A Shadow Fell (4 page)
7
By
Saturday
afternoon
I was frantic. T
here was no longer
a shred of doubt that something dire had happened
.
It didn’t help that
there had been nothing reported by any of the police agencies that had been issued a BOLO alert.
Tom Kilborn called around
dinnertime
on Saturday
. He told
me the
re were no
report
s
involving a
n accident of a
motor home along their route
,
hospitals and emergency shelters
had been checked, and
none of our credit cards had been used.
I could
n’t sit still any longer
.
I
walked through the woods and
called on our nearest neighbor, a
hermit-like guy I had only nodded hello to a couple of times
. Without giving him any details about what was going on I
asked if he’d look after Winston for a few days. “Not a problem
,”
h
e said.
“Leave ‘im with me
for
as long as ya want.”
I threw a few clothes and other necessities in a bag and just after
sunrise
Sunday
morning I hit the road
. I was going to trace
every inch of
Callie and Tanya’s
route.
Somebody, somewhere had to have seen something.
From home I connected up to Highway 121 wh
ich
would eventually intersect with I-75. The country here was heavily
treed
and meandered through a lot of quaint little towns. My idea was to stop at gas stations
, diners, roadside attractions
, or
any
where
else th
ey
might have
been inclined to call on. I would
speak with anyone who might have seen the motor home during the
first day of their departure.
Callie
would have needed gas sometime before reaching
Fayetteville
,
North Carolina
,
and as there was no evidence she had used a credit card,
my emphasis was going to be given to the approximate three hundred and seventy-five mile
stretch
north of home.
I had to hope that although the
RV
was a common sight in this part of the country, someone would remember a very attractive woman travelling with a
n adorable
six-year-old girl. It was a long shot I knew, but it was the only shot I had.
With an
endless
number of places to stop and check, my progress was
painfully slow
. The people I spoke with were, in
many cases, not the ones that were
working at the time Callie and Tanya
would have come
through. Add to that the fact that motor homes were an extremely popular form of transportation in the
southeastern states
and my chances of meeting with success in my search were pitifully remote.
But if I could make even one confirmed sighting, I reasoned, I
would be f
u
rther ahead than I was now.
I got a
break
just out of
Savanna, Georgia, late in the
morning
. We had travelled through here on our return from our last trip and I remembered a little roadside
joint
that advertised
thirty-two
different flavors of ice cream. Tanya had made a big noise about stopping to get a treat and we had indulged her. She had befriended the old fellow who
served her
and we practically had to force him to accept payment from us. It occurred to me now that it was very likely Callie might be inclined to stop here again.
As I entered the little store the same old guy was behind the counter and he looked up and smiled at me.
“
I
don’t suppose you remember me from
about six weeks
ago
,” I said
.
“
My wife and I and our six-year-old daughter stopped here in February.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he
replied
. “I see a fair number of folks come through here in the course of a month. Was there a problem?”
“No,” I assured him. “I was just hoping you might have seen my wife and daughter again in the last few days.
T
hey’re missing. They were travelling from our home in Florida up to Maine
in our motor home
and
I haven’t
---”
“Wait,” he said. “
D
riving a motor home
you say
.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“One of those big diesel rigs, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, sure,” he said. “They
stopped here … let’s see, three, no
four days ago as I recall. Your little girl mentioned she had been here before on their way back from
their last holiday.
”
“You’re sure it was them?” I asked. “My wife is tall, very pretty, with dark hair. My daughter has blond hair that was probably in
a ponytail
.”
“Y
es
, that sounds like them all right.”
“Did my wife say anything unusual? Indicate that they were having any kind of problem at all?”
“No, sir, she didn’t. Everything seemed entirely normal as I recall.”
“Did you see them pull back out on the highway?”
He thought for a moment before he answered. “Yeah, I did. I remember watching her
be
cause it was kind of unusual for a woman to be driving a big
vehicle
like that
all
on her own.”
“She headed north?”
“That’s right.” A thoughtful look came over him. “You know,” he said, “now that I think about it there was something a little strange that happened right about then.”
I prompted him to continue.
“There was a car had pulled over just across the road
,
sheltered
under the trees
. The driver didn’t get out, just sat there. But he
took off
very soon after
your wife left. I remember thinking it was almost like he was following them.”
I
shuddered at the thought
of
what this meant.
On the one hand
I
was encourag
ed
to be making some headway but
,
on the other, it provided very strong evidence that my family was indeed in terrible trouble.
“
A man was driving?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m sure it was a man.”
“
Can you describe
him
?” I asked, the anxiety in my voice very apparent.
“Geez,” he said, “I
’m sorry. I didn’t see him well
at all
.”
“What about the car he was driving?”
The old fellow squinted in concentration. “I
can’t really remember it. I think maybe it was light colored and … maybe a mid-size or full-size. Definitely not a compact, I
’m sure of
that.”
“Did you notice a license plate?”
“No, sir,” he said. “I really didn’t get that good a look.
You know, i
t didn’t register that there was a problem.”
“
Is there a phone around here I could use
?”
“Sure, there’s a payphone right next door by the gas station,” he told me. “I sure hope everything turns out okay,” he added as I turned to leave.
“Me too,” I said
as I rushed out
.
8
I used the payphone to call Tom Kilborn. “Tom, I’m just north of Savannah, Georgia. I’ve
confirmed that Callie and Tanya were here Wednesday afternoon. It’s also possible she was being followed
by a man in a light colored full
-
size sedan.
That’s all the details I have.
”
“Okay, Jack. We’re on it
.
”
“
Callie
intended to take I-95 all the way up to Milford, Connecticut, s
o I figure whatever happened to them had to have happened between here and
Fayetteville, North Carolina,
because she
couldn’t have gotten any further than that without stopping for gas
.”
“Look, Jack, I don’t like
the fact that
you
’re
getting involved in this so deeply but I know I’d be wasting my time to try and talk you out of it. So do what you have to but
keep me apprised of
your every move
. And
b
e bloody careful.”
Walking back to my car
, the significance of
what was occurring hit home hard
. Until now I had been able to half fool myself into believing there was some
logical
, even
if unusual
,
explanation for why my family seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth.
But there was no kidding myself any longer.
I
couldn’t deny the very real possibility that
a
serial killer
– one of worst in American history - h
ad the two people I loved most in the world in his grasp.
How he had been able to
do
it didn’t matter
.
H
e had done it.
I prayed to a
God
I really didn’t believe in that, by some miracle, they had been spared
, t
hat
they were still alive.
Maybe Callie had been able to overpower him but was now stranded somewhere.
A
s
hard
as I tried to convince myself that such a possibility existed, I could not truly accept
the concept
as a reality. Henderson’s history simply did not lend itself to such a likelihood.
There was
at that moment
only one thing I knew with
absolute
certainty.
I
f he had harmed my family in any way I
would find
him
and, when I did, he would suffer as much pain as it was possible for me to inflict
up
on him.
Then I would kill him.
