Dreadful Sorry (30 page)

Molly thought fast. "I'll look around outside and see if he's come up to the house," she said. "If he's not here, I can get Jared and we'll search all around Hibben."

"Bless your heart, dear girl. I'll call you back when I know something, or you call here. All right?"

"Right." Molly said good-bye and hung up. She reached for the flashlight on the top shelf next to the box labeled Camping. But when she pressed the button, it didn't work. She could hear her mother's voice in her head:
Typical Bill!

She rummaged in a drawer under the counter and found an unopened pack of batteries. She fumbled in her haste to open it but at last had a working light. Rain slapped the windows as Molly walked through the kitchen and unlocked the back door.

The night was cool and windy. The sliver of moonlight that had illuminated the headland when the helicopter arrived had been snuffed out by dark clouds. Rain slashed the trees and flattened the long grass. Molly hesitated in the doorway, then grabbed a jacket off the coatrack beside the door. She stepped out into the rain.

Molly walked around the house. Her father's windbreaker was soaked in minutes. She shone the light around corners and across the headland, but there was no sign of Abner. She ached at the thought of the old man out in this wind and rain and darkness, confused and alone.

She felt like crying when she remembered the little boy's eager face as he begged Clementine to play. She remembered the lined face of the man she and Jared had met at The Breakers. The confusion in his eyes. He was the lone survivor of all the people Clementine's life had touched. That he had run off into the night, searching for something he could never find, Molly knew suddenly, was as much their fault as it was Clementine's. If she and Jared had not visited Abner and reminded him of the past, of his loss, he wouldn't be out there now. Somehow, they had to help him. The best thing to do, she decided, was to take the van and drive to Jared's campsite.

She went back inside and ran upstairs to shed the wet windbreaker and nightgown and put on jeans and a warm sweatshirt. She grabbed an umbrella from the stand in the front hall, hoping it would hold up to the wind. She left the house by the front door and locked it behind her, pocketing the key. She swung herself up into the van, worrying that she wouldn't be able to drive along the coast road even as far as Blueberry State Park, but there was nothing she could do now but try. If the road were blocked, she'd turn around and search without Jared's help.

There were no streetlights. The road was slick. She drove at a snail's pace for safety, all the while urging herself to hurry.
Abner might be anywhere,
she told herself.
He might be hurt.
She eased the big van around a fallen branch in the road, then turned gratefully into the Blueberry State Park campground.

The campground seemed nearly deserted. Only the most intrepid campers would stay in weather like this. Their tents were small, pointy shadows in the rain. She took the flashlight, put up her umbrella, and squelched in the darkness through the muddy pine needles. She crouched before the zippered entrance to Jared's tent.
No way to knock.
She hissed: "Jared! Wake up. It's me."

Rain was blowing under her umbrella. He couldn't hear her. She raised her voice, but he didn't respond. Finally she unzipped the flap and reached her hand inside. Jared was a hump in the darkness. She shook his sleeping bag-covered foot.

He sat up with a start. She could barely make out his features and flicked on her flashlight. He threw up his hands to cover his eyes. "What—?"

"It's me. It's Molly." She lowered the beam.

"Molly! I must be dreaming. I
was
dreaming—about you! God, I can't believe you've come in this weather. Get in here!" He reached for her with a grin, his dark hair tousled.

Pulling back, she nearly dropped the umbrella. "No, listen to me," she said. "Abner is missing. Thelma called me. She thinks he's come to Hibben, searching for Clementine. I want you to help me look for him." Her stomach felt hollow. How much was Clementine's guilt, how much her own?

"What the hell?" Jared started to struggle out of his sleeping bag, then stopped. "Look, I've got to get dressed. Do you have the van?"

"Yes. I'll wait there. Hurry up." She tried to tell herself as she waited that the shaky old man was down in Hibben, safe and warm. Probably he'd gone to his old friend, Grace Wilkins.

A few minutes later Jared climbed into the van next to Molly. "We have to stop meeting like this," he said as she started the engine.

In the light from the dashboard she could see his face, and he wasn't teasing. "I mean it," he continued. "We haven't had a moment's peace together since the day we met, do you realize that? Every time we get together, there's major trauma of some kind or another. I just want to be able to be, you know,
normal
with you. When I saw you just now, I was so glad to see you. I thought—well, never mind what I thought." He crossed his arms and stared, brooding, out at the rainswept night. "I just want this Clementine stuff to be over."

As they drove back to Hibben, Molly told Jared about what happened to Paulette.

"A helicopter—that's wild!" he said. "But is she all right?"

"I don't know yet. Everything is happening at once."

They headed down the hill, headlights cutting a path through the rain. "I hate to bother Grace Wilkins in the middle of the night, but there's a chance Abner went to her," Molly said. "So I think we should go to her house first. She told me she lives in the condos behind the church. Didn't she say number sixteen?"

"With a red door." Jared nodded. "At least it's a start. And even if he's not with her, she may know places where we can look."

Molly parked the van in the lot by the condominiums and they wandered up and down the paths until they located number sixteen. After ringing the doorbell again and again, and waiting almost five minutes, they were ready to give up and go away when they heard a shuffling sound and the outside light went on. Molly pressed the bell again. "Who is it?" inquired a sharp voice. "Don't you know it's the dead of night?"

"It's Molly Teague and Jared Bernstein, Miss Wilkins," called Molly through the door. "We're sorry to wake you up, but it's an emergency. Abner Holloway is missing, and we're trying to find him."

The door to the condominium flew open and Miss Wilkins blinked at them. She was wearing a pink terry cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. "What's that again?" she asked, fumbling to push her glasses up on her nose. Her cloud of white hair stood on end and she looked confused. "The library doesn't open for hours yet."

"We're not here about books," Molly told her. "We're looking for Abner Holloway." She looked hopefully beyond Miss Wilkins. "Is he here, by any chance?"

"You may entertain your men friends at ungodly hours, my girl, but I do not."

"We met Mr. Holloway at the nursing home yesterday," Jared explained. "And just a while ago-they called Molly to say he's missing."

The old woman adjusted her glasses and smiled suddenly up at Jared. "Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed. She opened the door wider. "You'd better come in and tell me about this."

They stepped inside the vestibule. Molly could see into a small, comfortably furnished living room. There were stacks of books on the coffee table and on the floor by the couch. Miss Wilkins took Jared's arm and led him into the room. Molly followed.

As Molly explained the situation, Miss Wilkins's expression grew less sleepy, less vague. "Oh my," she frowned. "This is terrible. Abner must be senile if he thinks he can find a girl who has been gone for more than eighty years. She's probably dead, anyway."

"We know that, of course," Jared told her. "But if Abner thought she were alive, where would he search?"

"Try the harbor," Miss. Wilkins said with certainty. "He told me she always took him to look at the boats. She also used to take him to play in the school yard on the swings, but of course the school isn't a school anymore. It's the antique shop. But it's worth a look."

They stood to go.

"Or try his house," Miss Wilkins added. "Molly's house. That's where he and Clementine spent most of their time together, after all. It was Clementine's job to look after all the children, remember. She must have played with them a lot up on the headland."

"We'll call you as soon as we find him," promised Jared.

"Nothing doing." The old woman shook her head and opened the tiny foyer closet. "I've known Abner all my life," she said firmly. "If he's in trouble now, he'll need all the friends he can get." She pulled out a pair of black rubber boots and reached for her beige trenchcoat and umbrella. "I'm coming with you."

Molly and Jared looked at her, then at each other. Miss Wilkins was so small and frail, and the night was so black and wet.
But the more people looking for Abner,
thought Molly,
the better chance we'll find him.

Miss Wilkins led the way past the church and around to the back of the antique shop. "This was the school yard," she said. "But now look."

It was a parking lot, empty except for two overflowing trash cans next to the street lamp. On the other side of the stone wall, Molly could make out the gentle humps of the gravestones in the churchyard. But no sign of Abner.

"I think the harbor's our best bet," said Jared. And they returned to the van and set off. Miss Wilkins sat up front next to Molly. Jared sat in back. Molly switched the wipers on high to help her see through the rain.

"This is just plain terrible," Miss Wilkins said sharply. "Running around in this weather—the very idea." She seemed angry rather than worried about Abner.

Molly and Jared left Miss Wilkins waiting in the van while they ran along the pier and investigated all the boats tied up at the moorings. They walked along the seawall. Then they walked up Main Street and down the other side, stopping to check in every doorway.

"Do you suppose he might have made it up to the headland while we were down here?" Molly was feeling discouraged and angry at the same time. "I can't stand thinking about what he must be going through. And it's all our fault!"

"It is not," said Jared staunchly. "It's Clementine's fault."

"I don't know why he liked Clementine so much, anyway," muttered Molly as they walked back to the van. "She didn't care about him or about any of those kids, really."

He unrolled his window a crack, and the salty wind and rain blew in.

Molly drove back up to the house and cut the engine. Through the rain she could see welcoming light spilling from the upstairs windows and from the downstairs windows of the hallway.

"Any normal person would wait on the porch," pronounced Miss Wilkins as Jared helped her climb out of the van into the wind and rain. "That is, if he were out at this time of night in this awful weather in the first place, which he wouldn't be, of course." She put up her umbrella and squelched across the driveway to the steps. "As you see, he is not here. Abner is not responsible. He's like an impulsive child." She pursed her lips disapprovingly.

"Let's circle the house," said Jared.

Miss Wilkins took his arm. "I'm sticking with you," she told him.

The two of them set off from the porch steps, moving around the house to the left. Molly went to the right. She shone her flashlight, as before, out over the lawn and against the house. Her hair was soaking, despite the umbrella, and her braid hung down her back like a heavy wet rope. Then, at the back stoop, her light flashed on something that made her gasp. The door to the kitchen was ajar.

She shivered in the wet wind as Jared and Miss Wilkins appeared from behind the conservatory. "Look at this," she said, beaming the light. "I came out this way when I searched earlier. I must have forgotten to close it properly."

"We'd better check," Jared said tersely, pushing open the door and stepping into the kitchen. "It's a chance to get out of the rain for a minute, at least."

Molly found herself trembling as she led them through the rooms of the house, flicking on lights as she went. She felt jumpy. The thought of the old man alone in the house made the back of her neck prickle. She was glad that the others were there with her.

All the sounds in the big house seemed magnified as they searched. The refrigerator hummed. The clock on the wall clicked. The back staircase creaked. Water dripped from the bathtub faucet upstairs where the sheets were soaking. Molly stood in the long upstairs hallway and shivered. She longed to run into her bedroom and strip off her wet clothes, climb into bed, and pull up the quilt. Walking through the house this way looking for Abner felt like walking down the hallway in her dream. She wanted to scream. She wished she were home with Jen.

It was nearly three-thirty in the morning and her whole body ached. She wrenched open the last door and stepped into a large empty bedroom. "This was the playroom," she said. Jared took her hand in his and a terrible sadness washed over Molly as they stood looking at the empty bookshelves and built-in toy cupboards. There was the window seat where little Abner had pretended to be a pirate sailing in a fine ship laden with treasure. Where was that little boy now?

"Nobody's here," Jared said.

But it wasn't quite true. Molly sensed they all were there—all the Holloways and Clementine, too—right there in the house. They played in the playroom and ran on the stairs. They ate in the dining room and read in the library. Aunt Ethel sighed in her bed, worn and wretched. Uncle Wallace smoked in his study, planning his children's lives for them.

"No telling where he's gone off to," said Miss Wilkins. "Can't be a mind reader with people like him."

Molly couldn't think of any more places to search for the old man. She led the way down the stairs to the front hall.

Behind Molly on the stairs, Jared tugged her wet braid. "You were in her head," he said. "So you should know all the places they liked to play."

"What's that?" Miss Wilkins grabbed his arm. "In whose head? What does that mean?"

Molly sighed. "I don't know how to tell this story, Jared. You can if you want."