Hear the Children Calling Page 8

  He had aged twenty years in less than a decade.

  “M-Mr. Dylan?” Jill stammered.

  “It’s me,” Craig said. “I knew you’d be coming.” He swung the wheelchair around and wheeled himself into another room. Jill followed him. Shaking her head, mumbling, April took off in another direction.

  “I apologize for my wife,” Craig said. “She’s afraid.”

  They had entered a solarium, bright sunlight pouring in through glass walls that curved up across the ceiling.

  Jill found a seat on a pink flowered chintz couch. “Why is she afraid? And you? What’s happened here? You said you knew something about Ryan.”

  Craig shook his head. “Only what I learned six years ago. And what I learned cost me a hell of a lot.” He opened his arms and looked down at the wheelchair.

  “I don’t understand,” Jill said.

  “I was suspicious about the whole thing from the start,” Craig said. “The accident, I mean. I’ve never seen a report processed so quickly. If you could get hold of the autopsy report, I wager you wouldn’t find a whole heck of a lot. The whole procedure was sloppy, rushed through as if no one wanted to get involved.”

  “But you got involved,” Jill said.

  “I started asking questions,” Craig went on. “I went to those friends your husband had been with the day he took your boy to the zoo. Strange people. They didn’t seem to really care what had happened. Oh, sure, they expressed concern. But I can spot a phony a mile away. They didn’t really care!”

  His hand curled up into a tight fist and he pounded his armrest. Jill waited until he calmed down, his fingers stretching out again.

  “I told my captain how I felt,” he said, his voice even now, “and he told me the case was closed. Usually, if I was suspicious about something, he trusted my instincts enough to let me go at them on my own time. But for this case, it was weird. For this case, he told me to drop the whole thing. He didn’t exactly say I’d be sorry if I didn’t, but the insinuation was there.”

  “Obviously, you didn’t drop the case,” Jill said.

  “How could I?” Craig answered. “I’d gotten this far. The whole thing smelled funny. Your husband had some pretty strange friends.”

  Jill nodded. Those strange friends were one reason their marriage had ended.

  “I tracked down a few of them,” Craig said. “I had this idea that maybe one of them sabotaged the car, to make your husband pay off a debt.”

  “He owed a lot of money to friends,” Jill said, shivering to think how much the detective knew about her family’s personal secrets.

  He looked at her, with enough of a smile to put her at ease. It faded quickly. “I’m not going to tell anyone what I learned,” he said. “Anyway, I finally came to the conclusion that it wasn’t money anyone wanted. It was your kid.”

  Jill gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. “Then Ryan was kidnapped!”

  Craig shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s amazing what a gun can do to perk up a conversation. I caught one of those guys off-guard, and when I threatened to put a hole through his head, he blabbered off like crazy. He said the accident had been a setup, that they had killed your husband, but that it was a dummy in the car seat.”

  “But people saw—”

  “People thought they saw a child,” Craig went on. “The car was in a deep ravine when it blew up. Who’s to say what was in there? I know something for certain. My captain, the medical examiner, maybe some of my fellow officers—they’re all a bunch of lying bastards. Someone’s got your son, Mrs. Sheldon. And it makes me sick to think what kind of people they are.”

  Jill sank back into the overstuffed cushions of the couch, her fingertips stroking her lips. Ryan was alive!

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .” She burst into tears, bending forward to bury her head in her folded arms.

  Craig left her that way for a few minutes, then wheeled himself closer to her. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” he said. “I know in my heart that wasn’t your kid in that car. But I also know that you’re risking your life, and his, if you go after this. Leave it alone, Mrs. Sheldon. As long as they don’t know what you know, they won’t hurt him.”

  “You keep talking about ‘they,’ ” Jill said. “Who the hell are ‘they’? Who are these monsters?”

  “Monsters,” April Dylan said. “That’s not the right word for them.” She was standing in the doorway, fidgeting with the corner of her apron. She came to stand behind Craig’s wheelchair.

  Jill returned her gaze to Craig. “You said you got one of my husband’s friends to talk,” she said. “Who was it?”

  “His name was Ronald Preminger,” Craig said.

  An image came to Jill’s mind, a clean-cut young man with wire-framed glasses and blue eyes cold in a chiseled face.

  “I remember him,” she said. “Although I never knew him well. Jeffrey kept his business life separate from his home life, and I never became acquainted with his friends. What else did he tell you? Did he say where they took Ryan?”

  Craig shook his head. “No, he didn’t answer that question.”

  “Why not?” Jill asked. “Didn’t he know? You had a gun on him, for heaven’s sake. Why wouldn’t he talk?”

  Now the detective frowned, staring down at his lap. “I—I don’t remember,” he said. “We were talking—I mean, Preminger was talking. We were in the bedroom of his house. I had the phone off the hook. Didn’t want any interruptions. And there was this weird moaning sound—”

  “The receiver?” Jill asked.

  Craig shook his head. “I remember something happened. I don’t know. I can hear him begging me not to shoot. And then, that moaning got louder, and louder, and louder . . .”

  As if he were reliving the moment, Craig cupped his hands over his ears and squinted his eyes as if in pain.

  “Stop it,” he cried out.

  “Craig?” April’s voice was shrill.

  The retired detective bent forward, crossing his arms over his head. “Let me down!”

  He began screaming unexpectedly, seeming as if he didn’t know where he really was.

  Jill watched him, confused, frustrated that she couldn’t do anything to help him. But she couldn’t get inside his mind, to know the terror that spilled forth now, as real as the day it had happened.

  Something came from the phone. Not just a sound, but something ugly and foul-smelling. It started as a wisp of acrid smoke, curling out of the receiver, undulating in time with the strange moaning noises.

  “What the hell is that?” Craig demanded.

  “They’ve come to help me,” Preminger answered, smiling. “You’re a dead man, Detective.”

  Then the smoke snaked toward Craig, who stood momentarily frozen as it wrapped itself around his hand.

  His wrist was snapped in two before he even had time to react.

  The gun fell to the floor as he cried out in pain.

  Then the smoke began to take form, a gelatinous substance that smelled like death and rotted food. Shock forced Craig into action, blocking out the pain of the broken wrist. He knocked aside the jelly snake that slithered over his body, leaving a blackish-red trail.

  “Get it away from me!”

  Preminger only laughed at him.

  Craig dived for his gun, shooting at the snake-thing. It had coiled itself up like a cobra, the head wavering back and forth. The bullet split it into a dozen pieces, offspring that looked like creatures from the darkest depths of the sea.

  “No!”

  Craig fell to the floor, covering his head, trying to make it to the exit. The monsters latched on to him, covering his body, teeth as thin and sharp as needles digging into his flesh. They began lifting him, up, up, up . . .

  Suddenly, he was swinging upside down from the ceiling.

  “You’ll be sorry you interfered,” Preminger had cried. “This doesn’t concern you, Detective. We are more powerful than you would ever believe.” />
  “Put me down.”

  “Gladly, Detective.”

  Preminger snapped his fingers. The moaning on the phone stopped. The monsters disappeared.

  Craig Dylan landed headfirst on the floor, snapping his neck.

  “Nnnnnooooo!”

  “No! No! No!”

  “Craig! Craig, it’s April. You’re safe, darling. You’re safe here with me.”

  Craig, who had been screaming for the past ten minutes, became suddenly quiet. He sat up straight, looking at his wife through wide eyes that were brimming with tears.

  “I felt it all again,” he said. “April, I thought the nightmares had ended.”

  April glared at Jill, seething. “Do you see what you’ve done?” she demanded. “You brought out a memory that is very painful to him. Get out of here, now. Get out of our house.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jill cried. “I didn’t know.”

  “Get out!”

  “Please, I—”

  April came at her in such a way that Jill was certain the woman meant to hurt her. She backed away quickly, turning to run toward the front door. By the time she reached her car, she was crying herself, shaking so badly she couldn’t get the key in the ignition.

  Craig Dylan had remembered something horrible, so terrifying that it made him scream even today. And if they could do that to a grown man . . .

  Jill’s car screeched out of the driveway. She bit her lip, trying to calm herself.

  Trying not to think what they could do to a little boy like Ryan . . .

  14

  EVERY MORNING AFTER BREAKFAST, NATALIE WOULD climb to the third floor of her house, where she had set up an art studio. Her drawing table was set up in front of a big picture window, facing a postcard view of Victorian houses. The house sat on the edge of Sandhaven, a small suburb of San Francisco, and from up here Natalie could just make out the uppermost cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. She was staring at the bright-blue sky, rubbing a pencil eraser over her lips, when the creak of the door brought her out of a daydream.

  Beth approached her, her arms cradling a large stack of mail. “Sure is a lot of stuff for you today, Mom,” she said. “Can I look at this catalog? I see some nice T-shirts.”

  “After I’ve gone through it,” Natalie said. “I illustrated a few ads in there.”

  As she took the mail from her daughter, Natalie surreptitiously looked her over from head to toe. Stuart’s idea to keep her home from school had been a good one. The rose had come back to Beth’s cheeks, and she even managed an occasional smile. Happily, there had been no further mention of the previous day. While Stuart was trying to find out who had pulled the trick, Natalie was just glad that Beth wasn’t dwelling on her “vision” of Peter.

  Beth leaned over her mother’s shoulder and eyed the top of the drawing table. “What’re you drawing today?”

  “A necklace,” Natalie said, picking up a strand of gray-and-blue beads. “It just came in from Snyder’s and Company. I’m sketching it for Little Extras magazine. But I’ve been daydreaming all morning and I’m not getting much work done.”

  Beth reached toward the beads and fingered them gently. “Pretty,” she said.

  “I wish I could afford them,” Natalie joked.

  Beth shifted from one foot to the other, tilting her head. “When Daddy sells his big building, we’ll have lots of money,” she said. Without looking at her mother, she added, “How come some people don’t want him to build?”

  “What do you know about that?” Natalie asked.

  “I heard you talking,” Beth said with a shrug. “I heard Daddy say somebody must have dressed up like Peter to make me so sad Daddy would forget all about the office building.”

  Natalie felt an uncomfortable knot of guilt twist inside her. She picked up a ruler and pretended to sketch in lines for copy.

  Beth spoke again before she could conjure up an answer. “Do you think I should go live with Grandma?”

  Natalie put the ruler down and swiveled her chair. “What on earth for?”

  “Maybe if I go live with Grandma,” Beth said, “then nobody will stop Daddy from doing his work. It’s ’cause of me, I know it. Everyone thinks I’m weird. The kids at school must have told their parents, and I guess those parents don’t want Daddy putting up buildings. I guess they think he’s weird, too.”

  “Oh, Beth,” Natalie cried.

  She took her daughter into her arms. In that moment, years of reports from the school came back to her, reports that said her daughter was painfully shy, unwilling to participate. Well, they’d finally done it! They’d crushed this child’s self-esteem so badly that Beth just wanted to run away and make things right.

  “Elizabeth,” Natalie said, “don’t ever say that again. You are not weird.”

  “But I hear things, Mom,” Beth protested. “And I see things no one else does.”

  “You have daydreams,” Natalie corrected.

  “I saw Peter.”

  Oh, God, not that again!

  Natalie pushed her daughter gently away, holding her at arm’s length. “You didn’t see Peter,” she said. “You saw someone who looked like him. We’ve already discussed this, Beth.”

  Beth jerked away. “You talked about it before,” she cried. “You and Daddy. But not me. No one listens to me.” With tears streaming down her cheeks, she turned and raced from the room. She slammed the door shut with such force that a pencil holder on Natalie’s drawing table fell to the floor.

  Natalie started after her, but stopped herself. No, Beth needed time to sort things out for herself. She needed to face the reality of Peter’s death.

  Much as she wanted to run to her daughter’s aid, Natalie knew she had to give Beth some space. And so, with shaking hands, she started sorting through the pile of mail Beth had just brought up. Bills, a welcome check, more bills, advertisements.

  And a manila envelope postmarked Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  For a few moments, Natalie stared at the carefully printed address. She knew the right thing to do. Tear the envelope without ever opening it. As Stuart would say, don’t give ‘them’ the satisfaction of seeing how startled she was. Seeing . . .

  Quickly, Natalie looked up at the window. Was someone seeing her right now, spying on the house? She glanced up and down the street, and only sat back when she realized there was no one out there. Not only were these monsters tormenting her daughter, she thought, they were making her paranoid.

  She tore open the envelope. Out slid a crayon sketch of a boy with red hair, a thin boy whose green eyes were rounded in terror. Terror of what?

  “Stop it,” Natalie told herself. “You’re falling into their trap.” She started to stuff the picture back into the envelope when she noticed writing on the back. The words cut through her heart.

  YOUR BOY IN DANGER. MORE TO COME.

  Natalie shook her head vigorously, driving away the fears and hopes that were starting to surface. Someone was sending her a message about Peter. Someone thought he was alive . . .

  The emphatic “No!” that came from her blended perfectly with the muffled sound of her daughter’s screams. Natalie jumped from her chair, racing down one, then two flights of stairs until she reached the kitchen. Beth was at the back door, banging on the frame and screaming.

  “Beth! My God,” Natalie cried, rushing to her.

  “It’s Peter,” Beth screamed. “He’s leaving. Oh, Mommy, he’s leaving. Make him stop!”

  “Beth, it can’t be—”

  Beth pointed a shaking hand.

  Natalie looked up to see a figure retreating toward the gate behind their house. She reached to open the door. Now she’d apprehend the culprit.

  “It doesn’t open,” Beth said.

  Natalie twisted the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She checked the lock, all the while glancing up at the slow-moving figure. The door wasn’t locked, but somehow she couldn’t get it open. She couldn’t let him get away.

  “Beth, the window,” s
he cried. She hurried over to the sink, climbing onto a stepladder to unlatch the window lock. It, too, was jammed shut. It was as if someone had glued them.

  Natalie went back to her daughter, crying out herself. “Please, stop. Why are you doing this? Please!”

  The boy had been walking so slowly that it had taken him nearly two minutes to reach the back fence. Now he turned, even more slowly. When Natalie saw his face, she sank straight down to her knees, so shocked that no sound came from her mouth.

  It was Peter. Peter, who had died in a plane crash six years ago.

  The boy opened his arms wide, waving both hands toward himself in a beckoning motion. Then he opened the gate and left the yard.

  At that precise moment, the back door swung wide open. Natalie, still on her knees, stumbled forward. Beth clambered over her, racing toward the fence. Natalie pulled herself up, running.

  But by the time they reached the alleyway, the boy had vanished.

  “Did you see, Mommy?” Beth cried, tears streaming down her face. “Did you see?”

  Natalie nodded her head, unable to speak. She hugged her daughter close.

  “It—it certainly looked like Peter,” she mumbled.

  “It was,” Beth cried. “He needs us, Mom. He’s in danger.”

  The words scribbled on the back of the picture came to Natalie’s mind. More and more, the hope that Peter might be alive somewhere was turning into reality.

  “Mommy, what’re we going to do?”

  Natalie did not answer. She didn’t know what she could do.

  15

  KATE STOOD IN THE DISPLAY WINDOW OF THE BABY Bear Boutique, arranging pumpkins, paper leaves, and corn-husk dolls to welcome the arrival of fall. She thought of the previous day, when Mrs. Ginmoor saw all those pictures of Laura. The sitter had been kind, not asking any nosy questions. But the look in her eyes told Kate she felt great pity for a mother who was so obsessed with a lost child.