The Way to Yesterday (16 page)

Ma’am…are you all right?” Howard Lee asked, thinking he must have bumped her
harder the he’d first believed

Mary blinked. "Uh...yes...I'm fine." She took a deep breath,
trying to calm a racing heart as her gaze slid to his face. A tall skinny man
with yellow hair, round eyes and funny teeth. A clown face. Just like Hope had
described.

Howard Lee frowned. What was wrong with this woman? Then he looked at her
again, thinking she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place where he'd
seen her. Shrugging it off, he gripped the shop ping cart.

'I'll just be going then," he said. "I need to get home to my
girls. They're not feeling too well."

He steered his cart around Mary and moved toward the far end of the store
where the refrigerated section was located.

Mary's heart was pounding erratically as she thrust her hand in her purse,
searching for the cell phone. She pulled it out with a jerk, then punched in
the numbers to Daniel's office with trembling fingers. Twice she messed up and
had to start all over. By the time she got the right numbers entered, she was
shaking all over. She closed her eyes as she counted the rings, praying that he
would answer.

Howard Lee had the milk in his cart and was reaching for the orange juice
when he remembered where he'd seen the woman-at the school-picking up the
little girl he was going to adopt. But she hadn't seen him, so it didn't make
sense why she would have been staring at him in that way. He put the orange
juice in his cart and then started toward the checkout stand, when he caught
sight of her again. She was still in the same aisle, and using her cell phone.
That, in itself, didn't set off any alarms until she looked up and saw him
watching her. The fear on her face was shocking. In that moment, he knew it was
over. He didn't know how it had happened, but he knew that she knew.

The phone was still ringing and Mary was trying to figure out where Daniel
had gone and why he didn't answer when she looked up and saw the clown man
watching her from the end of the aisle.

'Oh God, oh God," she muttered, debating with herself as to what to do.
Then it hit her. Reese. She should be calling Reese Arnaud, not Daniel. She
disconnected her call and quickly punched in 9-1-1.

'Savannah P.D., what is your emergency?" "This is Mary O'Rourke.
I'm in Vinter's supermarket and I need you to tell Detective Reese Arnaud that
the man he's looking for is here."

'Ma'am ... are you in danger?"

'No, I don't think so," Mary mumbled, and then glanced over her
shoulder. The man had disappeared.

'Oh no," she muttered.

'Ma'am?"

'He's gone," Mary cried. She abandoned her cart in the middle of the
aisle and started running toward the front of the store. If he got out of the
store before the police arrived, there would be no way of telling which
direction he'd gone.

'Who's gone, ma'am?"

'The man! The man!" Mary muttered, resisting the urge to scream.
"Just tell Reese Arnaud! Please! He'll know who I mean."

'Yes, ma'am, your message is being relayed at this moment, but I need you to
stay on the line."

'Yes, yes, I'm still here," Mary said, puffing slightly as she bolted
through the checkout line and out the front door, the phone still pressed to
her ear. She paused in front of the store, searching the parking lot with a
frantic gaze, unaware that Howard Lee was watching her from behind the corner
of his van.

He'd tossed the groceries into his vehicle and was debating with himself
about driving away when he'd seen the woman come running out of the store with
the phone still in her hand. At that point, he'd known his suspicions were
correct. His first urge was to escape, but he couldn't risk leaving her there.
The way she kept looking around the parking lot made him think she was waiting
for the police, and that left him no choice.

He jumped in his van and quickly backed out of the parking space, then
circled the lot and headed for the front of the store. The woman was still
there, the phone clutched to her ear. Knowing the tinted windows in the van
would conceal his identity right up to the moment he opened the door, he drove
straight for her.

Mary was frantic, certain that she'd lost sight of him for good.

'Please," she begged of the dispatcher. "Did you tell Detective
Arnaud? If they don't hurry, it's going to be too late."

'Yes, ma'am, he got the message," the dispatcher said. "The police
are on the way. Just stay where you are until they arrive, okay?"

Frustrated, Mary moved a little farther away from the front of the store,
still searching for sight of a tall blond man between the parked cars. A white
van was coming toward her, then slowing down in front of the loading zone, and
she took a couple of steps backward to get out of the way. The van stopped in
front of her. She heard the driver's side door open, then heard the footsteps
of the driver circling the van. Before she could react, she was face-to-face
with the man she'd been seeking. She threw up her hands and started to run,
when he grabbed her by the arm.

 
"No!" She screamed.
"Help! Somebody help me!"

She clawed at his arm, trying to pull herself free. One moment she was
screaming bloody murder and then everything went black as he hit her with his
fist. She hit the pavement with her elbow, then her chin, but never felt the
pain. Seconds later, he dragged her off the street, flung her into the van and
sped away. Her phone was on the pavement beside her purse as the clerk who'd
witnessed the event came running out of the store. She picked up the phone as
the 9-1-1 dispatcher kept asking if something was wrong.

"Yes!" the clerk cried. "The woman you were talking to has
just been abducted by a man in a white van. Please hurry. They're getting
away."

Chapter Ten

Daniel pulled up in front of the house and parked in the shade of the
portico, then glanced in the back seat. Hope was still asleep. Opening the door
quietly, he unlocked the house and then went back to the car to carry her
inside. She roused briefly.

"Daddy, are we home?"

"Yes, honey, we're home."

"I want bunny," she muttered, without opening her eyes.

"He can take a nap with you, okay?" She nodded once without
bothering to answer. He smiled as he carried her up the stairs, then down the
hall to her room. He pushed the door in ward with the toe of his shoe and then
laid her on her bed, tucking the one-eared bunny beneath her arm and a blanket
over her legs.

She fidgeted briefly,
then
settled.

Daniel watched until he was sure she was still sound asleep, then hurried
back down the stairs to unload the car. He was just coming out of the house as
Reese Arnaud pulled in behind him. He waved and smiled as he opened the trunk
of the car, but Reese didn't smile back. A warning bell went off in the back of
Daniel's mind, but it wasn't enough to prepare him for the news Arnaud brought.

"What's wrong?"

Reese sighed. It was days like these that made him wish he'd become a priest
like his mother had wanted, instead of following his father's footsteps into
law enforcement.

"It's Mary," Reese said. "She's been abducted."

Shock, coupled with a mind-blowing pain, ricocheted through Daniel's mind.
He took an unsteady step backward and pointed at Reese.

"No, you're wrong. She's just gone to the supermarket. She'll be right
back. Come in and I'll make us some coffee until-"

Reese grabbed Daniel, almost shaking him to make him listen.

"She was on the phone to 9-1-1 when it happened. She said she saw the
man we're looking for in the market. I don't know exactly what happened, but he
must have overheard her in some way and panicked."

Daniel moaned,
then
staggered backward against his
car.

"No ... God, no...
not
Mary. You've got to be
mistaken."

"It's not a mistake," Reese said. "I wish to God it was, but
we had an eyewitness. A clerk saw it happening. By the time she got outside,
they were gone. We know it was a white van. We've got the first three letters
on the license plate and a description on the man that fits the one Hope gave
us."

"Why in hell is this happening?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say this is the man who snatched the two little
girls."

"But why take Mary?"

"Who knows? But something put him on the alert and he took her, maybe
believing she was the only person who could identify him."

Daniel paled. "If that's what he thinks, he'll kill her."

Reese's gut knotted. "I don't know what he's thinking. But he doesn't
know about the sketch." Daniel grabbed Reese's arm. "You've got to
release it now! If the media gets hold of it, he'll realize she's not the only
witness. Then he won't think he has to kill her."

"Already got it covered," Reese said. "It went out about a
half hour ago, the moment we learned about Mary. We won't take chances with her
life, even if it means the man might run."

Daniel's vision blurred. "This can't be happening."

"I'm sorry ... so sorry," Reese said.

Daniel stood for a moment, his head down. Reese thought he was crying,
then
Daniel looked up.

"If he hurts her, I'll kill him."

Reese empathized with Daniel, but as a cop, he had to persuade him
otherwise.

"You can't think like that. You have a daughter to
raise
."

Daniel poked a finger in Reese's chest, his voice so low that Reese had to
lean forward to hear.

"You heard me. If he so much as makes her cry, he'll pray to die before
I'm through." Then he turned away and strode toward the house.

"Where are you going?"

"To call my parents to come get Hope, then I'm going to look for my
wife."

"Damn it, O'Rourke, you're a lawyer. You know better than this. You've
got to leave this to the police."

"Then you better find him before I do," Daniel said, and slammed
the door in Reese's face.

Mary woke up in a strange bed and in pain. Her face throbbed where the man had
hit her with his fist and her right shoulder and hip were stiff and aching. As
she rolled from the bed to her feet, sheer terror hit her like a fist to the
gut. The man was here staring at her from across the room. She didn't know how
long he'd been there, or what he'd done to her while she'd been unconscious,
but the look in his eyes made her want to throw up.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Howard Lee Martin."

"Okay, Howard Lee...I need to know why you are doing this."

He smiled. It made Mary's skin crawl. "It's all going to work out for
the best, you know."

Mary shuddered. The calm, conversational tone of his voice seemed obscene in
the face of what he'd just done.

"What's best is that you let me go home to my family."

His smile turned downward. "This is your family. You are home now.
You'll soon get used to it. I have a good job and I can take good care of all
of us."

Mary stifled her shock. It wasn't enough that the man was a criminal, but he
had to be crazy, as well. She wanted to cry-to wail aloud at the injustice of
being snatched from a family she'd just regained, but something told her that
Howard Lee wouldn't deal well with panic.

"Look, Mr. Martin, I-

"Not Mr. Martin. Call me Howard Lee and you're going to be Sophie. It
was my mother's name. I loved my mother deeply. She would be proud to know you
had the same name."

Mary shivered. "My name is Mary, not Sophie. I can't be a mother to
your children because I'm already someone else's mother. I have a daughter,
Howard Lee. She'll be worried about me."

"I have two daughters and they need a mother, too." Then he
pointed over Mary's shoulder. "They haven't been feeling well. See for
yourself. They need you far more than your child does. Their medicine is on the
table. I've already given them injections for today, but they need to be bathed
and
fed.I'll
leave you to it."

Mary gasped,
then
turned. For the first time since
she'd awakened, she saw another small bed pushed up against the wall. A loud
clunk startled her and she spun back around to find the man had disappeared and
the door he'd come through was closed. She ran up the steps, screaming for him
to come back and let her out, but the door was heavy and obviously locked from
above. No matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn't give. Daniel and Hope were bound
to be home from their errands by now. When she didn't come home they would be
frantic.

She ran her fingers along the edges, trying to find a weakness in the door,
to find a way to set
herself
free, but the man had
been too thorough. She felt nothing but cold, smooth steel.

"No," she muttered,
then
pounded on the
door.

"No, no, you can't do this! Let me out! Let me out! Somebody
help!"

"No one ever comes but him."

At the sound of the voice, Mary spun. The little girl looking up at her from
the foot of the stairs resembled Hope so much that it gave her chills. Thinking
how close Hope had come to falling into this awful man's grasp, she took a deep
breath and then went back down the steps. If this had to happen, thank God it
happened to her and not her baby. She dropped to her knees and then lifted a
wayward strand of hair from the little girl's eyes. "Honey ...is he your
father?"

The little girl frowned. "No. My daddy's nice." Oh God... oh God.
"Do you know long have you been here?"

"I don't know. Lots of nights, I guess." Mary shuddered, trying to
imagine what those nights had been like.

"What's your name?"

"Justine." She pointed toward the bed. "She's Amy Anne, but
she doesn't talk."

Mary stifled a gasp. The two missing girls! My God! They were alive after all.
She touched a hand to Justine's forehead. It was hot and dry.