Twenty-four
Trent Scarelli was not the officer who arrested her,
handcuffed her, and drove her into town, but she saw him in the background
at the courthouse during the tension-filled hours that followed. She
suspected he had something to do with her quick release.
Karen arrived to march her out of the building to the
station wagon she managed to borrow on rare occasion. She drove hunched
behind the wheel like an unhappy troll. "You played right into their
hands," she murmured angrily. "If it hadn't been for your friends, Lori
Malcolm, you'd be in jail until your court appearance."
The driver of the blue sedan had been a private
investigator. The attorneys acting on his behalf had accused her of
attempted murder and had pressed a wild assortment of charges. "I
couldn't take it anymore," was her only excuse.
"You acted on your own!" Karen yelled at her. "You
told me not to and you did the very same thing yourself! How arrogant can
you possibly be?"
But events had gone far beyond the ability of a
waitress and three abandoned housewives to control. Ralph and Ruben had
been easy. Henry Kahn was the devil himself. "What am I going to do?"
she said as they pulled into Sorrel. She felt a sense of déjà vu,
suspecting she had been muttering that same question all the way home.
Karen stopped in front of the house and let the car
idle. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. "Carol's
condition hasn't improved. We still don't know who's responsible for the
break-ins. Do you still have those pictures you took from Ronnie's room?"
"Yes, of course."
"Thank God we still have some evidence left. He
cleaned out his room, you know. He destroyed everything."
Lori was astonished. "You looked?"
"I had to."
"You were looking for a picture of Gloria," Lori said
with sudden insight.
"He killed my daughter."
"Karen, please!"
Karen glanced at her furtively. "When you searched
his room, did you see a face that bore any resemblance to Gloria's?"
"I looked through everything," Lori said. "I saw
just six faces. I took one drawing of each. You've seen them for
yourself."
"Two are of Wendy and Carol," Karen argued. "The
other four are of local women..."
"How do you know?"
Karen stared rigidly forward.
Lori let the question slide for
the time being. "Karen, you can't assume that Ronnie is responsible
for a crime we don't even know for certain has been committed."
"What if he has two personalities in one body, one
innocent and autistic and the other psychopathic and cunning?" Karen gave
her the look of a petulant child. "You may have overlooked a drawing of
yourself, Lori Malcolm, and Ronnie Bates may have been acting out his
fantasy when he attacked you in the garage. Even if he wanted Wendy, it’s
obvious he was willing to settle for you. Why would he care who his next
victim is?"
Lori sensed how insidious Karen's madness had
become. Lori felt trapped. How could she cope with her own problems,
Carol's hospitalization, and Karen psyching herself up for the destruction
of a speechless adolescent with the mind of a child? "Karen, I may have
made a mistake in hitting that man's car. I wasn't thinking straight, but
all I did was dent a fender."
Karen's smile was as cold as winter. "Do we set
separate standards for our behavior?"
"I hit a man's car, but I've never..."
She stopped herself. I've never tried to kill
anyone, she had been going to say, but she remembered Ralph McBride's head
lined up in the sights of Dave's rifle.
The steering wheel crackled beneath Karen's whitened
knuckles. "My only goal now is to bring the murderer of my Gloria to
justice."
Lori drew herself into a self-defensive ball against
the door. Karen gave her a twisted smile. "Deputy Scarelli pulled a lot
of strings to help you. Thank him for me. My friends deserve men of that
caliber."
Lori scrambled from the car, anxious to be free.
"There's one more thing,” Karen said.
She paused.
"Are you still having that dream?"
Karen saw the answer to her question in Lori's
haunted expression.
"You and I know it can't be mere coincidence. Your
dream is a premonition, Lori. You know it as well as I. We all do,
whether we want to believe it or not."
Karen tapped the accelerator. The car lurched
forward, slamming the door shut as it roared away.
Lori hurried into the house. She rushed about in a
nervous frenzy, rechecking the locks on the doors and the windows,
although it was only two in the afternoon, hours before the dusk deadline
for Wendy's and Leslie's curfew. She had to do something to work off the
tension jangling her nerves.
Remembering having heard Bud's name mentioned at the
sheriff's substation, she walked to his garage across the highway in
search of the Volkswagen and found it parked off to one side of the
building. Bud saw her coming and met her at the car. "Scarelli called
from town and told me to pick up your car. They were going to impound
it."
Lori surveyed the damage and wiped away tears with
the back of her hand. "All that work for nothing."
"It's not all that bad, Mrs. Malcolm. I can pull the
fenders away from the front wheels and replace the headlights easily
enough. The windshield will be the big expense. They used to be a dime a
dozen at the junk yard, but the bug's a rare bird these days."
"How much?"
"Including towing, probably a little over
two hundred
dollars. But that's just to get it back on the road. It won't be
pretty."
"I don't know if I can afford it."
He gave her a nervous smile. "There are easier ways
of handling the payment. I'd fix it up good as new for you."
Lori didn't find his proposition offensive, but she
declined with a shake of her head. "I can't do that. I'm sorry."
"What the hell, then, I'll fix it up good enough to
drive and you can give me a little each month. How's Carol doing?"
"I think she'll be okay. That's why I need the car
so badly. I won't be able to get into town without it."
"It'll be about Wednesday. I can't get the parts I
need until Monday or Tuesday."
"I should count myself lucky that I still have a car
to drive."
Bud chuckled and stuck his thumbs in his belt. "I
heard about those bastards bothering you and what you did. Way to go,
Mrs. Malcolm."
Lori returned home at a brisker pace and took notice
of the gentle nip in the air. The sun shone brightly, but cooler from a
bit further south in the afternoon sky. School would be starting in
another week, and soon, the first young maples would turn their deep
crimson. It always seemed to happen overnight, and the first tree to fold
for the year always managed to catch her by surprise. Even with winter
another four months away, she hated to see the summer go. Winter was a
time of so many extra expenses.
She waited to hear from Trent during the remainder of
the day. Leslie returned home alone when the sun went down. The deadline
for Wendy's return home came and went.
"Haven't seen her," the boy said, disinterested in
the whereabouts of his older sister.
Lori dialed three Martins from the phone book before
locating the Mary that knew Wendy Malcolm. The girl had spoken with Lori
during school Friday, but not anytime since.
Wendy came drifting through the house an hour later.
"Please, call me if you're going to be late!" Lori
called after her. "You know how it worries me when you don't come home on
time!"
Wendy forced an odd, out-of-place smile. "Sure. I
just walked halfway with Mary is all."
The lie startled her. She swung around in cold
anger. "Mary Martin?"
Wendy looked uncomfortable, but bluffed her way
through with a nod.
Lori couldn't remember the last time she had caught
Wendy lying. With other priorities at hand, she let a confrontation slide
for another time. She called the hospital to discover that Carol was
listed in good condition, but still sedated, then locked the house at dusk
and watched television until midnight, eager for Trent's arrival and a
detailed explanation of the legal complications she had brought down upon
herself by ramming the sedan.
Trent failed to show. She awoke later in the night
to a television screen filled with hissing snow and the haunting cry of a
passing freight train approaching Sorrel. She turned off the television
and sat in the dark to await the dawn.
Leslie's Sunday morning cartoons awoke her at six in
the morning. She tried, but could not drift back to sleep. Instead, she
rose and prepared breakfast. Wendy's door remained stubbornly closed
despite the clatter of dishes. "Wendy, you can't sleep in all day!" she
called out as cheerfully as possible. "Up and at 'em, Princess!"
The smile was still on Lori's lips when she yanked
open the bedroom door with mock exasperation. She scanned the empty room
and waited out a moment of confusion. Where could Wendy have run off to
so early on a Sunday morning?
"Leslie, did Wendy tell you she was going somewhere?"
"Nope," Leslie called out from the living room.
"Haven't seen her!"
Lori checked the back door and found it unlocked.
She went to the phone, but decided against calling Karen or Amy for help.
She phoned the Martin residence instead and a grumpy voice that answered
on the sixth ring warned that the Martins were still sleeping. She was
given a mumbling Mary Martin to talk to. Wendy and Mary had made no plans
for the day.
With Wendy's lie of the previous day still fresh in
her mind, she went through a mental list of other possibilities. Nothing
came to mind to dispel her growing foreboding. Wendy had always been good
about letting her know where she was going and how long she would be
staying. Since Gloria's disappearance, she had seldom gone anywhere
alone.
She punched out another number on the kitchen
extension.
"Teller County Sheriff's Department."
Lori recognized the voice and didn't bother to
identify herself. "My daughter's missing. Is Deputy Scarelli on duty
this morning?"
She had to back up and formally identify herself for
the recording of all calls made to the station. She was told that someone
would get back to her as soon as possible. Leslie watched her move about
the house with growing concern. "Where'd Wendy go, Mom?"
"I have no idea, Tiger." She began pacing
nervously. "You stick around this morning in case I need someone to watch
the house."
Wendy had taken clothing, so she hadn't been
abducted. She had left with someone familiar to her. There was reason
for concern, but none for panic.
As if she needed a reason to panic.
