The Way to Yesterday (19 page)

The elevator finally arrived and he pushed his cart forward. Mavis followed
with her own cart as she continued to talk.

"Did you hear about the break-in on Pediatrics?" Howard Lee's heartbeat
broke rhythm, but only for a moment. There was no way they would know it was
him.

"No, I didn't. When did it happen?"

"Earlier this morning, a little before nine."

"Oh...well, I clocked out at seven. I guess that's why I hadn't
heard."

"Yeah, me too, but my sister is a nurse on four. She called and told
me! Can you believe it?" Howard Lee shook his head. He didn't really want
to get into a conversation about the crime, especially since he was the one
who'd committed it.

"Well, here's my floor."

"See you later," she said, and smiled a goodbye as Howard Lee
pushed his cart off the elevator onto the Pediatric ward, then headed for the
first room on the right.

It was a simple job-one he could perform without thought, leaving his mind
free to entertain scenarios of him and his new family-picturing the evening
meals together around the table.
And the holidays.
He
couldn't wait for the holidays. Maybe he'd dress up like Santa Claus. The girls
would love it, he was sure.

He reached room 301 and pushed the cart up against the wall, grabbed a
handful of trash bags as he entered.
 

The door was open. The two-bed room had only one occupant-a young boy with
no hair. Howard Lee knew he was a cancer patient. He also knew the boy was
dying. He headed for the bathrooms without looking at the boy, nodding only
briefly to the sad eyed parent sitting quietly at the bedside. He changed out
the trash cans, refilled the paper towel holders and made sure there was
sufficient antibacterial soap in the dispenser. Then he went to his cart, got
the big dust mop from the rack and ran it over the cold, white-tiled floor,
making sure to keep his head down and his thoughts to himself. The moment he
was through, he was on to the next, taking comfort in the mindless routine of
the job.

It wasn't until he neared the nurses' station that his equilibrium shifted.
They were talking about the theft. He smiled as he worked, silently
congratulating himself on his prowess when one of the nurses saw him and called
out.

"Mr. Martin... we're out of paper cups in the break room. Could you
bring up a carton?"

"Yes, certainly," he said.

The nurse smiled her thanks and went back to her paperwork. Moments later,
the desk phone rang. Howard Lee was still nearby when he heard her answer.

"Pediatrics.
Nurse Hanson. Yes sir... send him
up, we'll be waiting."

She hung up,
then
called to a nurse who was coming
out of a nearby room.

"Security's coming up to pull the tapes," she said. "I've got
to go down to 356. Will you wait and escort them into the drug room?"

"Sure," the nurse said, and moved behind the desk.

Howard Lee straightened abruptly and turned toward the nurses' station then
to the room beyond.

Tapes?
What tapes?

He searched the hallways with a frantic gaze, looking for signs of security
cameras, but saw nothing that would put him on alert. He'd been so sure of the
territory in which he worked he hadn't thought past the need to get medicine
for the girls. But in doing so, he'd moved beyond his safety zone into a place
he'd never been, and so might have signed his own arrest warrant.

He grabbed his cart, all but running as he started pushing it toward the
employee elevator. Sweat was running down his back and his stomach was rolling
in panic as he waited impatiently for the car to arrive. Behind him, he heard
the ding as the public elevator stopped on third, heard the near-silent swish
as the doors slid inward. He wouldn't turn. He couldn't look. He just held his
breath and prayed.

Moments later the employee elevator arrived. The moment the doors opened, he
was shoving the cart inside. He fought nausea all the way down to the basement,
and the moment the car stopped he was out and running. He shoved his cart into
an alcove, stripped off his coveralls and bolted for the exit. "Hey,
Martin ... where are you going?" someone yelled.

Howard Lee never answered and didn't look back.

He was all the way to the van before he realized he'd left his lunch box in
the fridge. He hesitated, wondering if he should go back and retrieve it and
then decided against it. There was nothing in it to incriminate him, although
he wondered why he cared. He'd already taken care of that by stealing drugs in
full view of his employer's security cameras. His hands were shaking as he
unlocked the van and jumped inside.

"Oh God...oh God...oh God."

He jammed the key in the ignition and started the engine, then paused for a
moment with his head on the steering wheel. What was he going to do? Yes, he'd
planned on moving, but not now. Not without proper planning.

There was a sudden and sharp rap on the window. He jerked. A security guard
was standing beside his van. God!

"Hey,
buddy...are
you okay?"

Certain he was about to be arrested, Howard Lee gunned the engine and peeled
out of the parking lot, barely missing the toes of the stunned security guard.
He needed to get home. All he had to do was get home,
then
he would be safe.
Safe with his girls ... and his bride.

Chapter Twelve

Mary tiptoed out of the bathroom, her skin still damp from the shower. She
didn't know what time it was because her watch had been broken when she'd been
tossed into the van, but she kept feeling an overwhelming need to wash. It had
something to do with being abducted-the mental
trauma
that rape victims go through in a constant need to wash their abductor's touch
from their bodies.

At the thought of rape, she shuddered. She couldn't let herself go there.
Whatever else she might still endure was up to God, Daniel and the police. All
she could hope was that whatever Howard Lee did to her, he didn't do it in
front of the girls.

She tugged at her rumpled clothes, wishing for something clean to put on,
then
noticed the two little girls had finally gone to sleep.
Since her arrival, she'd put them both in one bed, leaving the other bed for
herself. Although she was sick at heart about being abducted, and could only
imagine the hell that Daniel and Hope must be going through, she didn't regret
being here. Now that she'd seen Justine and

Amy Anne, she couldn't bear to think of them alone with this man or what
he'd made them endure. She moved to their bedside. Amy Anne might not have much
to say when she was awake, but there was obviously a part of her that was still
fighting. Her covers were a mess-wadded at the foot of the bed and in a tangle
beneath her feet. Justine slept with her face toward the wall with Amy Anne
curled up behind her. Mary couldn't help but think that putting the girls in
bed together had been inspired. Before, Amy Anne had refused to instigate any
form of communication. Now, she slept with her arm slung around Justine and her
nose buried in the middle of her back.

Mary could only imagine the fear their parents must be going through and
wished they knew the girls were alive and no longer alone. Exhaustion hit as
she bent down to untangle the covers. Her hands were trembling as she
straightened the sheets and pulled them back over the girls. It made her think
of her nightly ritual with Hope. Instead of going straight to bed, she turned
back to the girls.

"Good night, sweet babies," she said softly, kissed them each on
the cheek.

She would like nothing better than to strip down to bare skin and crawl
between the sheets, but there was no way she would risk being found naked by
Howard Lee. He had decided she was going to be he girls' mother. The last thing
she needed was for him to decide she would also be his wife.

She started to
lay
down, then glanced toward the
stairwell and frowned. She was so exhausted, but was afraid to close her eyes.
What if he came down here while she was sleeping and took one of the girls?

She looked back toward the beds, studying the layout of the room, and then
grabbed the foot of her bed and pulled, angling it until it was abutted firmly
against the other bed with no space between. Now if Howard Lee tried to get to
the girls, he would have to go over her to do it.

Her shoulders slumped as she sat down and kicked off her shoes. Last night
she'd slept in Daniel's arms. Who could have known that tonight she would sleep
in hell?

Finally, she stretched out. Wincing from sore muscles, she pulled the covers
up over her legs and then scooted backward until she could feel the warmth of
the girls' bodies against her back.

The shadows from the nightlights cast strange shapes against the walls. She
watched, half-expecting them to come to life and decimate what was left of her
sanity, but they remained in place. Finally she was satisfied that, for the
moment, they were alone and safe. At that point, she began to relax. Just
before she drifted off to sleep, something occurred to her that she'd never
thought of before.

Maybe there had been more than one reason why she'd been sent back in time.
Maybe it wasn't all about being given a second chance with Daniel and Hope. She
distinctly remembered that day-the day everything had changed. She'd been
standing at the stop light, half-listening to the conversation that the two
women had been having about the three missing children. Right after that, she'd
found the antique shop and gone inside.

Mary had finally accepted the unbelievable fact that she'd gone back in time
and changed the outcome of her own fate, as well as Daniel and Hope's. But in
coming back, she'd also changed the fate of these children, as well. Unless
Howard Lee had a third child stashed in another location, she'd changed his
future, too, because he'd taken her, and not another little girl. And because
Hope hadn't died when she was a child, she'd lived to give the police a
description of the man responsible for the abductions. Once, Mary might have
thought these notions farfetched, but not now. Satisfied that she was in the
right place whether she liked it or not, she snuggled a little farther beneath
her covers and closed her eyes, unaware that their fragile world was about to
shatter.

It had started to rain-a soft, gentle shower that fell on the pavement and
turned the puddles into psychedelic mirrors for the illumination from the
streetlights above. Howard Lee drove with a patent disregard for rules, running
through yellow lights, taking corners on two wheels, and sending up the
occasional spray of water from beneath the van's tires. His thoughts were
scattered, his equilibrium shot. Had his mother still been alive, she would
have predicted that he'd react in such a manner. Howard Lee had never taken
surprises well.

When he was about ten blocks from home, he saw the lights of an all-night
ATM.
Impulsively,
he exited the street and turned
toward the drive-thru, coming to a halt in front of the machine. Twice, he
tried to get his wallet out of his pocket and both times it slipped out of his
grasp. He took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from the palms of his hands onto
his pants legs.
and
then reached for the wallet again.
Finally.
he
got the ATM card
and thrust it into the slot, entered his PIN number and took five hundred
dollars out of his account. Once he had the cash in hand.
he
tried to repeat the process but was denied. Cursing the safeguard his bank had
put on his own account, he pocketed the money and drove back onto the streets.
heading
for home.

Minutes later, he pulled into his driveway, hit the garage door opener, and
drove inside. Only after the door was down and the engine off, did he take a
deep breath. His heart was still hammering, but he was beginning to regain
focus.

He was home. The familiarity of his surroundings calmed his panic. He took
another deep breath and got out of the van. The sounds of his footsteps echoed
loudly within the roomy old garage and he caught himself tiptoeing into the
house,
then
cursed his foolishness. There was nothing
to be afraid of here. This was his territory. Here was where he made the rules.

He moved into the kitchen, quickly locking the door behind him, and then
headed for the living room, gave the front door a quick tug to make sure it was
locked, too, then paused.

This wasn't the way he'd planned their future, but plans were made to be
changed. He patted his pocket, taking some assurance from the fat wad of bills
he'd just withdrawn from the bank, and headed for the bedroom. As he started
down the hall, he paused at the door to the guest bedroom, remembering all the
preparations he'd made for the arrival of his new daughter, and frowned. After
a moment, he sighed, reminding himself that the plan had already changed and
the world hadn't come to an end. In fact, things were already better now that
his girls had a mother to look after them when he was at work. Then his frown
deepened. Besides getting out of town, he was going to have to find a new job
and possibly a new identity. This was a setback he hadn't planned on, but he
would find a way to make it work.

He had to.

He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair as he moved
across the hall into his bedroom. There were things to be done and not a lot of
time to do them. He kicked away the throw rug over the cellar door and then
took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the padlock. Halfway down the stairs,
he knew something was different. By the time he reached the bottom, he was
frowning.

Mary was on her feet, standing between him and the bed where the girls were
sleeping.