No Time To Wave Goodbye Part 16

Vincent imagined he heard things. He imagined he heard Bryant Whittier's voice, saying some villain thing, like What have we here? He imagined he heard snuffling and coughing and told himself, it's only a racc.o.o.n.

When Vincent finally slept, or thought he slept, a twitching version of sleep, through which sounds and cold swam readily, he saw things in his dreams. Once, he was almost sure he cried out, at a vision of red eyes in the darkness. But when he woke, the fly of the tent was still tightly shut.

"What?" Lorrie called.

"Nothing. I'm good," Vincent said. "Nightmare." He slipped out of Ben's bag and pulled his own from Ben's pack-which was back in the corner where Lorrie had stowed it. The groundsheet crackled with cold as he wriggled down into it and slapped his arms and thighs to warm himself, finally pulling out his extra wool s.h.i.+rt and struggling into it. But Sam was unprotected in there now, with nothing on but the bag. "Sam?" Vincent whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I got your dry clothes. Can you put them on in there?"

"Yeah," Ben said. "Hand 'em to me, okay?"

"You got them?" Vincent asked in the dark.

"Gloves," Ben said.

"They're still drying out." Vincent pulled off one of his layers. Whoa! Had the temperature plummeted or was it just that he was alone? Maybe moving over hadn't been such a good idea. He handed his gloves over to Ben and put his own hands between his knees. "You warm now?"

"Are you?"

"Not so much." Vincent scooted his bag over until he and Ben were back to back.

"Come back in here then."

"Now I'll freeze you," Vincent said.

"It's okay. Come on." Vincent wiggled back out of his bag and into Ben's, a cold dollop of fear coating his stomach as he realized how very badly prepared and provisioned they had been for this accident. And as much as they were was only because Lorrie had insisted. He and Ben would have brought Kit-Kats and sports drinks.

After a moment, Ben said, "I do remember her singing that. Beth."

"Yeah. I figured."

"But it was like they wanted to own me. I hated them for that. She kept looking at me all the time. Like she wanted to devour me. Those big eyes."

"Yeah," Vincent said.

"And they probably felt like I feel now. Like if I ever see Stella again, I'll never let her out of my sight. I'll never put her down or let her go to school. And they waited so long and gave up. I never got it," Ben said.

"How could you get it? You were twelve. Anyhow, it doesn't matter. You get it now, and I'm sure Mom and Pop wish you had no idea how it feels. They felt just exactly like this."

"I never knew," Ben said again.

"It's not your fault."

"Basically, I treated them like c.r.a.p. I didn't know who they were. I only knew they wanted me because they produced me. I was their possession. Like I was a ... crop. I didn't know how you would feel because I ... didn't know."

"They don't blame you."

"Vincent, if they felt like I feel about Stella ... the morning she was born, I felt like I was going to explode. Like go up in the air like a hot-air balloon. I felt like n.o.body ever felt like I did, like you could die from loving a person. I wanted to get on my knees. Why didn't they tell me?"

"You didn't want them to, Sam," Vincent said carefully. "They didn't want to make it worse for you. It's okay now. Go to sleep."

"Great. I'm an a.s.shole. When I said that to you ... at the hotel. I didn't really ..." Ben began.

"People say things. Go to sleep."

"She's so little."

"We'll find her."

"What if we never find her?" Ben asked. "What if I'm one of the parents in the movie?" Vincent rolled over on his back and studied the clear plastic window in the roof of the tent. He saw a single shooting star among the broken crystal of all the rest. He wished, squeezing his fists and closing his eyes, like some stupid kid.

"It's so dark," Ben said.

"Sam, go to sleep," Vincent said, reaching over to pat his brother's back. "Go to sleep now." He felt Ben's shoulders shaking and was about to ask if Ben was cold again, when he realized that Ben was crying. He withdrew his arm and looked up at the stars until they began to spin. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he looked up again, the sky was gray.

They could get up and get on the move. Vincent felt like he had a hangover but felt oddly energized too.

He burst out of the tent. Lorrie said, "It's almost six a.m. I thought you were going to sleep all day. Sam, you survived and now I don't have to lie to your daughter when I tell her her dad's a very brave man. Not to mention a very foolish one." She glanced at Vincent. "And her uncle's worse."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

What they ate in the morning looked like what came up after a long night with a Mexican meal and too many margaritas. Vincent forced himself to get it down, chasing it with two cups of tea and five or six spoonfuls of sugar.

"Okay, this is why we stay on the path," Lorrie said. "Suck the tea down and pee or whatever it is you have to do. If whatever you do is more than pee, dig a hole and cover it up. Leave no trace."

"We're being eco-friendly while my niece is out there?"

"Why not?" Lorrie asked. "It's just as easy."

"I thought we were going to sleep three hours and race through the night or something," said Vincent. He thought then, Why am I arguing with her about p.o.o.ping?

Lorrie said, "We would have except for your brother's little dip. It took all night to dry his clothes. I had to keep moving them around while you snored. Thank you very much. Just hang the tent up to air a little and get dressed," she told him, turning to the dog. To Ben she said, "Are there any parts that feel funny? Hands or feet?"

"I'm good," Ben said.

"So drink a lot today and watch it. I'm shocked that the boots dried out," Lorrie said to Ben.

Vincent didn't mention that his hadn't. He slipped a plastic bag over each dry sock and heard the small squish as he laced his boots up.

Within an hour, they were packed up, Lorrie rearranging their packs with some magical ability to get them square and squat when Ben and Vincent could barely manage to get them closed. Before they did, Lorrie asked them to wait and stand with her as the sun came up. She read, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.... The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.... The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

"Did you think we were religious?" Vincent asked.

"Why would I care?" Lorrie asked, as she fed the dog. "I'm doing what makes me feel strong."

They hiked in silence for four hours. Lorrie stopped for her usual unannounced siesta. Then, still in silence punctuated only by their gasps, they slogged on. An hour, then two, then three, when suddenly Lorrie stopped. Without hearing her saying so, both men knew that she thought the dog had seen or smelled something. They pulled up short behind her.

"What?" Ben finally asked.

"There was a wood fire," she said. "Recently."

"Ours," said Vincent.

"No, up ahead. Can't you smell it?" They tried and Ben said he caught a whiff of something like the bonfires they lit when he was a kid. "That's it. It's up there to the left. Maybe just campers. But I don't think so. There can't be more than one idiot on this ridge right now. It smells like more than a campfire, though. Good wood. Cedar, maybe."

Lorrie struck off where the track divided, following Roman, who suddenly seemed to have brightened up. Back and forth, the huge dog worked, like a needle in and out of a cloth, cras.h.i.+ng out of the scrub trees to a large cleared area. "Stay back here a minute."

While they watched, Roman veered to the left and looped back slightly to the right, then headed straight on. Lorrie signaled for them to follow, quietly. Roman continued for what Vincent imagined would be the equivalent of a few city blocks.

Then he stopped and raised his head and tail. Telling them to stay put, Lorrie approached the dog, knelt and pulled out the bandana, pulled it back and forth in his great mouth and then ruffled his neck and ears before she gave him a handful of treats. She motioned to Vincent and Ben.

"If you look closely, you can see the little house," she whispered.

It was like a reclusive goblin's hideout from a fairy tale-a peaked roof with green s.h.i.+ngles and a green door, almost concealed by tall pines. No smoke came from the chimney, but they could definitely smell smoke by then.

"I can't let Roman go up there, because whoever is in there could shoot him if he has a gun," Lorrie said. "So, I'll try to come in from the side. Don't either of you move. Promise. No matter what you hear."

Even the trees maintained silence as Lorrie used her snowshoes to leap quietly over the faint tracks toward the little house. Ben nearly started forward as he saw a movement from inside ... or was it a trick of the sunlight on the gla.s.s? Lorrie, out of the line of vision of the front windows, edged closer, slowly removing her gun from its shoulder holster and steadying it in both hands.

Then they heard the blast of the gunshot.

Ben screamed, "No!" And both of them stumbled forward.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Beth, Candy, Kerry, and Pat wandered through the streets of Durand, searching for somewhere to eat something even vaguely urban. A scone. A m.u.f.fin. In Durand, such a place didn't exist. There was a diner, but even the condition of the window, so smeared with grease and handprints it was impossible to see whether it was open or closed, deterred them. There was a shop that sold exquisite rock-based jewelry, two gas stations, three bars, Pitch's Sporting Goods, the Walgreens, and probably ten restaurants of varying ethnicities-all closed for the winter. The owner of the Lone Star thoughtfully gave them tortillas and cheese and there were peanut-b.u.t.ter crackers and milk from the drugstore. One boutique displayed luxe men's and women's clothing. It was called Darandella's.

"The town's single Italian," Pat said.

At the same moment, they all noticed in the window the slight smattering of children's things-quaint Elefanten shoes, tiny smocked and flowered Oilily dresses with polka-dotted tights, st.u.r.dy yellow-and-green spring corduroys for boys. Quickly, as if pulled by one string that joined them, they turned away from the smocked dresses and bright spring rompers.

All of Durand was composed of four streets, with the residential portions arrayed around the square like layers removed from a cake. During their second tour, they decided to ascend Paramount Drive, which was steep, and walk for a while. It kept them warm and no one could bear the silence of the inn-broken only when Eliza woke and wept behind the door-or the silence of the single cell phone that they had left, which was Pat's. As they tromped along, although they first imagined it to be a trick of the wind, they heard someone calling them. "Pat! Beth!" Whirling around, expecting to see the sheriff or Bill Humbly, they saw Claire Whittier, a white cardigan hugged around her, gesturing to them from the door of a ma.s.sive stone-and-cedar house. Following Candy, who took a step toward her, they found themselves on Claire's doorstep. She said, "Please come inside. Let me make you something to eat at least. I have bread and eggs and Blaine is a good cook."

In the kitchen, surrounded by drawings painted and framed by the lost Jacqueline, they drank French-pressed coffee and ate slices of sourdough with Blaine's spitfire cheese-and-salsa omelet. Pat noticed that Blaine didn't eat and mentioned it.

"I can't," Blaine said. "My father spent my whole life telling me not to eat so I wouldn't get fat and now I can't. I can't stop thinking about what's happening up there. Sarah hasn't heard a thing."

"No news is not necessarily bad news," said Candy, who, strangely, had some appet.i.te for the first time in a week. "It just means slow going."

"I feel like all I want to do is sleep," Blaine said.

"My sister-in-law, Eliza, is the same way, Blaine," Kerry told her. "Now that the doctor gave us Valium for her, Eliza sleeps and sleeps. She just gets up to brush her teeth. Sleep knits up the raveled sleave of care."

"Was that Dr. Slaughter?" Claire asked.

"Yes," Candy said. "Quite a name for a doctor."

"When we're awake, we just talk about it all the time and around and around it goes. There's not a thing you can do," Blaine went on, ignoring Claire.

"We know," Candy said. "We absolutely know."

"My father held a grudge. Obviously against whoever took my sister, but it was more too. He felt responsible for what happened to Jackie."

"You do," Beth said. "Even if you aren't. I did. I was ... well, basically, I was nearly catatonic for at least a year after Ben was taken. I never once believed Ben was alive. In itself, that's not so strange."

"He never once believed Jackie was alive!" Blaine said. "Not from the first moment. He convinced both of us. And I wanted so to hope. I think that was what pushed me over, into a real depression. I had to have medication, and gained weight, and of course ..."

"That infuriated Bryant, although it wasn't Blaine's fault," Claire said. "He wanted us to keep s.h.i.+pshape, like a military troop."

"What a thing to think about at a time like that," Candy said. "That wasn't fair to you."

"I distracted myself. You grasp at anything," Pat said. "For me it was, let's start a restaurant. Let's start a great theme restaurant, like an Italian wedding, only every night ..."

"That was one distraction that worked out well, at least," Beth said gently.

"Yeah, it let me avoid how my wife and my kids were falling apart. So I guess you could say it was successful."

"Pat, honey," Beth said. "I'm lucky you didn't leave me."

"You sure?" Pat said. No one laughed.

"We saw your shopping center," Candy broke in, politely. "Your one clothing store, besides the sporting-goods place."

"Oh, Darandella's been an old friend for years. I'm sure my friends and I have kept her in business," said Claire. "Bryant never had time to go shopping. I bought a good many suits there for him, and had s.h.i.+rts made. And of course, when friends had babies ..." She literally clapped one translucent hand across her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't mean anything by it," said Candy. "It's okay, Claire. We should walk back now. My daughter's alone at the inn."

"Let me walk with you," Blaine said. "I can't stand to sit here anymore. Pictures of my sister. My father's ... lair in there."

"I'll come too," Claire said.