"You gotta come get me, Father! You just gotta!"
"Where's Sara? Put her on and let me speak to her."
"No! They don't know I'm on the phone!"
"Just get Sara—"
"No! Sara's gone! There ain't no Sara! He's gonna kill me!"
"Danny, stop it!"
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease.1" He broke down into sobs but his words were still intelligible. "Father, Father, Father, I don't want to die. Please come and get me. Don't let him kill me. I don't want to die!"
The fear and abject misery in Danny's voice tore at Bill's heart. He was going to have to abort the adoption, cancel the whole thing. The boy simply was not ready to leave St. F.'s.
"Put Sara on, Danny… Danny?"
The line was dead.
Bill yanked open his file drawer and looked up the Loms' number. His hand was shaking as he punched it into the phone. A busy signal buzzed in his ear. He hung up and went to dial again, then stopped. If the line was busy, maybe Sara or Herb was trying to call him. If they both kept dialing, neither of them would get through. He sat back and made himself wait. And wait.
The phone didn't ring.
He forced himself to wait a full five minutes. It seemed like forever. Finally he'd had it. He snatched up the receiver and dialed their number again.
Still busy. Shit!
Bill slammed the phone down and wandered around his office, walked the halls. Over the course of the next half hour, he called the Loms' number a couple of dozen times, and each time the line was busy. Over and over he told himself there was nothing to worry about. Danny was in no danger. It was just the boy's imagination, his damned overactive imagination. Sara and Herb would never harm him, never allow anything bad to happen to him. Danny had just worked himself up into a panic and Sara had probably calmed him just as she had this afternoon.
But why couldn't he get through on the damn phone? An idea struck him and he called the operator. He told her it was an emergency and asked her to break in on the line; she came back and told him there was no one on the line. Nothing but dead air.
Had Danny left it off the hook? That had to be the answer.
But Bill could take no comfort in the explanation. He pulled on his coat, grabbed the car keys, and headed for the street. He knew he'd never sleep until he'd actually spoken to Danny and made sure he was all right. Imagined fears were just as frightening as real ones. So no matter how certain he was that Danny was in no danger, he had to be sure that Danny knew it. Then maybe he could rest tonight.
It was a beautiful night, snow falling on a gentle slant, the flakes flaring as they passed through the cones of illumination under the street lamps. The sounds of the borough, already subdued because it was Christmas Eve, were further muffled by the inch or so of white insulation that had already fallen. A white Christmas.
Bill wished he had time to appreciate the scenery but the inner urgency to get to the Loms' house overrode the esthetics of the night.
He guided the old station wagon down the Loms' street, past snowcapped houses trimmed with strings of varicolored lights, then pulled into the curb before number 735. The house was dark. No Christmas trim, no lighted windows. As he hurried up the walk to the front door, he noticed how perfect the layer of snow was, unmarred by a single footprint.
He pressed the doorbell button but didn't hear any chime within so he used the brass knocker. Its sound echoed through the silent night. He rapped it again. Twice. Three times.
No answer.
He stepped back off the front porch and looked up at the second story. The house remained silent and unlit.
Bill was worried now. Really worried. They had to be home. Their car was in the driveway. His were the only footprints on the snow.
What the hell was going on?
He tried the front doorknob and it turned. The door swung inward. He called out a few hellos but no one answered, so he stepped inside, still calling out.
Standing in the dark foyer, lit only by the glow from the street lamp outside, Bill realized it was as cold inside as it was out. And the house felt… empty.
A terrible, inescapable sense of dread crept over hirrk
My God, where are they? What's happened here?
And then he realized he was not alone. He almost cried out when he glanced to his right and spotted the faintly limned figure sitting in a chair by the living-room window.
"Hello?" Bill said, his hand searching for the light switch. "Herb?"
He found it and flipped it. It was Herb, sitting square in a straight-backed chair, staring into the air.
"Herb? Are you all right? Where's Danny? Where's Sara?"
At the mention of her name, Herb's head turned to look at Bill but his eyes never seemed to settle on him, never seemed to focus. After a few seconds, he returned to staring into the air.
Bill approached him cautiously. A part of him deep inside knew that something awful had happened here—or possibly was happening still—and screamed for him to turn and run. But he couldn't run. He couldn't—wouldn't—leave this place without Danny.
"Herb, tell me where Danny is. Tell me now, Herb. And tell me you haven't done anything to him. Tell me, Herb."
But Herb Lom only stared upward and outward at a corner of the ceiling.
Upstairs… he was staring upstairs. Did that mean anything?
Turning on lights as he moved, flipping every switch he passed, Bill found the staircase and headed for the second floor. Dread clawed at his throat as he called out the only names he could think of.
"Danny? Sara? Danny? Anyone here?"
The only reply was the creaking of the stair treads under his feet and the faint howl from the uncradled telephone receiver on the table in the upper hall.
He stopped and called out again, and this time he heard a reply—a hoarse whisper from the doorway at the top of the stairs. Unintelligible, but definitely a voice. He ran toward the dark rectangle, lunged through it, fumbled along the wall with his hand, found the switch…
… light… a big bedroom… the master bedroom… red… all red… the rug, the walls, the ceiling, the bedspread… didn't remember it being so red… Danny there… by the wall… naked… his head lolling… so white, so white … on the wall… arms spread… nails… in his palms… in his feet… face so white… and his insides… hanging out…
Bill felt the room lurch as his legs went flaccid under him. His knees slammed on the floor but he barely noticed the pain as he fell forward onto his hands and gripped the sticky red rug, retching.
No! This can't be!
"Father Bill?"
Bill's head snapped up. That voice… barely audible…
Danny's eyes were open, staring at him; his lips were moving, his voice was raw skin dragging through broken glass.
"Father, it hurts."
Bill forced his legs to work, to propel him across the red room. So much blood. How could one little boy hold so much blood? How could he lose it all and still be alive?
Bill averted his eyes. How could he be so cut up? Who would—?
Herb. It must have been Herb. Sitting downstairs in some sort of post-epileptic funk while up here… up here…
And where was Sara?
The nails. He couldn't think about Sara now. He had to get the nails out of Danny's hands and feet. He looked around for some way to remove them but all he saw was a bloody hammer. Bill fixed his eyes on the boy's bloodless face, his tortured, pleading eyes.
"I'll get you free, Danny. You just wait here and—" God, what am I saying? "I—I'll be right back."
"Father, it hurts so bad!"
Danny began screaming, hoarse, raw-throated wails that chased after Bill, tugging at the very underpinnings of his sanity as he raced downstairs. He pounded into the living room and hauled Herb from his chair. He wanted to tear him in half and he wanted to do it slowly, but that would take time, and he didn't think Danny had much of that left.
"Tools, fucker! Where are your tools?"