Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

“I don’t know,” said Randall. He hesitated for a minute and then opened the car door on his side.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I better try to talk to him,” he said.

  “Be careful,” she cried, clutching his forearm, and when he turned to face her in the moonlight, the fear in her eyes made him grab her by the arms and kiss her passionately. She kissed him back with equal fervor. For a moment he thought that he didn’t care about the guy on the railing, but then, because he was a decent young man, he reluctantly pulled away from her and pushed open his door with a sigh.

  Randall got out of the car and began walking slowly up the hill toward the fort. He made as much noise as he could, whistling, kicking leaves, so he didn’t startle the guy. The least little thing and the guy might fall off. Randall kept his eyes on him the whole time as he climbed the hill. The man was weaving slightly from side to side, staring up at the stars. Randall could see he was holding something in one hand. Randall had a pretty good idea of what it was. He’d seen plenty of drunk people in his young life, and if this wasn’t one of them, he’d be surprised, he thought. When he reached the walkway surrounding the fort, he made sure he was in a spot where the drunk guy could get a clear view of him in the moonlight.

  “Hey, fella,” he called up, trying to sound offhand. At the foot of the hill Nina got out of the car to watch, holding her breath.

  The man on the guardhouse steps looked down without surprise. He waved the bottle in Randall’s direction. “Hey there,” he responded in a dull, slurred voice.

  “You know, that’s kind of dangerous up there,” said the teenager. “You maybe oughta come on down from there.”

  Douglas Blake peered at the teenager on the walkway below. He felt benign toward the boy. Hell, toward the whole world. He was above it all.

  “S’nice up here,” said Doug. “C’mon up. Have a drink.” He gestured widely with the half-empty bottle.

  Randall winced. “No thanks,” he said.

  Doug looked down, irritated by this party pooper. What kind of a kid would turn down having a drink up here on a beautiful night?

  “Issa beautiful night,” Doug cajoled. “C’mon.”

  “I think you better come on down,” said Randall. “Do you need a hand?”

  “I don’t need a hand,” said Doug. “I don’t need nothin’.” Unexpectedly he started to cry.

  “I think you need a hand,” said Randall. “I’m gonna come up there. You just sit tight.”

  Doug sniffed and wiped his nose as the boy disappeared into the gate of the fort. “I’m not sittin’, actually,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “I am tight, but I’m not sittin’.” This joke amused him tremendously, and he started to laugh.

  He didn’t feel bad anymore. The tears were gone as quickly as they’d started. His mood seemed to be swinging wildly. He’d been drunk plenty of times, when he was young, when he lived in the frat house. He’d usually passed out, but he’d never much enjoyed it. It had been easy to stop doing that. In recent years he and Maddy never had much more than some wine. He thought about Maddy now, through the haze. For a moment he longed for her. He wished she were here with him. Close, the way they were when they first met.

  Doug looked up at the stars and closed his eyes. No. He didn’t want her here. She was no fun anymore. She’d never join him. He needed a friend. Like that youngster down there. Doug leaned out to see if the boy was still there. He had forgotten that the boy had come inside, was coming up to him. He looked down and didn’t see anyone. Then, in the distance, standing by a car at the foot of the hill, he saw a vision in the moonlight. She was young and lovely, with black, shiny hair and long, shapely legs. She had her hands clasped together against her chest, and her big eyes looked sad. As if she were waiting for him, beckoning to him, wondering why he wasn’t coming to her. She is a goddess, he thought, and even in his alcoholic haze he felt the rush of desire. Mine for the taking. He scrambled up on top of the round pipe that formed the railing for the steps, straightening up to get a better look at her. He lifted the bottle to wave at her, and as he did, it slipped from his grasp and hurtled toward the walkway below.

  “Hey,” he cried indignantly, as if the bottle had jumped from his hand. He reached out and tried to grab it. He felt his feet slip from the round pipe on which he stood. He reached out to grab the wall and caught the air.

  Randall, who had rushed to the top level of the ramparts, heard a long, gurgling moan nearby him and the faraway sound of Nina shrieking. Then there was a loud thud. Randall ran to the rampart fence and looked up at the guardhouse. The man was gone. Then he looked out over the railing. The first thing he saw was Nina, screaming his name as she stumbled up the hill. The drunken man was nowhere to be seen. Randall looked straight down.

  The man lay sprawled out on the walkway, a dark pool of blood spreading out around him. He was surrounded by the glass splinters of the vodka bottle, which glittered like diamonds in the moonlight.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Nick held the receiver to his ear and heard, for what seemed the thousandth time in twenty minutes, the shrill, infuriating buzz of the busy signal. She couldn’t be talking on the phone this long, he thought. He clicked off the connection and rang for the operator.

  “Still busy?” Colleen asked anxiously. She had been tiptoeing around the first floor of the house as if she were in church, trying to keep quiet while Nick stood at the phone.

  He nodded abruptly, then held up a hand as the operator came on. “Operator,” he said, “could you cut in on a number for me? It’s an emergency.”

  “What is the number?” the operator asked.

  Nick gave her the number and waited, hanging in the empty air. He glanced at his watch, then drummed his fingers on the telephone table.

  The operator came back on the line. “There’s no one speaking on that line,” she said.

  “Damn,” said Nick. The phone was off the hook. “Is there any way to signal the person in the house that their phone is off the hook?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir,” said the operator.

  “Well, thank you,” said Nick. He hung up the phone and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning.

  “No luck?” Colleen asked.

  Nick shook his head. “I’m going to call the police,” he said.

  “Maybe you better,” Colleen agreed anxiously.

  Nick called information for the number of the Taylorsville Police Department and dialed. A brisk-sounding operator came on the line.

  “Taylorsville Police. How may I help you?” she asked.

  “Hello. I…my name is Nick Rylander and I think I might know something about the Wallace baby…”

  Before he could ask to speak to the chief, the operator said, “Please hold and I’ll transfer you to the tips hot line…” Nick heard a lot of clicking and then a ringing signal. While he waited impatiently for someone to pick up his call, he thought of Terry Lewis and a wave of guilt and regret broke over him. He was sure, he was absolutely certain, that Terry had been sincere in his belief that Sean was his son. Terry had trusted him, confided in him, and now, with this phone call, Nick would certainly send him back to prison. Even if he hadn’t done a thing. After all the years he had spent wrongfully accused.

  “Did you get someone?” Colleen whispered.

  Nick nodded. “They have a separate line just for this case.”

  Colleen walked back and forth, patting Georgie, who lay comfortably against her, his thumb in his mouth. “I don’t understand why she did it. Why did she tell him she had a baby? Why did she pretend that Georgie was hers?”

  Nick shrugged. “She wanted him to marry her. She knew how much he wanted to have a child. Then, after all the lies about being pregnant, she had to come up with a baby.”

  “But how long did she think she could keep that up? What was she planning on doing when he got out of prison?”

  “When they got married, she thought he was never going to get out
of prison.”

  “So what was she going to do? Keep bringing Georgie to see him? What about when he got older and could talk?”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t think that far ahead. Maybe she thought…”

  “Maybe she was going to try to adopt a kid,” Colleen suggested.

  “With a husband in prison?” Nick asked. “I doubt it.”

  “But then Terry got out of prison and Bonnie really needed a baby—and quick.”

  Nick nodded grimly and put up a finger to his lips as another voice came on the line.

  “Tips hot line, Taylorsville Police. How may I help you?”

  “I’d really like to speak to the chief,” said Nick.

  “Are you calling in regard to the Starnes murder and the Wallace kidnapping?”

  “Yes,” said Nick, “but—”

  “Please state your name and give me the information. I’ll see that it gets to Chief Cameron.”

  “My name is Nicholas Rylander. I am a priest who used to be at St. Mary’s Church…”

  “You’re no longer there? Where are you calling from, sir?”

  “Actually I’m calling from Maine. I don’t see what difference that makes.”

  “What information do you have, sir?”

  Nick refused to let his temper get the best of him. This was too important. “I have reason to believe that a Mrs. Bonnie Lewis may have taken the Wallace baby.”

  “What makes you think that, sir?”

  “Well, I know that she is there in Taylorsville and she is traveling with a baby who is not her own…”

  “How do you know that, sir?”

  Nick gripped the receiver as if he wanted to break it in exasperation. “Look, I don’t want to get into the whole thing. Let me just talk to the chief.”

  “Sir, every tip we receive will be followed up. But we have hundreds of calls coming in. We will get to your information as soon as possible.”

  “You don’t understand,” Nick said furiously. “This is a matter of life and death.”

  “Oh, we certainly do understand that, sir. And we will check it out. Now, where can we locate this Mrs. Lewis? Do you know where she was staying? Is there a license plate?”

  Nick fumed at the sound of the impassive voice. “I don’t know her license plate. She’s staying at the home of Douglas and Maddy Blake. On Decatur Street. Tell the chief you have to send someone over there. Right away.”

  The woman on the other end remained calm. “We will see to it, sir, ASAP. Thank you for calling the hot line.”

  Before he could say another word, she hung up.

  Nick sat on the edge of a chair and rubbed his hands together. “Maybe there’s some other explanation,” he muttered. “You’re sure she wasn’t pregnant?”

  “Not any more than you are. I can’t believe she just took Georgie like that. Passed him off as hers…” Colleen bounced her baby protectively in her arms. “What did they say? Will they go and find her?”

  Nick made a steeple of his fingers and pressed his face into the spire. He had done the right thing by alerting the police. Even though it meant betraying Terry and possibly sending him back to that prison. But he knew it wasn’t enough. He had to get to Maddy. If she was in danger, wasn’t it his fault? He remembered her suspicions, the way she had searched Bonnie’s belongings, looking for a clue about the baby. Hadn’t he been the one who’d reassured her about Bonnie? Telling her how he had baptized Sean? It was his responsibility, really. Then he shook his head. This wasn’t about responsibility. At least be honest with yourself, he thought. His desire to protect her was an ache in his throat. He looked at his watch again. Obviously it would take too long to drive. He needed to get there as fast as he could.

  “There’s something else,” Colleen said anxiously.

  Nick waited.

  “Well, I was worried about Bonnie traveling by herself and I had this old Colt thirty-two that belonged to my dad…”

  “A gun?” he said.

  “I’m not even sure it worked. I just told her she could wave it at someone if they bothered her. We were laughing about that before she left.”

  He thought about calling the police back. Then he stood up. “Where’s the nearest airport?” he asked.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Maddy drove, with Amy buckled into the front seat beside her. In the back, Justin was in the car seat. Bonnie sat behind the driver’s seat with the gun pointed at the nape of Maddy’s neck. Maddy’s neck was stiff from trying to hold it still. With every slight movement her head felt the cold steel brush her flesh, and it gave her a chill. At Bonnie’s instructions they were heading north on the state thruway, although Maddy didn’t know where. She suspected that Bonnie didn’t have a destination in mind. She was just desperate to flee.

  Amy seemed to understand that they were in danger. She hardly made a peep and didn’t cry or ask for explanations. Justin had a pacifier stuck in his mouth and the motion of the car was lulling him into sleep, so there was at least a temporary, fragile quiet in the car as it hurtled through the night. With every passing mile Maddy felt an increased sense of despair and panic. No one knew where they were. No one could look for them. They were trapped in this car, going nowhere, with a woman who had nothing more to lose. From time time she could hear Bonnie weeping in the back seat, sniffling and groaning in misery, muttering Terry’s name. But the gun barrel never wavered from its position against Maddy’s neck.

  As she drove, Maddy saw a state trooper coming the other way in pursuit of a speeder on the almost empty highway. In vain she tried to devise a means of signaling him. Hoping to set off the radar and attract the attention of the highway patrol, she pressed her foot more heavily on the gas. In response, Bonnie pressed the gun barrel more deeply into her flesh and warned her to slow down.

  Maddy did as she was told. She didn’t know if there was any chance of escape, but she was not going to be foolish. Not with the two babies in the car. She slowed down and drove steadily, watching the miles click away, the names of the towns become less familiar.

  “You know,” said Bonnie, wiping tears from her eyes with her free hand, “no matter what he said, I think he really did love me….

  Maddy marveled at Bonnie’s ability to weep about the man she had just shot in cold blood. She would have felt less frightened if Bonnie were cursing her husband and praying for his damnation. That kind of anger was predictable, understandable even. It would be easy to know what to say, how to commiserate. But this…

  “He wrote me a letter twice a week, for two years. Two years before we even met. Can you imagine that?” she asked. “He told me everything about himself in those letters. He poured out his heart to me. He was just a lonely kid who got into a little trouble.

  “We got really close writing those letters. He probably would have married me even if I hadn’t said I was pregnant. But I just felt he needed that little extra push, you know. Men can be stubborn about marriage. They don’t want to get tied down. You might think that was strange for a lifer in prison, but he was a red-blooded American guy. Just like anybody else.”

  “Sometimes they do need a little encouragement,” Maddy agreed carefully, trying to humor her. “Were you ever…were you really pregnant when you got married?”

  “I tried to get pregnant, but it’s not easy with a guy in prison. You don’t see him much, and there’s a lot of interruptions when you do try to do it.” Bonnie’s voice was gaining enthusiasm as she told her story. “But he believed me when I said I was. So, we got married. Then I had to come up with a baby.” She was quiet for a minute, thinking things over. “First I just borrowed a friend’s baby, and pretended it was mine. I don’t know. I didn’t plan ahead. I mean, who would have thought that he was ever going to get out. He was supposed to be in for life. I thought I’d have time to figure something out…you know? Say the kid drowned or got run over by a car or something.”

  Maddy stifled a gasp. This was the kind of loony think
ing that was impossible to understand. She had to remind herself that it made sense to Bonnie. She could see that the other woman wanted to talk, to explain herself. Maybe if she could get some communication going between them…not seem judgmental.

  “So…what…you just looked for a baby, and then…what? The baby-sitter caught you trying to take Justin?”

  Bonnie’s tone of voice changed when she remembered. Gone were the sniffles and the plaintive tone. Instead her voice was steely as she remembered how she had accomplished her purpose. “I saw them in the park. I had a baby carriage and I was pretending to walk my own baby. It was just a doll, but she couldn’t see into the carriage. I stopped and talked to her a minute, about babies, so I could get a look at him. I could see he would be perfect, but she kept her eye on him all the time. So, then I walked away, but I still kept an eye on them. And then some guy started bothering her and she got up and was trying to get away from him….”

  Maddy froze, remembering the police drawing, their inferences about her husband. In light of what she now knew…“Was it Doug?” she blurted out. “Was it my husband?”

  “How would I know?” Bonnie said, annoyed at having her story interrupted. “I didn’t look at the guy. I was busy looking at the baby, trying to figure out if this was the best one. Trying to get my courage up to do what I needed to do. It wasn’t easy, you know,” she said, as if she expected kudos for the feat she had performed.

  “I’m sure,” Maddy murmured, horrified by this whole recitation. It was like agreeing that the world was flat. Once you accepted the initial premise, anything that followed was possible.

  “I saw them leave the park. She was upset about the guy touching her. So I caught up with her where I knew no one would see us. I pretended to be real sympathetic, and I went on about all the creeps these days, bothering women. Then I offered them a ride, you know, to get away from the park. And she took it. That was her mistake,” Bonnie announced gleefully, as if recalling an opponent’s shortsighted move in a chess game.

  Maddy shuddered at the thought of the poor, innocent Rebecca Starnes, trapped by her own righteous desire not to get into any trouble. She did not want to hear any more. It was making her ill to hear it. But Bonnie was warming to her ghoulish reminiscences.