The Girl In The Woods Part 22

She didn't know what to do. She stood frozen in place, the remains of discarded dinners oozing down her arms.

A figure detached itself from the crowd before her and came forward. Diana took an instinctive step back, although, ultimately, she had nowhere to go. Behind her the alley was closed. A dead end. She wished she were still a cop, a clothed cop armed with pepper spray and a gun.

"Knock it off, you a.s.sholes," the figure approaching her said. "She needs help."

A woman. A college student. She approached Diana.

"Are you okay?" the girl said. "Are you hurt?"

Diana tensed. She didn't want help, didn't want to feel someone else's touch. But the woman's face looked kind, even in the dark. And what choice did she have? Alone and in a deserted alley, she needed a hand.

"Sleepwalking," Diana said.

The guys at the end of the alley laughed. The young woman turned toward them.

"Shhhh." The sound carried a warning edge, and they shut up. She turned back to Diana. "Do you live around here?"

"A few blocks. Down Grant Street."

"I'll walk you there." The woman took off her jacket and draped it over Diana's shoulders. "Here."

"No." Diana tried to shrug away.

"You need it more than I do. Just take it. I can't offer you much else."

Diana hesitated, then let the tension flow from her body. She didn't have a choice, and wouldn't it be nice, she thought to herself, to have someone else to lean on, even if it were a stranger?

She wrapped herself in the coat and followed the woman to the end of the alley. The guys parted and stepped aside without saying a word.

"This way?" the girl said, pointing toward Diana's apartment.

"Yes."

They walked together, and Diana let herself be led home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

After the girl guided her home and left her at the door, Diana couldn't sleep. She didn't want to, and she didn't bother to try. Too much fear of what else might happen and what she might see. But then staying awake meant the possibility of more visions, and she found herself almost laughing as she contemplated the choice between the two. A losing battle no matter what.

In a strange way, however, the experience in the alley and the walk home with the woman she didn't know left Diana feeling the slightest bit liberated. She thought of it as the "Bobby McGee" situation. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. How much worse could it get really? She shuddered to think and diverted her mind before it started cataloging the possibilities.

She climbed into the shower-only after locking and double locking the doors and windows of her apartment-and washed the grit and grime of the alley off her body. She no longer felt in complete control of her own mind, a process that began shortly after Rachel disappeared, but one that seemed to have intensified in recent weeks. While the water dug into her skin and she scrubbed with the thin bar of soap, Diana noted that the visions and dreams had picked up recently, only after she had made a conscious decision to step away from any involvement with any of the missing persons' cases. Was something-some thing?-exerting its power over her, reminding her of who was boss and the influence it could have over her life, at any time, in any place? The thought brought Diana down from the momentary sense of relief she had felt when she first came back to the apartment. She had never thought of the visions in such terms before, and now that she did, they seemed, if that was even possible, more ominous and threatening than they ever had before.

She toweled off and pulled her robe on, then walked to the front door and made certain that the locks were still secure. With that task finished, she went and sat on the couch, flipping the TV on to something mindless, distracting background noise and visual stimulation. It was three-thirty, the middle of the night and still not quite the darkest hour.

She had never ascribed any agency to the force that brought the visions and dreams down upon her. She had always taken it to be a shortcoming in her own mind, a misfiring brought about by her own inability to deal with Rachel's disappearance and her own culpability for it. In other words, she blamed herself. Her mother had crawled into the black hole of dementia, while Diana had tried to suppress her guilt and fears, shoving them down beneath the surface of her mind, an attempt to drown them. But inevitably they popped back up.

But what if there were more to it than that? What if there was something out there, something that existed independently of her own mind, a force that worked on her, and possibly her mother? What would be the point? She used to think it was so simple-find the clearing, find her sister. But had she created that formulation, as simple as first grade arithmetic, just to make herself feel better? To give herself a purpose and a way to go on? Was she being called to do more-or something else?

She flipped the channels, not really paying attention to the images that pa.s.sed on the screen. A black and white movie, a soccer game. A guy selling some kind of blender that ground vegetables into juice drinks. Diana stopped and muted the sound.

Kay Todd had said she knew something about Rachel, and to back it up, she dropped the name of Rachel's favorite song. If it had just been Kay, Diana would have no difficulty dismissing her as an eccentric crackpot, a lonely old woman who had secondhand knowledge or had taken a wild guess at something about Rachel and used it to manipulate her. But now Diana rethought the actions and health of her own mother. She had, much to the chagrin of her mother's caretakers, dismissed her health problems as a weakness, an inability to deal with the hand reality had dealt. And for so long Diana took comfort in that a.s.sessment of her mother's condition, believing that if it was simply a matter of will and determination, then the visions and the dreams would never completely consume her life in the way they had consumed her mother's.

But what if that weren't the case?

She remembered her most recent visits to Vienna Woods and most notably the one in which she received the crack across the face from her mother's hand. What was it her mother said about the painting?

That's my daughter's house. She lives in that house.

Did her mother know something? Did she see something no one else could see?

Were the two things-Diana's visions and her mother's illness and babbling-connected in some way?

She stared at the door and then the windows. There was nothing there, nothing coming after her. She turned the volume up on the TV and stayed there the rest of the night, waiting for the first light of dawn.

She was waiting for Dan when he arrived at the station.

It was early morning, just before six, and the sky was still colored shades of red and gray while the sun rose above the horizon line. Diana wore a sweatshirt and a ski vest, but she hadn't been able to locate her gloves before leaving the house, so she stood and then paced in the parking lot with her hands jammed into her jeans pockets, the tips of her nose and ears tingling in the cold.

She had no doubt Dan would arrive on time. Even with Jason missing and the other crises the department had been dealing with, she knew Dan would show up with the punctuality of a machine. She imagined he had been at the station late the night before, and may have stayed all night, only going home to shower and shave and change into a clean uniform. He was a constant, old reliable, the kind of man the world could set their clocks to, and she knew that's why she'd fallen for him. She'd had precious little of that in her life, not from her mother and not from any men.

True to form, he arrived exactly at six. His headlights were on, and they caught Diana's eyes, temporarily blinding her. She squinted against them and held her hand up as a shield. She heard him place the car in park and set the brake, and then he stepped out into the cold air. He didn't wear a jacket or a hat, and he didn't look surprised to see her.

"Do you know something about McMichael?" he said.

"No, do you?"

"Not a d.a.m.n thing." His breath came out in little puffs when he spoke. He still looked tired, and she knew he hadn't slept. "I guess you're here about something else, some other piece of business like the one we talked about last night."

"John Bolton," Diana said. "If it's not him, who is it?"

Dan looked around as though someone might be listening. "Careful what you say, Diana. Not so loud."

"His alibi. The kid falling down the stairs. It checks?"

"The kid definitely fell down the stairs. We have no doubt about that. We saw the records. We interviewed the doctors."

"But?"

Dan didn't respond. He just kept his eyes on Diana, waiting for her to make the connection.

"It wasn't an accident? Is that what you're saying?"

"His daughter died as a teenager. Natural causes it looked like. But the medical examiner found some suspicious bruises on the girl, so they investigated. Bolton pitched a fit, threatened to sue. He said his girl led a vigorous life and was involved in a lot of sports. The medical examiner eventually backed off and closed the case, claiming that there was no evidence of abuse. Draw your own conclusions."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?"

"You know Bolton was at the hospital that night, the night Margie Todd disappeared?"

"Yes."

"So maybe he shoved his kid down the stairs to create an alibi."

"You need to go home."

"What?"

"You need to go home," he said. "You can't be around here, and you can't get yourself churned up in this investigation anymore." Dan took a deep breath and appeared to be thinking about the consequences of what he would say next. "We're going searching today, out there where the Foley girl disappeared. The State Police are pitching in. Theoretically, we're trying to find McMichael, but we hope we can turn something up about her, too. We're going to hit the woods and the back roads, knock on doors and talk to people."

"Do you know more than you're telling me?"

"No. And even if I did, I couldn't share it with you. If I learn anything, I'll call you."

Diana knew she was getting a professional rather than a personal brush-off. Something went together in her head, puzzle pieces locking into place. She snapped her fingers.

"Bolton didn't do it. He had someone else do it, right? That's why he knew he needed cover the night Margie Todd disappeared. He knew she was going to disappear, and he wanted to make certain he couldn't get caught. So he shoved his kid down the stairs at the right time and spent the evening in the emergency room."

"I can't talk about this with you, Diana. It's official business."

"Let me tag along, while you search."

"No." His voice didn't sound harsh, but she knew he meant it. "You can't go if you're no longer on the force. I said I'd call you when I knew something, and I will." He looked her up and down. "You should go home and sleep. You look worn out."

"I was going to say the same to you. You'll call right away?"

Dan rolled his eyes. "Good-bye, Diana." And he walked inside.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

Nate Ludwig sometimes felt as though his life were dedicated to patient waiting. As a scholar, his work progressed with the pace of a glacier. Information appeared in dribbles and leaks, and it often took years or decades for new ideas to gain a foothold in the academic community. In his darker moments, he saw his own life, his personal life, in the same light. He imagined that other people-his peers, his colleagues-were rushing headlong through their days, and their lives were marked by a series of highlights that the world recognized and applauded. Successful marriages, the births of children and grandchildren, publications, awards, retirement homes. So many people had it all. His own life, by comparison, felt like a series of stops and starts, missteps and wrong turns, both professional and personal. It seemed as though he'd been waiting for his life to begin since he drew his first breath.

So being patient wasn't a problem. That's why he didn't mind pa.s.sing the time in the civilian waiting area of The New Cambridge Police Department. In the past he would have brought his maps and doodles with him, as he did when he found himself in doctor's waiting rooms or at the mechanic's while his oil was being changed. But he didn't think he needed the maps and doodles anymore, the endless speculation about the location of The Pioneer Club. He believed he had found it, and now he was on the brink of a new phase of his life, one he hoped would move faster, a wind at his back and gravity pulling him toward the finish line. He just had to find the right person to talk to, and while he waited for that person, he didn't want to read anything. He crossed his legs and bounced his foot and observed the humanity that came and went through the front door of the police station.

When he'd arrived two hours earlier, he'd found the station in a bit of a panic. He understood why having listened to the radio in the car on the way into town. A New Cambridge police officer had gone missing the day before, and the authorities were asking for the public's help locating the young man. A virtual kid, from Ludwig's point of view, yet he'd been on the police force for several years while also attending cla.s.ses at Fields. Ludwig didn't know him, but rather than seeing the developing crisis as a reason to stay away from the police, he saw it instead as validation of the information he possessed, making it all the more crucial that he talk to someone of some importance as soon as possible.

The first uniformed officer he encountered seemed distracted and skeptical.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I have information about an ongoing investigation."

"What would that be, sir?"

"To whom would I speak about an unsolved murder case?"

The cop raised his eyes a little. He looked like a college student as well, with a buzz cut and freshly shaven cheeks.

"I can take the preliminary information from you, and then you'll speak to one of our senior officers or a detective."

Ludwig shook his head. "Who is the most senior officer in the department?"

The cop looked reluctant to reveal anything. "Sir..." He sounded frustrated.

"Can you just tell me the name of the most senior member of the force, the person who has been here the longest?"

"That would be Captain Berding."

"How long has he been here?"

"Longer than I've been alive, let's put it that way."

"In New Cambridge?"

"Sir. I have other work to do."

"I'd like to talk to Captain Berding then. I'll only talk to him."

"He's busy, you know."

"I'll wait. And you can tell him I have information about an open murder investigation. Maybe more than one murder. Who knows?"

The cop sighed. "It's your time, I suppose." He nodded in the direction of the waiting area. "Have a seat and I'll tell him you're here."

Ludwig began to wonder if they had forgotten about him, or if indeed the young cop had ever bothered to tell his captain that someone was waiting to see him. He knew that in the midst of crisis and chaos things fell through the cracks, and on a day like this, he qualified as the human equivalent of loose change falling deep inside the sofa cushions. But they needed to know what he knew, and the longer he sat the more he began to think about this cop who had also gone missing.

It couldn't just be a coincidence, could it? His academic mind told him that coincidences didn't exist, that if cl.u.s.ters formed, there was causality behind it. Could a local girl and a local cop disappear within a month of each other, and the two events not be related? Especially in a town like New Cambridge, which existed in such close proximity to The Pioneer Club...