Edge of Midnight (10 page)

Shaky and slightly queasy, she went back down the stairs. Would Kelby mind if she found something to eat? A cracker, toast? Orange juice! Visions of orange juice danced in her head. In the kitchen, she flipped the wall switch, hesitated a moment, then opened the refrigerator door. Ah. A carton of orange juice. She picked it up and shook it, judging the amount. Almost full. She took down a glass and filled it.

The phone on the end of the cabinet rang, sending her shooting nearly three feet into the air and making her drop the glass. It shattered in the sink, orange juice flew everywhere. Shit! What a mess.

She stared at the phone. Who called anyone at four
A.M
.? Kelby wanting to explain where she was? A neighbor seeing the lights and phoning to see if Kelby was all right? Cops wondering what the hell Cary was doing there? The phone rang four times, then a woman's voice recited the number and told the caller to leave a message.

A voice whispered, “Did you have a nice day?” Male and threatening.

Mitch! Oh God, he found her already!
Taking a breath, she tiptoed to the answering machine, studied it, then pressed play to listen again. “Did you have a nice day?” The menace in the tone made the hair stir on the back of her neck.

Not Mitch. Was it? Hard to tell from a harsh whisper, but she had heard Mitch threaten in a low voice many times, and this didn't sound like him. He wasn't Superman. She'd only been gone three days. Since she was a cop's wife, they'd start searching immediately, instead of holding off the however many days it was for an ordinary person who disappeared, but even he couldn't have found her this fast.

How long before he told anybody she was gone? Monday night when she didn't come home? Or would he go to sleep and not realize she was gone until he woke up? By Tuesday morning, he'd start the whole missing persons thing, if he hadn't already. What day was this? She'd arrived on Wednesday, yesterday, so this was Thursday. Four
A.M
. Thursday, August twenty-first. Incipient hysteria bubbled up in her chest. Oh God, that was enough time. Maybe he had found her.

What about Kelby? Arlette said she'd be here, that Kelby would pick her up at the bus station. Had he done something to Kelby? Arlette knew something about the woman that she hadn't told Cary. What? Why hadn't Arlette told her? Something dangerous? Something Arlette didn't want her to know?

Okay, take a breath. Maybe the voice wasn't threatening at all, maybe it was a friend of Kelby's calling to wish her a nice day. Yeah? Then why whisper and why make it sound like a threat? Clean up the mess. Maybe it's your overwrought imagination. Yeah, right.

Tearing paper towels from the roll on the cabinet, she mopped up the juice and brushed the broken glass into a little pile. In a narrow cabinet next to the door leading to the rear porch, she found dust pan and broom, swept up the glass and dumped it in the trash under the sink. Using a spoonful of crystals from a jar of instant coffee, she made herself a cup, drank it slowly standing by the dining room window looking out at the endless starry sky. She was a city person. It made her uneasy.

A sour laugh almost strangled her. Everything made her uneasy. She was so timorous and shrinking it was disgusting. She hated herself. Why had she put up with all the abuse, beatings, threats, slamming against the wall, and throwing down the stairs? She pulled in a breath. Because he said he'd kill her if she tried to leave. She knew it was true. At this very moment he was looking for her, and when he found her he would kill her. Shoulders hunched, she huddled over the steaming cup.

Weak, cowardly, sniveling! When she could stand herself no longer, she tore off a paper towel and blotted her face. A shower would help. The thought of no clean underwear almost started her sobbing again. To come in and fall asleep on the couch was one thing, but to go using the bathroom, dirtying towels, went way beyond acceptable.

A shower pulled, irresistible. It turned out to be quick. The noise of the water drowned out—ha, joke—other sounds. She couldn't hear if anyone else was in the house, if the phone rang, or if Kelby woke, or burglars broke in. Using the towel on the towel bar, she rubbed herself dry, then felt her body cringe as she put back on her dirty, travel-weary clothes. At least she'd rinsed off some of the grime. She made another cup of instant coffee and sat on the sofa sipping it. Kelby didn't seem to be much of a reader, there were no books in the living room.

At first, she just sat, then she turned on the television set and watched an old movie, then early morning talk shows. The sky outside went through cobalt to deep purple to lavender to pale blue as day arrived. Still no sign of Kelby, no sound from upstairs. She picked up the
Hampstead Herald,
and peering close, struggled to read about the heat wave that was in day twenty, the church supper, the coming of the county fair, the band concert in the park. With no more words to read, she got out the knitting.

At six o'clock in the evening, when she'd been waiting over twenty-two hours and Kelby still hadn't called or returned, Cary knew something was wrong. First, go through the house and make sure Kelby wasn't here. Oh God, she should have done that sooner. What if Kelby had fallen and was unconscious upstairs? Stop imagining disaster. Look and see if there was anything to explain her absence.

Even with the icky feeling of wrongdoing, Cary went up the stairs. Stifling hot up here. Along the hallway. Office room, desk and computer, office supplies, printer, file cabinet, view of the small hills and vast sky outside. Dust behind the lounge chair. Paper, CDs, paper clips, envelopes in the closet. No books, only a dictionary and texts on insurance. How did anybody survive without books? A pair of binoculars sat on the small table next to the chair. She picked them up and looked out. Billions of miles of empty sky, a transparent wafer of moon, and endless horizon-to-horizon corn stalks.

Down the hallway. Spare bedroom. Nothing in the closet or under the bed. Across the hall, the door was closed. She tapped. Waited, tapped again. “Kelby?” No sound. Pulse jumping, she eased the door open. Master bedroom and second bathroom. Clothes in the closet and the chest. No books here either. A pink velour robe hung on a hook behind the bathroom door.

She retraced her steps, went to the kitchen, and opened the door leading to the basement. Wasn't it always in the basement that murderers dug up the concrete to bury the body? Searching fingers found the light switch and she clicked it on. Idiot. Just a basement. You're not going to find a bloody corpse on the floor with the axe lying nearby. Oh yeah?

She put a foot on the first wooden step. It creaked. The next and the next and the next until she reached the cement floor at the bottom. Thin murky light crept in through shallow windows. She groped for the dangling cord and pulled, turning on the bare bulb. Furnace, shelves with boxes and dusty mason jars, washing machine and dryer. No Kelby slumped in a corner. Blowing out a long breath of relief, Cary went back upstairs.

At eight she looked in the refrigerator and found a block of cheese. Crackers were in the cabinet. She took an apple from the bowl on the table, sat on the sofa and watched television again. She dug out old
Country Living
magazines from beneath the sofa and looked through those. Like an alcoholic without booze, she fidgeted and waited. She squeezed a dab of toothpaste on a fingertip and rubbed her teeth, then rinsed. She watched more television. She waited.

Around two
A.M
. she dozed and again woke with total confusion, but this time it didn't take long to realize where she was. Kelby Oliver's house, Hampstead, Kansas. She couldn't remember a time when she felt so rumpled and dirty. And bored. She ached for books to read. After eating another apple, she paced from living room to dining room to kitchen and back again. Like last night, she turned on the television, watched an old movie, and slept fitfully.

When the darkness outside faded to gray with the first of the morning light, she went up to Kelby's bedroom. Feeling like the worst kind of intrusive thief, she opened drawers and looked through everything. On top of the small chest under the window lay a set of car keys. A shelf in the closet held a beige leather purse; inside were Kelby's wallet with driver's license and credit cards. Cary studied the picture on the driver's license, holding it close to her face and moving it around to find her small circle of sight, looking from Kelby's picture to her reflection in the mirror. Kelby was thirty-eight, brown hair, five-two, weighed a hundred and thirty-five pounds. Eyes blue.

There was a superficial resemblance between Kelby and herself. Cary was thirty-four, also five-two and had blue eyes, but her hair was blond. She didn't know what she weighed. Since she'd lost so much, probably around a hundred pounds.

Where would Kelby have gone that she didn't take her purse with her? An awful uneasy prickliness took hold. Something was very wrong. How could she have been so stupid as to leave home and come all this way to stay with someone she didn't even know?

Why did Cary trust Arlette's word that Kelby could offer sanctuary from Mitch? Why let Arlette disclose those most private and shameful secrets to a perfect stranger? Who was Kelby? Why did she agree to let Cary come here?

Get a grip, she told herself. Do you think Kelby deliberately lured you here for some evil purpose? To carve you up for body parts and sell your kidneys and heart? A master criminal who needed a new identity, she planned to steal yours and bury your body in the basement? Cary took a shaky breath. She'd been reading too many mysteries.

What if this was some kind of trap Mitch set up? What if he was just trying to see if she'd jump at the chance to get away? What if he was even at this very moment waiting for her to step outside? Oh, for God's sake. Cary shook her head. Maybe she should take up writing thrillers.

Mitch didn't have that kind of imagination. He wasn't devious. He was dead-on direct. What you saw was what you got. He couldn't have arranged for her to come here. It was Arlette who knew Kelby and urged Cary to come.

Before her courage gave way entirely, she grabbed the keys, trotted down stairs and put on her shoes. When she walked into the screened porch, the air felt like warm soup. Five in the morning and the temperature must be close to eighty. A dry, dusty smell of corn hung over everything. She followed the flagstone path around to the left side of the house and stared at the cornfield.

“I'm as corny as Kansas in August.”
Tall rows of stalks, at least eight feet high, clusters of fat cobs. Hot wind caused stirrings and rustlings that sounded like malignant whispering. When the wind died, the stalks fell silent. The vast field seemed alive, like some dangerous predator she mustn't turn her back on.

Goosebumps popped up on her arms in the muggy air. Shivering in eighty-degree heat, she took the path to the barn and rolled open the large door. Pearly gray light seeped into the dim interior. A Honda, similar to the one she had owned, except this one was white, sat inside. Doors unlocked. Nothing in the glove box but a map of Kansas and a flashlight. She clicked it on. Batteries were working. Car was clean, like it had recently been washed and vacuumed inside

A strong smell of what she assumed was hay, grass of some kind anyway, made her sneeze. A small room just to her right. Officelike, old wooden desk, shelves with cardboard file boxes, pegs on one wall. Stalls on both sides of the center aisle. All empty, except one with straw on the floor. A ladder went to a loft above and she climbed just high enough to see what was up there. Stacks of hay, or maybe straw. A fit of sneezing attacked her and she backed down.

Okay, nothing for it now but the car trunk. Hadn't she read this scenario a million times? Idiot woman goes off to deserted place like old barn and finds body. She pressed a spot on the key and the trunk lid popped up an inch or two. Big intake of breath. She nudged it open. It contained nothing more sinister than old newspapers.

Cary slammed the trunk lid. She needed to talk with Arlette. Since she couldn't call from Kelby's house, she had to find a public phone. Where was the nearest? In town, of course, but she didn't know how far that was, or exactly how to get there. She couldn't walk to a neighbor and ask. That would be the same as wearing blinking neon lights in big letters saying “something not right here.” A second thought had her opening the trunk again to retrieve the stack of local newspapers. At least they contained the printed word, and she needed something to read. She slammed the trunk lid again and stepped from the barn.

A high-pitched scream sliced through the predawn stillness.

 

11

By six o'clock, the pounding in Susan's head and the crackling in her ears had reached a point where she wanted to bang her head against the wall or soak it in a bucket of water. She shut down her computer and navigated the hallway, tacked a hard right and went into George Halpern's office.

When she came in, he dropped his pen on the desk and rose to his feet. Gray hair circled a tonsurelike bald spot, pale blue eyes, kind, sympathetic, always ready to help anyone in need. Even thirty-some years in law enforcement didn't shake his faith in the innate goodness of humankind. She'd lost that faith the second day on the job, when she arrested a woman who set her baby in the sink and poured boiling water over him.

“How's Tim?”

“Serious condition. Burns over thirty percent of his body.” Susan lowered herself to a chair so he could sit back down.

“Poor boy.” George shook his head.

George had grown up in Hampstead, lived here all his life and knew everything about everybody. Whenever she wanted information about a local, he was better than the computer for facts, gossip, and rumor. “You know anything about an outfit calling itself Leading the Way? Miniature horses to lead the blind.”

He smiled. “I believe we call that ‘vision-impaired.'” He leaned back in his chair and tented his fingertips over a flat stomach. “Veronica Wells. Parents were farmers here for years, then like so many others, they couldn't make it. Her father recently died and her mother went to live with her sister in Colorado. Ronny just moved back, bringing those horses. Always was a horse woman. Competition riding as a kid. Blue ribbons for cutting and roping, even jumping.”