Demon Child (16 page)

    Jenny spent the day in her room, reading, except for two excursions into the kitchen to talk with Anna and to run minor raids on the refrigerator. She did her nails, pleased that most of the damage she had done to them was now hardly noticeable.

    At half past five o'clock, the storm was imminent, the clouds rolling and very low, the distant rumble of thunder always growing closer. The leaves of the trees whipped back from the branches, undersides showing a lighter green.

    Walter went into town to attend to some private business of his own a few minutes after six. He said he would take his dinner in a restaurant. The house seemed lonelier when he was gone, vacant and hollow. Jenny was in a much better temper when he was here, even if she did not encounter him. Just to
know
he was close at hand was sufficient.

    At twenty minutes past six, Harold prepared to serve dinner to the twins and went to knock on their door to tell them to come downstairs. It was then that he discovered Freya was not in the bedroom where she should have been cleaning up for dinner. Frank had not seen her since he had gone to take his own shower at a quarter to six.

    At six thirty, Harold had finished looking in all the other rooms on the second floor, disturbing both Jenny and Cora, though he did not tell them what the matter was. He had served too many years in domestic situations to be so flighty as to frighten everyone before he had checked everything out himself.

    At six-thirty-five, he had checked the third floor rooms, the unused and cobwebbed chambers now turned over to dust and spiders. Freya was nowhere about, and when he came down he took care to lock the door that went up there, for it had not been locked when he had first tried it.

    At six-forty-one, he had looked into all the ground floor rooms, had asked Anna if she had seen the child, and went to the front of the house to survey the grounds. Anna had not seen her.

    At six-fifty, he was on his way back from the stables. He had still not found any sign of her, and all of the horses were there, including the pony which the children rode.

    It was four minutes before seven when he rapped on Cora's door, winced at her exhausted expression when she answered it.

    “Yes, Harold?”

    “Bad news, Ma'am.”

    “And that is?”

    “Freya's missing.”

    Shortly thereafter, all six of them were combing the house for places that Harold might have overlooked, closets and pantries. And even though the basement entrance was always kept locked, they went down there, in that place of fruit cellars and cold storage chambers, much of it hewn out of massive blocks of limestone upon which the foundation rested.

    They called for her.

    She did not answer.

    They made Frank list the places on the grounds where the two of them most enjoyed playing together.

    She was not to be found in any of these places.

    Jenny fervently wished that Walter had not gone to town, that he could be here with them now, offering his intelligent suggestions and making the disappearance seem like nothing more extraordinary than the sun rising in the morning. She needed the aura of stability that he projected. Especially when she was forced, again and again during the course of the search, into Richard's company.

    When they met back at the house after exploring the immediate grounds, thunder filled the sky and the first bolts of white lightning tore open the clouds and stabbed at the earth. It had not yet begun to rain, but the full force of the storm would smash down upon them at any moment.

    “Where could she be?” Cora asked. She wrung her hands together, twisting white knuckles through white knuckles.

    “The woods,” Richard said.

    “How do you know?”

    “It's the only place left. If she isn't in the woods, then she's off the property somewhere. I can't picture her climbing the fence or the main gate. She's got to be on the estate somewhere.”

    “But why?” Cora asked. “It makes no sense. Why would she want to run away from us?”

    “We'll know when we find her,” Richard said. He turned to Harold. “Get my raincoat, boots, and a hat of some sort that will keep the rain off me. I'll start with the woods behind the house.”

    “Can I help?” Jenny volunteered. Truthfully, she did not want to leave the warmth and safety of the house-especially not in a thunderstorm and especially not to search the dim forests for a child that claimed she was demon-possessed. But, again, Leona Pitt Brighton's teaching got the upper hand of the young woman's fear. Trouble only grew worse if you ran away from it-and only receded when you faced it down.

    “We'll see,” Richard said. “I'll check out the nearest woods. If she isn't there, if she has run farther than that, we're going to need all the help we can get.”

    “The police?” Cora asked.

    “Very possibly,” Richard said. “But let me check near the house, first.”

    Harold returned with the rain clothes, which Richard quickly put on. He went to the kitchen, with the rest of them following, and out the back door. As he started down the long lawn, the storm broke with much lightning, much thunder, and sheets of rain that nearly obscured him.

    They watched him as he skirted the copse of pines. He poked in the clumps of milkweed and mountain laurel, rhododendron and snake vine. Now and then, they could hear the wind-drowned wail of his voice as he called the girl's name. When he was satisfied that she was not to be found along the periphery, he entered the shadows there and was lost to sight.

    Lightning struck down and illuminated the lawn. The grass was changed from summer green to a dull gray under that intense glare. The pines threw impossibly long shadows that arced halfway up the lawn, advancing in the instant, gone as the lightning died.

    Should she have gone with Richard? Jenny wondered. Should she have insisted? She did not think it was altogether safe for him to go after the child alone. She remembered the telephone conversation, the talk of drugs and killers. Since so much of this ordeal centered around Freya, wasn't it likely that Richard's schemes also revolved around her? If so, would he harm her to achieve his goals, whatever they were?

    Why hadn't she told the police about his odd behavior these last couple of weeks? Why had she waited until now, when Freya needed all the friends she could get, to even consider such a thing?

    Thunder exploded above the house.

    A terrible thought took form in her mind, an idea so evil and unthinkable that it terrified her, galvanized her to the spot so that she could not have taken a step if the roof had been f ailing in on her.

    
What if Richard was responsible for Freya's disappearance? What if his nebulous schemes involved harming the child
-
and she had already suffered that harm?

    He might be out there in a great show of concern, getting drenched and cutting himself on the thorned blackberry bushes that grew among the trees-and all the while, it would be a show he was putting on for their benefit. Later, he would point to how concerned he had been, to how he had been first to plunge into the woods in search of the lost child.

    She wanted to tell the others, but she didn't dare. She felt, now, more in a house of strangers than at any other point in this visit.

    Time passed interminably slowly. Every minute was an hour. She found herself looking at her watch again and again, every three and four minutes, sure that an eternity had passed, hopeful that it was a reasonable time to expect to see Richard and Freya walking back from the woods. But every time she glanced up from the numerals on the face of that watch, there was no one on the lawn, nothing moving out there but the rain.

    They had been at the kitchen windows and door, straining their eyes, for fifteen minutes, when Walter Hobarth entered the kitchen from the front of the house. It was only shortly after eight o'clock.

    “The gentleman I went to see wasn't home,” he explained as they turned to stare at him, still a little dazed from the events of the last two hours. “I had supper at a restaurant since I had said I was going to. That's a miserable storm!”

    “Freya's missing,” Harold said.

    The rest of them just stared. We look like a bunch of zombies, Jenny thought. And she tried to smile and look more human for him.

    “Missing?”

    “I went to tell the children supper was ready,” Harold explained, “and she was gone.”

    “What time was that?”

    “Twenty after six. I remember it perfectly.”

    “You've checked the house, of course.”

    “Right away,” Cora said. Her voice trembled, and her eyes were watery. “We should have moved before this, Walter. We should have gotten out of this house this morning, like you said. If anything happens to her, it's all my fault. All mine!”

    “Nonsense!” Walter snapped. His tone of voice was so unnaturally sharp and loud for him that he stopped her completely. She looked dazed. “That fault lies entirely with me for not having a solid enough understanding of the child. If I had been on my toes, I might have seen this coming.”

    “But I'm the one-” Cora began.

    “Oh, be quiet, Cora!” he said, pretending to be distracted. “If it were your fault, I'd gladly let you take the blame. I never have believed in babying people.”

    Jenny saw that he was making a conscious effort to be sharp with Cora and that he had not truly lost his temper. He realized what a state the older woman was in, and he took the surest path to calming her.

    “Did you check the stables?” he asked Harold.

    Harold said that he had, explained the steps of the search in detail. As he was finishing, Richard returned, having crossed the lawn without being noticed now that their attention was directed elsewhere.

    “Not a sign of her,” he told them.

    “What can we do now?” Cora asked.

    “Call the police,” Richard said. “And a few of the neighbors. It will be a second boost to their status to be invited here twice in a week's time. The buffoons will get a kick out of it, even if we find her too late.”

    “Too late?” Jenny asked. She heard her questions as if someone else had asked it, distant and doubtful.

    “There's a wolf out there, remember,” Richard said.

    “Oh, my God!” Cora gasped.

    “We haven't heard it for several days,” Walter pointed out. “Not since the night of the hunt. It's probably been scared off.”

    “Do you want to take that chance?” Richard asked. Water pooled on the kitchen tile at his feet.

    “Of course not!” Walter replied. “I'm for mounting a search right away. But I don't think we should raise all these unnecessary fears in the women. No purpose served by it.”

    Richard did not reply to that. Instead, he turned to Harold and rattled off the names of men he wanted called to comprise the search party. Just as he finished the list, Walter said, “Wait a minute! I might have something. Damn stupid of me not to thrnk of it sooner.”

    “What's that?” Richard asked.

    “From the sessions in the library, when Freya's hypnotized. She talks about the limestone sinkholes up in the northeast part of the estate. She says that is where the wolf drags some of its prey and eats it and where, one day, it'll drag a man and devour him. It's all very gory and unpleasant, but she believes it.”

    “She never told
me.”

    It was a small voice, piped up from the corner next to the ultraviolet wall oven. Frank stood there, small and frightened.

    “What did you say, darling?” Cora asked.

    “She never told me about the sinkholes, about the wolf liking to go there.”

    “Maybe she forgot, dear,” Cora said. She crossed the room to him, stooped and hugged him to her.

    “She told me everything. She wouldn't have forgotten to tell me that,” he said, starting to bawl now.

    “More than likely, she didn't forget,” Walter said. “You see, this came out under hypnosis. It was probably a subconscious fragment of her systematic delusions, one she was not consciously aware of to any extent. Therefore, she couldn't have told him.”

    “I'll go up on horse,” Richard said. “It's half an hour walking, less than a third of that on horseback.”

    “I'll go with you,” Hobarth said. “It'll take two of us to search all those holes and cavelets.”

    “Me too,” Jenny said.

    “Definitely not,” Walter said. “It's pneumonia weather. “Richard and I can manage it alone.”

    “Come on then,” Richard said.

    'I'll call Malmont and have him out here to treat the child,” Walter said. “I'll explain the situation so he knows what we'll need. Then I'll run upstairs and get my boots. You go ahead, and I'll follow you.”

    Richard stepped outside, closed the door and went around the house toward the stables.

    Walter telephoned Dr. Malmont and briefly explained the nature of the excitement. He hung up, took the stairs two at a time, found his boots after a minute or two of searching for them in all the wrong places, and came back down, buttoning his raincoat.

    “Harold, do you know if Richard had a gun with him?”

    “What will you need a gun for?” Cora asked, hugging Frank to her skirts as they all stood in the front hallway.

    “Just in case,” Walter said.

    “The wolf isn't-”

    “I didn't say it was.”

    “He doesn't have one on him now,” Harold said. “But he keeps a rifle in the stable, in a case beside Tulip's stall. He'll more than likely think of it. If he doesn't, take it for him when you follow. The shells are in a box in the metal drawer below the case.”

    “Good enough.” He turned and walked to the front door, opened it and let in the whipping, booming, lightning-shot storm.