Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Nick shook his head impatiently. He hated it when people apologized to him for expressing their true feelings, as if he were a professional hypocrite instead of a flesh-and-blood man with less than admirable feelings of his own. “Did he jump?” Nick asked. “Was it deliberate?”

  “No. A couple of kids saw him. He’d had too much to drink. He shouldn’t have been fooling around up there.”

  Nick thought of Maddy, out there on the road with a crazy woman, not even aware of the fact that she was a widow. I’ll help her get through it all, he thought. Just bring her back to me safely, he prayed.

  The door to Maddy’s house burst open and Donna Wallace ran in, trailed by her husband and a uniformed officer who was trying to stop them.

  “Where’s my baby?” Donna cried.

  Johnny grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them, his face slack from exhaustion.

  Frank motioned for her to calm down. “We know where he is. We just don’t have him yet.”

  “He’s a hostage, isn’t he?” Donna said.

  “I don’t want to use that word at this point,” said Frank. “Hopefully, we be will able to apprehend them without an incident.”

  “Detective Millard said this woman had him…”

  “Mrs. Lewis.” Frank nodded. “As far as we know, he’s healthy, he’s been well taken care of. Now that’s good news, right?”

  Donna began to sob.

  “You’d better not lose him now,” Johnny warned. “You can’t do that to us.”

  Frank hated to hear his worst fear stated out loud. “We’re not going lose to to him,” he barked. “Now I’ve got work do. I can’t stand here talking to you.”

  Just then the phone rang again, and Frank picked it up. His face changed as he listened carefully. “All right. That’s great,” he said. “On our way.” He hung up the phone.

  “All right, everybody. Listen up. A state trooper just spotted the car. Mrs. Blake gave him some kind of a signal. They’re traveling north on the thruway.”

  Donna shrieked and then clapped her hands over her mouth.

  Frank turned to the reinstated Len Wickes. “You drive,” he said. “Let’s move it.”

  “Yessir,” Len exulted.

  “We’re coming with you,” said Donna Wallace with grim determination.

  Frank didn’t bother to argue. He immediately decided on the lesser of two evils. “Pete,” he said,“bring the Wallaces with you.”

  “I’m coming, too,” said Nick.

  “This isn’t a fucking parade,” Frank exploded.

  “I know Bonnie Lewis. Maybe I can talk to her—be of some help.”

  Frank thought about it for a moment. Len Wickes was jingling his car keys. “All right, goddammit. But don’t get in my way.”

  Nick followed the chief out to Len Wickes and the cruiser.

  Bonnie kept looking behind them, although there were no other cars in sight. She seemed to sense something.

  “I’m hungry, Mom,” Amy pleaded again.

  “Honey, when we stop I’m going to get you something,” Maddy promised.

  The road seemed to stretch endlessly before her. How long before someone discovered they were missing? Apparently her signal to the trooper had not caught his eye. A sense of hopelessness came over her. At that same moment, she saw something in her rearview mirror that made her heart leap. There was no sound of sirens, but there was a light flashing far in the distance.

  “Pull in there,” Bonnie commanded.

  Had she seen it, too? Maddy wondered. “Where?” she asked, trying for to stall time.

  “Right there, where the arrow is. Do it now, or I’ll shoot your kid.”

  Maddy quickly checked the empty lanes around her and veered over to the small sign and arrow that was marked discreetly on the right-hand side. She headed up the ramp, looking back regretfully at the distant flashing light.

  “Now park,” Bonnie ordered. “We’ll go in there.”

  The one-story brick building was a rest stop, nothing more. It did not contain a business or a restaurant. Over in the far corner, two eighteen-wheel trucks were parked side by side. Maddy wondered, as she pulled into the otherwise deserted parking lot, whether she could somehow let the truck drivers know of their distress. No one was visible in either of the cabs. Maybe they were in the rest rooms. Most likely, judging from the out-of-the-way spot they had chosen to park, the drivers were taking a rest from the road, catching forty winks. She remembered seeing on TV somewhere that long-distance drivers slept in their cabs. They could hear me, she thought. Without pausing to think, she reached in front of her and began to blow the horn, as many loud blasts as many she could. She counted about ten before she felt a stunning blow to her head. Bonnie had whacked her as hard as she could with the butt of the gun.

  “Mommy’s bleeding,” Amy cried. “Don’t hurt Mommy!”

  “Next time I’ll shoot Mommy,” Bonnie said through gritted teeth.

  Maddy reached up to her head and looked dazedly at the blood all over her hands. Bonnie reached out and jerked back the seat belt, trying to choke her with it.

  “Now get out of the car and do what I tell you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Maddy breathed. She could feel the blood coursing down her face, but she ignored it. She undid her seat belt and reached over to free Amy from hers. In a flash Bonnie was out of the car and had the door open on Amy’s side. She pulled Amy roughly from the front seat.

  “Stop that! Don’t you touch her!” Maddy cried.

  “Just get the baby,” said Bonnie.

  “First you let go of my you go daughter.”

  “I need her,” said Bonnie. “To make sure you do what I say.”

  Maddy closed her eyes for a moment. It’s true, she thought. As long as you have my child, I will do what you say. She went to the backseat and lifted Justin out, and held him to her. His diaper was soggy—she could feel it through his clothes. She reached into the diaper bag and sneaked out a diaper to take with her. She looked up at the trucks parked down at the end of the lot. There was no sign of life in them. They must incorporate the sound of horns into their dreams, she thought hopelessly. The baby rubbed his eyes and gave a fussy cry.

  “Get inside,” said Bonnie.

  Maddy hurried to follow Bonnie’s order, her eyes fixed on Bonnie’s hand, which held Amy roughly by the collar. As Maddy had feared, there was no one else in the rest room building. The lobby offered a rack of information about tourist spots in the state and there were two vending machines, one for soda and one for crackers and candy.

  “Oh, please, Mom,” said Amy, “can I have a drink? Can I have some crackers?”

  “Not now,” barked Bonnie.

  Maddy stiffened. “Please, Bonnie,” she said. “She’s hungry.”

  “I said no.”

  “It will only take a second,” said Maddy. “If I don’t give them something to eat and drink, they’ll be fussing, making a lot of noise. You know how irritating that is.”

  Bonnie frowned but relented. “Hurry up.”

  “I will,” said Maddy, rifling in her coat pockets for some change, while she held Justin in the crook of her arm. Bonnie scanned the lobby impatiently while Maddy fed the machine and got a packet of peanut-butter crackers and a Sprite for Amy. The child took the goodies and gratefully began to eat.

  “Come in here,” said Bonnie. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “We can out wait here,” said Maddy.

  “The the hell you will,” Bonnie snorted. She poked the gun in Amy’s back and pushed her toward the ladies’ rest room. The soda can slipped from the toddler’s hand and began to spill out across the floor. Amy began to shriek, but Bonnie ignored her protests. She started pulling her through the door, and Maddy hurried after them, pleading with Bonnie to be careful, not to hurt Amy.

  Once inside the beige-tiled bathroom, Bonnie dragged the protesting child toward the stall with her.

  “Mommy, no,” Amy protested. She looked at her mother with terror in h
er eyes.

  “Bonnie, for pity’s sake,” Maddy cried. “Let her wait out here with me. I promise you I won’t do anything. I promise.”

  Bonnie just shook her head and jerked Amy into the stall by the arm.

  Maddy clenched her fists, her fingernails gouging into her palms as Amy’s protesting wails echoed through the tiled bathroom. She turned and caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. One side of her face was running with blood from the blow to the side of her head. Her hands, which held Justin, were sticky with it. The locked beige metal door opened, and Bonnie emerged with a squirming, red-faced Amy. The child wriggled from her grasp and ran to her mother, throwing her arms around her legs and burying her face against Maddy’s knees. Maddy crouched down, with Justin still on her shoulder, and put her arm around Amy. “I’m sorry baby,” she whispered. She did not look up at Bonnie, afraid for her to see the hatred she felt toward her.

  “Come on,” said Bonnie.

  Maddy stood up and took Amy’s hand. Bonnie herded them out of the rest room door.

  As they entered the lobby, they heard car doors slamming outside. Bonnie’s face paled. She ran to the window, resting the barrel of the gun on the sill.

  “Oh, Jesus!” she cried, looking outside. “Don’t try to come in here!” she screamed through the slightly open window. “I’ve got two kids in here and I’ve got a gun.”

  Who is she talking to? Maddy wondered. She could hear the sounds of people outside, the murmur of voices and more car doors and trunks slamming. Then she heard the sound of a man’s voice magnified by a bullhorn. “Mrs. Bonnie Lewis, this is the state police. Come out with your hands up now. Do not harm the others with you and we will treat you fairly. I repeat, come out right now.”

  Maddy crouched down and put an arm around each of the children. Her heart was pounding wildly. The police had found them. Thank you, God, she thought. They were almost free. She looked up at her captor, who was staring out the window into the brilliant glare of the headlights.

  “Please, Bonnie,” Maddy said softly. “It’s all over now. What’s the use of staying in here? You can’t get away from them.”

  Bonnie ignored her. “I’m going to kill them all,” she yelled through the window. “I’ve this got nothing to lose. Listen if you if don’t believe me.”

  She turned back toward the trio huddled on the floor and pointed a gun in their direction.

  “I’ll show them,” she said.

  “No!” Maddy cried, ducking her head and pulling the children close as Bonnie fired.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Donna struggled in the restraining arms of the police officer. “Let me go,” she snarled. “Let go of me!”

  An hour had passed since they had wheeled into this parking lot outside the rest stop. An hour in which Bonnie had announced she would kill all her hostages, an hour in which they had heard a shot and a scream from inside the building. An officer in a bulletproof vest had tried, at one point, to walk toward the door of the little shelter, but Bonnie had fired a shot out the window, hitting the ground just shy of his feet, and he had rushed back to safety behind the cars.

  The waiting was becoming intolerable. Donna Wallace had managed to wait days with less impatience than she felt now. She was becoming frantic at the thought that her child might be shot, might be dying in there. That she was unable to get to him and hold him. Johnny kept trying to soothe her with agitated optimism, but it was no use. She kept thinking about that insane woman in there with the gun, and she felt as if she were cracking, as if every moment were more unendurable than the last.

  Breaking free from the officer, she rushed up to Frank Cameron, who was conferring with a state police officer. “Why can’t you do something. Tear gas or something. Make her come out. I want my baby back!”

  Frank made a face. “We’re doing everything possible. But we can’t just rush in there. She’s already shot one man. She may have shot Mrs. Blake,” he said. “She fired at a police officer just now. You’ve got to realize that she is extremely disturbed and dangerous. Please, stay out of the way. We’re trying to get these people out of there alive.”

  Donna glared at him, but Frank was impervious to her anger. She did not seem to realize that this situation could end in a massacre. The Lewis woman was coming unstrung. Any abrupt move on their part might drive her right over the edge.

  He turned his back on Donna, who felt the impotence of her situation boil up and bubble over inside of her. She marched up to Pete Millard, who was studying some SWAT team guidelines, the bullhorn resting beside him on the hood of the cruiser. Donna grabbed picked it up and examined it. There was the switch that turned it on. She flipped the switch, held the bullhorn her mouth, and began to yell.

  “Listen, you crazy… This is Donna Wallace. I am Justin’s mother, and I need my baby back.” Her furious shout turned to a sob. “Please, come out and give him back to me…”

  Before she could get any further, Pete Millard snatched the bullhorn and began to chide her. “Stay out of this, Mrs. Wallace,” he commanded. “We have experts who can handle this situation.”

  Frank Cameron came rushing over.

  “Well, they’re not handling it very well, are they?” Donna cried, collapsing into her husband’s arms. “I want to hold my baby. He’s right there inside. Isn’t something you can do? My God, I can’t take any more of this.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” Pete said soothingly.

  “Get her out of here,” barked Frank. “Mrs. Wallace, if you can’t control yourself, I’m going to have you escorted out of here. Do get you it?”

  “Stop yelling at her,” said Johnny Wallace. “Jesus Christ, this is just a job to you. SHe’s his mother!”

  “Okay, all right,” Frank said irritably. “Just shut up. All of you. These situations take time.”

  Nick, who had been pacing back and forth frantically ever since he’d heard the shot from inside the building, waited until the distraught parents were led away. Then he approached a frowning Frank Cameron.

  “Chief, I realize you have your own way of handling these things, but I’d really like to have a chance to talk to her. To Bonnie Lewis. I married her to her husband. I baptized the baby… She might trust me. She might listen to me.”

  Frank sighed. “I wish we could get that goddamn phone in there working.”

  The pay phone on the wall of the lobby was out of order. The phone company was, at the behest of the police, working diligently to see if it was something in the lines that could be fixed from outside.

  Nick raked his hands through his hair as if to tear it out of his head. “I was thinking…maybe I could go inside…”

  “Are you crazy? Absolutely not! Do you want to get yourself killed?”

  “If I went in unarmed…I’m sure she’d let me come in.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Frank snorted. “You saw what she did to her own husband. We’ll just have to wait it out. She can’t last forever. Eventually, if nothing else, she’s got to sleep. We don’t rush these situations.”

  “The thing is…Mrs. Blake is in there with her…and the two children. And you know how children are. They might start getting on her nerves. They’re probably crying and complaining. I mean, in her state of mind…”

  “What do you know about children?” said Frank.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about them at all,” Nick admitted. “But, like you, in my job I’ve seen a lot of people, a lot of families under stress…”

  Frank nodded, silently acknowledging the truth of what the priest said.

  “Couldn’t we just ask her if I could come in and talk to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said gruffly. “I’ll think about it.”

  He walked off to confer with some other officers.

  Nick stood in the darkness behind the headlights that illuminated the grass, staring at the little building where Maddy was a captive. He knew what the police thought. There was an even chance that no
ne of them was coming out of that building alive. The thought of it made his stomach lurch, so he pushed the thought away.

  Think about what you’d say to Bonnie, he told himself. Imagine that you have a chance to try to reason with her. He tried to think, but the thoughts wouldn’t get organized in his mind. He kept thinking of the Twenty-third Psalm, and of Maddy’s face, looking down at him from a ladder in the chapel, her soft dark hair falling over her shoulder. Give me a chance, he thought, and he was not really sure to whom he was addressing the thought.

  Frank Cameron returned and gave him a quick nod of acknowledgment. The truth was that Frank had never been called upon to negotiate a hostage release in his long career, and he was relying on the judgment of some of the more experienced troopers who were standing by. He had quickly conferred with them, and they had approved a plan to at least offer to send in the priest.

  “Okay,” said Frank. “We’re gonna ask her. If she says okay, are you ready to go in? You have to go in unarmed. No heroics.”

  Nick straightened up, his heart pounding. She might shoot him as he walked through the door, just to show that she meant business. It was entirely possible. “Yes, I’m ready,” he said.

  “All right,” said Frank. “Here goes nothing…”

  He walked over to Pete Millard, who had been manning the bullhorn, and explained the latest decision to him. Pete nodded, switched on the horn, and held it up to his lips.

  “Mrs. Lewis,” he said politely, “Father Nick Rylander is here, and he wants to come in and talk to you. He says he’s a friend of yours and your husband’s. He’s going to come in unarmed, if it’s okay with you.”

  There was no immediate response from the little brick station.

  Come on, Nick thought. Let me come in. Please, please. Give me a chance.

  The cops looked at one another. “Is this a yes or a no?” Frank asked.

  The state trooper in charge shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “If it’s okay with you,” Pete said, reiterating a signal that, so far, Bonnie had not acknowledged in their negotiations, “open and close the blinds.”