us. But I say nothing about it. So long as Molly is with me, I can bear anything.
“ Don’t worry,” she insists. “The monster is dead now.”
She tells me to lie back. She dips her hand in the water once more, then brings the wet hand to my face. I can smell her hands. She runs her fingers through my hair, over my eyes and lips. She washes my neck and arms. She touches me softly, bathes my body and my legs. Finally, she washes my feet with the cold stream water. When she is done, she sets her own feet into the stream and washes her own body. I watch her wash her hair with the water until it is dripping wet.
When we are washed we sit on the bank in silence, allowing ourselves to dry in the cool air. Although we are shivering from the cold we don’t feel it. We feel only the recent memory of that afternoon. We feel a pain like we have never felt before and never will again. We never talk about saying anything to our parents about the attacks. It’s already implied that we’ll remain silent about exploring dark woods our father forbade us to enter.
As the sun begins to set, Molly takes my hand and leads me to the place in the rocky stream where we can easily cross.
She kisses me on the forehead.
“ I am you,” she says. “And you are me.”
Together, we head for home through the trees.
Chapter 73
For a time that seemed forever, we ran in a downhill direction toward the fields of tall grass. There was no talking. Not that Franny would have said anything anyway. But there was simply no breath left in our lungs. In my lungs anyway.
On the outside was the vision of the fields and my parents’ house looking small and isolated in the distance. But on the inside my heart beat, pulse soared, blood pumped through wiry veins while the misty cool air of a new morning burned up lung tissue.
We didn’t head for my parents’ house. Instead I followed Franny through the fields, limping up a gentle incline until eventually I spotted the Scaramuzzi farm. By this time, the day was warming and I was having trouble breathing and keeping my balance. Then as though a car crashed into me, my chest constricted, the center cramped in tight pain, a shooting jolt of lightening in my left arm.
When I collapsed, Franny stopped.
He came to me, bent down and lifted me up in his arms. He carried me like that all the rest of the way.
When finally we made it to his house, he set me gently down onto the porch.
Although I couldn’t really see her, I heard Caroline Scaramuzzi gasp. She wasted no time dialing 911. I was in and out of consciousness as she spoke with the emergency people, as I mumbled the words “Michael… inside house… in woods… Michael.”
I wasn’t scared. I was no longer in pain. I was caught up in a semi-conscious state I’d never before experienced. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was dying. Dying wasn’t so bad. Dying meant that I would see Molly before the day was out. As the life began to seep out of my earthly body, I knew without a doubt that I wouldn’t die. Not really.
Before long, I was flying.
Chapter 74
A helicopter was called in to transport me from Brunswick Hills to the Albany Medical Center. After being lifted off the porch floor of the Scaramuzzi house, I found myself floating far above the valley. I was lying on my back, a translucent oxygen mask covering my face. When I turned my head to the left I could see the deep blue/green water of the Hudson River; the way it snaked itself from north to south between the cities of Troy and Albany. There was the loud- whump-whump-whump noise of the chopper blades-a sound I felt deep inside my chest.
When I turned my head I looked for Michael, as if everything that had transpired over the past dozen hours was an elaborate nightmare. But instead I spotted Caroline Scaramuzzi. She was strapped into a seat that folded out of the aircraft’s sidewall. From where I lie belted to a collapsible gurney, I could see that she was dressed in her usual blue jeans, thick fisherman’s sweater and green Crocs.
I felt Michael’s absence like a hole in my belly.
I locked eyes with Caroline. I allowed her image to guide me back to the land of the unconscious.
Chapter 75
Another day passed before I woke up. Lying in the hospital bed, I had no other choice but to believe the truth: I was alive. How did I know this for sure?
First off, my head ached. My temples pounded. I felt empty on the inside. Nauseous and so very thirsty. I tasted only my own bitter breath. There was the vague odor of alcohol in the air. All was quiet.
A glance over my shoulder did not reveal Franny, or Caroline for that matter. Rather, it revealed Detective Harris. The tall, suited man smoothed out his cropped hair, gazed into my newly opened eyes. Maybe it had something to do with my imagination, but I swear he was trying to work up a welcome smile when he said, “You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
A smile. For certain he was smiling.
Attempting to shift my shell-shocked body up against the headboard, I wrenched and strained to no avail. Movement proved an impossible dream. Any kind of movement, no matter how slight, caused a sharp pain to pulse up and down my spinal column. It also caused the heart monitor to which I was attached to pick up speed.
“Michael?” I whispered.
Harris crossed his arms.
“Michael is still recovering from surgery,” he said, looking away. “He’s lost a lot of blood Rebecca.”
I tried to move, but I couldn’t.
“Michael’s alive? But how…”
I needed to see Michael. I needed to know that I wasn’t dreaming.
“You can see him soon,” he explained. “But Rebecca, I need you to talk to me; tell me everything.”
I laid back, stared up at the ceiling, breathed.
After a time, I proceeded to lead him through the whole ordeal. From the time Michael and I returned to my apartment on Thursday afternoon, to Franny’s rescue of me inside the basement of the house in the woods.
For a time Harris just sat there chewing on the information. Clearly something wasn’t sitting right with the detective. He stood up, turned his back and stared out the window onto the parking lot below.
“By the time my men got to the house in the woods,” he said. “By the time we got to Michael, Whalen was gone, vanished.”
I felt my insides tighten up. I wondered if the monitor picked up the change.
“We followed a blood trail out of the house and into the woods. But after a while it disappeared, along with our suspect.” He shook his head, eyes peeled out the window. But when he turned back to me, he tried to plant a same smile on his face. A reassuring smile that screamed lie.
“I don’t want you to worry,” he assured me. “If his head injury is as bad as you painted it, there’s a good chance that his body will be found in those woods as early as this morning or this afternoon.”
How had Whalen had been able to leave the half-way house without being detected? How was he able to follow me for all those weeks and months? How was he able to kidnap Michael and me if he was supposed to be
