Nighttime Is My Time: A Novel (34 page)

Joy looked at Sam, her eyebrows raised in astonishment. "Dr. Fleischman! Sam, he gives the most sensible advice I've ever heard from anybody on television. A couple of weeks ago he did a program warning parents about kids who feel rejected at home or at school, and how some of them grow up damaged and emotionally warped. We see enough of that, don't we?"

"Yes, we do. But from what I understand, Mark Fleischman got badly hurt both at home and in school," Sam said grimly, "so maybe he was talking about himself."

"See who's available for surveillance," Rich Stevens said. "One more thing—we'd better list Laura Wilcox as a missing person. This is the fifth day she's been gone."

"I think that if we were being totally honest, we'd be listing her as 'missing, presumed dead,'" Sam said flatly.

79

After she hung up from Laura, Jean splashed water on her face, ran a comb through her hair, threw on her jogging suit, dropped her cell phone in her pocket, grabbed her pocketbook, and rushed out of the hotel to her car. Storm King Lookout on Route 218 was fifteen minutes from the hotel. It was still early, and traffic would be light. Normally a careful driver, she pressed her foot on the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb to seventy miles an hour. The clock showed that it was two minutes past seven.

Laura is desperate, she thought. Why does she want to meet me there? Is she planning to hurt herself? The mental image of Laura getting there first and maybe being desperate enough to climb over the railing and throw herself off haunted Jean. The Lookout was hundreds of feet above the Hudson.

The car skidded on the final turn, and for a frightening moment Jean was not sure if she could straighten it, but then the wheels righted and she could see that a car was parked near the telescope at the observation site. Let it be Laura, she prayed. Let her be there. Let her be all right.

Her tires screeched as she pulled into the parking area, turned off her engine, got out, and rushed to fling open the passenger door of the other car. "Laura — " Her greeting died on her lips. The man behind the wheel was wearing a mask, a plastic mask that was the face of an owl. The eyes of the owl, with black pupils set in pools of yellow iris, were surrounded by tufts of white down that gradually changed in color, deepening to brown around the beak and lips.

He was holding a gun.

Terrified, Jean turned to run, but a familiar voice ordered, "Get in the car, Jean, unless you want to die here. And do not speak my name. It is forbidden."

Her car was only a few feet away. Did she dare try to run for it? Would he shoot her? He was raising the gun.

Numb with fear, she stood uncertainly; then, playing for time, she slowly started to put her foot into the car. I'll jump back, she thought. I'll duck. He'll have to get out to shoot me. I may be able to get back in my car. But in a lightning-quick gesture, he grabbed her arm, and pulled her the rest of the way into the car, then reached past her and slammed the door.

In an instant he was backing up, turning onto Route 218, heading toward Cornwall. He ripped off the mask and grinned at her. "I am The Owl," he said. "I am The Owl. You must never call me by any other name. Do you understand?"

He's insane, Jean thought as she nodded. There were no other cars on the road. If one came along, could she lean over and blow the horn? Better to take her chances here on the road than let him get her alone someplace where she couldn't get help. "I am… an… ow-owl… and… and… I… lllive… in… a…" he chanted. "Remember, Jeannie? Remember?"

"I remember." Her lips began to form his name and then froze before any sound came. He's going to kill me, she thought. I'll grab the wheel and try to cause an accident.

He turned and smiled at her, an openmouthed smirk. The pupils of his eyes were black.

My cell phone, she thought. It's in my pocket. She shrank back against the seat and fumbled for it. She managed to slide it out and edge it to her side where he couldn't see it, but before she could attempt to open the cover and dial 911, The Owl's right hand shot over.

"We're getting into traffic," he said. His strong fingers, crooked like talons, flew to her neck.

She jerked back away from him and, with her last conscious thought, pushed the cell phone between the seatback and the cushion.

When she woke up, she was tied to a chair; there was a gag on her mouth. The room was dark, but she could make out the figure of a woman lying on the bed across the room, a woman in a dress that sparkled and caught the tiny glimmers of light that broke through the sides of the thick shades.

What happened? Jean thought. My head hurts. Why can't I move? Is this a dream? No, I was going to meet Laura. I got in the car and—

"You're awake, Jeannie, aren't you?"

It was an effort to turn her head. He was standing in the doorway. "I surprised you, didn't I, Jean? Do you remember the school play in the second grade? Everybody laughed at me. You laughed at me. Remember?"

No, I didn't, Jean thought. I felt sorry for you.

"Jean, answer me."

The gag was so tight that she wasn't sure if he could hear her response: "I remember." To be sure he understood, she nodded her head vigorously.

"You're smarter than Laura," he said. "Now I must go. I'll leave you two together. But I'll be back soon. And I'll have someone with me you've been
dying
to see. Guess who?"

Then he was gone. From the bed Jean heard a whimpering sound. Then, her voice muffled by the gag but still audible, Laura began moaning: "Jeannie,…promised…wouldn't hurt Lily… but he's going…going to kill her, too."

80

At a quarter of nine, on his way to the Glen-Ridge House, Sam decided that it was not too early to call Jean. When she didn't answer her room telephone, he was disappointed but not worried. If she had dinner in her room last night, she has probably gone to the coffee shop for breakfast. He debated about calling her on her cell phone but decided against it. By the time I place the call, I'll be there, he thought.

The first sense that something might be wrong came when he could not find her in the coffee shop, and again when she did not answer her room phone. The desk clerk could not be sure if she had gone out for a walk. He was the man with the funny colored hair. "That's not to say she
didn't
go out," he explained. "Early morning is a busy time for us, with people checking out."

Sam saw Gordon Amory coming out of the elevator. He was dressed in a shirt and tie and an obviously expensive dark gray business suit. When he saw Sam, he went over to him. "By any chance have you spoken to Jean this morning?" he asked. "We were supposed to have breakfast together, but she didn't show up. I thought she might have overslept, but she doesn't answer in her room."

"I don't know where she is," Sam said, trying to hide his growing anxiety.

"Well, she was tired when we all got back here last night, so maybe it slipped her mind," Amory said. "I'll catch her later. She said she'll be around until tomorrow anyhow." With a brief smile and a wave of his hand he was on his way to the front door of the hotel.

Sam took out his wallet and looked for Jean's cell phone number but couldn't find it. Exasperated, he decided that he must have left it in the pocket of the jacket he'd been wearing the day before. There was one person he knew, however, who might have it—Alice Sommers.

As he dialed Alice's number, he realized again how much he anticipated hearing the sound of her voice. I had dinner with her the night before last, he thought. I wish we had plans for tonight.

Alice did have Jean's number and gave it to him. "Sam, Jean called me yesterday to say how excited she is about meeting Lily's adoptive parents. She also said there was a chance that over the weekend she'll actually meet Lily. Isn't that wonderful?"

A reunion with the daughter you haven't seen in nearly twenty years. Alice is thrilled for Jean, but it has to be one more kick-in-the-teeth reminder to her that Karen's been gone practically the same amount of time, Sam thought. He was disappointed to realize that whenever he was emotionally touched, he covered himself by sounding somewhat abrupt. "It's great for her. Alice, I've got to run. If you happen to hear from Jean, and I haven't spoken to her, ask her to give me a call, okay? It's important."

"You're worried about her, Sam, I can tell. Why?"

"I'm a
little
concerned. There's a lot going on. Listen, she's probably just out for a walk."

"Let me know the minute you hear from her."

"I will, Alice."

Sam snapped the phone closed and walked over to the hotel desk. "I'd like to know whether Dr. Sheridan ordered room service this morning."

The answer came quickly: "No, she did not."

Mark Fleischman was walking through the front door into the lobby. He spotted Sam at the desk and went over to him. "Mr. Deegan, I want to talk to you. I'm worried about Jean Sheridan."

Sam looked at him coldly. "Why do you say that, Dr. Fleischman?"

"Because in my opinion, whoever is communicating with her about her daughter is dangerous. With Laura missing, Jean is the only woman of the so-called lunch table girls who is both alive and unharmed."

"I've thought about that, Dr. Fleischman."

"Jean is angry with me and doesn't trust me. She misread my reason for speaking to the clerk about a fax. She won't listen to anything I say to her now."

"How did you know that she was Dr. Connors' patient?" Sam asked bluntly.

"Jean asked me that, and I told her initially that I'd heard it from her. I've been thinking, however, and I know now where it came up. When the other honorees—I mean Carter and Gordon and Robby and I—were joking with Jack Emerson about working on the office clean-up crew for his father, one of them mentioned it. I just don't remember which one."

Was Fleischman telling the truth? Sam wondered. If so, I've been barking up the wrong tree. "Go over that conversation, Dr. Fleischman," he urged. "It's very, very important."

"I will. Yesterday Jeannie went for a long walk. I suspect she has done the same thing again this morning. I checked her room—she's not there — and I don't see her in the dining room. I'm going to drive around town and see if I can find her."

Sam knew it was too soon for the investigator assigned to surveillance on Fleischman to have arrived. "Why don't you wait a little while and see if she shows up," he suggested. "The odds are that driving around, you'll miss her."

"I don't intend to sit around and do nothing when I'm worried about her," Fleischman said abruptly. He handed Sam his card. "I'd very much appreciate it if you'd let me know when you hear from her."

He walked swiftly through the lobby toward the entrance of the hotel. Sam watched him go, conflicted in his reaction to the man. I wonder if you took any drama medals at Stonecroft, he thought. Either you're on the level, or you're one hell of a good actor, because outwardly you appear just as worried about Jean Sheridan as I am.

Sam's eyes narrowed as he watched Fleischman swiftly depart through the front door. I'll give it a little while longer, he thought. She may just be out for a walk.

81

The chair he had tied her to was against the wall, next to the window, and facing the bed. There was something about the room that was familiar. With growing horror and the sense of being in the midst of a nightmare, Jean strained to hear Laura's muffled outpourings. She mumbled almost constantly and seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness as she tried to talk through the gag that gave her voice an eerie, throaty tone. The result was a sound that was almost a growl.

She never used his name. "The Owl" was how she referred to him. Sometimes she would recite his line from that second-grade play: "I am an owl, and I live in a tree." Then she would suddenly lapse into a disquieting silence, and only an occasional shuddering sigh told Jean that Laura was still breathing.

Lily. Laura had said that he was going to kill Lily. But she was safe. Surely she was. Craig Michaelson had promised her that Lily was safe. Was Laura delusional? She must have been here since at least Saturday night. She keeps saying that she's hungry. Hasn't he fed her? She must have had something to eat.

Oh, my God, Jean thought as she remembered Duke, the counterman at the deli-coffee shop at the bottom of the hill. He had told her about a man from the reunion who stopped in regularly to pick up food—Duke was talking about
him
!

She twisted her hands in an effort to see if she could pull the cords apart, but they were too tight. Was it possible that he had killed Karen Sommers in this same room? Was it possible that he had deliberately run over Reed at West Point? Had he killed Catherine and Cindy and Debra and Gloria and Alison, as well as those two women in this area who were murdered this week? I saw him drive into the hotel parking lot early Saturday morning, Jean thought, with his headlights turned off. Maybe if I had told Sam about that, he would have investigated him,
stopped
him.

My cell phone is in his car, Jean thought. If he finds it, he'll throw it away. But if he
doesn't
find it, and if Sam tries to locate it the same way he did the phone Laura used to call me, maybe we have a chance. Please, God, before he hurts Lily, let Sam try to trace my phone.