Exposure (13 page)

I start to hum.


My next clear memory is Doc telling me I need to wake up so I can tell him if the temporary crowns feel okay. All of a sudden, I’m coming out of the drug haze. Just like that.


Wow. This is
crazy.
“What time’s it?”


“Almost twelve.”


Twelve
!
Four hours
in that chair?!


Tricia leaves work to come get me. Doc’s assistant holds my arm as I get out of the chair. I say I’m fine. Except that a wall shifts on me — just a little. Which makes me giggle. “Doc, yurr bread’s the best thing since sliced drugs.”


Tricia guides me out the door. To life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am so relieved, I could cry.


For one glorious morning — in the dentist’s chair of all places — I discovered what it felt like to be fearless. I can’t begin to tell you how freeing that was. Like floating. Like I could do anything.
Anything.


I’m going to get that freedom back. Somehow. Without drugs.


With that kind of power I could spit in the face of my worst fear come true.


Lorraine huddled in the black closet, clutching Tammy to her chest. Her arms had nearly gone numb from battling the little girl, and her leg muscles shook. Tammy now hung limp and sweating, her breath in a shallow pant. Terror squeezed Lorraine’s lungs. The sounds she’d heard from the living room and hall rattled in her head. Voices, running, someone crashing into a wall. Then a noise — twice — muted through two closed doors and all the clothes. Like a metallic
smack
.

Gunshots?
Shock raced through her veins.

No, couldn’t be. They were arguing, and one of them knocked a chair over. Something like that.

Finally — silence.

She cocked her head, trying to listen above the whoosh of blood in her ears. Was that voices she heard? Calmer now, quiet. Or was she just imagining them?

“
Stay here until I come get you.
” Lorraine clung to Martin’s words. He would come any minute now. Any minute.

Lorraine waited.

If only she’d thought to bring Tammy’s stuffed bear in with them. It would have been such a comfort for Tammy.

Dread mushroomed in Lorraine’s chest, and Tammy grew heavier and heavier. The air gelled, too stale to breathe. She had no idea how much time had passed. Ten minutes? Thirty? Four times she started to push up, but each time caution overcame her. What if Martin and that man were still in the living room? What if she or Martin or Tammy paid some great price for her own impatience?

Lorraine waited until she could wait no longer. Until she’d convinced herself that far too much time had passed in silence. The man had to be long gone.

But where was Martin?

Deep within her, dark voices whispered of a nightmare too terrible to imagine. She closed her heart, refusing to listen.

“Tammy.” Her dry throat could barely form words. “We’re going out now. I need you to be quiet. Can you do that?”

Tammy whimpered and nodded. Guilt swept through Lorraine. What she’d put her daughter through. Tammy would have nightmares for weeks.

Lorraine lowered the little girl to the floor. Her own leg muscles were too weak to crab-walk out, carrying the weight of a four-year-old. Tammy cried and grabbed fistfuls of her shirt. “No, no.”

“I’m right here. I’ll keep a hand on you. We’ll go out together.”

Gripping Tammy’s arm, Lorraine crawled over shoes and toys, urging her daughter along. She ducked under hanging clothes, the bottoms of shirts and pants sweeping over her head. She could smell her own sweat, her half-asleep feet prickling.

She lifted a hand, feeling for the door. When it hit wood, she ran her fingers upward, seeking the knob. The door opened, flooding in light and fresh air. Lorraine blinked and sucked in a greedy breath, oxygen burning in her lungs.

Together they crawled out of the closet.

Lorraine tried to stand, but her stiff legs wouldn’t obey. She sank down hard on the carpet. Then listened.

No sound of men talking. Or movement.

The dark voices whispered in her head.

Grimacing, she pushed to her feet. “Tammy, stay here for a minute.”

“No!”

“Stay
here
.”

Lorraine made her way toward the door. Tammy sprang up and wrapped a little hand around her leg. Lorraine tried to unwind the fingers, but they dug into her skin. Tears bit her eyes. How was she supposed to do this?

She listened again but heard nothing. Martin must have gone somewhere with the man. It would be safe to go out there with Tammy. It had to be. The little girl wasn’t about to stay behind.

“Come on.” Lorraine reached down. “I’ll hold your hand.”

Tammy let go of her leg and hung on to her fingers.

At the bedroom door Lorraine gripped the handle and slowly, carefully turned. Somewhere along the way her hands started to tremble. She eased the door open an inch and pressed her ear to the crack.

No sound.

Pushing hair away from her face, she opened the door further. Lorraine nudged ahead of Tammy, leaned her head out the doorway, and looked toward the living room.

Martin sprawled on his back at the edge of the hall, both arms flung out. Blood streaked his face and covered his hair, puddling beneath his head.

Lorraine’s mind flew into a thousand pieces. She rushed forward, leaving Tammy behind. At her husband’s side she fell to her knees. A black, bloody hole gaped in Martin’s jaw, a second in his forehead. She gripped his shoulders, shaking, shaking. “Martin.
Martin!
” His head lolled in rhythm with her yanks, the eyelids half open and unmoving. Beneath them lay nothing but cold frosted glass.

“Daddyyyy!” Tammy ran up the hall and threw herself down next to Martin’s head, smearing blood on her pink pajama pants, her arms. The sight was too horrific to bear. Lorraine shoved up and wrenched Tammy away. The little girl kicked and screamed, loud, long shrieks that sizzled in Lorraine’s brain.

She craned her head toward Martin. He didn’t move.

No
,
no
,
no
,
no
,
no.

The world tilted. It was falling through space and Lorraine had to get off. Clutching Tammy in her arms, she tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. An unseen force shoved at the small of her back. She stumbled past Martin onto the carpet, through the living room. The front door bulged and contracted as if sucked by a giant wind. An eternity passed before Lorraine reached it. Tammy wailed in her ear as she fumbled for the knob, her seizuring fingers unable to turn it. Three times her hand slipped off, the voices in her head shrieking accusations. She’d known, she’d heard, and she’d
sat in the closet
,
too afraid to come out.

Lorraine’s palm gripped the handle. She flung the door back and burst out into the fresh and sunny April day, screaming.

By the time Kaycee finished her column at eleven-thirty her nerves hummed. Half her consciousness had fixed upon the phone, praying for a call about Hannah. And the weight of watching eyes never lessened.

As she saved the column, Kaycee steeled herself. She eyed the monitor, anger kicking around in her belly. If the dead man showed up again, she wanted proof. Kaycee pulled her camera from the bottom desk drawer and turned it on. She held it in her left hand, a finger on the button — and closed Word.

The fiery sunset appeared.

Kaycee exhaled and put down the camera. But she left it on. It would turn off by itself in a few minutes.

She pulled up her email program, groaning at all the new messages. Reader mail. Most of it would be positive —
Thank you for opening your soul to me in such a humorous yet poignant way. Thank you for helping me face my own fears. You are so courageous.

Yeah, right.

Kaycee emailed the new column to her syndicate, then turned off the computer. There. No more chances of a dead man on the screen.

She replaced her camera in the bottom drawer.

Motion outside the window caught her eye. Kaycee saw Mrs. Foley weeding the flower bed in her side yard. She wore faded orange sweatpants and a bright green T-shirt, a yellow bandana holding gray frazzled hair out of her eyes.

“I asked Kaycee if I could live with her
,
but she said no. So I’m leaving.”

Kaycee stared at Mrs. Foley. Once Hannah had run off into the night, wouldn’t the darkness have petrified her? Maybe she’d tried to run here after all . . .

Kaycee jumped up and headed for the front door. Outside she crossed her porch toward Mrs. Foley’s house.

Watching eyes followed.

She whirled around, gaze flicking left and right. Every part of her body tingled. She saw the black barn across the way, the emptiness of her own street. A slight breeze ruffled the yellow flowers of a forsythia bush in a neighbor’s yard. Everything looked so peaceful on a beautiful spring day.

She knew better. They were there, somewhere.

Hands fisting, Kaycee turned back toward Mrs. Foley and stepped off the side of her porch. She crossed over to her neighbor’s lawn. “Mrs. Foley?”

The elderly woman shuffled around on her knees. The back of one bony hand wiped against her chin. With beady eyes, a large nose, and hollow cheeks, she looked like a suspicious Muppet.

Kaycee ran a hand through her kinky hair. Mrs. Foley’s stare always made her feel like some exasperating child. “You know Hannah Parksley, the nine-year-old girl who comes over here a lot? She’s missing. I wonder if you saw her around my house last night.”

Mrs. Foley blinked twice. “How would I know who’s around your house?”

No reaction that a child was missing. What was wrong with this woman?

“I was just wondering if you happened to look out the window . . .”

“Don’t go peering out my windows at night. I have better things to do.”

“I
saw
you looking out your window last night when I drove in.”

Mrs. Foley sniffed. “You must be mistaken.”

Uh-huh. She’d no doubt watched Mark Burnett’s police car come and go as well. Probably knew exactly how long he’d been in Kaycee’s house.

“Mrs. Foley, Hannah is missing. The police think she may have tried to make it over here. If you saw her or anybody else around my house last night, they really need to know.”

“I
told
you I saw nothing. As for the child, I’m sure she’ll turn up. They usually do.”

With the raised chin of put-upon royalty, Mrs. Foley turned her back on Kaycee and resumed weeding.

Kaycee’s jaw clenched as she retraced her steps across the porch. Witchy old woman, rattling around in that big house of hers. Probably had corpses in the basement.

Back inside her office Kaycee called the police station. Hannah should have been found by now. What if someone had kidnapped her after she ran away? What if they’d hurt her? If she’d been kidnapped, every hour that passed decreased the odds of her safe return. Kaycee pressed thumb and fingers to her temples. She couldn’t think about that. It was too terrible.

On the fourth ring Emma Wooley, the police station’s administrative secretary, answered. The chief was out, but Mark Burnett hopped on the phone. “Kaycee, you hear something?”

The sound of his voice rustled through Kaycee like warm wind. “No. But I’ve stayed home long enough now. I want to help look for Hannah.”

“What did Chief tell you to do?”

“He said stay here for at least a couple hours. That’s passed. Hannah’s not going to show up here now. With everybody looking for her, she’s not walking the street in broad daylight. And she’s got my cell phone number.”

Mark sighed. “Okay. Come down. A friend of the Parksleys has printed up flyers. He and some other neighbors are taking them around. Maybe you can help.”

“Thanks, be there soon.” Kaycee’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten all morning.

“Hey.” Mark’s voice gentled. “How about you? You okay?”

Kaycee’s throat swelled. The softness in his tone betrayed his thoughts. He really did seem to be sorry for what he’d said at Chief Davis’s party. For a moment, she so wanted to tell him about her dream, the picture on her desktop . . .

Kaycee stared at her dark monitor. “I’m fine, Mark. Let’s just find Hannah.”

She hung up and hurried to her kitchen to pick up her overnight bag, still sitting by the door. Carrying it, she climbed the stairs to change her clothes. Kaycee felt eyes follow her every move, but she steeled herself against the fear. This was no time to give in. Hannah was still out there somewhere, and Kaycee was going to find her.

Lorraine slumped in an uncomfortable metal chair at the police station, Tammy on her lap. Her daughter was half asleep, worn out from crying and terror. The heat from her little body made Lorraine’s chest feel sweat-slicked and clammy. They sat in a small, grim room with one table, a couple more chairs. A round-faced, beefy detective with a badge that read Jim Tuckney had been questioning her for over an hour. He’d stepped out to talk to somebody. How long he’d been gone — it didn’t matter. Didn’t matter when she left here or where she went. She and Tammy had no life to go back to.