Cindy was just bedding down, spreading her sleeping bag in the stall next to Punkin's, when she heard the rumble of a motorcycle's engine outside the stable. She pulled her hacking jacket on over her T-shirt and jeans and slipped into her moccasins. Who could this be? Pam and Perdita come to play some nasty trick? A scout for a gang of drug-crazed bikers come to rape and murder her? It wasn't Pill, because he didn't own a motorcycle. Nobody else had a reason to be here late at night. She grabbed a pitchfork and held it at the ready as she peeked around the barn door, trying to see past the glare of the headlamp to make out the rider. The rider dismounted then and stood silhouetted by the light, legs akimbo, helmet under the arm, a scarf flying from the neckline of a leather jacket. Very Lindbergh.
"Cindy Ellis? I know you're in there." Ooops. Very Amelia Earhart.
"Who is it?" Cindy asked. A woman's voice, given Cindy's family situation, was not necessarily reassuring, and she couldn't tell to whom the voice belonged because of the noise of the engine, which the woman had neglected to shut off.
"It's Felicity Fortune, and there's not a moment to spare. I can't imagine why you're hanging around here when there's work to be done, lives to be saved."
"Lives?" Cindy stepped out into the light. "Can you shut that thing off?"
"I beg your pardon. I got caught up in the urgency of the moment. As I said, lives are at stake! There's a massive search going on, and Search and Rescue are badly understaffed. They desperately need volunteers, and your horsemanship skills would be of great use."
"Felicity, I appreciate your concern, but I don't even have access to a rideable horse. Punkin hasn't got a new shoe to fit his corn yet. Besides, I couldn't ride all the way up there. I'd need a horse trailer. I don't have any gear . . .shoot, I don't even have a home, thanks to the three P's."
"Details, details!" Felicity said with an airy wave of her hand. "In the wise words of one of my former godchildren, dear, 'Don't sweat the small stuff.'"
"But, Felicity . . ."
"I wouldn't dream of letting darling Punkin miss this opportunity to show his stuff. Bring him out here, please."
Puzzled, Cindy went to Punkin's stall, put a hackamore on him, and led him out of the stable.
"Now, then, which hoof is involved?"
"Left front," Cindy said.
"Very well." She looked pointedly at Punkin's feet for a moment, and the air between her face and Punkin seemed to shimmer and shift, as if alive with sound waves made visible. When Felicity looked back up, she said, "Now, then, that's a fine job of blacksmithing if I do say so myself. Get on his back and walk him around. We must make sure the strain of being improperly shod hasn't hurt him."
Cindy did as she was told, and found to her relief and pleasure that Punkin now was able to walk, even trot, without a limp or a trace of hesitation. Sliding off his back with a pleased grin, she said to Felicity, "Wow! How'd you do that?"
"We Godmothers are nothing if not versatile. It isn't iron, of course. Our founder has never quite reconciled herself to iron, but it's sturdy stuff and the spell should be good for at least twenty-four hours. Now, then, you must join the search party on the Mount Baker Highway with all possible dispatch. I noticed that they were inadequately equipped with horses and had very few volunteers despite the urgency of the search. More may be joining tomorrow, but by then it could be too late for poor Sno."
"But I can't ride Punkin all the way up there tonight!" Cindy said.
"Of course not. You must have a horse trailer." She looked around, her gaze finally reluctantly returning to Haisley's bike. "Well, there's nothing else to do, is there? This is going to take a great deal of transformation magic, hideously expensive, but what must be done must be done. The usual hour for the end of the spell is midnight, but since we're making a late start, it will have to be dawn in this case."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow," Cindy said. Maybe Punkin's improvement was an illusion. Maybe this woman was out of her gourd. She seemed nice enough, but . . ."Holy cow!" Cindy cried, as the motorcycle Felicity had ridden in on was suddenly transformed into a four-wheel-drive Toyota Land Cruiser with a state-of-the-art one-horse trailer already hitched to the back.
"You haven't time to change now, dear, but you'll find good hiking boots, a woollen cap and mittens, long underwear, and a down jacket—oh, and extra socks and some freeze-dried food and a flashlight, inside. I trust you can provide your own sleeping bag."
"Sure!"
"Find Haisley Henderson and tell him Felicity Fortune sent you. He'll see to it that you get on with the search team. Pay particular attention to the area in and around the Shuksan campground and picnic area, past the ruined State Registry Department and restrooms. If you are not assigned to that area, see to it that it is not overlooked and is inspected most thoroughly. I'm sure the searchers are very competent, but they have quite a large area to cover. If you are ignored, which I doubt given the caliber of people on the search, inform a Mr. Lightner, the tracker, that you were tipped off by the lady who sent in an anonymous report to Sergeant Moran. Tell them she was very shy, but anxious that all of her evidence be taken into consideration. Also, suggest that the girl may have found refuge with other persons camping in the area for a prolonged period. Now, then, off with you!"
"But, what about you? This is—was—your transportation."
"I borrowed it from Haisley. It will revert to its original form as his motorcycle at dawn. Meanwhile, I have a few other things to do, and I can bloody well take a cab. Oh, by the way, what is your stepmother's address?"
* * *
Sno decided to save the joint until she really needed it. She tucked it in the pocket of the flannel shirt she had borrowed from Maurice and continued watching the river, wondering what it would be like to live up here for good, far away from people or maybe with only one other person, and have to backpack your supplies back and forth from town. She wasn't sure she'd like it, but living along this river in the snow and the fir trees was sure more appealing than going back to Raydir's. Funny, that hippie woman was probably the same age, size and weight as Gerardine, but how different they were. Anyhow, they seemed that way. Maybe a few of the right drugs at the right time in her life would have done Gerardine some good.
Just then the line began to bob, and she grabbed the pole and started reeling in a fish. It was a very big fish and almost dragged her into the river, and without knowing it, she began squealing and yelping with excitement as she splashed in the icy water and back out into the snow, trying to land her catch.
Half-naked guys poured out of the woods and down to the bank to help her.
Dinner that night was fresh fish rolled in bran flake crumbs and seasoned according to a recipe Doc said he got from his grandpa.
Sno felt fine for a while, and then she was bummed at the thought of ever having to leave this place. The guys were doing some more after-dinner bonding around the fireplace, a process which seemed to involve talking about guns by model numbers and flamboyant names. These were really good guys, but she was personally on the other side of the gun issue. For that matter, she was against the war in Vietnam—retrospectively, that was. But she didn't want to hurt their feelings, so she slipped on Maurice's multicolor down jacket, stepped outside into the frosty, star-filled silence of the night, and strolled toward the river, fishing the joint out of her pocket as she went. Halfway there, she stopped to light up.
* * *
Rose awoke after deep and murky dreams to the sound of her own voice answering the telephone, which was what that ringing in her dreams had been. Glancing at her bedside clock, she saw that it was only about eight o'clock in the evening. She had come right home, fed the cats and fallen into bed.
She was still trying to wake up when her message finished. If it was an important message, she'd grab the bedside phone, but she wasn't about to wake up for just anybody.
However, to her annoyance, she couldn't make out whose voice was on the other line. It had a funny, muffled quality to it, and the words weren't very clear.
She groped for the phone, knocked it off, retrieved it and hung it up as the message ended. Wearily she dragged herself erect and padded down the stairs to the hall where she kept her machine. She punched the button, and the muffled voice began again.
"Spying on others isn't nice, Rose Samson. But if you spy on us, then we'll have to spy on you. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we know how to get ahold of you if we want to. Stay out of what doesn't concern you, or you'll be sorry."
Well, if that wasn't adding insult to injury! Rifle her purse, take away her puny little piece of evidence, and her driver's license too, dammit, which was no doubt how they traced her. They wouldn't get away with that.
So she was good and mad when the phone rang a second time. She picked it up and said "Yeah?" into it.
"Rosie? It's Fred. I'm up in Bellingham, at Search and Rescue headquarters. We finally got a couple of breaks just in the last few hours. First, we got a call in Seattle from a woman who said Gigi and Hank had been dropped off at Puyallup Center. A couple of officers are out on that now and also trying to pick up the caller. If it's the mother, we may be able to find the kids quicker. Then another woman called here just now and said she'd seen a motorcyclist and a girl in red out past Glacier. That narrows our search down to only a few thousand square miles."
"Oh. Good, that's real good news," she murmured automatically.
"You sound funny. Are you okay? What's this about you getting robbed?"
"Could be I have something on Hank and Gigi too, or it could be just a coincidence, but I had a threatening message left on my answering machine. It wasn't just a prank. I—well, I was so sleepy I got on the wrong ferry and went to Bainbridge before I remembered I left the car in Bremerton last night. While I was riding over, I overheard two guys talking on the ferry. Call it an occupational hazard, but it seemed to me they were discussing a pair of children, a boy and a girl, and just from the way they were talking, I couldn't help feeling these guys were pederasts."
"Whoa, and they think cops are suspicious."
"I know, I know. But with the Bjornsen kids missing again—well, anyhow, it was on my mind, and I was afraid if I didn't follow up I'd hate myself later so I followed them to their car."
"You what?"
"Calm down, I didn't ask for a ride or anything. I just copied down a license number. Only they saw me. And I think one of them followed me back to the ferry terminal, got on the Bremerton Ferry after me and took my driver's license out of my purse while I was sleeping. Anyway, it's gone. And there was this weird message on my phone machine."
"Oh, yeah? How weird?" he asked with a rather comical leer in his voice.
"Well, not that kinda weird. Not if it was the guys I heard on the ferry. I'm over the hill for that type." She recognized his levity as an attempt to relieve tension—a certain black sense of humor was common to both social services professionals and cops as well as nurses and, she supposed, soldiers and anyone else whose work fell into the "It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it" category.
"What did these two guys look like?"
"They were, you know, suits. Businessmen, executives, yuppies. One was younger, middle-aged, the other was older, with white hair and I think a beard. I just got vague impressions, really. I was very sleepy and mostly I just saw the backs of their heads and heard their voices. I caught a glimpse of the face of one of them in the rearview mirror, but that was all. I was so out of it, in fact, that I probably would have forgotten the whole thing except for losing my license and the threatening call."
"Sounds like it's a good thing you didn't. Do you still have that license number?"
"No, that was the other thing. I wrote it down in a book, and they tore the page out. But wait a sec. I've got an idea." She rummaged in her purse again for the torn book, and carried the phone with her while she went into the room she used as a library. She was in search of one pencil with an unbroken lead, and at length she found one.
"You okay?" Fred asked.
"Yeah. Just a minute. I think I can have the number for you after all. Did you ever make rubbings of numbers and writing from impressions on the page in back of a torn-out page?"
"What do you mean, did I ever? That's part of Detecting One-oh-one."
"Oops. Sorry, I'm still half asleep. Forgot I was talking to a professional." She rubbed the side of the pencil lead lightly on the page that had been behind the torn one. The numbers emerged, white against the gray of the pencil lead, just above the words "Once upon a time."
"Here it is. JZZ 666."
He double-checked it with her and said, "Okay, I'm going to call back to the office and ask them to trace this. Meanwhile, you better report it to the local constabulary."
"I will. But mañana. Please. I'm a little weirded out, but that's not really why I called you. I thought it might be a lead—he did talk about 'finding' a boy and a girl. Could be our missing kids."
"And of course, it could also be wishful thinking."
"I've been having some unusual luck where wishful thinking is concerned these days," Rose told him.
"Really?" he asked in a suddenly softer voice. "I've been doing some myself, but I don't know how much luck I'm having." A beat of silence, then, more briskly, "Anyhow, I'll get that number traced, but you stay out of it from now on, okay? Tomorrow somebody can check up on it and see if this guy can help us with our enquiries, as they say, but meanwhile you keep your doors and windows locked tight. You hear? Leave the rough stuff to us."
"Yes, officer. But I think they're just trying to scare me. They'll know soon enough that all the evidence I've got has already been passed on, and there's no other reason for them to pursue me."
"Maybe not, but be careful anyway, Rosie. Do you own a weapon?"
"Not a gun, but I'll be sure to hide the kitchen knives so they can't be used against me. Will you call back and let me know who that license belongs to, at least?"
"I promise I'll call back, okay, but I think you'd better leave the police work to us. Although, if you're really crazy about it, you could come up here and help us search the woods for Sno Quantrill. The sheriff's posse, the Explorer Scouts, and the majority of the back-country horsemen, the usual SAR recruits, have gone to be in the Cereal Bowl Parade at Disney World in Florida, and half the 4X4 club has gone to the bowl game. The military normally would help out, but they're on red alert already with this new trouble in Costa Rica."
"That shows how in touch I am with the world," she said. "I didn't know there was any trouble in Costa Rica. But I've got a lot of comp time coming. I'll check in tomorrow and try to get away."
"Great," he said. "So, maybe I'll see you?"
"Yeah," she said softly. "That'd be nice."
"Bye, then. Remember, lock up."
"Bye."
Rose hung up, then changed the message on her answering machine. "Hi, this is Rose at 555-2468. Just wanted to let anyone calling in know that I just spoke to the police and gave them the number of the license of two men on the ferryboat who first aroused then confirmed my suspicions that they were up to no good. The license number I gave the police is JZZ 666. Have a nice day."
If any of her friends called and got that message, they'd be no more puzzled and amused than usual, although they might vaguely feel they didn't get the joke.
Then she went into the kitchen and pulled out all the carving knives, all the steak knives, and on second thought, remembering some of the movies her teenage clients enjoyed when she was counseling at a youth shelter, grabbed the blender and the Veg-O-Matic as well and locked them in a closet. She'd have to take her chances her foe wasn't into microwave murder.
She went to the bathroom, had presence of mind enough this time to brush her teeth and wash her face, and returned to bed.
* * *
"Now, then, young lady, time for you to take a bath," the man told Gigi. She shook her head emphatically, her thumb firmly in her mouth.
The man had taken her up to the master bedroom, the one with the mirrors on the ceiling, and after locking the door finally turned her loose. She found a corner and hunkered down there, watching him.
"Are you worried about what happened to Hank?" he asked in his nice voice again. Now she knew it was false, that he was a bad man. But if she played like she didn't know, maybe he would be nice and maybe she could find a way to get away.
She nodded.
"Hank was naughty. He disobeyed. I told you kids and told you not to go down there. I knew you'd be upset by my basement."
"Are those dead kids?" She took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to ask.
He pretended to laugh. "Dead kids? Dead kids? I guess they do look real, don't they? Is that what scared you so much?"
He advanced on her, as if to hug her. Or squeeze her to death. She scooted back until she was half under the bed.
"Poor Gigi. I'm sorry you were scared. Do you really think I'd keep dead kids in my basement? Those aren't real kids, not really. All that stuff down there is just for effect, like in the movies. You really thought it was real, though, huh? I'm surprised at you, Gigi. How can you think I'd kill kids? I love kids. I love you. Now come here and give me a kiss and get ready for your bath like a good girl and we'll play a little game."
Gigi scooted backwards until her legs were under the bed. The smell of the man's aftershave didn't take away the bad smell from downstairs. He grabbed for her but she wiggled under the bed, which was high enough for her to crawl around under. She crawled to the middle, beyond his reach.
"Oh, little girl, you're asking for it now," the man said. "I guess you've got your own game going. Okay. I'll play yours and then you'll play mine." He laughed, as if he'd said something funny. She heard the bed wheeze above her and then, all of a sudden, he popped down to eye level below the bed, there was a blinding flash, and he had a fistful of her hair. It burned and hurt and little knives ran into her head. She screeched and screamed and yelled and turned over and held on with her hands and feet to the underside of the bed but he kept pulling.
Then suddenly an arm was around her neck, choking her while the hand continued pulling her hair. She coughed, gasped, and finally, blackness filled with little blue and red stars overcame her.
Right beside her ear, a telephone rang.