Sanctuary (4 page)

  
Chapter Five
  

THE HIGHWAY HAD BECOME A LONG and monotonous box—a rectangular shape, as though the pavement stretching out before her were the base; the blue of the sky, the top; the lush, green barrier of trees and underbrush, the sides.

Melissa scanned the radio, searching for something soothing. She chose an oldies station with frequent news updates featuring snarled traffic up and down I-95 along the eastern sea-board. Such gridlocks were apt to put her in a dire position—stalled. She simply could not afford the risk of entrapment.

So she listened intently for reports of serious snags on the major roads leading into the Big Apple. Populated areas were best, she’d decided. After all, a driver could lose herself in the mayhem of rush hour. And in an emergency, attention could easily be diverted elsewhere. Calculating a host of worrisome thoughts, she weaved in and out of traffic as afternoon hurtled toward evening.

Any day but Friday
, Melissa thought. Yet, it wasn’t as if she’d
planned
to leave on the worst traveling day of the week. Being mid-August posed another problem—last-minute family vacations. The northbound lanes were crammed, bumper to bumper, with cars, vans, and buses headed for the shore.

She thought of the beach at Napatree, near Watch Hill, Rhode Island, where she’d first met Ryan more than three lovely years ago. Had it already been that long?

Glancing at her watch, she took note of the date: August seventeenth. In more than one way, the final full month of summer was extraordinary. Her father would have celebrated his forty-eighth birthday this month, had he lived.

She gripped the steering wheel. She hadn’t thought of her dad’s birthday in years. And why, on the day of her mad dash away from the evil that tormented her life?

Trying to refocus her attention on driving, she shifted her weight slightly, eyeing the cruise control button. Should she set it in this congestion? Wouldn’t it just be a matter of time before she’d have to brake, throwing the setting off? Why bother?

Leaning her head back slightly, Melissa forced herself to relax a bit. Traffic in her lane had slowed to a crawl.
To think I met Ryan in the month of Daddy’s birth
, she mused. And yet, in the selfsame month she was leaving everything that was ever good and true.

A never-ending screen of trees and wild ferns on either side of the road appeared to close in on her. Inching her car forward, she noticed the ceiling-sky beginning to fade from its sapphire hue as the sun prepared for its slow dive over distant hills to the west. At times, the pavement itself seemed to disappear as additional vehicles vied for space.

More than once, she was tempted to use her cell phone to call Ryan. Oh, to hear his voice—the notion both thrilled and terrified her. She dared not succumb to temptation. Cell phones were dangerously susceptible to tracing.

By now Ryan would have made a myriad of phone calls to their neighbors, to Ali, and to the florist shop where she was employed. He may have already reported her missing to the police. Calling home was out of the question. The hazard was too great.

She ought to think about settling in somewhere for the night. Somewhere out of the way where she could make her next call from a safe phone. On the other hand, she didn’t want to put herself in a more precarious spot—leaving the highway, getting off the road and into a rural area where she could easily become a sitting duck. She’d have to wait until after sundown.

Daddy always waited for nightfall
, Melissa recalled. Yet she’d never consciously realized this fact as a girl, in spite of the many road trips they’d taken together. She remembered, very clearly, one night when she and her father had set out to visit Grandpa and Nana Clark, her mother’s parents. Though she had never known her mother, who passed away when she was two, Melissa loved to visit her only living grandparents. And Daddy never seemed to mind driving the winding, mountainous roads over Loveland Pass, through the long Eisenhower Tunnel, then past Vail and Glenwood Springs, to Grand Junction. They sang campfire songs as they drove. Sometimes, they kept track of out-of-state license plates. And Daddy had his own songs, too. Silly little tunes he made up at will. On occasion they talked of his fondest memories of her mother, though for the most part, he shied away from things too sentimental. Or too painful.

It was nearly six o’clock when she spotted the exit sign for New Rochelle, New York. She would allow herself a very brief stop at the city nestled on the north shore of Long Island Sound in Southern Westchester County. Just long enough to gas up and purchase a few snacks and something to drink, at “The Queen City of the Sound”—inspiration for Broadway’s former smash hit
Ragtime
and home to both Robert Merrill, opera star, and Norman Rockwell, America’s popular artist.

Melissa knew the place well. She and Ryan liked to poke around in the shops that lined historic Main Street, where fruits and vegetables could be purchased in the same vicinity as children’s toys and athletic apparel.

Glancing in her rearview mirror, she surveyed the car directly behind her. A blue sports car. Hadn’t she noticed it earlier? Back near Fairfield, maybe?

Changing lanes, she stepped on the accelerator, but the blue car sped up, nearly on her bumper now. Instantly, her throat closed up. She was being followed, just as she feared!

Keep your cool!

Anticipating the exit, she rejected the urge to use her turn signal. Yet the blue Mustang veered into the far right lane just as she did. She strained to see the driver’s face in her rearview mirror. If she could just manage that without causing an accident.

She was about to focus on the man’s face when she heard the driver in the next lane blare his horn. A good thing, too, for she nearly plowed into the car in front of her, halfway to the end of the crowded exit ramp.

“Watch where you’re going!” the driver hollered, leaning out the window.

“Sorry … sorry,” she murmured. Her mouth was cotton as she waited, stuck between the Mustang behind her and the car ahead. Seconds seemed to tick by in slow motion. She double-checked the automatic locks in her car. Twice.

Gradually, the backed-up ramp eased a bit. At last she negotiated a sharp right-hand turn, and as she did, the Mustang roared around her, speeding off in a different direction.
False alarm
.

Heart still hammering, she located the nearest gas station and turned in. She leaned back and closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down.

Daddy had said he
needed
the sleeping tablets and that she must always remember to leave them on his nightstand before bedtime. And she had obliged, never forgetting.

Often she had wondered how the tablets made a person feel. At times she had held the tiny round pills in her hands, peering at them, holding them up to the light. Trying to see into them. Did they make your legs and arms tingle before you felt nothing? What parts of your body went numb first? Your feet, legs, arms? What caused such small pills to work? Most of all, why did Daddy need medicine to put him to sleep? She had never asked.

Her father was a compassionate man, more than generous with his hugs. He encouraged her to snuggle up on the sofa with him while they spent part of each evening reading aloud from her cherished picture books or school reading assignments. But tender words came more clumsily. “Mellie, be safe,” he’d say each time she left the house for school or Girl Scouts or wherever. Never once did he call after her, “Have a good time,” or “Enjoy yourself.”

It was always: “Be on your guard. Watch yourself.” His consistently serious tone rendered apprehension to her young heart, as did his sober eyes. Not until years later, having been told the full story of her father’s fate, did Melissa fully comprehend the significance behind his warnings. Sadly, by that time, the man she’d called Daddy had been deceased for more than a decade.

Melissa purchased her snack items and pumped a full tank of gas, then hurried to the safety of her car. On the road, she kept watch for any vehicle trailing her, for any driver who might look suspicious. Even recognizable.

Juggling her sub sandwich, she managed to drive, though it was a challenge due to the ongoing bottlenecks as she neared the vicinity of each shoreline city or town. The closer she came to the Bronx, the more clogged the traffic. Was everyone in New England driving to the city for the weekend? Never had she seen so many vehicles on a Friday evening.

Thankfully, the day was beginning to cool down. She switched off the air conditioning and turned up the radio. A rambunctious announcer was crowing the high temperature for the day—“eighty-nine degrees.” Hotter than usual, true, though coupled with higher than normal humidity, the day was classified “a doozy.”

In more ways than one
, she thought.

Waves of grief threatened her composure as she relived the morning’s startling encounter—at a restaurant, no less—followed by the urgent phone call and her desperate escape.

The DJ kept talking about the weather, and she tried to listen, hoping to crowd out the events of the day. “Temps are bound to decrease as summer begins to wind down to fall,” the announcer said. “Now, that’s
one
thing you can count on.”

One thing to count on …

Not much in life was reliable. Changing weather, hurricanes, high and low temperatures. In the course of things—of life, overall—what did it matter? What did
anything
matter?

Suddenly, she thought of dear Nana Clark, living in the hot, semi-arid region of the country—Colorado’s western slope. How long since she’d visited her mother’s family? Not since before her father died. She scarcely recalled the actual year, much less the event. Nana and Grandpa hadn’t come to the funeral. Too frightened, perhaps. Who could blame them? They’d sent cards and letters, and there were occasional phone calls, too, during the years she’d lived with Mr. and Mrs. Browning. After college she’d disconnected from everyone, her Colorado relatives and friends included. Missing her grandparents and the Brownings, she wished she might have kept in touch somehow.

Flicking off the radio, she exhaled loudly, frustrated and angry with the way life had turned on her. If she were a religious woman, she would ask God for help about now. The way she saw it, praying was for dutiful folk who hadn’t completely messed up their lives. People like Ryan’s friend, Denny Franklin.

Oh no!
The realization that Denny was planning to fly in tomorrow hit her. She shook her head, amazed that she’d spaced out his visit. Yet there was no choice in the matter.

Surely Ryan would call off the visit with Denny, wouldn’t feel like entertaining his Bible-packing friend. He would be hurt, put in such an awkward position, having to tell Denny his wife had vanished.

The silence in the car trickled out through the cracks, and she was aware of the sounds of tires on the highway, the color and make of the two cars directly behind hers. A gray sedan hung back a bit, the third car in the current lineup.

The eerie dirge of dusk settled in about her. Once the sun was down, things would change for the worse. Darkness always hampered her behind the wheel—not that she suffered from night-blindness. Things just became very different after dark.