“Tim’s here,” her mother told her. “He says you have a date.”
“We did. I completely forgot.” Unbelievable as such a thing would have seemed earlier, it had slipped her mind completely. “Tell him what happened, will you, Mom? Tell him I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t I send him over to pick you up?”
“I told you,” Karen said, “I can’t just leave.”
“What are you planning to do, spend the night there?”
“I don’t know,” Karen told her helplessly. “I don’t know what I should do. Maybe someone will need me for something.”
“Get your things together,” her mother said firmly. “I’m sending Tim to get you. I have a splitting headache, Karen, and I don’t want to argue.”
“Mom, I can’t! I’m the only one who knows!”
About the box! The unspoken statement surged back into her consciousness, urgent, discordant. No longer were the words mere whispers, hissing bewildering warnings. Now they were louder, stronger, rushing into her head with a thunderous roar.
“I can’t come home,” Karen repeated shakily. “Not until we figure out what’s happened.”
Without waiting for a response, she hung up and then turned off the phone. Her heart was pounding so hard that when she pressed her fingertips against her temples she could feel the pulsation of blood. The vision was back, more vivid than before, projected like a movie upon the screen of her brain. Although Bobby was encased in darkness, she could see him clearly. He had not changed position, but he seemed to have slid forward so that one side of his face was resting against metal.
For a long time Karen stood with her eyes closed, focusing with another, inner eye upon the inert figure. Then, just as she was beginning to feel that she had absorbed every detail, something began to happen. Although Bobby was lying so still that it was impossible to tell whether or not he was breathing, she was aware of the sensation of motion, as though he were in some mysterious manner moving toward her.
I am crazy, Karen told herself with numb acceptance. The hidden strangeness had finally surfaced, as she had always feared in some dark recess of her mind that it someday would. In the space of one afternoon she had managed to lose all control of her senses. Bobby is moving, and yet he isn’t! Her head was spinning, and the pressure was mounting so rapidly that she was afraid her skull might burst. With her eyes still shut, she pressed her cheek against the cool, rough surface of the kitchen wall, struggling desperately to regain a grip on reality.
She could smell urine. In his initial moment of terror, Bobby had soiled himself. She could smell perspiration and grease of a kind she associated with cars or motorcycles. There was another odor also, one that she had not formerly been aware of—the faint, sickening pollution of automobile exhaust.
Exhaust fumes! Bobby’s box is in a car! Karen caught her breath as the realization swept over her. He was in a car, and that car had gone into motion! He was with somebody who was taking him someplace, but where?
She released her hold on the image, and her eyes flew open. She was back in the Zenners’ kitchen, and she was trembling.
“Karen?” Mr. Zenner spoke from the doorway. “You’re not still on the phone, are you?”
“No,” Karen said. “It was just my mom.”
She moved away from the wall. Her cheek was raw from the pressure of the plaster.
“Mr. Zenner,” she said hesitantly, “I have this feeling about Bobby. I think he’s in a car.”
“What makes you say that?” Bobby’s father asked sharply. “Do you know something more than you’ve told us? Did Bobby go off with someone?”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” Karen said. “It’s just a feeling.”
“Then keep it to yourself,” Mr. Zenner told her. “We’ve got enough on our minds without having to listen to premonitions. If you’d done your job, our son would be here right now.”
He’s in a car, and it’s coming closer! She wanted to grab him, to shake him, to force the words upon him, but there was no way that she could do so. Why should he believe her? Why should anyone?
Mr. Zenner went back to the living room, and Karen followed. There were more people there now than before. A dark-haired woman whose resemblance to Mrs. Zenner was so marked that she had to be a relative was seated on the sofa, weeping softly and clutching a squirming Stephanie. Kevin’s parents had arrived, along with their two daughters.
The young police officer, looking uncomfortably out of control of things, was standing in the archway between the living room and dining area.
Karen went over to him. She knew it would do no good, but she had to tell him.
“Bobby Zenner is in a car,” she said quietly.
He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s in a car,” Karen repeated. “I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I don’t expect you to believe me.”
The doorbell chimed.
“What kind of car?” Officer Wilson asked her.
“A Honda.” The words left her lips before she realized that she was going to speak them, and they took her by surprise.
“Is it a car you’ve seen before?” He was regarding her intently. His eyes were the strangest shade of blue she had ever seen, and they were riveted on her face.
“Yes. Yes, I think—”
She didn’t think, she knew! It was a green Honda with a dent in the right front fender. There was a bumper sticker on the back that read HAVE YOU HUGGED A JOCK TODAY? The vinyl on the front seat had a rip in it, and a spring stuck a little way through so that when you sat down you had to be careful that it didn’t snag your clothes.
The chimes sounded again. Mr. Zenner went to the door and opened it.
“Yes?” he asked curtly.
“I’m here to pick up Karen,” said the person who stood outside on the darkened doorstep. “Her parents sent me over for her.”
Karen glanced up quickly at the familiar voice. In one blinding flash, the answer was upon her. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“Yes, I do know the car,” she said softly. “The boy who owns it is right there.”
CHAPTER 4
When Karen arrived home, her parents were watching television. She was greeted in the front entrance hall by the sound of canned laughter rolling out from the den in a senseless roar. The stairway beckoned, and she was tempted to bolt straight up it and run to her room. Then she sighed, accepting the inevitable, and, bracing herself for the tirade of questions that she knew awaited her, went down the hall to the wood-paneled den.
They were seated, as she had known they would be, in recliners opposite the TV set. The angle of the light from the lamp on the table between them accentuated the difference in their ages, glinting off the youthful highlights in her mother’s blond hair and turning her father’s to silver.
“They found Bobby,” Karen announced. “He’s okay.”
“Thank god!” said her father, reaching out with the remote to adjust the volume of the television so they could hear each other. “Where was he?”
“In the trunk of Tim’s car.”
“He was where?” exclaimed Mrs. Connors.
“He was trapped in Tim’s car trunk,” Karen repeated. “Tim changed a tire this morning, and when he put back the jack, he didn’t slam the door down hard enough. Bobby was playing hide-and-seek and climbed into the trunk to hide.”
“Do you mean Tim was with you at the Zenners’?” her mother asked her.
“Just for a couple of minutes,” said Karen. “When he started to leave, he noticed the trunk was gaping open, so he slammed it. Of course, he didn’t know anyone was in there, and Bobby was too surprised to call out.”
“It’s a wonder the boy didn’t suffocate,” her father said.
“It was close. He was unconscious.”
“Tim never should have been there,” her mother said. “You know you’re not allowed to have friends over when you’re sitting. How did you get home?”
/>
“Tim brought me.”
“They didn’t hold him for questioning?”
“No,” Karen said. “It wasn’t as if he did it on purpose.”
“Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Mrs. Connors said. “It could easily have ended in tragedy.”
“I know that, Mom.”
“You’ll never work again at the Zenners’. They’ll tell other people, too. This is the sort of thing that gets around.”
“Yes, I know.”
“There’s no sense in beating a dead horse, Wanda,” Mr. Connors interjected. “Karen’s learned a lesson, and, as it turns out, there’s a happy ending.”
He reached again for the remote. The volume came surging up, and sounds of hysterical gaiety filled the room.
Karen regarded her father with gratitude. For once, his detached approach to life seemed less a fault than a virtue.
“I’m tired,” she said against the noise. “I’m going to bed.”
She climbed the stairs to the second floor and went down the hall to her room. The door stood ajar, and she pushed it open and turned on the light. Pale blue curtains billowed gently at either side of the open window, and the lavender-colored flowered spread that covered the bed gave the impression of a garden filled with forget-me-nots. A white porcelain lamp stood on the bedside table, and a shelf that ran the length of the wall held a collection of costumed dolls left over from Karen’s childhood.
This room was the one space in the house that was completely her own. The watercolor landscapes that brightened the walls were pictures she herself had selected. The bookcase was filled with volumes of her own choosing: poetry, historical fiction, and romances—the opposite of the newspapers and nonfiction books her father kept piled on the living room coffee table or the Book of the Month Club selections her mother subscribed to.
Closing the door, Karen stood quiet for a moment, letting the room’s peace become a part of her. Then she drew a deep breath and crossed the room to the window.
The cool night air, faintly perfumed with the scent of hyacinths, brushed against her face, and night noises rose lightly to her ears. She could hear the soft rustle of new leaves whispering as a breeze stirred through them. A dog barked once in a neighboring yard, and there was the sound of a door being opened and slammed shut.
Somewhere a baby cried. The thin, far wail came muffled by distance, like an echo from a dream. She listened as it rose and fell and rose again and then died away into silence. She could not remember ever having been this tired.
She turned from the window, flicked off the light switch, and moved through the darkness to the bed. Sinking down upon it, she was immediately overcome by exhaustion. Her arms and legs settled into the mattress like leaden weights. The moment her head touched the pillow, sleep descended like a heavy blanket, closing out the world.
In hours or perhaps only minutes—there was no way of knowing which—Karen was jarred awake by a sharp, staccato rapping. She tried to shove the sound away, but even as she did so she knew that it would continue until she responded. She felt no surprise. Somewhere, deep inside her, she had realized all along that it was not going to be this easy. The day’s events were bound to cause some repercussion beyond the mild question-and-answer sequence in the den.
“Karen?” It was her mother’s voice.
“Yes,” Karen mumbled.
“You’re not asleep yet, are you? May I come in?”
“Sure, if you want to.” Why had she bothered asking? She was going to come in anyway, regardless of the answer.
Karen heard the sound of the knob turning and forced her eyes open in response to the sudden splash of light from the hall.
Her mother stood silhouetted in the doorway.
“You never said how they found him,” she said.
“He was in the trunk of Tim’s car,” Karen said groggily.
“That’s where they found him, not how. Why did they look there? How did they get the idea of opening the trunk?”
“I told them to,” Karen said.
“And what gave you the idea?”
“It was a guess.”
“That makes no sense,” Mrs. Connors said. “People don’t guess things like that. You have to have had some reason for thinking Bobby would be in there.” She entered the room and came over to stand next to the bed. “I want you to tell me how it happened. I want you to tell me exactly how you knew Bobby was in that trunk.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Karen insisted. “I had a feeling, that’s all. I told the police officer, and he had Tim open the trunk, and Bobby was there. Why does it matter so much? Bobby’s been found and he’s all right. Isn’t that what’s important?”
“Of course that’s important,” Mrs. Connors conceded. “It’s also important that you get your story straight. When Tim left the Zenners’ this morning, you probably saw him out. When you turned to go back inside, you could have heard the trunk lid slam. The sound registered in your subconscious, and later, when Tim arrived at the door, you suddenly remembered it.”
“That’s not what happened,” Karen protested. “When Tim left, I was back in the kitchen with Stephanie.”
Mrs. Connors was silent. For a moment, Karen allowed herself to hope that the conversation had been completed. What more, she wondered, could her mother find to ask her?
The question, when it did come, was completely out of context.
“Do you remember Mickey Duggin?”
“Who?” Karen said blankly.
“The Duggins lived next door to us when we were in that duplex over on Fourth Street.”
“That was forever ago!” Karen regarded her mother in bewilderment. “How could I remember something that far back? We moved here the year I started first grade.”
“You were five at the time I’m talking about. Mickey was three. We shared a backyard with the Duggins, except you stayed in it and Mickey didn’t. His mother was always standing at the side of the house and yelling for him, and you’d stand there, just inside the gate, and cry your eyes out because you were afraid he was lost. Then she’d find him and bring him home and spank him, and you’d cry some more because you didn’t want him punished. Don’t you remember that?”
“No,” Karen said.
“Well, anyway, there was one day when Mickey took off the way he always did, but this time they couldn’t find him. Mrs. Duggin called her husband home from work, and by the end of the afternoon they had the whole neighborhood out looking. The child wasn’t anywhere. And he was so little, hardly more than a baby. There just wasn’t anywhere for him to go.”
“Did they call the police?” Karen asked, interested despite herself.
“Of course, but that didn’t do any good. They didn’t know where to look any more than the parents did. You were terribly upset. I tried to keep you inside, away from things, but with all the commotion and people coming and going next door, you had to know what was happening. Your father was working late that night and didn’t come home for dinner. You wouldn’t touch the supper I fixed you, and I heard you crying after I’d put you to bed. Then you settled down, and I thought you were asleep. Maybe you were. Maybe you dreamed it.”
Karen was totally caught up now. “Dreamed what? What are you talking about?”
“It was about nine, maybe nine thirty, and suddenly you were standing in the door to the living room. I can see it still. You were wearing little shortie pajamas because it was midsummer, and your eyes were big and scared. And you said, ‘Mickey’s down under the driveway.’ ”
“Under the driveway!” Karen echoed.
“I thought you’d been having a nightmare. You kept saying it over and over. ‘He’s under the driveway! Please, go get him!’ Finally—I don’t know why, it was just something about the way you kept repeating it, as though you were so certain—I went next door and told the Duggins what you’d been saying. There was a drainage ditch that ran along the side of the street with a pipe that went under all the driveways to
let the water through. That’s where he was. That’s where they found Mickey.”
“In the pipe?”
“He must have crawled in to hide from his mother when he heard her calling. Then he couldn’t get out. There was rubble blocking the far end, and he didn’t know how to inch out backward.”
“Was he all right?” Karen asked.
“Yes, except for scratches. He was scared, though. I can’t imagine they had any more problems with him leaving the yard.”
“What do you mean, you ‘can’t imagine’?” asked Karen. “Don’t you know? After all, we were neighbors.”
“I don’t know anything,” her mother said. “The Duggins didn’t communicate with us after that. Neither they nor anyone else in the neighborhood. It seemed they didn’t want to have anything more to do with us. People talk, especially people like Mrs. Duggin. It would have been impossible for that woman to keep her mouth shut about anything.”
“But what did they have against us?” Karen asked her. “The way you tell it, it sounds like I was a hero. Weren’t they grateful?”
“Maybe, at first, they were. By the next morning, though, that part was forgotten. What they hung on to was how weird the whole thing was. You weren’t even around when Mickey ran off. I’d taken you with me to the grocery store. There was no way you could have seen that little boy crawl into the pipe. But you knew he was there.” She paused and then asked slowly, “How did you know, Karen?”
“I can’t answer that,” Karen said. “I don’t even remember it happening.”
“You remember what happened tonight. It was the same thing this time. You knew about Bobby the same way you knew about Mickey.”
“I keep telling you, this thing with Bobby was just a guess.”
“Sure, you can say that,” Mrs. Connors said. “Maybe you even believe it. But it can’t be true. It can’t be just a guess every time.”
“Every time? It’s only happened twice!”
“No, it hasn’t,” her mother said. “There have been other occasions. There have been things like… well, here’s one. There was the Rosetti girl’s birthday party, back when you were in middle school. You didn’t want to go because you said this mean girl was going to be there who would tease you about your braces.”