Since You've Been Gone (6 page)

“Anyway, I know a friend of Molly's who would probably be glad to come and stay with her. I'll give her a call.”

“I still think I should stay,” Rebecca protested.

“No, you shouldn't,” Clay said firmly. “I'm driving you to your house, and I want you to get a good night's sleep. You need it more than you realize.”

“All right,” Rebecca said reluctantly. Then she looked at Bill. “Before I go, there's something I have to tell you. It's the reason I had the wreck.” Bill's expression quickened. “I had a vision about Todd.”

“I knew it earlier when you asked about the bedroom window!” he said. “Tell me everything you saw.”

SATURDAY, 9:20 A.M.

The next morning Rebecca awakened disoriented and sore. Her head throbbed. She opened her puffy eyes, glanced around her former bedroom in the Ryan home, and closed her eyes again.

Her mind spun back to when she was nine and she and Daddy had been driving down a curving hillside road. Daddy always drove fast and they'd been singing along with the radio. She remembered being just about as happy as she'd ever been when she heard a noise like an explosion and suddenly they were plummeting down the hillside, rolling over and over. Daddy didn't make a sound. All she heard were her own screams and the sound of shattering glass. Then they landed upside down and rocked back and forth twice, the car creaking, before the world went dark.

The next thing Rebecca recalled from that time was a jolt that stiffened her body, arching her spine. Then shouting. “Again!” Another jolt. “Time?” “Four minutes.” “Again!” Another jolt. Then mechanical beeps. She'd opened her eyes and demanded, “Where's Daddy?”

Daddy—Patrick Richard Ryan—was dead. She'd already known he was gone forever: Before she'd blacked out in the car, she had seen his head twisted at that odd angle, the eyes open but flat, unseeing.

Mommy had just cried every time she looked at Rebecca's bruised, swollen face. It was Uncle Bill who'd explained that she'd had an operation. She'd only have a few scars, including a tiny facial one beside her right eye shaped like a crescent moon. She also had a few broken bones and she'd have to wear some uncomfortable casts, but in a couple of months she'd be her old self. Jonnie and Molly were too young to be allowed in for visits, he'd explained, but
they couldn't wait to see her. Daddy's best friend Frank Hardison was rushing home from a meeting in Pittsburgh, and he would help Mommy take care of the business, where he was already vice president. Soon she would be home and everything would be fine. The news didn't make up for losing Daddy, but she'd felt slightly cheered.

Then in the middle of one endless night when her broken ribs ached and she couldn't sleep, a pretty young nurse Rebecca liked had crept into her hospital room to check on her.

“Hi, sweetie. Can't sleep?” Rebecca shook her head, and the nurse made a soothing noise. After taking her pulse and jotting some notes on a chart, she held Rebecca's small hand in hers. “You like me and you'll tell me the truth about something, won't you?”

“I always tell the truth,” Rebecca said virtuously. “Well, almost always.”

“That's my good girl.” The nurse looked serious. “Before the doctors made your heart beat again, did you go down a tunnel?”

Rebecca was confused. “We didn't go in a tunnel. Daddy's car crashed down a hill.”

“I know that, honey, but your heart stopped after you got to the hospital. You were
dead
for four minutes. Didn't you know that?” Rebecca had gone rigid as the nurse leaned forward, her breath hot on Rebecca's face. “Were you drawn to the bright light at the end of a tunnel? Did you turn away from the light? Is that how you came back from the land of the dead?”

A chill had rippled through Rebecca and she was suddenly terrified of the pretty nurse she'd liked so much. “I didn't see a tunnel or a light and I wasn't
dead!
” Rebecca had hidden her horror behind loud petulance. “Don't touch me! Go away! Go
away!
”

The nurse had fled, afraid her supervisor would write her up for frightening the child, but her words had echoed in Rebecca's head: “You were
dead
for four minutes.” She'd fallen silent and refused to speak for two days until
she was released from the hospital. The nurses said they were disappointed. They'd thought she was such a sweet, brave little girl. But she hadn't felt sweet and she hadn't felt brave. She'd felt angry and terrified because she had died and come back like some creepy, awful being in a movie.

About a month after the accident she began having visions. They frightened her a little even though there was nothing scary about them. The first time she'd pictured one of her mother's earrings, missing for a month, in the toe of a pair of her evening shoes. A few more times she'd been able to locate lost items. She'd even found Molly's lost cat, Taffy. Then when she was twelve, she had “seen” a man standing unsteadily in a badly lit alley talking to someone named Slim. Rebecca didn't know the man. She didn't know Slim. She only knew Slim was a woman who'd said, “I hate you, Earl,” before she'd drawn a knife from her purse and stabbed the man over and over. That had been the Earl Tanner case. Some people said she was a hero for saving the innocent man who'd been arrested for the crime. Other people had been afraid of her. She'd been a little afraid of herself.

Rebecca opened her eyes and returned to the present, to her warm and beautiful bedroom in the Ryan home. During the night Sean had jumped up on the bed. He now touched her arm with a slender paw. She patted it, then gingerly turned her head to look at the clock. Nine-thirty. Why had the family allowed her to sleep so late on a day when Molly needed her?

As if on cue, someone tapped lightly on her door. Probably Betty, the housekeeper, who had greeted her and fussed over her last night. “Come in,” Rebecca called in a husky voice.

Her mother Suzanne took two steps into the room and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. “I'm sorry the dog's on the bed,” Rebecca said quickly.

“I don't care about the dog.” Suzanne drew nearer. She wore a pale blue silk robe and the tightened belt showed
how painfully thin she'd grown. Her silky blond hair was sprinkled with silver and her eyes were lost in mauve hollows. “Why on earth didn't you wake me when you got in last night?”

When Clay had dropped Rebecca off at the house, she'd been surprised when Betty said her mother was sleeping. How could she sleep when Todd was missing? Then she remembered being told in the hospital that her mother wasn't “up to par.” Suzanne had no doubt flown to the bottle upon hearing the news about Todd and by midnight was probably incapable of standing. “I didn't want to disturb you,” Rebecca said.

“But you had a wreck. Betty told me. Your head …”

“Just a couple of cuts, Mother, and some bruises. No broken bones.”

“You could have been killed!”

Rebecca was startled by the passion in her mother's voice. She'd fled to New Orleans mostly because of her mother's cold resentment that she hadn't been able to find Jonnie. Their relationship had never been close, but the manifestation of the ESP destroyed it forever. During the next few years Suzanne had turned more and more to alcohol and away from her daughter. They'd grown so far apart Rebecca didn't think Suzanne really gave her much thought anymore.

“I'm really okay.”

Suzanne suddenly looked angry. “Someone should have told me last night! No one ever tells me anything. They think I can't handle it.”

“There wasn't any reason to upset you, what with Todd and all,” Rebecca said lamely.

“Todd! Dear God.” Suzanne drew nearer and sat down on the bed. Up close Rebecca could see the thin, unhealthy look of her mother's skin. “He can't have been kidnapped, Rebecca. I won't believe that could happen again. I believe he's just run away.”

Humor her mother or be honest? Rebecca had trouble being anything but honest. “Mother, the baby-sitter was
knocked unconscious. Todd is only seven years old. He's not capable of that.”

“Maybe she was lying.”

“She had a bump on her head. Frank took her to the hospital. Haven't you talked to him this morning?”

“No, she hasn't.” Her stepfather, Frank Hardison, strolled into the room. “Good morning, Rebecca. I'm so glad you're all right.”

“Leave it to me to try to sneak into town and end up making a big entrance,” Rebecca said dryly.

Frank smiled. “You don't have the kind of personality that lends itself to
sneaking.
”

Although Frank was only of medium height, his perfect posture and slenderness made him seem taller. With his salt-and-pepper hair and aquiline nose, Rebecca had always thought Frank was the most distinguished-looking man she'd ever seen. He was only three years older than her father, but she'd always thought of Frank as being much older than Daddy. Where Patrick was exuberant, Frank was grave. Nevertheless, she'd always been comfortable with Frank and quickly came to love him after he married Suzanne.

“Frank, has there been
any
news about Todd? Mother says no one will tell her anything.”

Faint impatience crept into Frank's hazel eyes. “Suzanne is paranoid. No one is keeping anything from her.” Their gazes met and a flash of the old fire appeared in Suzanne's before she looked away. “There simply hasn't been any news unless something has happened in the last couple of hours that I don't know anything about. I'm headed down to the volunteer center now. They'll know of any recent developments.”

“The what?”

“The old fabric shop on Elm Street closed about two months ago and I bought it. We're using it as a center to coordinate volunteer efforts to find Todd—you know, copying leaflets with his photo, gathering calls about sightings, organizing civilian search parties.”

“It was wonderful of you to offer the place, Frank.”

“He bought it for Lynn,” Suzanne intervened caustically. “It seems he thinks his daughter-in-law has a great flair for ceramics that is wasted at Vinson's Apothecary. She's going to sell her wares out of her very own store.”

“She
is
talented, Suzanne,” Frank said tiredly. Clearly this was an old argument.

“Not that I can see. But we must keep Doug and Lynn happy.”

“Do you have a problem with my son being happy?” Frank asked tightly.

“Not your son. He's a good teacher, a good man. It's Lynn I have the problem with.” Suzanne looked at Rebecca. “I didn't sleep well last night. I think I'll lie down again for a few minutes. I'm glad you're home and that you weren't hurt last night, Rebecca.” She glanced at Sean. “And please get the dog bathed today. I don't mind dogs in the house as long as they're clean.”

“He was thrown free of the car during the wreck and was out in the rain for hours,” Rebecca said in Sean's defense. “He doesn't usually look like this.”

“Yes, whatever,” Suzanne said vaguely as she wafted out of the room, seeming to have already lost interest.

“She looks much worse than when you two were in New Orleans three years ago,” Rebecca said quietly to Frank.

“The drinking.”

“We have to do something.”

Frank shrugged. “I hate to humiliate her by having her hauled off to rehab. Everyone in town will know. I keep hoping for some kind of miracle.”

“Well, it looks like we need more than one miracle now,” Rebecca said. “It was wonderful of you to offer the building.”

“An empty building. Big deal. The county and state police have been brought in on this. There are ground and air searches. And this morning we got Molly pulled together enough to tape a plea for Todd's return that will run on all the local television stations. They'll show his photo and she
repeats his name a number of times to humanize him, make him seem like a
child
, not an
it
, to his abductor, pleads desperately for him to be brought home, assures the kidnapper there will be no consequences. She did a good job with it, but frankly I've never had much faith in a kidnapper being moved by a televised plea.”

It was all too sickeningly familiar. The same frantic activity had been set in motion 24 hours after Jonnie's disappearance. People had swarmed over the countryside where he'd disappeared. Helicopters had scanned a hundred-mile radius. Leaflets papered every tree and telephone pole. A ravaged Suzanne had appeared on morning, noon, and evening television broadcasts. None of it had helped. “They still don't have any idea who could have done this?” Rebecca asked.

“Bill says no, but I have my doubts about the babysitter.”

“The baby-sitter? I thought she was knocked unconscious. You took her to the hospital.”

“I did and she does have a head injury. Her mother is my secretary. Mrs. Ellis is efficient, loyal, intelligent, the widow of a minister. She has two teenage children. Sonia, the elder, is nearly a paragon of teenage responsibility.”

“Then what's the problem?”

Frank frowned. “Her boyfriend. Randy Messer. He's been in a lot of trouble. Oh, nothing big. Shoplifting. Possession.” He smiled. “And I know you think I'm being terribly judgmental since my own son saw his share of trouble as a teenager. Well, I know how I sound, but Douglas was different. His mother deserted us, then died, I didn't devote enough time to him, and he didn't feel welcome in this house after I married your mother. Oh, you were always great to him, but Jonathan—” He broke off uncomfortably. Frank had always called Jonnie
Jonathan
. “Anyway, Doug was never malicious and he's completely turned his life around. Randy Messer is a different matter. Sonia's mother worries about the relationship.”