The Homing

  It had started yesterday, right after she’d given him that shot for the bee sting, and he felt like he was going to die for the first few minutes, even though he kept insisting he was fine. But then he started feeling better, and figured that by this morning he really would be fine.

  But this morning he still felt itchy—like there were some kind of fleas or something that had actually gotten under his skin—and he was really hungry, too.

  He’d already eaten three bowls of Fruit Loops, and a fourth one was sitting in front of him right now. Which was weird, because all he ever ate for breakfast was a piece of toast. In fact, he hated cereal.

  Then why was he eating it?

  And why had he kept telling his mother how great he felt, when it was a big he? But every time he opened his mouth to tell her how he really felt, he just kept saying the same dumb words over and over again: “I’m fine! I’m fine!”

  But he wasn’t fine at all, and even though he wasn’t about to tell his mom—or anyone else—he was starting to get scared. What if he really was sick? Even worse, what if he was cracking up?

  Just the thought of that possibility sent a chill through his body, a chill, to his relief, that his mother didn’t miss.

  “That’s it,” Marian said, her eyes narrowing and her brows plunging into exactly the kind of deep frown she had carefully avoided since the morning last year when she’d discovered two vertical wrinkles starting to form just above her nose. Now, just to be on the safe side, she slept with heavy tape on her forehead, and a string running around the back of her head as a safety precaution against frowning in her sleep. Chuck might laugh at her—in fact he often did—but he’d appreciate it in a few more years when the other women in town started to show their years. Now, in the face of Andy’s sudden shudder and the feverish look he’d had in his eyes all morning, the last of her beauty concerns was finally driven from her mind. Picking up her purse in one hand, she grabbed Andy’s arm with the other and almost violently pulled him up to his feet. “Come on,” she snapped. “No more arguing!” Her perfectly manicured nails digging into the flesh of Andy’s arm like the talons of an eagle, she marched him out of the kitchen, through the service porch, and into the garage. As she pressed the button that would raise the garage door, she nudged her son—who was almost a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than she—toward the LeBaron convertible that Chuck had bought her for her fortieth birthday last year. “Get in.”

  “Let’s put the top down,” Andy suggested as she backed the car out into the brilliant morning sunshine.

  Marian shot him an exasperated glance—aside from the fact that he was obviously sick, surely even Andy knew how bad the sun was for her skin!—and pulled the car into the street.

  They drove in silence until Marian started out of town on Main Street and came to the foot of the park, where the enormous stanchions supporting the power lines marched down the hillside to run parallel to the road for the next ten miles. As always, Marian smiled at the sight of them. “I know everyone thinks they’re a terrible eyesore,” she said, parroting once more the identical words she spoke every time she drove this direction, “but I just love them. They remind me of …” She paused, waiting for Andy to finish the sentence she’d said so often it had become a family joke, but instead of groaning the words “marching giants,” he said nothing at all. She glanced over at him, and seeing the strange expression on his face, her right foot left the accelerator and hovered over the brake. “Andy? Andy! What’s wrong?”

  Andy could barely hear his mother’s voice, for as they’d come to the power lines, he’d begun hearing a strange humming noise.

  A humming noise that affected him the same way as fingernails scratching across a blackboard, setting his teeth on edge and sending shivers down his spine. Except that this was even worse.

  He hadn’t any idea where the horrible noise was coming from, but it was almost like a dentist’s drill screaming in his head. His hands went up to cover his ears and press against his temples, but it didn’t seem to help at all.

  Now he was starting to get sick to his stomach.

  “Andy? Andy!”

  He heard his mother’s voice, coming as if from a great distance, and slowly Andy turned to look at her.

  But the humming was getting even worse, making it feel like his whole body was buzzing with electricity, and he could hardly see his mother through a strange fog of black specks that clouded his vision.

  Marian’s eyes widened as she stared at her son.

  His face had gone pasty white, and a sheen of sweat was standing out on his forehead.

  His hands were clamped over his ears so tightly that his knuckles had gone white, and his whole body seemed to be trembling.

  And though his eyes were fixed on her, she had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t seeing her at all. She pressed hard on the brake, and the tires screeched as they lost traction on the pavement. The car fishtailed for a second, then came to a stop, its right-side tires kicking up a cloud of dust as they left the pavement. “Andy, what’s wrong?” Marian demanded. “I swear to God, if you throw up in my car—”

  But Andy had jerked the seat belt loose and was shoving the door open before the LeBaron even came to a complete stop. He scrambled out, then stood next to the car, his hands still clamped over his ears.

  But the sound boring into his brain was even worse outside the car, building to a terrifying cacophony that made him feel as if his head might explode at any second.

  “Andy?” Marian cried again as she jerked her own door open and got out. Leaving the door standing wide open, she rushed around the front of the car to her son. “Andy, what is it?” she pleaded, reaching out to him. “For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you?”

  Andy twisted away from his mother, staggered a couple of steps, then turned and ran, dashing around the back of the car and across the road. Marian started to follow him, then stopped short as an air horn blasted a warning. Turning, she saw a semi rolling toward her and instinctively stepped back off the pavement. Then, as she looked to see where Andy was, the horn blared again, and this time she saw the driver frantically waving and pointing.

  Too late, she saw both the oncoming car, and the open door of the LeBaron. Her hands flying up to cover her mouth as she realized what was about to happen, she took another step backward, then turned away, dropping into a protective crouch, her hands and arms covering her head.

  Time seemed to stand still as she listened to the hiss of the truck’s air brakes and waited for the impact when the semi struck her car.

  When it finally came, the crash was much softer than she’d expected it to be.

  Her heart pounding, Marian looked up, and for a moment thought nothing had happened at all. Then, as she rose to her feet and saw the truck slowing to a stop fifty yards farther down the road, she also saw what it had hit.

  The driver’s door to her beautiful convertible—her fortieth birthday present—was leaning against the fence across the road, so battered that she was only able to recognize it by its color.

  And Andy, halfway across the field on the other side of the fence, was still running, oblivious to what had happened.

  Karen paced restlessly from the kitchen into the living room then back again, her eyes automatically going to the clock, as they seemed to be doing at least every two or three minutes. Finally she went out the back door, circled the house as she had done half a dozen times in the last hour, then went back in.

  As usual, all she’d seen were Russell and Kevin, working down by the barn as if nothing had happened.

  How could they?

  Didn’t they care that Julie was missing?

  An hour ago, when Russell told her he couldn’t go on searching until he’d at least fed and watered the animals, she’d barely been able to believe what he was saying.

  She’d had to struggle to keep from screaming at him in her fear and frustration, but in the end, when he explained that no matter what had happened, the
animals still needed to be fed and watered, she reluctantly agreed.

  Now, though, it was starting to look as if he had no intention of going on with the search.

  The hell with him!

  Maybe Julie was right after all! Maybe marrying him and moving back to Pleasant Valley had been the stupidest thing she’d ever done.

  Well, when Julie came back, she knew exactly how to fix it. She would simply pack Julie and Molly up in her car, and the three of them would drive back to L.A. If she groveled enough, the law firm where she’d worked would take her back, and maybe they’d even handle her divorce at a rate she could afford!

  But in the meantime, she had to do something—something constructive—or she’d go crazy.

  The police!

  Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? It was one thing for them to tell Russell on the telephone that they couldn’t do anything until Julie had been gone for twenty-four hours, but if she was actually there, standing in front of them—

  “Molly!” she called, galvanized by the thought that there was, after all, some positive action she could take. “Molly, come on!” She was already searching through her purse for her car keys when Molly came into the room, looking at her questioningly. “We’re going into town, sweetheart,” Karen told her. “We’re going to make the police start looking for your sister.”

  “But Russell said—” Molly began.

  “I don’t care what Russell said,” Karen snapped, instantly regretting both her tone and her words when she saw the devastated look on her younger daughter’s face. Quickly, she knelt down and pulled the little girl close. “I’m sorry, darling,” she whispered. “I guess I’m just upset, and I want to do something to find Julie. So you and I are going to go into town ourselves, and explain to the police that Julie isn’t the kind of girl who would have run away. Okay?”

  Molly, sniffling and wiping at her damp eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, nodded, and a moment later the two of them were in the front seat of the worn Chevy that had barely gotten them to Pleasant Valley in the first place.

  “How come we’re going in Kevin’s car?” Molly asked.

  For a moment Karen didn’t have the slightest idea what Molly was talking about, and then it suddenly came back to her.

  My God, she thought, I don’t even have a car of my own anymore. But even as the thought came into her mind, she decided she didn’t care who the car technically belonged to. Julie was her daughter, and this had always been her car, and if she had to take care of herself and her daughters with no help from Russell, she would damned well use her car to do it!

  Not bothering to answer her daughter’s question, she started the car and headed down the driveway, ignoring Russell’s shout as she passed the barn.

  She also ignored the big semi parked on the edge of the road between the clinic and the village, along with the doorless convertible behind it, and the angry-looking woman who was standing by the damaged car, yelling at the truck driver.

  Three minutes later she pulled up in front of the city hall across the street from the old Carnegie Library. Not bothering to lock the car, she took Molly by the hand and strode around the corner to the side entrance, where the tiny office that housed the local deputies was located.

  Mark Shannon was sitting behind his desk, his feet up while he leafed through a catalog of various guns, holsters, belts, nightsticks, and other paraphernalia relating to his job. Looking up and seeing Karen, he guiltily dropped his feet to the floor and shoved the catalog into the bottom drawer of his desk. “Mrs. Owen,” he began, automatically offering her a smile that faded as he saw the look on her face. Already certain he knew why she was there, he rummaged through the pads of forms on his desk, finally finding the one he was looking for. “I guess you want to fill one of these out,” he said, offering her the missing person forms. “If you have any questions—”

  Karen’s jaw set. “I’m sure I don’t have any questions that are on that form,” she said. “You already know what Julie looks like—you met her when Otto died.” She rummaged in her purse, found her wallet, and pulled out a picture of Julie that was less than a year old. She laid the picture in front of Shannon. “My daughter is not a runaway,” she said. “Nor does she have a drug problem. If you don’t believe me, you can call Ellen Filmore, who, as it happens, tested her for drugs just last night.” As Shannon started to say something, Karen cut him off. “It wasn’t just Julie she tested. It was Jeff Larkin, too. Both of them were looking ill, and Marge and I took both of them to the clinic.” Briefly she told him what had happened and what Ellen Filmore had wanted the kids to do this morning. “But Julie was gone this morning,” she finished.

  She was about to tell him about Kevin going up into the hills with Jeff Larkin when the door opened and Marge Larkin walked in, her face pale. “Mark, something’s happened. Jeff was supposed to go to the doctor in San Luis …” As Karen turned around and Marge recognized her, her words faded away. Then: “What is it? Have you found Julie? Is she—”

  Karen shook her head. “It’s like she’s vanished off the face of the earth.” Now she repeated to both Marge Larkin and Mark Shannon what had happened when Kevin walked out of the foothills. “I keep having this awful feeling that Jeff found Julie, but that something happened. Either to her, or to both of them, or—” The terrible strain of the morning closed in on her, and she burst into tears, dropping onto the chair in front of Mark Shannon’s desk, burying her face in her hands. As Molly looked as if she, too, might begin sobbing, Marge Larkin went to Karen and put an arm protectively around her shoulders. But her eyes, still fixed on Shannon, turned hard as flint.

  “Two children,” she said. “We have two children missing now. And if you don’t do something, you can bet there’s going to be a very large story on the front page of the next issue of the Chronicle. Is that what you want, Mark?”

  When the phone rang, Mark Shannon felt a wave of relief to have an interruption—any interruption—in which to figure out an answer for the two women.

  “Mark?” It was Marian Bennett, sounding agitated. “Something terrible has happened. My car’s wrecked and—”

  “Is anyone hurt?” Mark cut in.

  “No! At least—Mark, Andy’s gone!”

  Mark Shannon blinked as a cold knot of apprehension began to form in his stomach. “Andy’s gone?” he repeated. “Marian, what are you talking about?”

  Marian, despite her fury over what had happened to her convertible, carefully explained what had happened that morning.

  How strange Andy had looked.

  How she was on the way to the clinic with him when he suddenly started acting funny.

  And how he had run across a field, finally disappearing into the hills.

  Just like Jeff Larkin.

  And possibly Julie Spellman, too.

  Russell leaned on his pitchfork and stared down from the loft in the barn, watching Kevin pitching the dirty straw from the floor of the horse stalls into the wheelbarrow.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  Though Kevin was working steadily, removing the dirty straw with the easy rhythm that Russell himself had taught him, there was something about Kevin that just didn’t look quite right.

  Finally he plunged his own fork deep into one of the bales of hay that were stacked in the loft and climbed down the ladder, dropping to the floor directly from the fourth step up.

  Kevin, despite the loud thump that Russell’s feet made when they struck the barn’s wooden floor, didn’t even look up.

  But he did pause in his work for a second—just as Russell had seen him do several times over the last hour—and peer out through the stall’s open door, into the corral.

  Peer out as if he were looking for something.

  Russell followed his gaze, but the corral was empty. They’d turned the horses out into the field to graze.

  As he was about to speak to Kevin, Bailey trotted into the barn, started toward Kevin, then paused, whimpering unc
ertainly.

  “What is it, Bailey?” Russell asked, moving next to the dog and dropping one hand onto its head.

  The dog whimpered again, took a tentative step toward Kevin, then seemed to change its mind. Suddenly it started barking, wheeled around and dashed out of the barn. For a moment Russell wasn’t sure what had spooked Bailey, but then, at a pause in the dog’s barking, he heard the sound of the old Chevy coming up the driveway.

  So at least Karen was coming back. When she’d left, not even slowing down as he came out of the barn to find out where she was going, he’d had a terrible feeling that she might be taking Molly and leaving the farm.

  Why else would she be taking the Chevy?

  Then he’d decided that was crazy—she’d never leave until she’d found Julie.

  Still, he’d almost decided to go after her, only changing his mind when he realized that if he did, there would be no one but Kevin at home should Julie return.

  And Kevin, although he claimed nothing was wrong, now seemed to be coming down with something, too.

  In the end, he’d stayed in the barn, and tried to concentrate on his work, but between his worry about Julie and the need to keep an eye on Kevin, not much was getting done, at least by him.

  Now, following Bailey out of the barn, Russell planted himself firmly in the middle of the driveway. Karen would either have to stop or ruin the lawn by driving around him.

  Or run right over him.

  For a second, as the Chevy approached, he thought she might be intending to do exactly that. At the last minute, though, she stopped the car a few inches short of hitting him. She sat still for several seconds, as if trying to decide whether to get out or not, then finally opened the door. As she stepped out into the sunlight, Russell could see the redness of her eyes. He quickly moved to her side and put his arms around her.

  She barely reacted to the gesture.

  “There’s another one missing,” she said, her voice dull. “At least now I think maybe they’ll do something.”