The Way to Yesterday (20 page)

"Sophie...why
aren't
you asleep?"

"Stop calling me that," she said sharply. "As for not being
asleep, I'm guessing you're curious as to why I'm not doped out of my mind,
right?" His frown deepened. How could she know this so quickly? What kind
of a woman had he brought into his home?

"What are you?" he asked.

Mary took a step forward. "The biggest mistake you ever made."

For the second time tonight his fear spiked. "Don't threaten me," he
said, and pointed a finger toward her. "I'm the one in charge." Then
he glanced toward the girls, who were obviously no longer asleep, either.
"So you choose to sleep on your terms?
Fine.
But
you will live on mine, so I suggest you put our girls back to bed and get some
rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day."

"Why? What's so special about tomorrow?" Mary asked.

Howard Lee smiled. "Why... we're moving, that's what. I think it's time
for a change of scenery, don't you? After all, you said it yourself. The girls
need a more comfortable and healthy environment. I intend to see that they get
what they need."

He pivoted quickly and took the stairs up two at a time. The cellar door was
down and locked before Mary could react. She felt as helpless now as she had
when he'd thrown her in the van. Filled with despair, she dropped down on the
bed and covered her face with her hands.

No...
oh
no...
if
he takes
us away, Daniel might never find us. Please Lord...
help
me stop him before it's too late.

"Don't cry, Mary."

Mary looked up just as Justine crawled into her lap. She wrapped her arms
around the little girl. Once again, she was struck by how strong the spirit
could be in such a tiny child.

"I'm not crying, honey. I'm just tired.
How about
you?"

Justine nodded,
then
pointed to Amy Anne.
"She's sleepy, too, aren't you, Amy Anne?" Mary turned around. Amy
Anne was sitting crosslegged in the bed, picking at a raveling thread on the
blanket. She held her breath, hoping that Amy Anne would talk. She didn't get the
words, but she did get a brief moment of eye contact before Amy Anne nodded.

"Okay..." she said
. "
Then let's get
some sleep, what do you say?"

"Is the man going to come back?" Justine asked. "I don't
think so.
At least not again tonight.
But you don't
worry. I'm here and I won't let anything happen to you again."

She gave each little girl a hug and then started tucking them back beneath
the covers before stretching out in front of them, using her body as a shield
between them and Howard Lee.

She was almost asleep when she felt the brush of a small hand against her
arm. Tears welled behind her eyelids as she felt the hesitancy of the touch.
Justine was too far away to reach her like this. It had to be Amy Anne. Without
speaking, she reached for the tiny fingers and then covered them with her own.
There was a moment when she thought she felt hesitance, then quietly, without
disturbing the covers, Mary felt the child scooting just a tiny bit closer.

For now, it was enough.

It was raining. Daniel stood at the living room window, watching it fall and
praying with every breath in his body that Mary was still alive. There was a
growing ache in his gut and what felt like a permanent knot at the back of his
throat. He kept alternating with the need to break something or break down and
cry. Bobby Joe had gone home hours earlier with a promise to pick him up first
thing in the morning, and now he was left alone with the horror of his reality.

He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes after two in the morning. He
needed to sleep, but resting while Mary was missing seemed somehow disloyal.
However, tomorrow would be hell if he didn't. Reluctantly, he went upstairs to
their room and
laid
down on the bed without
undressing. Within minutes, he'd succumbed to exhaustion.

"Daniel ... come and
get
me.”

"Mary? Mary? Is that you?"

Daniel turned toward the sound of her voice, trying desperately to fight his
way out of the dream.

"We're alive, Daniel. We're all alive. "

"
Who's
we?"

"
Me
and Justine and Amy Anne, but we're
running out of time. Please, Danny... come and
get
us
before Howard Lee takes us away. We want to go home. "

Daniel woke with a gasp and sat straight up in bed.

"Mary?
".

He'd said her name out of reflex, although he hadn't expected an answer. He
knew he'd been dreaming, but it wasn't like any dream he'd ever had. It seemed
as if he'd heard her as clearly as if she'd been lying right beside him. As for
the mention of the two little girls, that was weird. What had she called them?
Oh yeah...
Justine and Amy Anne.
And
Howard Lee?
Who the hell was Howard Lee?

Dismissing it as nothing more than part of the nightmare in which they were
caught, he still made a mental note of the names. He would call Reese Arnaud
tomorrow and see if any progress had been made. Chances are he'd heard the
girls' names on the news and then forgotten them until his subconscious had
drawn them up into his dream. As for a man named Howard Lee, he couldn't
believe it meant anything. As much as he wanted to think he and Mary were soul
mates, he didn't believe in psychic communication.

Too awake now to go back to sleep, he got out of bed and walked to the
window. It was still raining. The wet streets had taken on a look of obsidian
their dark, mirrored surfaces a reflection of his soul. Time passed slowly, and
still he couldn't get the sound of Mary's voice out of his mind. It had been so
vivid, and the dream so specific. If only he dared believe. He swiped a hand
over his face and then turned away from the windows, and as he did, his gaze
fell on the bed. It was so damned big-and too empty without her. Without
warning, he started to cry. Please God, don't let me spend the rest of my life
without her in it.

Reese Arnaud was at his desk by 5:00 a.m., pouring over the computer printout
that had come from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He couldn't believe how
many people in the city of
Savannah
owned white vans. He'd quit counting at four hundred and thirty-seven. What was
frightening was the thought that the man they were looking for might not even
be a resident of
Georgia
.
If that was the case, then the names on this list could be moot. He poured
himself a third cup of coffee as he downed the last bite of his sausage
biscuit,
then
flopped back in his chair. Someone told
him yester day that Bobby Joe Killian was asking questions at the supermarket
where Mary O'Rourke had been abducted and that Daniel was with him. It didn't
make his job any easier to know that the man he called his friend didn't trust
him to bring his wife home. That he had turned to a P.I. with a less than
perfect reputation made it worse. Then he frowned. That wasn't entirely the
truth. Truth was
,
Reese couldn't blame him. The little
girls had been missing for more than six weeks, and they hadn't had a solid lead
until the sketch. If it was his wife, he wouldn't want to wait in the wings,
either. He'd be turning over every known perp on the streets and yanking until
one of them squealed.

Heartsick and exhausted, he took a long drink of the coffee and then went back
to the list, marking off all the names of owners with vans that were more than
ten years old. A short while later, his phone rang. He picked it up without
thought, his focus still on the pages.

"
Savannah
P.D."

"Arnaud... this is Williams in Vice. Got a little piece of video with a
person on it you might want to see."

"Unless she's six feet tall and naked, I don't think so," Reese
muttered.

The detective chuckled,
then
dropped another line
that got Reese's attention.

"It's not a she, it's a he, and he's stealing medicine from the third
floor of Savannah Memorial."

"What's that got to do with me?" Reese asked.

"Well, one of the guys here in Vice thought the perp looked a little
like that man in the sketch you've been circulating."

Reese stood abruptly. "I'm on my way."

A short while later Reese was sitting alongside Detective Williams, as well
as two other detectives, viewing the tape.

"What do you think?" Williamson asked.

Reese leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Holding the remote,
he hit Rewind, then Play. It was the fourth time he'd viewed the piece of tape
and still he couldn't be sure.

"I don't know," Reese said. "The tape quality is poor. The
images are grainy. It's a tall, blond man, but we don't have a real clear view
of his face."

"Yeah, I know," Williams said. "But you don't see a crazy
haircut like that every day." Reese nodded, eyeing the man's bone-straight
hair. Williams was right about that. It looked like someone had turned a bowl
upside down on his head and trimmed off everything that stuck out from under
it.

"I'd feel better about it if he'd smiled for the camera," Reese
muttered.

Williams frowned. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Reese said. "It's just that he's supposed to
have this goofy set of teeth. Distinctive enough to set him aside from the
crowd, you know?"

"Yeah, okay. So what do you want to do about this?" Williams
asked.

Reese frowned. "What does the hospital have to say about the tape?
Anyone there identified the man?"

"They've shown it to the nurses on the third floor, but identification
is a bust. Supposedly he looks like someone named Barry, who's an ex-husband of
one RN. Also, someone else said he looks like their brother, but that's a
dead-end too because the brother is in the Navy and stationed in the
Black Sea
. Another said he looked a little like one of
the janitors, but that man wasn't even on duty when the robbery went
down."

Reese thought of the janitor angle. It made sense.

 "It has to be someone who knew the layout of the floor,"
Reese said.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because my daughter, Molly, had her tonsils out
there two years ago.
They only have minimal medications on site. The
main pharmacy for the hospital is on the first floor."

Williams glared at the two detectives nearby. "Why does he know that
and we don't?"

They shrugged and grinned.

"What did he steal?" Reese asked.

Williams looked at his notes.
"Some antibiotics.
No hard drugs like you would expect."

"What kind of antibiotics?" Reese asked. "Mum ... ampicillin and
something I can't pronounce that the doctor said is used for people who are
allergic to penicillin. Also, some hypodermic syringes."

"Oh damn," Reese said, and got up from the chair.

"What?" Williams asked.

"One of the little girls
who's
missing... she's
allergic to penicillin. Her mother says she was wearing a Medic Alert
bracelet."

"Oh man... if this is the guy who took them and he's stealing medicine,
then that means the girls are sick."

Reese grinned. "No ... it means that the girls are alive."

"Oh yeah... right!"
Williams said.
"So what are you going to do?"

"Before we jump to too many conclusions, I need a list of employees at
the hospital and I want the clerk at the supermarket to look at this tape. If
she thinks it's the man who snatched Mary O'Rourke, then at least we'll know
we're looking for the same perp for all three abductions."

Bobby Joe Killian swerved off the street and into the drive in front of
Daniel's house. He stomped the brakes, leaving a streak of black rubber on the
pavement as he killed the engine. Daniel was coming out of the house before
Bobby Joe could get out of the car.

"Hurry," Bobby Joe said.

`Why?" Daniel asked, as he slid into the seat. "
you
know that pretty little clerk at the super market?" abduction?"

"The one who witnessed Mary's abduction?”

“Yep”

"What about her?" Daniel asked.

"She's going on her way to the police station to look at a tape."

"A tape of what?"

"Not sure," Bobby Joe said, as he peeled out of the driveway and
back onto the street.

"How do you know this?" Daniel asked.

Bobby Joe grinned. "We were still in her bed when she got the
call."

"You slept with her?"

Bobby Joe shrugged.
"Yeah, why not?
 
She's
 
pretty
, she's single and she asked.”

" Isn't
that some kind of conflict of
interest?" Daniel asked. "

"Not for me," Bobby Joe said.

"Yeah, right.
What was I thinking?"

Chapter Thirteen

Reese was still in Detective Williams’ office, waiting for the supermarket
clerk to arrive when Bobby Joe and Daniel showed up. His first instinct was to
give Daniel a hard time for getting mixed up with Killian, and then he looked
at his face. The man looked haunted. It was enough to temper his greeting.

“You guys lost?" he asked.

"I want to see the security tape from the hospital robbery,"
Daniel said.

Reese didn't bother to hide his surprise. "How the hell did you find
out about that?"

"A little birdie named Carol told me," Bobby Joe said.

Detective Williams eyebrows shot up toward his Hair line. "You know
Carol Shane?"

"Intimately."