“Once with my dad, for the ceremony at Daniel’s House, but this time I have to go on my own. My friend Ryan is sick and I’m going to see him.”
“Aw … that’s sweet.”
“I’m kinda his good luck charm … even though this boy I know from school thinks I’m a jinx.”
“Sounds like a typical future man. He’ll put you down until you kick him to the curb, and then he’ll be calling you in the middle of the night begging to get back together. I’d stay clear of that one.”
“I’d like to, but he lives right next door to me. Are you going to Boston, too?”
“No—I’m going to do some retail-therapy shopping on my ex-husband’s credit card. We recently got divorced—he got a new girlfriend, and I’m going to get a new pair of boots … advantage me.”
The train pulled away from the station and Carolyn reached into her backpack. She found her train pass to give to the man when he came by—the one she took from Aunt Dana.
After making a stop in Stamford, Lilith turned nervous. “Oh my God—hide me.”
Carolyn looked confused. “Where would I hide you? You’re way too big to fit in my bag, or under the seat.”
“See that guy,” she pointed to a man in a suit.
“He’s shiny,” Carolyn observed.
“He’s also my ex-fiancé. I haven’t seen him in like eight years. Supposedly he has this perfect family with these adorable kids. Oh no, he’s coming this way.”
“What are you going to do?”
She reached into her coat, took out a ring, and slipped it on her finger. “It’s my wedding ring—I carry it with me in case I run into someone I want to think I’m still married.”
Carolyn flashed a quizzical look.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s a crazy person thing. But I’m going to need your help.”
“I like to help people.”
“Then pretend you’re my daughter. No way I’m letting this self-centered jackass think I don’t have children.”
Carolyn said nothing, so Lilith upped the ante. She reached into her purse and pulled out forty dollars. She handed it to Carolyn. “Do we have a deal?”
“I could use the money. I gave mine to Little Hawk for a juice box, so I could pretend I peed in my pants.”
“If that’s the least dignifying thing you pay a man for in your life, consider yourself lucky. What do you say?”
“It’s a deal.”
“Lilith?” The man asked, now standing right by their seat, hovering above Carolyn.
She looked up like this was the first time she’d noticed his presence. “David? Oh my goodness … it’s been like …”
“Years. How have you been?”
“I’m doing well, thank you very much. I’m going into the city to meet my husband for lunch … he works down on Wall Street. And this is my daughter Carolyn.”
He looked to Carolyn. “She’s adorable … looks just like her mother.”
Lilith looked to Carolyn and her eyes urged her to respond. Carolyn shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”
Other riders started to accumulate behind David. “I’ve got to get to my seat, but it was great to see you again Lilith, and I’m truly glad to see that things turned out well for you.” Before he left he took a long look at Carolyn. “And it was nice to meet you Carolyn.”
She just smiled at him.
When he was out of sight, Lilith slapped her five. “That was the best forty bucks I’ve ever spent—did you see the look on his face when I told him you were my daughter? It was priceless.”
“Yeah—he looked really happy for you.”
“Happy? That was just a front. He was actually pretty devastated.”
“He didn’t look sad to me.”
She gave her another twenty dollars. “Was he sad now?”
Carolyn smiled. “He looked super-duper sad!”
When the train conductor came by, Lilith paid for her ticket … and her “daughter’s.”
Chapter 51
Billy tossed the tennis ball and Nails dashed after it. Once secured in his mouth, he’d return the ball to his master. Or at least his substitute dog-sitter and procrastinating author, Billy Harper.
They repeated the process until Nails looked like he was ready for a nap. And it was a perfect day for one. The weather “experts” said they were supposed to have rain and thunderstorms later this afternoon, but it was hard to believe at the moment. It was an idyllic September day without a cloud in the sky. All they needed was a hammock.
But it was not to be. Billy’s phone rang, and he looked to see that it was Chuck. And here he thought Beth was the overprotective one.
“I give you one job and you can’t even do that,” Chuck sounded annoyed.
“What are you talking about?”
“All you had to do was get her to school, but they just called to tell me she’s not there. If you fell for the ‘I have a fever, I’ll show you the thermometer to prove it’ gimmick, the trick is she runs it under the hot water.”
“I dropped her at school. I didn’t walk her in, but I waited until she mingled with the other students before I left.”
An ominous silence on the other end of the phone. Since he’d known her, the girl had performed more escapes than Houdini, so it shouldn’t be a shock, but his first thoughts always went to Operation Anesthesia. As did Chuck’s.
Chuck ended his silence with a deep sigh, almost a groan. “I told them that I was out of town on business, so you would stop by to get to the bottom of it.”
“Sure, no problem … I’m on my way.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you in Nashville?”
“No—still stuck on the runway in New York with a mechanical issue. Maybe this is all a sign.”
“Or maybe it’s a mechanical issue, and it’s just Carolyn being Carolyn.”
“Just get over to the school.”
Billy called Dana, who responded, “What do you mean she’s not in school?”
“I dropped her off this morning, but I guess she never made it to class.”
“Didn’t you walk her in?”
“She told me she didn’t want me to.”
“And you just listened to her … a six-year-old?”
He was having Beth flashbacks. “I’m headed over there right now to see what happened.”
“Keep me updated—I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes, but pull me out of it if turns out to be an actual emergency.”
Billy drove the short distance to Carolyn’s school and made his way to Mrs. Samuelson’s office. It was much nicer than the principal’s office back in Johnstown that he frequented … at least until he became the high school football star, which provided him a permanent get-out-of-jail free card for any bad behavior. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to take it with him once he left town.
The Principal, Mrs. Samuelson, had a distressed look on her face when she greeted him. She then led him down the hall to a larger conference room. They were joined by Carolyn’s teacher Miss Brady. She looked like she’d just graduated from college, and was sporting a deer-in-the-headlights look.
Also present was a police officer named Quinn, along with the school psychiatrist, Evan Willard. And at the head of the table, like the turkey that was about to get carved up for Thanksgiving dinner, was Little Hawk. Billy should have known he’d have something to do with this.
Mrs. Samuelson conferenced in Chuck and Dana via phone. The story began with Carolyn claiming to have had an embarrassing accident of the urinary sort, and requested she use the teacher’s bathroom for privacy sake. Mrs. Samuelson went to get her a change of clothes, and when she returned, she was surprised to find that Carolyn was no longer in the bathroom, replaced by another student. All eyes went to Little Hawk.
He was sweating right through his collared Izod shirt, and stuttered and stumbled as he spilled the beans.
In a prearranged deal—which they pointed out three times was made off school grounds—Carolyn off
ered $20 for his juice box. Little Hawk held out for $40. She didn’t tell him why she wanted it, but it was clear that she used it to wet her pants, creating the fake bathroom emergency. Little Hawk’s role also consisted of him replacing Carolyn in the bathroom, and creating interference with Mrs. Samuelson—telling her that Carolyn had returned to Miss Brady’s class—while she was slipping out of the school.
Officer Quinn chimed in with good news—they were confident that Carolyn was not abducted and had left the school grounds on her own, just as Little Hawk had suggested. The bad news was that they had no idea where she might be. The security cameras had caught her leaving the school grounds, but that’s where the trail stopped.
Mrs. Samuelson added that every year at least one of her students will freak out on the first day of school. Last year a first grade girl ran all the way home and locked herself in a shed, refusing to come out.
At that point, Little Hawk was released from custody, and he couldn’t have run out of the room any faster.
Evan Willard, the bespectacled school shrink, had been scribbling notes on a pad throughout like he was trying to finish a term paper. He decided now was the time to speak, “We’d all agree that Carolyn has been through a lot of trauma the last couple years, resulting from both her condition and her mother’s death. But she’d made great progress, so I was wondering if anything had happened recently that might set her off?”
This time Chuck answered through the phone, “She’s doing just fine.”
“If she was doing ‘fine’ then we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”
“She’s fine,” Chuck reiterated, “but she’ll be much better once we find her, so maybe we can stop wasting time and get on with that, eh?”
Willard returned to his scribbling. “I wouldn’t say fine, but she was doing much better when we left for the summer. However, there seems to be a sharp change in her demeanor since that time.”
“And how the hell would you know that? You haven’t even spoken to her since last year,” Chuck was growing frustrated.
“For starters, there was a documented case this summer in which she attacked a disabled war veteran for no apparent reason. That speaks volumes, and it sounds very different from the child who left here last June.”
“There was a very good reason,” Billy spoke up. “She was protecting me.”
“If you need a first grader to protect you, then you have much bigger problems, Mr. Harper. And we teach our children that violence is a last resort—obviously that lesson didn’t translate to the Whitcomb household.”
“How I raise my child is none of your business,” Chuck said.
“When she disrupts our school it becomes our business. I heard from numerous parents that she similarly went missing at her birthday party this past weekend. So this disappearing act has become a trend. And I’m not sure I can blame her.”
It actually began far before the summer, but the reasons weren’t always because she was troubled by something. The hospital escape last February stuck out in Billy’s mind.
“She didn’t go missing—she never left the property,” Chuck countered.
“Did you get her into therapy like I suggested? Her CIPA condition alone is reason to do so.”
“We did not.”
“And why is that?”
“None of your damn business. And if I come down there you’re going to be the one in therapy … physical therapy for your broken bones.”
“The fact is Carolyn has a history of unruly and erratic behavior, back to the ‘Dracula’ incident in nursery school. I was going to request home-schooling at this point, but it’s clear from Mr. Whitcomb’s threats that she should spend as little time as possible in that chaotic, violent home.”
Mrs. Samuelson spoke, “Thank you for your input, Evan. We’ll take it under advisement.” She then asked him to leave, which he didn’t appear to be happy about.
She retook control of the room. “We can debate Carolyn’s behavioral issues at a more appropriate time. Right now my focus is on getting her back. Does anyone have any idea on where she might have went to?”
“Isn’t that your job? My daughter was dropped off this morning, with the expectation that she’d be safe,” Chuck was at his wit’s end.
As was Mrs. Samuelson. “That’s not fair, Mr. Whitcomb. We have worked very hard to make this school accessible for your daughter, and the challenges she brings to the table. It’s not as if she just wandered away … it was an orchestrated fraud on her part, helped by Jared Hawkins.”
This time Chuck was more conciliatory, “You’re right, I apologize. If I’m going to talk about accountability, then I have to start with myself. And Therapy Boy was correct about one thing—she has had a tumultuous summer. I’m in the process of uprooting her life for my job, and also a friend of hers is very sick.”
The mention of Ryan triggered Dana. “That little stinker. She didn’t just do this to get out of school—she conned me too.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s where my train pass is … and why she had money to offer. Let me guess—you didn’t leave her any cash, Chuck, in case of an emergency, did you?”
“I left it for Billy. What would Carolyn do with it?”
“Take the train, for one thing.”
“The train? Where would she be going on the train?”
Now Billy knew. She practically spelled out her plan, but he didn’t read the signals. “She’s headed to Boston.”
“Boston?” both Chuck and Principal Samuelson said simultaneously. Officer Quinn looked especially confused.
“To see Ryan—she thinks she’s his good luck charm, and can make a difference with his procedure today,” Billy said. And because she assumed they’d tell her no, she had prepared a backup plan that she carried out.
“How would she know how to get to Boston?”
“We took the train when we went to the ceremony for Daniel’s House—she’s going to follow the same path,” Chuck said with a sigh, but not one of relief.
Officer Quinn was starting to get the idea that this wasn’t your typical six-year-old, and leaped into action. “We’re on it … and I’ll put out an alert to the NYPD that she might be headed their way. If she’s following a path, we’ll cut that path off.”
“She probably took the 9:10 to Grand Central—I’m in the city, I’ll head that way,” Dana said.
“I’ll meet you there,” Chuck said.
“I’m on my way,” Billy added, as he rushed out of the principal’s office.
Chapter 52
Carolyn thought she was going to get swallowed up by the thick crowd getting off the train like it was a scary monster. She almost fell, but Lilith reached out and grabbed her hand before she was trampled.
By the time they reached a safe area inside the terminal, Carolyn was overheating. “Are you okay?” Lilith asked. “You look a little tepid.”
“I have CIPA.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s this thing where I can’t feel pain, but also I don’t sweat normal, so I get these fevers when I overdo it.”
“Maybe I should get you some help—a doctor or something.” She pointed. “There’s a police officer, he’ll know what to do.”
If she told a police officer, then he was going to be all, why aren’t you in school, young lady? And then he was going to call Billy and Aunt Dana, which meant she was never getting to Boston, and Ryan wasn’t going to get her good luck.
“I’ll be fine, I just need a bottled water.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll tell you what, being that you’re my daughter and all, come with me and I’ll get you that water … and a chocolate bar.”
“I had chocolate Cream of Wheat for breakfast, so I’m not sure I should have any more chocolate.”
“Some free life advice, Carolyn, from your fake mother—you can never have enough chocolate.”
They strolled into a Hudson
News, and Lilith bought a bottled water and a Milky Way bar for Carolyn, along with a peach flavored Diet Snapple and a New York Post for herself. But when she looked down to hand Carolyn her water, she was gone.
Chapter 53
Carolyn had heard her name. But it sounded funny.
Then she realized where it was coming from—the radio of police officers who just walked into the store. It said they should be looking for Carolyn Whitcomb, age six, who was missing. Uh-oh.
She ran out before Lilith could even buy her a water. She felt bad she didn’t get to say goodbye, but the police were getting real close. She knew she shouldn’t have taken Aunt Dana’s wallet and train pass, you should never steal, and now she was in deep do-doo.
She kept running through the lower level of Grand Central until she came to a dark room that looked like a good place to hide. She went inside and a man behind the counter said, “Aren’t you a little young to be in a bar?”
She felt her body being taken over by dizziness, and was mesmerized by all the shiny bottles behind the counter—she was really thirsty. “You have lots of stuff to drink.”
“Most of which you’re not old enough to buy.”
“Am I old enough to drink water?”
“That I can do, but then you need to get out of here, okay?”
Carolyn nodded her head.
The man took out a glass. “You want it on the rocks?”
“Why would I want rocks in my water … icky.”
“I mean ice—do you want ice in your drink?”
“I like ice.”
As he made her water she noticed the television mounted on the wall. She was on TV. Her picture, saying that she was last seen leaving her school and on a train to New York. The police had been alerted, and wanted people to tell them if they saw her. Double uh-oh!
The man set her drink on the counter, and she had to climb up on the tall chair to get to it. She gave him sixty dollars, all she had, but he told her it was on the house, which meant free. She drank the water as fast as she could. He refilled her cup and she downed another. She thanked the nice man, and then was on her way.
The Carolyn Chronicles, Volume 1 Page 25
