Second Child Part 33

Once more she would endure Melissa's punishment.

Tom Mallory unconsciously tapped the eraser of his pencil against his front teeth as he scanned the report Cora Peterson had filled out. At last, dropping the pencil on his desk, he shifted his eyes from the report to Cora herself, perched nervously on the hard wooden chair on the other side of the desk. "Well, if it was anybody else but Tag," he observed almost reluctantly, "I'd have to say there isn't much we can do for another twenty-four hours or so. But I don't know..." He sighed, leaning back and folding his hands over his stomach. "I guess I tend to agree with you. Tag's never given anybody in this town a speck of trouble, and ever since he was knee-high to a gra.s.shopper, he's been more grown up than half the men we got on the force here."

For the first time since Tag had disappeared, Cora felt a little of the nervous tension ebb from her body. "Then you'll look for him?" she asked anxiously.

Mallory nodded. "I'll have all the boys keep an eye out, and get copies of his picture made." He held up the snapshot of Tag that Cora had brought with her. In the picture, Tag was grinning happily, wearing a baseball cap that Tom Mallory himself had given to him only last summer. Mallory shook his head sadly. "I just can't see anyone wanting to hurt Tag," he mused almost to himself. "There isn't a soul in town who doesn't like that boy."

Cora nodded. "That's why I can't understand it. He was right in the middle of his ch.o.r.es when I came to town yesterday. And when I got back, he'd just vanished."

Mallory shrugged. "What about that dog of his? It ever show up?"

Cora shook her head. "But that's different. Dogs run off all the time."

"Well, I think the first thing we better do is have a few people check out the woods around the cove, and maybe that stretch of rocks up north. If Tag was out hunting for the dog, he could have had some kind of accident. If he was trying to climb some of those rocks..." He let his voice trail off as he saw the color drain from Cora's normally ruddy face.

"He wouldn't have done that," she said. "He knows how dangerous the bluffs can be. He-"

"Now, take it easy, Mrs. Peterson. I didn't say anything had happened to him. But it seems to me that right now the best thing we can hope for is that he fell somewhere and maybe broke a leg. And if he did, he'll be all right. We'll find him."

But Cora still wasn't convinced, and now she shifted uneasily in her chair. There was something she'd left out of the report, something she hadn't yet told Tom Mallory about. But it had been gnawing at her ever since yesterday. All night-as she'd lain awake listening every minute for Tag to come home-she kept thinking about Teri MacIver. But even now it seemed...well, it seemed just plain disloyal to talk to the police about Charles Holloway's own daughter.

Mallory, sensing her sudden discomfort, leaned forward once again. "Is there something else, Mrs. Peterson?"

Cora took a deep breath and made up her mind. "Well, yes," she finally admitted. "I-I hate to even bring it up, really. It-Well, it's Teri. Teri MacIver."

Mallory nodded. "Beautiful young lady. Looks just like her mother."

"Well, she certainly doesn't act act like her mother," Cora observed tightly. Now that she'd finally broached the subject, her words tumbled from her lips in a swift torrent. "Nothing's been the same since that girl came into the house. Oh, she acts just as sweet as pie when anyone's around. Acting like she's Melissa's best friend, and all. But I don't believe it, and neither did Blackie!" like her mother," Cora observed tightly. Now that she'd finally broached the subject, her words tumbled from her lips in a swift torrent. "Nothing's been the same since that girl came into the house. Oh, she acts just as sweet as pie when anyone's around. Acting like she's Melissa's best friend, and all. But I don't believe it, and neither did Blackie!"

"Blackie?" Mallory echoed.

Cora nodded emphatically. "The minute he saw her, he backed away from her. Oh, she tried to make up to him, but he always snarled at her. A dog can tell about people, you know. If a dog doesn't like someone-" Realizing she was starting to ramble, she cut her words short. "Anyway, Tag saw her kick Blackie once. And ever since she's come, Melissa's problems seem to get worse and worse. The nightmares, and the sleepwalking..." She shook her head, her tongue clucking sympathetically. "I just can't help thinking Teri's doing something to her. I-"

Mallory held up a hand. "Hold on," he said. "Are you saying Melissa walks in her sleep?"

Cora paused, fl.u.s.tered. She hadn't meant to say that, hadn't meant to at all. But now that she'd made the slip, she couldn't take it back. Reluctantly, she nodded.

Mallory frowned deeply. "How come n.o.body told me that Sat.u.r.day night?" he asked. "Could that be why she didn't remember going up to the road? When the Barnstable kid had his accident?"

Cora gazed at him uncertainly. "Well, I don't know," she said. She thought back to that night, when Melissa, all dressed up in her costume, had come through the kitchen on her way to the club. Now that she thought about it, Melissa's eyes had had looked strange. In fact, they'd had that same strange vacant look as last night. "But now that I think of it," she went on, "there was something a little peculiar about her that night. She was acting kind of odd. I thought maybe she was just, you know, sort of pretending to be someone else, the way you do when you put on a costume." looked strange. In fact, they'd had that same strange vacant look as last night. "But now that I think of it," she went on, "there was something a little peculiar about her that night. She was acting kind of odd. I thought maybe she was just, you know, sort of pretending to be someone else, the way you do when you put on a costume."

"All right," Mallory told her. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll have some of the guys start looking around, but I also want to come out to Maplecrest myself. Just to talk to people-find out when the last time they saw Tag was-that kind of thing." And I also want to find out what's going on with Melissa Holloway, he added to himself. Sat.u.r.day night, when he'd been talking to the whole family, not one of them had mentioned that Melissa had a problem with sleepwalking. Instead, they all-especially Phyllis-had insisted that the shock of the accident had simply caused a loss of memory.

But if it was something else...

Was it possible that she had, after all, caused the accident, rather than simply witnessed it?

He didn't know, but he intended to find out.

It was close to noon when Phyllis and Teri finally returned from the club. As soon as they came into the house, Phyllis went to the kitchen, her jaw setting angrily as she saw that Cora had only just begun to prepare lunch. "Really, Cora," she said. "I told you we'd be back by noon and that I expected lunch to be ready. If you can't follow the simplest-"

"It's almost ready," Cora broke in, pulling a platter of sliced melon from the refrigerator. "Won't be more than ten or fifteen minutes. I had to go into the village to tell the police about Tag."

Phyllis's eyes rolled toward the ceiling. "Cora, he's barely been gone twenty-four hours! He's a teenager, for heaven's sake. You know how kids these days are."

"Not Tag," Cora declared, turning to face her employer. "And Tom Mallory agrees with me. Fact is," she added, a rare feeling of spitefulness rising within her as she shifted her gaze to Teri, who had followed her stepmother into the kitchen, "he'll be coming out here to talk to everyone." She kept her eyes on Teri, but remained uncertain whether the girl had reacted to her words at all. "He'll be wanting to know-" And then she caught herself. Why let Teri know what the police were going to ask? "Well, he'll just be wanting to talk to people, that's all."

Phyllis shrugged dismissively. "Well, I'm sure he's welcome to talk to us," she said. "But what could any of us possibly say? None of us has any idea where Tag went."

"Maybe," Cora said, her eyes still on Teri. "And maybe not." This time she was almost certain she saw a flicker of apprehension in the girl's eyes, but then Teri smiled warmly.

"Where's Melissa? Is she up yet?"

Cora shook her head. "Her papa told her she could stay in bed, and I guess she's doin' it. I haven't seen her since I took her breakfast up this morning." She nodded toward the dishes that were still stacked on the sink. "Some people," she added pointedly, "at least help me tidy this place up sometimes."

But Teri was already on her way out of the kitchen. "I'll go up and see if she's awake," she called back over her shoulder.

Upstairs, Teri tapped at Melissa's door, then let herself into the room. Melissa lay on her bed, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. And then Teri saw the straps.

Frowning, she stepped into the room and went to the bed, knowing the instant she looked into Melissa's eyes that she was seeing D'Arcy.

"D'Arcy?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

Melissa's eyes shifted, focusing on Teri's face.

"She went out to the pottingshed, didn't she?"

Melissa's head moved in a barely perceptible nod.

"Do you know what happened?"

Silence.

And then, from the open window, Teri heard the sound of tires crunching on the gravel drive. She turned away from the bed and hurried to the window.

A black-and-white police car was coming up the drive, disappearing a moment later as it pulled around to the front of the house. Teri's mind raced.

She had to find out what D'Arcy remembered; how much she knew of what had happened in the pottingshed. And after she found out, she had to turn D'Arcy's knowledge against Melissa herself.

She hurried back to the bed and looked down once more into her half sister's strangely vacant eyes. "You want to help Melissa, don't you?"

Again, that almost imperceptible nod.

Working quickly, Teri began removing the cuffs from Melissa's left arm and her legs. Then, grasping her arm, she pulled her half sister up. "Come on," she said. "If you really want to help Melissa, I know how you can do it."

A few seconds later, in the attic, Teri began helping Melissa into the dress once more.

"You have to tell them what you did," she whispered softly. "If you don't, they'll blame Melissa. You don't want them to blame Melissa, do you?"

Melissa shook her head slightly.

"Then you know what you have to do, don't you?" Teri crooned, fastening the last of the long row of b.u.t.tons on the back of the dress. "You have to take the punishment, so they won't blame Melissa."

She heard Phyllis's voice calling up the stairs to her, and pulled the wig from its hiding place in the steamer trunk. Placing it on Melissa's head, she smiled softly.

"Wait," she said. "Just wait here, until I come for you."

Leaving Melissa standing silent and motionless in the attic, Teri hurried down the stairs.

CHAPTER 26.

"Is this going to take much longer?" Teri asked. She was in the library, sitting on the sofa next to her stepmother, the nail of her right forefinger picking nervously at a crack in the red leather with which the couch was covered.

Tom Mallory glanced up from his notebook. Over the last half hour, as he'd talked with both Phyllis Holloway and Teri MacIver, he'd had a hard time making up his mind which of them he disliked more.

Phyllis had been barely civil to him, making it eminently clear that as far as she was concerned, his visit was an invasion of her home and her privacy. "I really can't understand why you want to talk to us at all," she'd said after keeping him waiting in the library for more than ten minutes before finally appearing. "I have a great deal to do today."

"I'm sure this won't take much of your time, Mrs. Holloway," he'd broken in. "But the fact of the matter is that Tag Peterson is missing."

Phyllis's brows rose skeptically. "Don't you think Cora is overreacting to all this? The boy hasn't even been gone twenty-four hours."

Mallory had shaken his head. "There're quite a few kids I can think of that I wouldn't worry about if they took off for a day or two. But Tag's not one of them, Mrs. Holloway. Now, if you could just try to tell me when the last time you saw him was..."

Phyllis shrugged helplessly. "Well, I really don't know, Lieutenant."

"Sergeant," Mallory automatically corrected.

Phyllis's eyes narrowed slightly. "Sergeant," she repeated as if the word were distasteful to her. "Of course. At any rate, I'm not sure I could tell you the last time I saw Tag. He's just simply around, you know. We pay him for odd jobs he does, of course, but he's Cora's responsibility, not ours."

"If you'd just tell me when you last remember seeing seeing him, Mrs. Holloway?" him, Mrs. Holloway?"

Phyllis had sighed heavily. "Well, I suppose it was after the funeral yesterday. I seem to recall he might have been working on the lawn, but I can't be certain. Yesterday," she added pointedly, "was a difficult day for all of us, you know."

A few minutes later Teri MacIver had come in, and when he'd posed the same question to her, she'd simply shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I'm not sure, really." She'd paused, and then frowned as if trying to remember something. "Actually," she went on, "I was in here most of the time Daddy and Phyllis were gone. But it seems to me I remember hearing him calling Melissa."

"Melissa?" Phyllis repeated. "But she was in her room, sound asleep."

Teri had shrugged once more. "Well, I didn't really see him, and I might be wrong. But I'd almost swear he was calling her. I thought they might be talking through the window, or something."

Cora Peterson, who had been listening silently from the doorway, eyed Teri suspiciously. "Seems to me you might have gone to take a look," she observed. "I mean, knowing Melissa was supposed to be asleep and all."

"Where is Melissa?" Mallory had asked then, shooting Cora a look that clearly said he could take care of the questions himself.

"She's asleep," Phyllis replied a little too quickly, giving the policeman the distinct impression she didn't want him to talk to her daughter. Sensing her mistake, she did her best to recover. "She had a very bad day yesterday. I'm afraid she became a bit hysterical at Jeff Barnstable's funeral. The doctor's recommended that she get a lot of rest."

"But she's not ill?" Mallory pressed.

"W-Well, no, not exactly," Phyllis stammered.

"Then if you don't mind, I'd like you to wake her up, Mrs. Holloway. It won't take but a minute or two, but if she did did talk to Tag, I'd like to know what was said." talk to Tag, I'd like to know what was said."

Phyllis had vacillated, as if weighing her options, but finally left the room. The moment she was gone, Teri's att.i.tude had changed drastically. "I don't see what the big deal is," she had complained. "I mean, so Tag's gone. So what? Kids take off all the time, don't they? And it's not like Tag had any friends here. All he ever did was mow the lawn and trim the hedges, and he didn't even do that very well. He probably just got fed up with it."

"Now you see here, young lady-" Cora began, but Mallory silenced her with an upheld hand.

"Now let's all just take it easy, okay?"

That was when Teri had fixed him with angry eyes and demanded to know how much longer the interviews were going to take. "I have a couple of friends coming over to go swimming."

Cora's eyes narrowed. "Today?" she demanded. "It seems to me you might have thought about how your sister's feeling."

Teri smiled at her with exaggerated sweetness. "Maybe I did," she said. "And maybe I thought it might be nice for her to have some company."

"And maybe you didn't think at all," Cora grumbled, but before she could go on, Phyllis appeared in the library door.

"She's not in her room."

"But she has to be," Teri replied, her insolent smile instantly replaced with a look of grave concern. "I was just up there and she was sound asleep-" She cut her own words off and her hand flew to her mouth, but then she quickly dropped her hand to her side.

"What?" Phyllis demanded. "She was was there, wasn't she?" there, wasn't she?"

"Y-Yes," Teri said. Then, as if repeating a thought that had just popped into her mind that instant, she went on, "But-Well, she came into my room last night. She-She said she'd been sleepwalking." She turned to Cora. "She said you found her going up to the attic."

Cora licked her lips nervously, her mind working quickly. "Yes," she said. "That's true. But what-"

"Well, maybe she did it again," Teri suggested. Her eyes went to Phyllis. "I mean, it wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

An expression of grim anger came into Phyllis's eyes as she realized her daughter's problems were about to be aired in public. Cora, at least, had never talked about Melissa to outsiders. But now, she felt dizzy as she imagined the field day this policeman would have with the story: "The kid's crazy as a bedbug-wanders around the house in the middle of the night-hallucinates-the whole ball of wax. They shoulda locked her up years ago."

And he'd be right, too, Phyllis reflected darkly. It made her furious the way Burt Andrews had simply brushed aside her suggestion that Melissa be sent away. But if he'd only listened-and if Charles had only listened, too-Melissa wouldn't even be here now.

"I-Well, I suppose..." she floundered.

"Why don't we go up and take a look around, Mrs. Holloway," Tom Mallory suggested, then firmly took Phyllis's arm and led her out into the hallway.

Less than a minute later the four of them were gathered at the foot of the stairs to the attic. "But this is ridiculous," Phyllis protested. "It's the middle of the day. She's never-"

Her words were cut off by a sound from above.

It was a footstep. A second later, it was followed by another.