Stolen in the Night (24 page)

A noise behind her made Tess jump. She whirled around and saw a barn cat staring at
her. Tess stuffed the card back into the envelope and replaced it beneath the pile
of manuals. Then, she left the barn and went back to her car. As she turned out onto
the winding road that led through the farm, she saw the maroon van sailing toward
the entrance gates with the tweed-coated Gwen at the wheel.

Tess turned Kelli’s car up one of the network of dirt maintenance roads that crisscrossed
the property. Slowly, like a fishing boat trolling the water, she drove slowly past
an orchard, the ground around it littered with rotting apples the color of dried blood,
past fields knee-deep in brown grass, past gardens with bushes now wrapped for the
winter in burlap, past the pond where Erny had fallen from an overhanging tree branch.

She peered around her as she drove, searching for a building, but not knowing what
it was exactly that she was looking for.

And then, when she was beginning to wonder if she had drawn another erroneous conclusion,
Tess came over a rise and saw before her, half-hidden by trees, a long, low, one-story
wood building. Beside it was a worn, dirt patch that had obviously long served as
a place to park a truck or a car. Tess’s heart started to race. She pulled her car
onto the worn spot and got out. She walked slowly down the length of the building.
The near end of it had two open bays where a riding mower and a small tractor were
sheltered from the weather. At the far end was a shed with a large windowless door,
padlocked at the hasp. A shed where someone might keep supplies and equipment, like
tomato stakes and twine. A gardener’s shed. The structure on this farm that was the
most familiar to Lazarus Abbott. The place where he and Rusty and Nelson always began
their day’s work.

Tess licked her dry lips and began to walk toward the padlocked door. Her legs felt
wobbly beneath her. There was no light emanating from inside the shed. She approached
it quietly, holding her breath. Please God, she thought, let him be in there. Please.
Let him be alive.

She walked up to the shed, made a fist, and rapped on the door. “Erny,” she said urgently.
“It’s Mom. Are you in there? Erny?”

There was no reply. Tess’s heart sank. She had been so sure that she was right about
this. So sure again. So wrong again. She wondered disgustedly when she would stop
turning every hunch she had into a belief. Her son was not here. He was gone. Gone
and she would probably never see him again.

Tess felt an agony in her heart of regret and self-hatred. Why did I take you to that
godforsaken spot in the woods? Hadn’t I lost enough there already? Why didn’t I watch
over you? How could I have let it happen? She felt herself sinking into darkness,
as if water were closing over her head, and she struggled to breathe against the blackness
weighing her down. The end of her hope. And then, all at once, she froze. She heard
a soft, small voice whisper from behind the door.

“Mom?” Erny said.

T
ess’s heart leaped. She flattened herself against the door of the shed. “Erny?” she
cried. “Is that you? Are you all right?”

“Ma!” he said. “Open the door. Hurry up!”

Tears sprang to Tess’s eyes and she offered a silent, fervent prayer of thanks. “Just
a second,” she said. “It’s locked. I’m going to get it open.”

Tess jerked the padlock up and down, rattling it with all her might, but it did not
budge. It’s all right, she thought. It’s all right. You can do this. “Just a second,
honey,” she called to him. “I’m going to get something to break the lock. Just…sit
tight.”

She glanced into the shed where the tractor was, but there was nothing in there that
she might use to break the padlock. Her gaze swept the desolate surroundings and fell
on Kelli’s car. The jack. She could use the jack to smash the hasp. She ran to the
car and opened the trunk, praying there was a jack in the wheel well. She fumbled
through the jumble of golf clubs, ski boots, and rock-climbing gear in Kelli’s trunk,
opened the wheel well holding her breath, and then let out an exultant cry. The jack
was right there where it was supposed to be. Of course it was. Kelli was a soldier.
Of course she would have the right equipment. Tess wrested it from the trunk and ran
back to the padlock.

“Okay, Erny,” she called to her son. “Listen to me. Stand back. Get away from the
door. I’m gonna smash this thing.”

“Ma, you rock!” Erny yelled back at her.

Tess laughed, in spite of herself. “Thanks.”

As she lifted the jack, her heart felt as if it would fly out of her chest with joy.
Erny was all right. Must be all right. His voice was strong. He could never sound
that chipper if Rusty Bosworth had hurt him. History was not going to repeat itself.
She knew she should probably go up to the house and ask Sally, or call Chan Morris
and ask him if there was an extra key to the padlock, or call someone for help, but
she was not about to wait. She was not going to leave this spot without Erny’s hand
in hers. She was going to free her son, even if it meant breaking the door down.

Tess swung the jack down on the padlock with a mighty force. The padlock leaped and
spun, but was unscathed. The dry, wooden door of the shed, however, splintered around
the hasp. She lifted the jack and brought it crashing down again on the spot where
the screw fastened the hasp to the door. Paint and wood splinters flew. She raised
the jack again and again, smashing at the door until there were deep gouges in the
wood around the hasp. She threw the jack to the ground and tried to pull the hasp,
its screws, now slightly exposed, free from the door. She still could get no purchase
on the hasp to break it free.

“Hurry, Mom!” Erny cried from inside the shed.

“I am, honey,” she insisted. She needed something to lever it out. A crowbar or even
the claw of a hammer, to wedge behind the hasp and pull the screws from the wood where
they were embedded. She ran from the tractor bay to the bay for the riding mower,
but there was nothing there that she could use. She looked at the car, thinking about
the contents. Then she had an idea. She rushed over to the trunk and pawed through
the jumble of Kelli’s sports equipment until she dislodged the small, lightweight
golf bag. She rummaged through the few clubs that Kelli kept on hand. A putter. A
driver. And then she found it. Two irons. A five iron. That’ll do, she thought. She
tugged it free, rushed back to the door, held the iron upright, and wedged the angled
metal head of the club between the hasp and the door. Now, she thought, as she reached
up and settled her grip on the shaft of the club. Pull that sucker off. She jerked
the shaft of the club down toward her shoulder. After two tries, there was a loud
splintering sound. The screws were pulled from the wood and the hasp hung off the
door, the padlock hanging uselessly there.

Tess tossed the club down and put her fingers around the edge of the door, pulling
with all her might. The door started to open and Erny let out a cry and began to push
from inside the shed. In a moment he was free, and he barreled into her arms, knocking
her off balance. Together they crumpled to the ground, Erny holding on for dear life.

“Are you all right?” she said. “Are you hurt?”

He was filthy from head to toe, his dirty face streaked with tears. He shook his head
and clung to her, shivering, his skinny chest heaving.

“Thank you, God,” Tess breathed as she squeezed him in her arms. “Oh baby, I am so
glad you’re all right.”

They rocked there for a moment, awash in relief and mercy. Finally, Tess caught her
breath and spoke into his grimy ear. “Erny, listen to me. Listen to me,” she said.
“Look at me.” She managed to persuade him to loosen his grip just enough to look at
her. Her heart ached to see the haunted look in his eyes.

“Erny, we have to go before the man who put you in there comes back. Okay?”

He nodded, his eyes widening. His skinny little frame was still trembling. “How did
you know where to find me?” he asked.

Tess smiled at him, her eyes welling up. She pressed her lips together. She didn’t
want to cry. Not now. There would be time for that when they were safe. “You left
me a clue. On your fishing pole.”

Erny frowned at her. “My fishing pole? No way.”

Tess nodded. “The medal you used as a lure? It was actually a medallion from a necklace
that belonged to my sister. A long time ago, she was hidden in this same shed apparently.”

“Your dead sister?” he asked.

Tess avoided the question. The implications were obvious, and sickening. “I figured
if you made the fishing pole here, you must have found the medal here. So I came here
to look for you.”

“Leo found it,” Erny exclaimed. “I was using a long stick and some string I found
in that shed to make the pole,” he said eagerly, gesturing behind him toward the open
door of his erstwhile prison. “Leo was digging around in the dirt and he found it.”

Tess pushed his dusty hair back off his forehead. “Wow,” said Tess. “I owe that dog
a bone.”

“A really big bone,” said Erny, nodding.

“Come on,” said Tess. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

“I’m shivering. It was freezing in there.”

“I’ll put the heat on in the car. Here, take my jacket.” She took off her wool jacket
and put it over his narrow shoulders as she hustled him toward the car. He climbed
into the front seat, pushing her leather sack to the floor, and pulling the jacket
around him. “Hurry up with the heat, Ma,” he said.

Tess did not need to be urged. She rushed around to the driver’s side, slamming the
trunk as she passed by it. She got in, leaned over and locked the doors, turned the
engine over with the ignition key, and pushed the heat up to its maximum. She started
to untie the wool scarf from around her neck. “Here, take this, too,” she said.

Erny recoiled. “I don’t want that. It’s pink. You wear it.”

Tess smiled in spite of herself. “It’s not pink. It’s cranberry. But okay. Okay,”
she said, half to Erny, half to herself. “We’re going to be okay now.” She began to
back out onto the maintenance road. “We’re going to go and call someone we can trust.”

“You should call the cops, Ma,” he said. “Tell them.”

“I can’t call the cops,” she said grimly as the car began to bump down the dirt road.
“The guy who took you is a cop. He’s actually the police chief.”

Erny stared at her. “No way,” he breathed.

“I’m afraid so,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“It’s a long story,” said Tess.

“He killed that guy?” said Erny. “The guy at the campground?”

“Apparently, he did.”

Erny was silent for a moment. “Why?” he asked.

“That’s a good question. I don’t really know.”

“Wow,” said Erny.

Tess looked over at him, huddled under her jacket, wedged up against the car door.
His eyes were huge, like black checkers. “Erny, did you see him kill the guy?”

Erny shook his head gravely. “No. He was digging in the ground when I saw him. I was
looking for firewood and I saw him digging a hole.”

“Where was the…body?” Tess asked.

“In the back of the car,” Erny explained eagerly. “I didn’t know it, but it was in
the backseat. When I looked in the car, I yelled. That’s when the guy who was digging
came after me with the shovel.”

“Did he hit you with the shovel?” Tess asked.

Erny shrugged. “I pretended it hurt more than it did.”

“Where?” she demanded.

“Right there in the woods,” Erny said.

“I meant where on your body did he hit you?”

Erny feigned nonchalance and gestured vaguely toward his side. “Along here somewhere.”

Tess made a mental note to have a doctor check him over thoroughly when they got back
to the inn. “I’m so sorry, Erny. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry you had to see
that body. I’m sorry he hit you. I’m sorry he locked you up like that.”

Erny grimaced. “Well, I shouldn’t have been looking in there. In the car. I guess
if I wasn’t looking in his car, I wouldn’t have seen the dead guy. And I wouldn’t
have screamed and he wouldn’t have come after me.”

“Believe me, Erny, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I couldn’t help it, Mom. It was so cool. I just wanted to see it. I never saw one
of them before. Not up close.”

Tess frowned at him. “What, a dead body?” she asked.

Erny rolled his eyes. “Not a dead body. A Mercedes, Mom. A Merc.”

T
ess jammed on the brake and they both lurched forward. She put the gear in park, turned,
and looked at Erny. “A Mercedes?” she said.

Erny nodded. “A black one.”

Tess’s palms were damp as she gripped the wheel. “Erny, what did the man look like
who took you? Was he a great big man with red hair and a mustache?”

Erny made a face, as if he could hardly believe she would make such an obvious mistake.
“No. He had black hair. His eyes looked like one of those eskimo dogs.”

Tess sat staring out the windshield. Black hair and the pale gray eyes of a malmute.
It was Chan Morris. He drove a Merc—one of the few people in this area who could afford
such a car. And the shed where Erny was locked up was on his property. It all fit.
It was obvious. It just didn’t make sense. Why Chan Morris? Her mind felt like it
was spinning. She had to stop speculating. Once again she had accused the wrong man.
It wasn’t Rusty Bosworth. And right now, she had no time to puzzle it out. Just moments
earlier, when she got Erny into the car she had felt safe. She felt safe no longer.
This was Chan Morris’s property. He could drive in at any minute. He could be here
already, heading for the gardener’s shed. Coming to dispose of the witness who could
put him in jail for murdering Nelson Abbott.

“Erny,” she said. “Listen to me. You get into the backseat and crouch down behind
here. Put my jacket over you so you can’t be seen and just stay there while I drive
us out of here, all right?”

“Why do I have to?” Erny said.

“Because I said to. Hurry. That man could be back at any minute. Hurry.”

Erny unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car. He opened the back door and climbed
into the space behind the passenger seat in front. “I can’t close the door,” he said.

“I know. I know. I’ll help you. Just…stay down.” Tess got out and went around the
car. She leaned into the backseat, arranging her jacket over her son. “Now, stay there,”
she said. “Stay very still.” She stood up, looking all around, and slammed the back
door shut. She went around the car and got back into the driver’s seat.

“That guy said he was going to kill me,” Erny’s voice came, small and frightened,
from the well behind the passenger seat.

“Well, he’s not,” said Tess. “Now, don’t talk till we’re out of here.”

She shifted into drive and began to move very slowly down the maintenance road toward
the long drive that bisected the farm. I can’t protect him by myself, she thought.
If I could only get some help. Jake was in custody. She couldn’t call the police.
And then, suddenly, she remembered. A feeling of complete relief washed over her.
She
could
call the police. It wasn’t Rusty Bosworth she needed to fear, after all. Once she
called the police and explained where and how she found Erny, they would come to the
rescue. She glanced over at the passenger seat where she had put her bag with her
cell phone. Erny had pushed it onto the floor when he got in. She leaned over and
tried to catch the strap in her hand as she continued toward the driveway. She couldn’t
manage to grab the strap and keep her eye on the road at the same time.

“Ma, what are you doing?” Erny asked, seeing the movement on the passenger side through
the space between the seats.

“Trying to get my cell phone,” said Tess.

“I’ll get it for you,” he offered.

“You stay put,” she said.

But she knew she wasn’t going to be able to reach the bag and drive at the same time.
Once we get through the gates at the top of the driveway, she thought, I can pull
over and call…But it seemed foolish, even dangerous to wait. I need help now. I need
to tell someone what happened. I need those police to swoop down here in their squad
cars and escort us safely home. The image in her mind was so tantalizing that it was
irresistible. Safety. The nightmare over. I’ll pull over. It won’t take but a second
to make the call, to let them know where we are. And then we’ll be safe.

The maintenance road curved toward the driveway around the pond. She assumed it was
the same place where Erny went fishing and fell from the tree, but she didn’t mention
it or ask him. She didn’t want him throwing off the jacket draped over him and popping
up from the backseat to look. The road followed the shoreline of the pond and turned
out onto the driveway in the direction of the farm entrance. Once she made the turn,
she pulled the car to the side of the drive, put it in park, and bent over the passenger
seat. Tess grabbed her bag by the strap and pulled it onto her lap. She rummaged in
the bag and felt both delight and relief when her groping fingers identified the cell
phone and grasped it. She drew it out of the bag with a sigh. As she straightened
up, and flipped the phone open, there was a rap on the driver’s-side window.

Tess screamed and jumped. She turned her head and saw the black-ringed gray eyes of
Chan Morris staring in at her. Tess glanced in the rearview mirror. The black Mercedes,
pulled to the side of the road, purred silently, a car length behind her. Drive away,
she thought. He can’t stop you. Or act normal? Which was better? Before she could
choose, he reached for the door handle on the driver’s side and opened the door. Too
late, Tess realized that unlike her own car, the car she was used to, Kelli’s car
did not have doors that she could lock automatically. Chan held the door open and
glanced around inside the car. Her options had dwindled. Her only option now was to
lie and hope he didn’t realize it. Stay quiet, Erny, she thought. Oh please, don’t
move or make a sound.

“Hello, Tess,” said Chan. “What are you doing here?”

Tess exhaled and gave him the brightest smile that she could muster. “Oh, hi, Chan.
You startled me.”

“You should have told me you were coming,” he said.

Tess heard the chilly note in his voice. “I asked your wife if it would be all right,”
she said. “You can ask her.”

“I’m asking you,” Chan insisted. “What are you doing here?”

“Brrr…it’s kind of cold,” said Tess. “Would you mind if I shut the door?” She reached
for the inside handle and tried to pull it toward her. The door did not budge.

Chan did not explain nor did he let the door go. “It’s not that cold,” he said. “Now,
why are you here?”

“Well, when Erny was here the other day he lost his sweatshirt and I thought it might
still be here.”

Chan cocked his head. “A lost sweatshirt? That’s why you’re here?”

Even as she nodded, Tess realized her mistake.

“Your son was kidnapped this morning,” Chan said. “And all you’ve got to do is come
over here looking for his sweatshirt?”

Too late, Tess knew how ridiculous her excuse sounded. She stared through the windshield
ahead of her, her cheeks flaming.

Chan reached into a bulging pocket of his olive green field coat and pulled out an
object that he swung in front of her eyes. “What do you know about this?” he said.

Tess stared at the metal padlock that hung from the broken hasp. Chan shoved the padlock
back into his pocket, reached into the coat’s inner pocket, and pulled out a gun.
He pointed it at Tess.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

“Get out of the car,” he said.

Tess stared at him, frozen to the seat.

Chan roughly grabbed her by the upper arm. He jerked her from the front seat, smashing
her head against the door frame, and then, still grasping her arm, the gun pointed
at her head, told her to open the back door. “Where’s the boy?” he demanded, although
he avoided her gaze. “Open the back door.”

“No, Chan,” she said. “No, please don’t.”

“Open it,” he cried, his voice cracking. “Do you want me to start shooting?”

Tess shook her head. She was shivering, both from fear and the cold. Numbly, she reached
for the door handle and opened it. Chan leaned over and looked inside. He pointed
to Tess’s jacket, covering Erny on the floor of the backseat. “You know, Tess, if
you’re cold, you should wear your jacket. Pick that up for me, why don’t you?”

“No, it’s all right…”

“Do it!” he cried.

Feeling helplessly trapped, Tess leaned into the car and pulled her jacket off her
shivering child hidden in the well. Erny looked up at her with wide eyes. Their faces
were inches apart.

For a moment, Tess felt as if they were frozen in time and space. She had almost saved
her son. Almost gotten him away. And now, because she had stopped to call for help,
instead of stepping on the gas, they were both in mortal danger. Erny was shaking
all over, staring at her, looking to her for an answer. Tess looked directly into
his eyes. “Listen. If I say ‘run,’” she whispered, “open that door and go. And don’t
stop. Hear me?”

“What are you saying to him? Come out here,” said Chan. He reached in and jerked Tess
toward him by the scarf around her neck. She gagged as it tightened against her throat.
She grabbed at the scarf, trying to pry it from her throat, to relieve the pressure
as she tottered clumsily backward.

Chan leaned over and looked into the car at Erny as Tess crumpled against the door,
gulping in the air. “I told you not to leave that shed. But here you are. Doesn’t
your mother teach you to mind?” he cried, pointing the gun at the frightened child
in the backseat.

The sight of Chan pointing a gun at Erny was horrifying. Tess wanted to yell out in
protest and then she realized how dangerous that would be. He was clearly nervous
and agitated. She didn’t want to startle him. Try to be calm, she thought. Pretend
you don’t know anything. Try to reason with him. “Chan,” she said. “I don’t understand
what’s going on. Why was Erny in that shed?”

Chan shook his head wearily. “Don’t pretend, Tess.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

Chan ignored her protest. “How did you know he was there?” he asked. “Does anyone
else know? Who were you calling when I came up on you?”

Tess took a chance. She tried to look apologetic. “You may as well know. I just got
off the phone with the police. They’re on their way. There’s no use in hurting us.
They already know.”

Chan peered at her. “I saw your car stop. You didn’t have time to call the cops.”

“It doesn’t take long,” she said.

“Even if you did, they wouldn’t believe you,” said Chan, shaking his head. “You’re
the girl who cried wolf.”

Tess realized that there was some truth to what he said. Still, she persisted. “Look,
Chan, I told several people I was coming over here. You can’t get away with this,”
she said, wishing that were true.

“No. You were just playing a hunch or you would have brought the cops along. But what
was it? What made you think of me?”

Tess wanted to tell him about the mistake he had made, so long ago. About the “Believe”
pendant found in his shed and the fact that she had proof. And then, before she blurted
it out, she realized that the pendant was still in her pocket and that she had told
no one that she had found it. All he had to do was get rid of it, and them, and there
would be no one to suspect him. “I…I had a very good reason,” she said.

“What reason?” he demanded and Tess jumped.

She and Erny were alone on this vast farm with Phoebe’s killer holding a gun on them.
And wherever she had gone, Sally, who was the only one who knew they were here, would
not be concerned about Tess. Clearly, she had her own problems. “I don’t have to tell
you. And people do know I’m here…” Tess insisted, but she could hear the note of desperation
in her own voice.

Chan peered at her, still pointing the gun at her chest. “There’s nothing, is there?”
he said. “It’s not too late.”

Tess seized on the hint of doubt in his tone. “It is,” she said. “It’s way too late.”

He frowned a moment, thinking, and then he shook his head again. “No. If you’d called
the cops, they’d be here by now. No. If I get rid of the two of you, I’m safe.”

“Sally knows I’m here. Your wife. I spoke to her. She’ll tell the police.”

Chan shook his head. “Sally’s gone,” said Chan.

Tess thought of Gwen, the woman from SHARE. Sally must have left with her after all.
She must have been in the passenger seat when she drove away. “Yeah, but when she
gets back…”

Chan stared back at her and suddenly Tess was struck with a terrible realization.
“You mean, gone, as in…?”

“She had another fall,” he said. “We quarreled a bit and she fell down the stairs.”

Tess pressed her lips together to stifle a sob. “Let us go, Chan. Please.”

“Look, you brought this on yourselves,” he said, almost apologetically. “I never wanted
to hurt anybody.” He was thinking aloud. “Now, I need to get rid of any trace of you.
Any way they can link you to this place. Here, get back in the car. In your car. Get
behind the wheel. We’ll drive far away from here.” He gestured with the barrel of
the gun for her to reassume the driver’s seat.

“And then what?” said Tess, although she was afraid that she knew.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“You’re not going to let us go,” said Tess.

Chan shook his head. “Perhaps a fall for you, too. Now, get in the front. My gun and
I will get in the backseat with Erny. That way, I don’t have to worry about you doing
something stupid at the wheel.”

He was going to kill them. There was no reason in the world to think he wouldn’t.
For a second she thought that maybe the best thing would be to do as he said. Maybe
when they were out on the road, she could signal someone with her lights. And then
her heart sank. He would watch her every move. And a signal like that would be all
he needed to kill Erny. Erny, who had seen the dead body of Nelson Abbott in Chan’s
car. No. She was not going to get into the driver’s seat and let him hold a gun to
her child’s head. No, she couldn’t do that.

In the next second, Tess formulated a crude plan and made up her mind. In one swift
motion, Tess stepped close to him, reached into the pocket of Chan’s field coat, and
jerked out the broken padlock. “Hey,” Chan protested, startled. Tess smashed the padlock
down against his hand that held the gun. Chan let out a cry and the gun dropped from
his hand to the blacktop. Tess prayed for good aim and kicked it beneath the car.