Rachel sat up now and started to play with her hands, long café-au-lait fingers tipped with pink-polished nails.
“Eric,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Eric, I don’t think Steven has a family,” Rachel said. “I don’t think he has anyone but us.”
Eric sighed. He checked his mirrors and changed lanes.
“Rachel, I know how much you want to believe that,” he said, “but sooner or later you’re going to have to face reality. Steven’s memory will come back to him, and he’ll know who his family is. Whoever they are, they haven’t tried very hard to find him. And I condemn them for that. Maybe they aren’t fit parents. Maybe they don’t want him, but—”
“I want him!” Rachel cried.
“I know that,” Eric said gently. “But maybe you can’t have him.”
Rachel turned to stare out the window at the passing scenery. Tears began to well in her eyes, but she brushed them away. She tried to concentrate on the trees, to push away painful emotions. Anyone else riding along the highway would not have noticed the fine details surrounding her. But Rachel was focused, and she could name almost every tree. The highway was a vast stretch of green.
She noticed a spot of red. It moved quickly through the foliage, nearly hidden by it.
“That’s strange,” she said. “Someone’s running through those woods.”
“Probably a hiker,” Eric said.
“It looked like a child,” Rachel said.
She looked back over her shoulder, but they had long since passed the point of seeing anyone. Rachel settled into her seat. She wondered if Steven had traveled that way, hiding in the trees. Was he alone now? Was he afraid? Oh, she knew the answer to that. She knew that he was very, very afraid.
Rachel closed her eyes. The strange feelings she’d had had come back a few times. Eric didn’t believe in telepathy, but she did. She was certain Steven was calling for help. She tried hard to concentrate, tried to send him her own message, her promise that she was on her way to rescue him.
Julie stumbled over a fallen branch, suddenly overcome by a feeling that she was being watched. No, it was more like a tugging at her mind, even stronger than the feeling she had every time Marty contacted her. She got onto her knees and kept hidden behind the trees, one hand gripping the branch that had tripped her. Someone out there was searching, desperate to find . . . what?
She knew that no one here could be looking for her. The people who cared about her were far away, with no idea where she was.
But she couldn’t stay hidden like this forever. She had to get up and move on. She started hurrying through the trees again, listening to the sound of passing cars and unaware one of them was headed in the very same direction as she.
Eric drove on, staying in the faster left lane until he saw signs for Copiague. He put on his signal and began to move to the right.
Rachel reached across the seat and clamped a hand around his upper arm.
“No, don’t get off here,” she said.
“Why?” Eric asked. “There’s the first exit for Copiague.”
“Steven isn’t here,” Rachel said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?” Eric inquired. “We haven’t even asked at the train station.”
“He didn’t get off here,” Rachel insisted. Eric took a quick glance at her, then turned his eyes back on the road. She could tell he thought she was a little crazy. “Eric, please, if you love and trust me, don’t get off at this exit. We’re wasting our time here. I know it seems ridiculous, but it’s more than just a feeling I have. Somehow, I know he isn’t here.”
“All right,” Eric said, turning off his signal just as the exit came up. “Then where do we go?”
Rachel stared at the road ahead.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just keep driving. I don’t think he’s very much farther away.”
She didn’t tell Eric she had a feeling they were heading toward grave danger.
43
THE WESTBROOK TRAIN station stood at the very end of the town’s main road, a small brick building situated behind a slightly elevated platform. Steven and Lorraine found a seat on a painted green bench.
“I think Rachel’s getting closer,” Steven said. “The feeling is stronger.”
“Yes,” Lorraine agreed, “but it isn’t as sad as it was. It’s . . . it’s sort of cross, I guess.”
Steven shook his head. “No, not cross. She isn’t angry. She’s . . . she’s determined. I don’t think she’ll stop until she finds me.”
Lorraine gazed at him with big gray-green eyes.
“I just thought of something,” she said. “If you want Rachel, why don’t you call home?”
Steven held up two fingers, bending each down as he counted.
“First,” he said, “I know she’s no longer home. And second, I have to be certain she really is one of us. I want her to be, but if she isn’t, she might be dangerous.”
Lorraine pouted. “I sure wish I knew what ‘one of us’ means. Marty says that all the time. I don’t think I’m so very different.”
“But we can talk with our minds,” Steven pointed out. “And you can make people very afraid—of nothing they can see. Are you good at math?”
“Oh, very good,” Lorraine said.
That made her think of the time she’d counted the money in the suitcase, and how impressed Bettina had been. And that made her wonder if the poor old woman was still sitting on a fire escape in Manhattan. Maybe the crows and rats had found her and were . . .
She gasped.
“What’s the matter?”
“I . . . I was just thinking of a friend,” Lorraine said, pushing the hideous image from her mind before it could form. “Someone who was very kind to me.”
Steven nodded. “Rachel was kind to me too. I guess Eric wasn’t so bad either. They had two kids named Tatiana and Olivia. Tatiana didn’t like me at all, I’m sure.”
“It must have been nice, though, to be with other children.”
“I guess it was. I wasn’t there very long, though.”
At that moment they heard three blasts of a train’s whistle. Steven and Lorraine stood up, looking down the track as the big green diesel rumbled into the station. Lorraine squeezed Steven’s hand as a strong sensation washed through her.
“Oh, do you feel it?” she asked. “The one named Julie is here!”
Steven nodded. “I know she is. Where do you suppose she’ll get out?”
Almost as if they’d predicted it, they found themselves standing at the very door where Julie walked onto the platform. For a moment the three just stood staring. Not a word was spoken until the train rattled away.
Steven and Lorraine took in Julie’s pretty face, green eyes, and rippling brown hair. In turn, Julie took in Steven’s dark skin, thin frame, and neatly trimmed hair. A smile broke out on Lorraine’s round face, her almond eyes sparkling. She pushed away a lock of black hair that had blown across her forehead and said: “You’re Julie.”
Julie nodded. “And you’re Lorraine.”
Marty had said she was young, but Julie hadn’t expected her to be nearly a baby. How much strength could such a little child offer them?
“I’m Steven,” the boy announced, afraid Julie had forgotten him for the moment.
“Marty told me,” Julie said with a nod. “I felt you calling to someone, and I knew I had to find you. But what do we do now?”
“Same thing we always do,” Lorraine said with a pout. “Wait until Marty shows up.”
They walked down the stairs from the platform. Steven led the way to the street.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Remember that ice cream parlor we saw in town, Lorraine? Let’s go get a treat.”
“That sounds great,” Julie said. “I never did eat lunch today.”
Together the children walked along the tree-lined street to downtown Westbrook. They were halfway there when Lorraine suddenly let out a cry of dismay. Wit
h a jerk, she pulled Steven and Julie behind a big tree.
“What’s the matter?” Julie asked.
“It’s him!” Lorraine gasped. “The man who took me!”
Steven looked surprised. “But I thought you got rid of him!”
“Who?” Julie said uncertainly.
“I thought I did!” Lorraine said. “He must be stronger than I thought. We can’t let him see me here! What will we do? What’re we gonna do?”
“Wait,” Steven said.
The car cruised by very, very slowly. It was obvious the man was searching for Lorraine.
“How did he find out I was here?” Lorraine wondered.
“Who knows?” Steven said. “But we can’t stay. We have to get out of here without Marty’s help. Look, he’s turned the corner. He must be heading into town.”
“We can’t go that way, then,” Julie said.
“What about the train station?” Lorraine suggested.
Steven shook his head.
“There isn’t another train for forty minutes,” he said, “and there’s no place there we can hide. We just have to go on foot, keeping our eyes open. I’m sorry, Julie. I know you’re hungry, but we don’t have time to stop.”
“I got this far okay,” Julie pointed out.
Lorraine finally felt it was safe enough to move away from the tree. She looked all around.
“Which way now?”
“I wish we had a map,” Steven said.
“Well, we can’t go that way,” Julie said. “Not if that man is there. And besides, that’s the way down to the water. I know the train tracks run north and south, so that way“—she pointed—”has to be north. I say we cross the tracks and move westward.”
Steven looked up at the sky.
“Yes, that is west,” he said. “Look where the sun is.”
“Come on, then,” Lorraine urged. “Let’s go.”
The three children began to run, bounding across the tracks and onto a street surrounded by trees. It was a street devoid of houses or other signs of humanity, one that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
Nowhere, at that moment, seemed to be exactly where they were going.
44
BARBARA WAS WAITING when Samantha and Wil walked off the plane.
“This has been a hell of an adventure,” she said. “But at least I have an answer to one of your questions.”
“Did you find the concession stand?” Samantha asked.
Barbara nodded. “There are thirty of them in New Jersey, but all I had to do was narrow it down to ones that existed when we were kids. That would be in the early sixties. Once I did that, I only had five to work with. Then I just worked with the ones that were on beaches. That leaves two. Despite its name, Haybrook’s Seaside Clam Bar isn’t always ‘seaside.’ “
“So which of the two do we go to?” Samantha asked.
“Well, Julie kept drawing jetties,” Barbara said. “So I made two phone calls and asked the obvious question. Only one clam bar, dated over thirty years old, situated near a jetty, was left.”
Wil laughed. “You’d make a great detective, Barbara.”
“I doubt it,” Barbara said without humor, “since it was so easy for someone to screw up my brain.”
They exited the airport and went to the car Barbara had rented.
“Is this the car you had when you arrived here with Julie?” Samantha asked.
“I suppose so,” Barbara said. “I had a key that identified it, or I wouldn’t have been able to find it. It’s fortunate the hotel had valet parking.”
They got into the car, and Barbara started on her way.
“Then you don’t remember renting it?” Wil asked from the back seat.
“I don’t remember anything at all,” Barbara said. “I only remember being home last night. I think the doorbell rang, but beyond that it’s a blank. Like I said, Samantha, now I know how frightened you must have been that night in your garage.”
“I still don’t know who attacked me,” Samantha admitted. “I thought it was that Mr. Henley.”
Barbara drove for a few minutes before venturing a question.
“Did you ever consider that it might have been Julie herself?”
“Oh! How did Julie drive a Bronco II all the way to Durango?”
“How did she get clear across the country to New Jersey?” Barbara asked.
Wil leaned forward.
“It’s a good point Barbara’s making,” he said. “I don’t think Raoul Henley was the mastermind behind all this. Not the way we found him.”
“How did you find him?” Barbara asked solemnly.
“Dead,” was Wil’s simple reply. “But I also don’t believe Julie had anything at all to do with that. I do think there might be a third party involved. And not necessarily an individual.”
Samantha breathed in deeply.
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re ever going to get any answers,” she said.
“Well, I have one answer for you,” Barbara said. “The name of the town where Haybrook’s is located. It’s called Shoaling. Does that ring a bell, Samantha?”
Samantha repeated the name several times, then shook her head.
“It doesn’t sound familiar at all,” she said.
“Shoaling,” Wil said. “Strange name for a town.”
“It’s a kind of wave,” Samantha said. “How far away is it?”
Barbara grimaced, an expression she could see in the rearview mirror.
“That’s the bad news,” Barbara said. “Even if we speed, and I don’t dare, Shoaling is a good five hours away.”
“Five hours!” Samantha cried out.
“Sorry,” Barbara said.
Wil sat back again. First, six hours by plane, then five hours by car; not to mention all the time it took them to trace Julie’s original destination. That gave Julie, or her abductors (and he believed they existed), a big head start.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Just get us to Shoaling. There’s nothing else to be done right now.”
“Nothing else to do but pray,” Barbara mumbled.
45
JOE TREFILL GLANCED in his rearview mirror just as the three children were crossing the railroad tracks. Swearing loudly, he swung the car around, the screech of the tires made louder by the relative peacefulness of the neighborhood.
“I’ll get you now, you little freak,” he growled, his voice deep and hoarse. He could see her up ahead, his vision blurred by the onset of madness. “I’ll get you now!”
She was with two other kids. Little bitch was pretty good at making friends, wasn’t she? Like a friggin’ puppy, Trefill thought.
He was so determined to catch up to her that he didn’t pay attention to the clang of the railroad crossing signals. He bumped onto the tracks just as they were coming down, bringing a series of three warning blasts from the Coastal Express. Trefil shot across the tracks, picking up speed as he neared the children. He’d run down the other two. He’d get rid of them so Lorraine had nobody to help her . . .
Up ahead, one of the children turned around. A black kid. What was she doing with a black kid?
He had no chance to find out. The children broke into a run, disappearing into the woods that lined the street. And suddenly, as if it had dropped from the sky, there was a police car in front of him. Red lights flashing, sirens blaring, it cut him off and forced him to a stop.
A police officer exited the car, hand on his gun. Slowly Trefill got out of his own vehicle. It would be okay. He’d spotted the kid and she wouldn’t get very far. With a shaking hand he reached into his pocket for his wallet. He opened it to show his ID.
“Off-official government b-business,” he gasped.
The look on the cop’s face went from cool sternness to wide-eyed shock. Trefill just stared at him, knowing how bad he looked but not caring. He just wanted to get away, to get that little freak before he lost her again.
“What happened to you?” the cop asked after a thoro
ugh look at Trefill’s driver’s license.
“I was . . . mugged,” Trefill said. How could he say he’d been attacked by a five-year old kid?
“Your face is all scratched to pieces,” the cop said, eyeing him carefully. “Those look like . . . like teeth marks.”
Trefill breathed in deeply.
“I have to go,” he said. “This is—”
“Official government business,” the cop repeated. “You said so already. What branch of the government are you with?”
Trefill only stared at him.
“Come on, fella,” the cop urged. “FBI? CIA? Are you in the military?”
“I’m after someone,” Trefill said. “You’re letting her get away. You’ll go to jail for—”
The cop became serious again.
“I saw who you were chasing,” he said. “Three little kids. Look, I don’t know what happened to you. But you know something? I don’t believe you’re part of any government agency at all.”
Trefill nodded. “Yes, yes. It’s a special task force. See, we found these two kids and . . .”
Trefil never finished his sentence. His eyes went very wide and staring. The cop looked at him in confusion, wondering what was wrong.
Then Trefill slumped forward into the officer’s arms. The back of his head was half-gone.
“Oh, damn,” the cop wailed, dropping the man to the ground.
Then, as he grabbed for his gun and dived for cover: “Oh, damn!”
He crawled on his belly until he was safely behind his squad car. He could tell from the wound on Trefill’s head the direction from which the bullet had come. Carefully he reached up into his car for his radio mike.
“This is Car Seventy-one at the Westbrook Junction,” he said. “I need backup here, now! There’s been a shooting!”
“A what, Seventy-one?”
“You heard me, Betty,” the cop said, recognizing the dispatcher’s voice. “A shooting! Possible sniper! Get someone down here!”
Betty mumbled something into the airwave; then an announcement went out to all available cars—in this little town, that amounted to just two. In moments, sirens filled the air as other cops headed to their colleague’s location.
Cries of the Children Page 24
