, he'd been listening from his hiding place in the basement as the two men left. Paul hadn't been able to make out much of their conversation, but he had clearly heard the woman say good night. And then the two men departed, firmly shutting the door behind them. Just to make sure they were really gone, Paul had waited a good ten minutes. Once he was positive the woman was alone he'd waited even more, hoping she would go to bed, which would have made things incredibly easy. When it was clear that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he'd snuck upstairs.
Oh, brother. Nearly everything had been screwed up, the opportunity almost ruined. Trudging through the snow, his heart still pounding, Paul glanced back at the house and saw the lights glaring in the large arched windows. Praise heaven, he muttered to himself. In spite of everything the baby was rescued, everything was okay. He had succeeded. Now they'd be able to get Ribka back to her mother and the people who truly loved her.
As the snow poured down, the baby started squirming and fussing. Was she hungry? Her diaper dirty? He had no idea. All he knew was that he had to get this little thing to Rick, and then it would be his problem. He only hoped that Rick had thought ahead, that he had the supplies he needed to care for the infant. Thinking of the situation, he realized they shouldn't fly back, not two adult men and one little infant. If the police were looking for them they'd be too conspicuous at the airport. They'd either have to rent a car and drive back to Colorado or fly Suzanne out here and have her take the baby back. That would suit me best, Paul thought, for he really had no desire to do a cross-country trip with some kid screaming in the backseat.
The snow was now so deep that there was no discerning the sidewalk from these front yards or, for that matter, the street itself. Driving was going to be awful, especially the side streets. But if he could just get out of this neighborhood with its hilly roads and return to the highway, then he was sure he could make it back to the hotel. By morning this was going to be easily knee-deep. Perhaps that would work in their favor. Maybe it would hamper any search for the child. Then again, this woman and her friend wouldn't dare come after the kid, would they?
When he came to a street sign he turned right. There was his car, still the lone vehicle on the street.
“Just a couple of minutes, little one,” he said to the child in his arms. “I'll get you in the car and I'll get the heat on. Just hang on. You're going to be okay. You're going back to your mom. Jehovah is watching over you, little angel. We all love you and everything's going to be fine. You're safe now.”
He trudged up the road, carefully holding the baby girl in his left arm, and then took out his key and unlocked the passenger door. As he opened the car, snow dusted and blew inward, covering the front seat with a film of light snow. He reached in, brushed off the seat, and then quickly opened his briefcase and dumped the contents on the floor. Next he placed the hard-sided case on the passenger seat. It wasn't much, but it was the best he could do for a makeshift car seat.
“Yes, it's okay. Everything's fine. Don't worry.”
But as he laid her down, some flakes fell from his head and onto the baby's face, and Ribka started to shriek.
“Quiet, little one. It's okay. I'm taking you home to your mother.”
As he pulled the blankets up and around her in the open briefcase, she started to cry even louder. Oh, brother, between the kid and the roads this was going to be no joy-ride back to the hotel. He shut the car door, brushed off the side windows, and turned to go around to the driver's side. Just as he started, however, he saw a black figure move against the white landscape of snow. He flinched, plunged his hand into his pocket for the pistol. But it was too late. Before he could even raise a hand in defense, he was struck in the side of the head by a huge board. Everything seemed to explode, and as he collapsed into the snowbank he got one clear glimpse of the young kid, the devil-possessed one, who'd started this all.
15
Todd woke shivering with cold. What the hell had happened?
When he heard her long, deep sob he forced his eyes completely open, scanned the floor, but saw no one. Where was she? With his right arm he pushed himself up, and a shock of pain zipped through his body. Holy shit, he hurt like hell, his head, his shoulder, his side. In a very unpleasant flash he remembered it all, returning and finding the intruder. Was he gone?
First he looked down the hall and into the kitchen, saw nothing. Then he rolled over. The front door was shut but the intruder wasn't about, at least he didn't appear to be. And there was Janice, at the bottom of the step that led to the living room, her arms and hands wrapped around her ankles.
“Janice?”
She was curled into a tight ball. Shaking. Todd looked at the back of her, saw that she was trembling ever so lightly.
“Are…are you all right?”
In reply she threw her head back, opened her mouth, and this long, awful shriek exploded out of her mouth. Todd scrambled across the floor toward her. Oh, dear Lord. He remembered the gun—had she been shot? Knifed? He scanned everywhere, but saw no blood pooling from her body.
“I'm here!”
He ignored all the pain that was spearing his own body, wrapped his arm around her. Her body was tight and rigid, as if everything in her life had been shrunk to one horrendous moment.
“Janice!” he shouted.
She opened her mouth again and another wretched cry shot out. Todd clutched her, tried to comfort her. Checking her body, he saw no wounds, no evidence that she'd been beaten.
“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed.
Her wrists were bound to her ankles by thick tape, forcing her into a pathetic and immobile ball. He started grabbing at the tape, ripping it away, and it was then, of course, that he realized what was missing. His eyes darted around the living room, he saw a toy ball dropped by a chair, a rattle on the couch.
“Jesus Christ, where's the baby?”
Janice's face was clenched into an hysterical mass, tears soaking her cheeks, her hair. She opened her mouth, but only a mass of garbled noise and saliva emerged. As quickly as he could he tore the last of the tape from her, leaving her wrists a deep, painful red.
“Janice, what happened?” he demanded. “Where's Ribka?”
Unable to speak, she pointed to so
mething on the floor. It was a piece of paper, a note, the handwriting neat and the words direct. Todd grabbed it.
Dear Ms. Gray:
We're sorry for taking the child in this manner, but it's imperative, of course, that she be returned to her natural mother. Do not report this to the police nor pursue this matter in any way at all. If you do so we will be forced to prosecute Zeb for kidnapping across state boundaries. This is exactly what he did and we have ample evidence to prove it. To press this sad situation will only result in pain for all involved and certain imprisonment for the boy. Do not worry, the baby will be in the best possible loving care. Jehovah is watching her and she'll be safe.
A Concerned Group
There was too much that Todd didn't understand. Obviously the intruder hadn't come for Janice's color television or her jewelry. He'd come for the mysterious infant. But…but…Todd reread the note, for there was plenty that didn't make sense.
Todd rose to his feet and ran across the living room. “How long was I out? When did he leave?”
“Fi-five minutes. Something…something like that,” she muttered, struggling to get up. “Maybe more. I…I don't know, I'm not—”
“Which way? Out the front?”
“Y-yes.”
He peered out the window, searched the street. There were only two cars parked out front, Jeff's and his, but perhaps there was still time. Perhaps they could still catch the guy. The snow was so thick, the roads so terrible. He couldn't have gone very far. Turning around he saw Janice pushing herself to her feet and starting for the door.
“Did he say anything?” demanded Todd, hurrying after her.
“No!”
“Was the baby okay? Did he hurt her?”
“I…I don't know!”
Todd was right behind Janice as she hurled open the door. A blast of wind and snow hit them both and they hurried outside, Todd still in his winter parka and boots, Janice wearing nothing warmer than a light sweater, her feet covered by nothing more than a pair of loafers. Looking at the snow-covered walk, Todd recognized his own partially buried tracks, then saw another set leading down to the street.
“Those are his!” said Todd.
They hurried through the nearly knee-deep snow, following the tracks across Janice's front yard to some short steps and down onto the sidewalk. Shielding his eyes from the falling snow, Todd checked the street, but saw no sign of tire tracks. Had there been no accomplice, no one waiting to whisk them away? Apparently not, for instead the footprints clearly turned right and continued up the block.
As a huge gust of wind came up, Todd clutched Janice's hand and they followed the prints like a pair of bloodhounds. Moving as rapidly as they could in the deep snow, they moved toward the corner, where a streetlight illuminated the prints turning again to the right. Now hurrying up a small hill, Todd could tell that Ribka's abductor had veered off the sidewalk.
“His car must have been parked here!” said Todd, pointing to the tire marks in the deep snow.
“Oh, my God!”
Frantic with worry, Janice broke away and scrambled through the snow, over the deep bank along the edge of the road, then into the middle of the road itself. Slipping, nearly falling several times, she raced up the street, only to stop and look desperately around. Rushing after her, Todd saw that the tire tracks blended with those of at least three other cars.
Todd turned around, trudged back to the place where the car had obviously been parked. Perhaps there were other footprints, which would indicate how many people were involved in the abduction. And Todd did indeed find a second set of prints. But they were odd, disjointed, a scramble of tracks that made no sense. What the hell had been going on? Were there not two but three or four people involved in this? Then, seeing a spray of red dots, he froze.
Janice was quickly running toward him. “What? What is it, what did you find?”
He bent into the snow, hoping that he was mistaken, that it wasn't what it appeared to be. Yet it was far too obvious to be anything else, and he realized, his body filling with dread, it was clearly quite fresh.
“Blood,” he muttered.
Janice rushed through the snow to Todd's side and stood there, staring down at the scarlet drops. She bit her knuckle, started to sob. Todd rose, wrapped his arm around her waist.
“It might not be from the baby,” he said. “She might be all right. It could be his, after all.” Feeling her tremble with cold and fear, he pulled her closer. “Maybe he cut himself when we were struggling. Maybe I gave him a bloody nose, something like that.”
He looked up the street, through the sheets of thick snow. Somewhere in the back of his mind Todd had believed the guy would still be here, that his car would be stuck or something. But clearly that wasn't the case.
“Shit,” he muttered as he shook his head, realizing there was nothing they could do, not right there in the middle of that snowy street anyway. “Come on, we've got to get you back to the house before you freeze to death.”
“But—!”
“We've got to call the police.”
She stood motionless in the snow, wouldn't budge, her chin trembling from cold and fear, and meekly said, “Don't you understand?”
Todd's gut tightened. “Understand?”
“The…the baby.”
He brushed some snow off his face and said, “What do you mean?”
“I've just screwed up everything,” she muttered, standing there as if she were in the middle of her living room instead of the middle of a raging winter storm.
Taking her by the arm, he said, “Janice, we've got to get you inside. Come on, we'll call—”
“You don't understand!” she shouted, ripping away from him and pushing toward a snowbank. “That baby's my…my granddaughter!”
The wind gusted around Todd, the frigid air nipped at him. He turned, looked at the corner streetlight, saw the snow still falling in heavy sheets.
“Your…your what?”
“I had a child, Todd. A boy. Ribka is my son's daughter.”
The storm vanished around him, his feet not cold, his brow not chilled with flakes. She said she'd slept with other guys, didn't she? After they'd dated in college there were others, she claimed, perhaps a whole bunch. So what if she hadn't been the consummate dyke? It was only natural to be out there exploring the world, testing the waters, discovering what she really wanted. What the hell, he himself had sought a beautiful, intelligent woman and gotten married.
“I…I can't believe this,” Janice said, turning away, strolling through the snow. “I've just done everything wrong, made such stupid mistakes.”
Todd flashed back to that night at Northwestern right before Christmas break. Just how connected was he to all this?
They'd been in bed for, what, maybe two Carly Simon songs when Todd felt it, the stirring. Oh, shit, it was working. It was happening. He was getting hard. As he lay next to Janice in her room in the sorority, all the trials of the last week vanished and he felt suddenly and unbelievably happy. This was what was supposed to happen, how things were supposed to go, wasn't it?
He started kissing her, tasting her lips, her sweetness, as never before, and before he knew it he was on top of her. He stared into her eyes, kissed her chin, her breasts, nibbling gently on one nipple, then the other. It was all rather instinctual, really. He was on top, she was opening herself to him. And then his penis was inside her, moving smoothly, warmly, easily. So this, he thought, is what it feels like: nice. At first he merely drank it in, savoring every second, but then as the intensity built so did his purpose. Unbelievable, he thought. He was actually in bed with a woman. They were fucking. He'd actually been able to get an erection, and now he was inside her and everything was going fine, even great.
So, he thought with a grin upon his face as he worked himself in and out of her and toward that ultimate goal, this could mean only one thing, couldn't it: that he wasn't gay after all.
He remembered the stress, the pleasure, the joy and r
elief that it worked, he could do it, could screw a woman. And he also remembered that the next semester Janice had disappeared, supposedly on a semester-long program in Europe, after which she'd come back claiming she was a dyke.
Suddenly he was shaking, not from the cold and the snow that was all around him, but from within. Something was coming into perspective, a truth was forcing itself to the surface.
With the storm blustering all around him, in a hushed voice Todd said, “So…you have a son.” And then he pushed himself to ask, “Tell me, Janice, is he our son?”
“Todd, I've just done everything wrong.”
“Well, is he?”
“I've got so much to explain.”
“Janice!”
“It's so complicated.”
“Damn it all, Janice!”
“Todd, I've got to talk to him. It's not so—”
“Tell me, Janice, is he my son, too, or not?”
She stood in the middle of the street, the snow up to her knees and covering and clinging to her hair, her shoulders. She started to say something, then clamped her eyes shut. Wrapping her arms around her body, she squeezed herself tightly. Or was Todd wrong, was she not trying to hold something in but squeeze it out?
Her voice strained, Janice finally said, “Todd, I'm sorry. I should have told you a long time ago. I…I wanted to, but…but…” She shook her head. “The truth is, I…I don't know.”
16
Fully clothed, Rick sat on his hotel bed, the pillows cushioned against the wooden headboard for support, his Bible cracked open. Staring down at the pages before him, he saw passages and entire verses that he'd underlined, as well as his own comments and interpretations that he'd written in the margins. But tonight he hadn't been able to read a word in over thirty minutes. Instead of visualizing the miracles of Jehovah, in his mind's eye Rick was visualizing all the horrendous possibilities.
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