Authors: Mary Higgins Clark

A Cry In the Night (40 page)

BOOK: A Cry In the Night

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Mark jumped to turn off the set. “I told Gunderson not to let them take photographs in the cabin.”

Rooney had jumped up too. “You should have showed me that painting!” she screamed. “You should have showed it to me. Don't you understand. The curtainsÂ .Â .Â . The blue curtains!”

The curtains!
This was what had been gnawing at Jenny's memory. Rooney spilling the scraps onto the kitchen table, that dark blue material, the faint design visible in the painting.

“Rooney, where did he put them?” They were all shouting the same thing.
Where?

Rooney, totally aware of the precious knowledge she held, tugged at Mark, excitedly crying, “Mark,
you
know. Your dad's fishing lodge. Erich always used to go there with you. You didn't have curtains in the guest room. He said it was too bright. I gave him those eight years ago.”

“Mark, could they be there?” Jenny cried.

“It's possible. Dad and I haven't been at the lodge in over a year. Erich has a key.”

“Where is the lodge?”

“It'sÂ .Â .Â . in the Duluth area. On a small island. It makes sense. It's justÂ .Â .Â .”

“Just what?” She could hear the sound of snow slapping against the windows.

“The lodge doesn't have central heating.”

Clyde vocalized the fear that was now in all of
them. “That place don't have central heating and you mean those kids may be alone in it now?”

Mark raced for the phone.

â¢Â Â Â â¢Â Â Â â¢

Thirty minutes later, the police chief from Hathaway Island returned their call.

“We've got âem.”

Agonized, Jenny listened to Mark's question. “Are they all right?”

She grabbed the phone to hear the answer.

“Yep, but just barely. Krueger had threatened to punish them if they ever tried to set foot out of the house. But he'd been gone so long and the place was freezing so the older girl decided to take a chance. She managed to unlock the door. They'd just left the house to hunt for Mommy when we found them. They wouldn't a lasted half an hour in this storm. Wait a minute.”

Jenny heard the phone being moved and then two small voices were saying, “Hello, Mommy.” Mark's arms held her tightly as she sobbed, “Mouse. Tinker Bell. I love you. I love you.”

A
pril broke over Minnesota like a godhead of plenty. The red haze haloed the trees as tiny buds began to form, waiting to burst into bloom. Deer ran from the woods; pheasants strutted on the roads; cattle wandered far into the pastures; the ground softened and snow melted down into the furrows, nourishing the spring crops as they pushed their way to the surface.

Beth and Tina began to ride again, Beth straight and careful, Tina always ready to give her pony a kick and send him racing. Jenny rode on Fire Maid beside Beth; Joe rode close to Tina.

Jenny could not get enough of being with the children: of being able to kiss the soft cheeks, hold the sturdy little hands, hear the prayers, answer the endless questions. Or listen to the frightened confidences. “Daddy scared me so much. He used to put his hands on my face like this. He looked so funny.”

For so long she had wanted to go back to New York, to leave this place. Dr. Philstrom warned her against it. “Those ponies are the best therapy for the children.”

“I cannot spend another night in this house.”

Mark had provided the answer: the schoolhouse on the west end of his property that years before he'd converted for himself. “When Dad moved to Florida I took over the farmhouse and rented this place, but it's been empty for six months.”

It was charming, with two bedrooms, a roomy kitchen, a quaint parlor, small enough that when Tina cried out in terror-filled dreams, Jenny could be at her side instantly. “I'm here, Tinker Bell. Go back to sleep.”

She told Luke of her plans to turn over Krueger Farm to the Historical Society.

“Be sure, Jenny,” he told her. “It's worth a fortune and God knows you earned the right to have it.”

“There's plenty for me without it. And I could never live there again.” She closed her eyes against the memory of the bassinette in the attic, the panel behind the headboard, the owl sculpture, the portrait of Caroline.

Rooney visited frequently, proudly driving the car Clyde had bought her, a contented Rooney who no longer needed to wait home in case Arden chose to return. “You can accept anything, Jenny, if you have to. Not knowing is the worst torture.”

The people of Granite Place came calling. “It's about time we welcomed you here, Jenny.” Most of them added: “We're so sorry, Jenny.” They brought cuttings and seeds for her.

Her fingers in the soft, moist earth as she planted her garden.

The sound of the comfortably shabby station wagon in the driveway. The girls running to meet Uncle Mark. The joyful awareness that like the earth she too was ready for a new season, a new beginning.

Â© Bernard Vidal

M
ARY
H
IGGINS
C
LARK
is the author of thirty-one worldwide bestsellers and a memoir. There are more than eighty million copies of her books in print. She lives in Saddle River, New Jersey.

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BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK

Nighttime Is My Time

The Second Time Around

Mount Vernon Love Story

Daddy's Little Girl

On the Street Where You Live

Before I Say Good-Bye

We'll Meet Again

All Through the Night

You Belong to Me

Pretend You Don't See Her

My Gal Sunday

Moonlight Becomes You

Silent Night

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

The Lottery Winner

Remember Me

I'll Be Seeing You

All Around the Town

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

The Anastasia Syndrome & Other Stories

While My Pretty One Sleeps

Weep No More, My Lady

Stillwatch

A Cry in the Night

The Cradle Will Fall

A Stranger Is Watching

Where Are the Children?

BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK
AND CAROL HIGGINS CLARK

The Christmas Thief

He Sees You When You're Sleeping

Deck the Halls

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.