All Around the Town (34 page)

FIFTEEN MINUTES after he spoke to Sarah, Justin Donnelly left his office to drive to Connecticut for the seminar he was attending. As he passed his secretary, he noticed the open magazine on her desk. He happened to glance at one of the pictures in the spread, and his blood ran cold. He grabbed the magazine. That heavy tree. The house was gone but the chicken coop in the rear... The caption read: "Site of the home from which Reverend Hawkins launched his ministry."

Justin raced back to his office and from Laurie's file grabbed the reconstructed picture and held it next to the one in the magazine. The tree, heavier in this new picture, but with that same gnarled, wide trunk; the edge of the chicken coop in the old picture, exactly the same as the side of the now-visible structure. The stone wall that ran beside the tree.

He raced from the clinic. His car was parked on the street. He'd call Sarah from the car phone. In his mind he could see the television program and the Reverend Bobby Hawkins praying over Thomasina Perkins, praying that she would be able to name the people who had abducted Lee.

IN TEANECK, Betty Moody happily settled down to read the new issue of People magazine. An unusually relaxed Brendon was taking a couple of days off. His lip curled when he saw the picture of the Hawkinses on the cover. "Can't stand those two," he muttered as he looked over her shoulder. "What did they find to write about them?"

Betty flipped the pages to the cover story. "Sweet Jesus," Moody muttered as he read: "Bic and Opal, the would-be rock stars..."

"What's the matter with me?" Brendon shouted. "It was plain as the nose on my face." He dashed for the foyer, stopping only long enough to grab his gun from the drawer.

Chapter
112

SARAH SAT at Betsy Lyons's desk and analyzed the Kenyon-Hawkins file. "The first time Carla Hawkins came into this office was after our place went on the market," Sarah commented.

"But I didn't show it to her immediately."

"How did you happen to show it to her?"

"She was going through the book and noticed it."

"Did you ever leave her alone in our house?"

"Never," Lyons bristled.

"Mrs. Lyons, a knife disappeared from our kitchen around the end of January. I see Carla Hawkins was looking at the house several times just before that. It isn't easy to steal a carving knife from a wall bracket unless you have at least a little time alone. Do you remember if you left her in the kitchen by herself?"

Lyons bit her lip. "Yes," she said reluctantly. "She dropped her glove in Laurie's room, and I left her sitting in the kitchen while I retrieved it."

"All right. Something else. Isn't it pretty unusual for people not to bargain on the price of a house?"

"You were lucky, Sarah, to get that price in this market."

"I'm not sure about how much luck is involved. Isn't it highly unusual to offer to close, then allow the former owners to stay on until they decide to move and not even charge them rent?"

"It's extraordinary."

"I'm not surprised. One last observation. Look at these dates. Mrs. Hawkins often came out on Saturday around eleven."

"Yes."

"That was just the time Laurie was in therapy," Sarah said quietly, "and they knew it." The chicken head that had so terrified Laurie. The knife. The picture in her journal. Those people in and out of the house with the boxes that hardly weighed a pound. Laurie's insistence on going back to the clinic the night she came home, right after the Hawkinses had stopped by. And... The pink house! Sarah thought. Carla Hawkins mentioned it that night I had dinner with them.

"Mrs. Lyons, did you ever tell Mrs. Hawkins that the corner house on our street used to be a garish pink?"

"I didn't know it had been pink."

She grabbed the phone. "I have to call home." Gregg Bennett answered.

"Gregg, I'm glad you're there. Make sure you stay with Laurie."

"She's not here," Gregg said. "I'd hoped she was with you. Sarah, Brendon Moody is here. Justin is on his way out. Sarah, the Hawkinses are the people who abducted Laurie. Justin and Moody are sure of it. Where is Laurie?"

With a certainty that went beyond reason, Sarah knew. "The house," she said. "I'm going to the house."

Chapter
113

LAURIE DROVE down the familiar street, resisting the impulse to floor the accelerator. There were children playing on the lawn of one of the houses. Years ago Mama hadn't allowed her out front alone because of that boy who drove so fast.

Sarah. A twisted ankle isn't so bad, she tried to tell herself. But it wasn't that. There was something terribly wrong. She knew it. She'd sensed it all day.

She steered the car from the street into the driveway. Already the house seemed different. Mama's blue tieback draperies and scalloped shades had been so pretty. The Hawkinses had replaced them with blinds that, when closed, were totally black on the outside, giving the house a shuttered, un welcoming look. Now it reminded her of another house, a dark, closed house where terrible things happened.

She hurried across the driveway, along the walk, up the porch steps to the door. An intercom had been installed. She must have been seen, because as she touched the bell she heard a woman say, "The door is unlocked. Come in."

She turned the handle, stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind her. The foyer, usually brightened by the light from the adjoining rooms, was now in semidarkness. Laurie blinked and looked around. There was no sound. "Sarah," she called. "Sarah."

"We're in your old room, waiting for you," a voice responded from a distance.

She began to climb the stairs, at first quickly, then with dragging footsteps.

Perspiration broke out on her forehead. The hand that clung to the railing became soaking wet, leaving a damp trail on the banister. Her tongue felt thick and dry. Her breathing became quick, short gasps. She was at the top of the stairs, turning down the hallway. The door to her room was closed.

"Sarah!" she called.

"Come in. Lee!" This time the man's voice was impatient, as impatient as it used to be long ago when she didn't want to obey the command to go upstairs with him.

Despairingly she stood outside the bedroom door. She knew Sarah was not there. She had always known that someday they'd be waiting for her. Someday was now.

The door swung inward, opened by Opal. Her eyes were cold and hostile, just as they had been when Laurie first met her; a smile that was not a smile slashed her lips. Opal was wearing a short black skirt and a T-shirt that hugged her breasts. Her long, stringy dark hair, tousled and uncombed, hung limp on her shoulders. Laurie offered no resistance as Opal took her hand and led her across the room to where Bic was sitting in an old rocking chair, his feet bare, his shiny black chinos unbuttoned at the waist, his soiled T-shirt exposing his curly-haired arms. The dull gold earring in his ear swayed as he leaned forward, reaching out for her. He took her hands in his, made her stand before him, a truant child. A scrap of pink material was on his knee. Her bathing suit. The only light was from the night-light in the floor socket that Mama had always left on because Laurie was so afraid of the dark.

The loud thoughts were shrieking in her head.

An angry voice, scolding. You little fool, you shouldn't have come.

A child crying, Don't make me do it.

A boy's voice yelling. Run. Run.

A weary voice saying. It's time to die for all the bad things we did.

"Lee," Bic sighed. "You forgot your promise, didn't you? You talked about us to that doctor."

"Yes."

"You know what's going to happen to you?"

"Yes."

"What happened to the chicken?"

"You cut its head off."

"Would you rather punish yourself?"

"Yes."

"Good girl. Do you see the knife?"

He pointed to the corner. She nodded.

"Pick it up and come back to me."

The voices shouted at her as she walked across the room: Don't!

Run.

Get it. Do what he says. We're both tramps and we know it.

Closing her palm around the handle of the knife, she returned to him. She flinched at the vision of the chicken flopping at her feet. It was her turn.

He was so close to her. His breath was hot on her face. She had known that someday she would walk into a room and find him just like this, in the rocking chair.

His arms closed around her. She was on his lap, her legs dangling, his face brushing hers. He began to rock back and forth, back and forth. "You have been my temptation," he whispered. "When you die you will free me. Pray for forgiveness as we sing the beautiful song we always sang together. Then you will get up, kiss me goodbye, walk to the corner, put the knife against your heart and plunge it in. If you disobey, you know what I have to do to you."

His voice was deep but soft as he began, "'Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound...'"

The rocking chair thudded back and forth on the bare floor. "Sing, Lee," he ordered sternly.

"'That saved a wretch like me...'" His hands were caressing her shoulders, her arms, her neck. In a minute it will be all over, she promised herself. Her soprano voice rose clear and sweet. "'I once was lost, but now am found... was blind but now I see.'" Her fingers pressed the blade of the knife against her heart.

We don't have to wait, Leona urged. Do it now.

Chapter
114

JUSTIN DROVE FROM New York to New Jersey as fast as he dared, all the while trying to reassure himself that Laurie was safe. She was going directly home and meeting Gregg there. But there had been something about her this morning that troubled him. Resignation. That was the word. Why?

As soon as he'd reached the car he'd tried to phone Sarah to warn her about the Hawkinses, but there was no answer at the condo. Every ten minutes he pressed the redial button.

He had just started north on Route 17 when the phone was answered. Gregg was in the condo. Sarah was out, he told Justin. He expected Laurie any minute.

"Don't let Laurie out of your sight," Justin commanded. "The Hawkinses were her abductors. I'm certain of it."

"Hawkins! That son of a bitch!"

Gregg's outrage sharpened Justin's awareness of the enormous suffering Laurie had endured. All these months Hawkins had been circling around her, terrorizing her, trying to drive her into madness. He pressed his foot on the pedal. The car shot forward.

He was turning off Route 17 at the Ridgewood Avenue exit when the car phone rang.

It was Gregg. "I'm with Brendon Moody. Sarah thinks Laurie may be with Hawkins in the old house. We're on the way to it."

"I was only there twice. Give me directions."

As Gregg spat them out, Justin remembered the way. Around the railroad station, past the drugstore, straight on Godwin, left on Lincoln...

He didn't dare speed as he passed Graydon Pool. It was crowded, and families with young children were crossing the street, heading toward it.

An image came to Justin of a fragile Laurie confronting the monster who had kidnapped her when she was a four-year-old child in a pink bathing suit.

Chapter
115

LAURIE'S BUICK was in the driveway. Sarah rushed from her car up the porch steps. She rang the bell repeatedly, then twisted the knob. The door was unlocked. As she pushed it open and ran into the foyer, she heard a door slam somewhere on the second floor.

"Laurie," she called.

Carla Hawkins, her blond hair disheveled, tying a robe as she came down the stairs, said frantically, "Sarah, Laurie came in a few minutes ago carrying a knife. She's threatening to kill herself. Bobby is talking her out of it. You mustn't startle her. Stay here with me."

Sarah pushed her aside and bounded up the stairs. At the top she looked around wildly. Down the hall the door to Laurie's room was closed. Her feet barely touched the floor as she rushed to it, then stopped. From inside she could hear the rise and fall of a man's voice. With painstaking care she opened the door.

Laurie was standing in the corner, staring blankly at Bobby Hawkins. She was holding the blade of a knife against her heart. The tip had already penetrated her flesh, and a trickle of blood was staining her blouse.

Hawkins was wrapped in a floor-length white terry-cloth robe, his hair loose and full. "You must do only what the Lord wants of you," he was saying. "Remember what is expected of you."

He's trying to make her kill herself, Sarah thought. Laurie, in a trancelike state, was unaware of her. Sarah was afraid to make a sudden move toward her. "Laurie," she said softly. "Laurie, look at me." Laurie's hand pushed the blade a fraction deeper.

"All sins must be punished," Hawkins said, his voice a hypnotic singsong. "You must not sin again."

Sarah saw the look of finality that came over Laurie's face. "Laurie, don't," she screamed. "Laurie, don't!"

THE VOICES shrieking at her.

Lee was yelling. Stop.

Debbie was crying in terror.