“Why?” Karen asked in surprise. “You’re a police officer yourself. If you told them the children were out here, wouldn’t they believe you?”
“I’m a rookie cop from out of state,” Rob said. “I’ve got no authority of any kind here in Colorado. And what do I tell them, anyway? ‘I’ve got a girl out in the car who has these weird visions. Her vibes tell her there are kidnapped babies in a house stuck off in the mountains.’ I can picture the reaction. They’ll think I’ve gone insane.”
“They could call the police back in Albuquerque for verification.”
“Verification of what? They don’t even know I’m up here.”
“They don’t even know!” Karen exclaimed. “You mean, you brought me up here—”
“Completely on my own, against all orders. I’m off the case, remember? The truth of it is, when I get back, I’ll probably also find myself off the force.”
“So what do you see as our other choice?” Karen asked him.
“It would help if we went in there with something solid to offer. If I could report that I’d actually seen those kids, they’d be more inclined to listen.” He studied the river appraisingly. “The water’s running fast, but it doesn’t look as though it’s very deep. There shouldn’t be any problem getting across here. That line of flat rocks makes a natural bridge.”
“The room they’re using as a nursery is at the back of the house,” Karen said. “The trees are so thick there that I think we could get a look through the window without running much risk of being spotted.”
“There’s no ‘we’ about it,” Rob said. “I’m doing this alone.”
“No, you’re not,” said Karen. “We’re in this together. I’m coming, too.”
“Karen, please don’t give me a hard time about this,” Rob said tersely. “I said you’re not coming, and I meant it. Just accept that, will you? We don’t have time to argue.”
He leaned across and pressed the button on the front of the glove compartment. The door fell open, and he reached into the compartment’s interior and drew out a pistol in a holster. Karen watched in silence as he strapped on the belt and settled the holster against his right hip. She was stunned to realize that the weapon had been lying there, less than an arm’s length away from her, during the entire drive up from Albuquerque.
“Could you use that?” she asked.
“Sure, I can use it. What do you think they taught us at the academy?”
“I didn’t ask, ‘Can you?’ I asked, ‘Could you?’ Do you think you could shoot somebody?”
“I don’t know,” Rob said. “I hope that I could if I had to. I want you to stay right here and keep the doors locked. If I’m not back in half an hour, call the state police.”
Karen said, “For god’s sake, be careful!”
“I will be, and you be, too. I’m going to leave the keys in the ignition. If anything happens, if you hear a shot or see somebody coming toward the car, start the engine and get yourself out of here. Don’t stop to think about anything, just hit the accelerator.”
He pulled her toward him and kissed her. This time it was no little peck on the cheek. His mouth came down firmly upon hers, and his arms closed tight around her. When he lifted his face at last, she thought she might drown in the blue of his eyes.
“What you suggested last night, about my going back to college,” Rob said softly. “I’ve decided to do it. So what if it takes me a while? The end result will be worth it. I’ll be doing what I want to do.”
Karen pressed her face against his shoulder.
“Rob, I’m scared,” she whispered. “I have this feeling.”
“Another vision?”
“No, just a feeling. These people are dangerous. Look what they did to Anne!”
“I won’t take risks,” Rob assured her. “All I’m going to do is take one quick look and come back to the car. Believe me, I’m no hero. I’m not going into that place without backup.”
He gave her a quick, hard hug, opened the door, and got out of the car. Karen reached over and pulled the door shut again. She pushed down the lock and sat watching as Rob strode down the slanted bank to the edge of the river. As he had said, the water was running fast, but not high, and the line of flat-topped rocks that stood exposed above its surface formed a natural bridge to the opposite bank.
He stepped onto the first of these, found his balance, and moved out onto the next one. Within minutes he had completed the trip across the river and was standing on the far side. He turned to glance back at the car. Then, lifting his hand in a reassuring salute, he turned and disappeared into a thicket of pine trees.
Settling back in her seat, Karen tried to force herself to relax. The clock on the dashboard read eleven twenty-seven. Another half hour would bring it to almost noon.
The next thirty minutes loomed before her as endless as all eternity. If everything went as smoothly as Rob anticipated, how could it possibly take him an entire half-hour to slip up to the house, peer through the window, and return? Surely, in twenty minutes at the most, he would be back again. If he wasn’t, she didn’t know if she could bear it.
In an attempt to calm herself, she turned her eyes to the bounding river as it twinkled and sparkled beneath the brilliance of the overhead sun. Along its shallow edges, pale, thin-washed stones gleamed up through tiled crystal water, and the surface was dappled with sparkles of golden light. At its center, the river ran green as emeralds except at those spots at which it swirled around rocks and broke into flying flecks of snowy foam.
Despite the heat of midday and the stuffiness of the closed car, Karen found herself shivering. She knew how unreasonable it was to hate all rivers because of one cruel experience, but the reaction was something over which she had no control. Perhaps a time would come when she would be able to view such a sight with pleasure, but it did not seem likely that this would occur very soon.
Hypnotized by the dancing light, she lowered the lids of her outer eyes in an attempt to focus her inner one upon Rob. To her surprise, she was able to find him immediately.
He had left the thicket by the river and was working his way around the edge of a flower-studded clearing. Although he was now very close to the house, he was still separated from it by a narrow strip of woods, which served as a shield against the eyes of its inhabitants. He was moving slowly and carefully, but with an air of self-confidence. The black butt of the police revolver protruded from the holster at his hip.
Concentrating upon his progress along the outskirts of the tiny meadow, Karen began to experience the acute sense of smell that always accompanied such visions. She caught the fragrance of purple clover and wildflowers far more intensely than if she had been standing in the field among them. Drawing a deep mental breath, she inhaled the pungent perfume of the pine needles that formed the carpet beneath Rob’s feet. Although the windows of the car were rolled high, she could smell the damp breeze that blew up from the river to ruffle his hair and the rich, dark aroma of wet leaves and water-soaked earth.
And… there was something else. An alien odor that should not have been there. Something that was not part of the woods that encircled him or of the people in the house beyond the trees.
Leaving Rob to continue moving forward at his own pace, Karen sent her mind flying on ahead of him with the third eye wide open and alert for possible danger. The nearer she drew to the house, the stronger the odor became.
It was the heated smell of something alive. Hair. Saliva. Warm, rancid breath. The stench of animal droppings. The fetid odor of raw meat, half-spoiled from prolonged exposure to the summer sun.
Quite suddenly, she recognized the source of the odors. Somewhere close by, there was a dog.
Almost as soon as she became aware of its existence, her third eye caught sight of it, lying in the shade of some bushes at the back of the house. It was a Doberman, huge and well-muscled, and clearly functioning as a guard dog.
It was wearing a collar, and Karen’s initial impression w
as that it might be chained. Then it lifted its head, and she saw that there was nothing restraining it. It had evidently chosen to settle where it had, not because it had been confined there, but to escape the heat of the sun. A dish of meat scraps had been set on the ground outside the kitchen door, and it was this that was contributing the stench of decay to the repertoire of offensive odors that was assailing her.
The shock of seeing the massive animal was enough to bring her physical eyes snapping open. She was back in the car by the river, and her mouth was dry with horror. She had seen Rob’s response to the harmless, yapping puppy at the Sanchez house. What would his reaction be when he was faced with the vicious-looking creature that now lay in wait only a matter of yards ahead?
The dog that had attacked him in childhood had been a Doberman. To be faced with this current monster would have to be the incarnation of every night terror he ever had experienced. It was true, he was wearing a pistol, but what if the shock of the unexpected attack kept him from reacting quickly enough? If he did fire the gun, the sound of the shot would give away his presence to the inhabitants of the house. What would happen then?
There was no other answer; she had to warn him. Throwing open the door, Karen hastily scrambled out of the car and hurried down the sloping bank to the edge of the river. There was no way to cross it except by the same rocks that Rob had hopped across. Much as she hated the prospect, she would have to use them as well.
Determinedly closing off her mind to the existence of the rushing water, she decided to confront each step as a separate challenge. Only after clearing one rock would she look ahead to the next one. Progressing in this manner, she found the expedition less hazardous than she had anticipated.
Luckily, the rocks were all comparatively flat-surfaced and broad enough to allow her ample foot space. Her worst moment was when she reached the river’s center point and discovered that the next stone was half again as far from its predecessor as the others. Bracing herself, she extended her right leg as far as possible and gave a hard, quick shove with her home-based left foot. The right foot settled securely upon its landing place, and she transferred her full weight onto it with a gasp of relief.
Once she had completed the crossing, she plunged recklessly into the thicket, more intent upon making speed than exercising caution. Dried sticks and crisp pinecones crackled beneath her hurrying feet, and small limbs snapped as she roughly shoved them aside to create a pathway. In only a matter of minutes she had reached the clearing that had been the focal point of her last vision. It was just as she had seen it in her mind: a miniature meadow sprinkled with wildflowers and separated from the house beyond it by a thin screen of woods.
She peered hopefully about in search of Rob, but could see him nowhere. By now, of course, he was probably in among the trees. Was there a chance, she wondered frantically, that she could still catch up with him? She longed to call out his name, but she knew that the dog had keener ears than he did. The last thing she wanted was to alert it that strangers were approaching.
It was a moment before the realization struck her that she was not alone. The child had been standing so quietly at the far side of the clearing that she might have been an especially tall flower on a slender stalk, silhouetted against the green of the summer-dark trees.
Karen stared at her, incredulous.
“It’s you again! Why are you here? What is it you want?” she whispered.
The little girl’s head was bent, so her face was lost in shadow, but the fine, pale hair shimmered in the sunlight. She looked so small, so fragile, and in some strange way so achingly familiar, that Karen felt an overwhelming longing to gather her into her arms.
The child’s own arms were extended with the palms of her hands turned outward in a gesture that was more eloquent than words.
Stop! Please stop! Don’t go any farther! Escape while you can!
“I can’t do that,” Karen told her softly. “Rob’s life is in danger.”
“So is mine!”
It was the first time that she had heard the girl’s actual voice, but despite this fact, it, too, was familiar. It was pure and sweet as the chirp of a bird.
“Stop!” the child cried aloud again. And she called Karen by a name that no one had called her by before.
“What do you mean?” Karen was stunned by what she had heard. “Why did you call me that? You’re not—you can’t be—”
It was then that she heard the growl. It was followed by a moment of such absolute silence that she had one fleeting instant of hope that she had been mistaken about the source of the sound. Then, pure chaos erupted. There was a vicious snarl and the sound of a screen door crashing open.
A man’s voice shouted, and then a woman’s. As an accompaniment to their voices, there came a volley of ferocious barking.
It was too late! She had delayed too long!
“Rob!” Karen breathed. “Oh my god, Rob!”
There were two gunshots in quick succession, and all ability to reason vanished.
Instead of racing for the car, she did the worst thing possible.
She screamed.
CHAPTER 20
At first, she didn’t associate the sounds with herself. She heard them in bewilderment, uncertain as to where they were coming from. It was only after several moments had passed that she realized incredulously that those piercing shrieks were hers. They were originating from somewhere deep inside her and seemed to be surging up through her throat of their own volition.
The man who emerged from the clump of trees put an immediate end to them. The sight of the gun in his hand extinguished her hysterics and brought Karen back into control of herself as abruptly as though she had been doused with ice water. She pressed her hands to her mouth, choking back any last shreds of sound, and stared in hatred at the well-remembered face.
It seemed to take Joe a moment to recognize her. Once he did, it was evident from his expression that she was the last person he had expected to find there.
“Well,” he said, “it’s our little friend from Albuquerque.”
The sound of his voice brought back the feel of the crushing hand across her mouth and the salty taste of her own blood. Her stomach lurched, and she fought back a rising tide of nausea.
“What have you done to Rob?” she whispered.
“If ‘Rob’ is the guy who just killed my dog, he’s got a bullet in him.”
Karen’s legs went weak beneath her.
“Is he—is he still—?” She couldn’t bring forth the words.
She was too terrified of how the question would be answered.
“He’s alive,” Joe said. He gestured with the pistol. “Turn around and start walking. Take that path between those trees over there. I’m going to be right behind you, so don’t try anything funny. Where’d you leave your car?”
“Across the river,” Karen told him.
“That explains, then, why we didn’t hear the engine. Who else is with you?”
“Nobody.”
“Just you and the boyfriend?”
“Yes, just the two of us.”
The instant she spoke, she wished she could snatch back the statement. In the shock and confusion of the moment, she had told him too much and had made herself and Rob appear too obviously defenseless. She should have tried to pretend that backup was on the way!
But the moment for that was over; because of her stupidity, they now had no bartering power of any kind. Reluctantly, she obeyed the command and moved toward the trees. Although she did not turn her head to look back, she could sense the man’s presence so close behind her that she expected at any moment to feel the pressure of the gun against the small of her back.
The footpath had not been visible from across the clearing, but when they reached the trees, it seemed to unroll magically before them. After a matter of several yards, they broke through the strip of woods, and Karen found herself facing the back wall of the house that she and Rob had viewed earlier from the far side of
the river.
The scene that now confronted her told its own story. The body of a large black dog lay stretched full-length on the ground. Its legs were extended both before and behind it as though it had been rendered lifeless in mid-leap. The largest part of its head had been blown away, and the portion that remained resembled the pulp of a spattered melon seeded with fragments of splintered white bone.
The woman, Betty, was holding Rob’s gun. Rob himself sat doubled over on the wooden steps, his left hand clutching at his right shoulder. Blood flowed from between his fingers, and the sleeve that he was gripping was red and soaking.
Karen gasped, too horrified to speak.
Rob lifted his head. His face was ashen.
“I told you to get yourself out of here,” he said.
“It was the dog.” Karen brought out the words with difficulty. “I wanted to warn you about the dog.”
“That was crazy,” Rob said. “You could have gotten away. Now… you blew it. We both blew it.”
Betty was regarding Karen with icy eyes.
“It’s a surprise seeing you here, I must say. We read in the paper about the Great Smoke Alarm Escape. Why didn’t you rest on your laurels and quit while you were ahead?” She glanced questioningly at Joe. “Is there anyone with them?”
“I’m pretty sure not,” the man said. “The girl says their car’s parked over on the road. They must have come across on the rocks. You should have let me finish the job on her back at the apartment.”
“It didn’t seem necessary,” Betty said. “I never imagined we’d see her again.”
“That’s the trouble with you. You ‘never imagine’ there could ever be problems. You never think anything could possibly go wrong with any plan you come up with. Well, this time I’m the one who’ll make the decisions.” He gave Karen a sharp poke with the muzzle of the pistol. “I want you up those steps and into that house. You—boyfriend—whoever the hell you are—get up and get in there with her.”
“But he’s hurt!” Karen objected. “Look how he’s bleeding!”
“He can walk and bleed at the same time. Come on. Get inside, both of you!”