“There are two Harrisons living up here,” he said readily. He was glad to help me. “This place belongs to the older couple, Tate and Lena. The place down there,” and he pointed to a roof below and to the west, “is the other Harrisons, Dan and Karina. That help?”
I did my best to look embarrassed. “Dang it, I’m supposed to be at the other one,” I said. “I’m glad you came along. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have anything to fill out on my form.” I lifted the arm cradling a clipboard. There was indeed a form clipped to it, one I’d designed and printed out on Robin’s computer last night. There were boxes to be checked, and lines for signatures. It looked very real.
“Gotta fill out those forms,” he agreed. “Well, I’m glad I was able to set you straight.”
“Same here. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you,” I said and climbed back into my car. I maneuvered the car into facing the opposite way, and I zoomed out. As I stopped at the mailbox to check for oncoming traffic—of course there wasn’t any—I saw the yardman’s pickup parked at the front of the property. Sure enough, it was labeled “Garcia and Sons.”
I drove down to a 7-Eleven at the foot of the development and waited in the parking lot to get the green light from Robin. I only had to wait for thirty minutes before Robin called to say he’d seen the Harrisons leave. I turned my key in the ignition, with a rush of excitement. But my cell rang again.
“Another car just pulled in,” Robin said. “I don’t know the driver. She’s a middle-aged woman in a uniform. Not a pink one.”
I decided to risk it. I said, “I’m coming up.”
Dan and Karina’s driveway led down at a sharp angle and then split in two. The right-hand section swept in a semicircle around the front yard, while the left descended to a paved apron outside a three-car garage. It was the first time I’d seen the back of the house. I got out of my car on the apron. The windows in the garage doors faced west, and would get some evening light. I didn’t see how there could be any windows, for that floor, to the east. It would be part of the hillside. There were two stories above that. Of course, the ground level would be the public floor, for family and entertaining, and the next level would be the bedroom floor. I glanced over at the garage again. All the doors were down, which wasn’t a surprise.
There was another car parked on the apron, a neatly kept but aged Malibu. I pulled my jacket almost closed to hide the fact that I didn’t have a name embroidered in black on my left chest, since all the women employed by Helping Hands wore their names on their chests. With my clipboard in my hand, I went across the apron and up the steps to what should be the kitchen door, and I knocked.
The Harrison cook opened the door. She was a brawny woman in her forties; I’d never seen her before. No one else in Lawrenceton had a cook, either full-or part-time.
“Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?” She wasn’t irritated, but she wasn’t interested, either.
“Hi,” I said, full of cheer. “I’m the supervisor of the Helping Hands team that cleans this house. I’m supposed to check the job the team did for Mrs. Harrison.”
“Oh,” the cook said, somewhat surprised. “Why didn’t you come yesterday right after they cleaned? I wasn’t here, but the maids always come on Thursday.”
“My car broke down,” I said, rolling my eyes. What you gonna do? “By the time I got it fixed, it was too late. But I have to fill out the form.” I waved the clipboard. “Is that possible?”
“I guess so,” the cook said. “I haven’t been here in a week. I have a lot to catch up on. They gave me a paid vacation week, if you can believe that. Before Christmas! I guess you better come on in. I’m Gina Ruffin.” She was wearing scrubs, too, a tan outfit. Scrubs appeared to be a universal uniform.
Gina stood aside to let me enter, and I suddenly realized I had no idea if she was responsible for cleaning the kitchen or if the maid service did it, something I ought to know. Crap.
“I’m Rose,” I said. “Hey, I don’t want to disturb the family. Are they home?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Harrison aren’t,” she said. “And who knows where Clayton is?”
Did she truly not know that Clayton had vanished? “If he’s in the house, should I warn him I’m here?” I said, feeling my way.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” Gina said, shrugging. But then she looked uneasy. “But you don’t need to go downstairs. The Harrisons got the maids to skip the fun room yesterday. They’re having some electrical work done down there, and it’s not safe. They left a message on my phone.”
“Must be nice to have a fun room,” I said with a faint smile.
Gina smiled back. “Oh, that’s just what they call the big room downstairs.” On the garage level. “There’s a Ping-Pong table and big TV for watching movies. It’s really a hangout for the teenage son and his friends.” I was growing anxious; Gina seemed to be having second thoughts about letting me do my inspection. “How long do you think this will take? Maybe you should come back when Karina is at home.”
“I’d rather not explain to my supervisor why I was late getting it done, if I can help that,” I explained. “If I can just take a quick look, that would sure be great. I can just go down my checklist?”
I held my breath while Gina thought it over. “All right. You’re already here, and I have a lot to do. I can tell you your team did a good job in here, so you don’t need to check it. But the garbage cans are already full again. I don’t know how the Harrisons generate so much garbage. Only two people!” Again, she seemed uneasy. I judged it was better not to comment.
“Then I’ll skip the kitchen,” I agreed. “And there’s loose electrical in the fun room. So, I’ll start upstairs and work my way down.” I spoke as matter-of-factly as possible.
“What do you check for?” Gina asked, just as I was wondering where the stairs to the “fun room” might be.
It occurred to me Gina was glad to have company. In fact, the cook seemed anxious. I sensed she would shy away from a direct question about what was making her so jumpy. I had to be careful. But I was burning with impatience. What if the Harrisons came back?
“I check the details,” I said. Of course, I’d thought about this when I was cobbling together my plan … such as it was. “The corners of the bathrooms, the cleanliness of places that aren’t immediately visible, whether or not the pictures were straightened on the walls, the frames dusted. If the baseboards are clean, the headboards. Then I rate the team. Their bonus depends on my rating.”
“Wow. I guess they’re pretty scared of you!” Gina smiled to indicate she was teasing. “I have some prep work to do for lunch and dinner, so I’ll let you go about it.”
“Thanks for being understanding,” I said. “See you in a few.”
Aside from the door to my right, which must lead down to the garage, luckily there were only two other options, one a swinging door that logic dictated went to the front part of the house, and one open doorway that led onto stairs. A back way up to the bedroom floor, for sure. I walked over to it confidently, the clipboard clutched to my chest in an official-looking way … at least, I hoped so. I didn’t look back, because I was scared I’d catch her staring after me, or picking up the phone to call the police, or doing something else that would show she’d cottoned on to me. But instead, I heard water running in the huge farmhouse sink, She’d gone straight to her food preparation.
First hurdle successfully cleared.
I knew Robin was keeping track of me, since my phone was on and in my front smock pocket. “I’m starting up the back stairs to do the bedroom floor,” I said quietly. “Trying to be authentic.”
When I thought of what trouble I might get into if I was discovered doing this, I broke out in a cold sweat. I would lose my job at the library, and everyone would look at me out of the corners of their eyes for a long time afterward. I might go to jail—the Harrisons would have every right to press charges against me.
But when Cathy Trumble had told me the police were not going to get a warrant to
search the Harrisons’ houses, I’d had to do something. This intolerable strain had to end, life had to return to something approaching normalcy. I had to get Phillip back.
I hadn’t realized how much I loved my brother until he was gone.
He could be as stubborn and uncommunicative as any teenager. I was sure he’d tried most of the things teenagers try. And sometimes I had to ask him more than once to do things around the house, especially unpopular tasks like taking the garbage out or picking up his room. But the fact that he was human and fallible didn’t matter. Phillip was my brother.
When I got to the room that must be Clayton’s, I looked around carefully. Sure, Clayton’s room was bigger and more luxurious than Phillip’s. Sure, the furniture was more expensive. But it was still the room of a teenage boy.
And it shouldn’t be. Clayton was taken the same time as the other kids, nine days ago. And the maids had come yesterday. This room should have been pristine. But there were signs that someone had used it: a sweatshirt was on the floor beside the clothes hamper in the bathroom. A drawer was pulled out a little. But the textbooks on the desk were piled neatly, and you could have bounced a dime on the bed.
The maids would never have made the bed and ignored the sweatshirt. At the very least, it would have been picked up and folded.
I looked in every corner. The wastebasket was empty. The bathroom was clean, but it was not perfect. The towel had been hung crookedly. I touched the toothbrush. It was faintly wet. There were beads of water on the shower door, though it was almost dry.
So someone had been visiting this room to shower and change. And who, if not Clayton?
I relayed all this over the telephone to Robin, trying to speak quietly and without emotion. I took pictures of the small signs of usage and sent them to him. I didn’t want Robin panicking and forcing his way into the house before I could go downstairs to check out the situation.
I left Clayton’s room and headed east to the main staircase, grandly visible in the morning sun streaming in the two-story entry. I went down the carpeted stairs quickly and stood looking around, trying to decide where to go next.
Then, elsewhere in the house, I heard the beep-beep-beep that signaled a door monitored by the alarm system had been opened. I gasped. Though it was possible that Gina was doing something like taking out the garbage, chances were just as good that the Harrisons had returned.
I had only minutes to finish my search. The Harrisons might not recognize my car, but they were sure to ask who else was in the house.
I abandoned any pretense of “checking” the main floor. I spotted a hall, and it seemed to lead back to the kitchen; yes, there was the swinging door at the end. There were two more doors to my left. I opened the first one, as silently as I could. Coat closet. I moved on to the second. I stood, listening.
I caught the voices in the kitchen. “… didn’t expect you back today,” Karina’s surprised voice said. She sounded displeased.
Mumble, mumble. “… week is up,” Gina was saying, her voice artificially bright.
I turned the handle silently and stepped inside, closing it just as carefully behind me. There was a pulse of sound when I opened the door, but I hoped I’d closed it quickly enough that it hadn’t penetrated to the Harrisons’ ears.
The fun room was soundproofed.
“I’m going downstairs. There’s someone here in basement,” I said to the telephone. “They call it the fun room.”
The stairs were dark down to the landing. Below that, I could see from the glow that there was an overhead light switched on below me. It’s impossible to go down wooden steps silently; if there’s a way to do it, I haven’t discovered the technique. Taking as many precautions as I could, I gently laid down the clipboard just inside the door, to leave my hands free. I also slipped off my Pumas.
Hugging the wall, down I crept, excited and frightened. My heart was beating in a way impossible to ignore, and I hoped that was not hurting the baby. I hadn’t even considered my physical response to the situation.
Gina’s unexpected week off had made me even more suspicious that the Harrisons knew more than they’d ever let on. Who let their cook off the week before Christmas? I remembered how frozen the couple had seemed at the press conference (which felt as though it had been years ago, instead of days). I would have expected them to be angry, or grieved, or stricken, instead of silent and rigid. They had refused to make a statement. And then they’d rushed out as soon as they could … after Phillip’s phone call.
I reached the landing, and peered around the corner to spy out the situation.
Clayton Harrison was sprawling on a red leather couch, his back to me, blasting away with an electronic gun at the huge television.
Playing a damn video game.
I had to make myself hold still, and take a deep but silent breath. I said some words to myself that had never passed my lips. I hated Clayton Harrison with the heat of a thousand suns. I hated the older Harrisons just as much. All this time! All this time he had been here, safe and sound!
The ransom, a sham. The search for him, a mockery.
While Clayton was intent on the screen, I scoped out the room, once I could focus on anything other than my rage. There were two doors off the large room, one to the left of the television on which the game images flashed and made noise. That door had two padlocks on it, freshly installed, from the yellow of the wood around them.
The other door, to the right, was half-open. A bathroom. Closer to the east wall was a Ping-Pong table, with a wall rack of equipment. Against the left wall was a bar—Of course, I thought—and a refrigerator, a microwave, and a few cases of soda. I could see a bed pillow propped on one end of the couch. Clayton had been sleeping down here.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to describe what I saw to Robin. I was certain that the police could come in now. Someone they were searching for was sitting in front of me. Right? But if I spoke loud enough to be intelligible to Robin, Clayton would hear me. I didn’t want him to have time to do anything.
Then I saw the gun on the table by the couch.
I’d anticipated there would be a gun. How else could one boy make a herd of kids do his bidding? But seeing it made everything suddenly much more clear and drastic. As silently as a mouse, I crept back up the steps. I took my phone out of my pocket and put it to my mouth. “Robin,” I said, very softly. “Clayton’s here. He’s in the basement. He’s got a gun. There’s a padlocked room.”
“I’m calling the police right now,” Robin said. “I’ll have to hang up for a minute to do that.”
“Okay,” I breathed. But I felt cast adrift when he was off the line. I sat down on the top step to wait. I figured the padlocked room was Karina’s holiday storage closet. I didn’t think there were Easter eggs in it now.
Below me, the noisy computer game suddenly went silent.
I sat up, every nerve on edge and screaming with tension. What now?
I listened intently. Finally, I heard what must be bothering Clayton. There were faint voices, and a rhythmic thudding noise. “Shut up!” Clayton screamed, and I jumped. “I’ve had it with you, assholes!”
But the thudding continued, unabated. What was happening? I didn’t know what to do. I crept down a few steps. I could make out a voice, very muffled. It was a male voice, and it was saying, “Let Joss out! She needs the bathroom!”
Phillip’s voice.
Relief flowed over me like a river of honey. A future that included a safe and rescued Phillip was just out of reach. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from exclaiming out loud. My heart began to pound more quickly than ever.
While I was exulting, things had been happening in the big room below me. I heard Clayton unlocking the padlocks. He called, “Stand back. I’ve got the gun. Only Joss can come out. If you make another move, I’ll shoot her.”
“We understand,” said a little voice. Liza Scott. I went down the remaining steps to the landing and peered around the wall.
>
“Hands up!” Clayton ordered. And below me, Joss came into sight.
She was a wreck. In my imagination, I’d been picturing the kids as they were when they’d vanished. But of course, Joss was wearing the same clothes she’d had on that day. She hadn’t been able to wash. And she hadn’t eaten much. The change in her was dramatic. There was a large scab on her right arm.
When Clayton and Joss crossed in front of the television to get to the bathroom, I was within their sight in my perch on the stairs if they looked right. Something alerted Joss, and she turned her head to see me. I had my finger across my lips in the universal gesture for “Shhh.” She jumped a little, but she recovered much more quickly than I would have. She turned the jump into a sideways movement, pretending she’d been turning to face Clayton.
“Listen, asshole, you’ve got to let us take showers,” she said. “We can’t stand being around each other any more. And Josh needs a doctor.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Clayton said. He sounded both tired and at the end of his rope, which was disturbing. “Don’t argue any more.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” Joss said, ignoring him. “Do you think there’s any possible happy ending to this?”
Clayton was too close to snapping to bear any added pressure, but Joss did not see that; or maybe she had simply reached her own snapping point. Her glimpse of me on the stairs had given her heart, since she assumed help was coming.
“Shut up!” Clayton screamed.
I stood, because clearly something was about to happen, and it wasn’t going to be anything good.
And just then the cook opened the door to the stairs. “What are you doing here?” she said, in a voice that was anything but soft. “We’re not supposed to come down here, remember?” Then Clayton came to the foot of the stairs and looked up. I was caught between them.
“Clayton? What’s going on down here?” The gravity of the situation seemed to hit Gina all at once. “I thought you were gone? What…”
“Stay up there, Gina!” I could see Clayton pointing the gun to his right, at Joss. And Gina could see the gun, but not the girl.