Perfect Nightmare

nev—” Before she could finish, Steve squeezed her shoulder gently and she lapsed into silence.

“Anything been bothering her lately?”

Grant looked expectantly at Kara, as if certain she would give him at least three or four things to add to his notes, and though Lindsay’s resistance to the prospect of moving instantly occurred to Kara, she wasn’t about to admit it. Instead, nervousness and frustration welled up inside her and she abruptly brushed Steve’s hand from her shoulder and leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the officer.

“Listen to me,” she began, her voice low and under total control. “I know my daughter. She is a perfect student, has dozens of friends and no enemies — male or female — and has no secret life involving drugs or anything else. She shares things with us — she talks to us. I’d know if she was sneaking around doing things, but she isn’t, hasn’t, wouldn’t! Then, last Wednesday, she thought someone had been in her room. Not just going through it the way people do at an open house, but going through her things. And today she’s missing. I didn’t believe her at the time, but now I do, and I’m telling you, someone was in this house, and now he’s taken her.”

As a great wave of emotion began to rise up inside her, her voice trembled, but she steeled herself, and went on. “Someone has taken her,” she said, enunciating her words carefully, lest they begin spilling hysterically from her lips. “And the longer we sit here, the—” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t bring herself to utter the thought of what might be happening to Lindsay as they sat there talking. She looked at Steve, then took a deep breath. “We need to stop talking and start looking for her!”

The policeman offered Kara what she knew was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but it struck her as patronizing. “I’m not discounting any of what you’ve said,” he said in a tone that clearly told her he wasn’t counting it for much, either. “I understand exactly how you feel.” He turned to Steve. “But I still have to ask: has something upset her lately?”

As Kara glared at him, willing him not to respond, Steve nodded. “We’re moving to the city,” he said. “That’s where we were all day, apartment hunting. She was at cheerleading practice.”

Now Grant’s brows rose as if he understood everything, and he closed the metal lid on his report. “And she’s just finishing her junior year,” he said, and, when Steve nodded, leaned forward. “I think we’ve just figured out what’s going on here. You’ve got a seventeen-year-old daughter who wants to graduate with her class. Which means she’s pretty upset right now. And when kids that age get upset, they do all kinds of things. Some of them turn to drugs, but, frankly, it doesn’t sound like yours is that kind of kid.” As he began listing all the possible things Lindsay could be doing or places she could have gone, Kara saw what he was leading up to.

He wasn’t going to do anything.

Nothing.

Nothing at all!

And sure enough, just as her fury grew to the point where she was about to demand that he get to the point, he did just that.

“… that’s why we don’t consider them missing for twenty-four hours,” he was saying as she tuned back in to his words. “Mostly, nothing’s happened to them at all — they’ve just taken off for a while.”

“Not Lindsay,” Kara said coldly. “She would have left a note and taken her cell phone.”

“Not necessarily,” Sergeant Grant argued. “Not if she’s feeling like she wants to punish you. It’s the only power they have — get their parents as upset as they are.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not even midnight, and the odds are good she’ll be home in an hour or two, but frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t hear from her until tomorrow.”

As Kara opened her mouth to object to what she knew was coming next, Grant spoke again, quickly enough to cut her off.

“Tell you what — I’ll call you in the morning.” He handed Steve a card. “If she shows up, give me a call at this number, no matter what time it is.”

“That’s it?” Kara said, staring at the officer. “My daughter’s been abducted and all you do is take a quick look around the house and ask us questions for half an hour?” Though his partner had the decency to redden at Kara’s words — presumably in embarrassment — Sergeant Grant only took a deep breath.

“I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do right now, Mrs. Marshall,” he said. “Given that there aren’t any signs of a forced entry or a struggle — or anything else that would suggest she was taken against her will — I’m afraid we have no choice but to wait twenty-four hours. And I have to tell you, the odds are overwhelming that she’ll come home, or at least call you.” As Kara started to interrupt him, he held up a hand — as if no matter what she was going to say, he’d heard it all before. “Look, I know what you read in the papers and see on TV about how many perverts there are out there, but I have to tell you, it’s not nearly as bad as everyone thinks. If we went chasing after every kid that took off for a night or two, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

“But she said—” Kara began, and once again Grant didn’t let her finish.

“I know. There was an open house, and she thought someone was going through her stuff.”

“And there was another open house today,” Kara insisted. “Which is why I don’t understand why you’re so interested in looking for signs that someone broke in. Anyone could have just walked into the house, hidden, and waited for Lindsay to come home!”

Grant and his partner exchanged a glance, and then Grant frowned and reopened the clipboard he’d closed as he stood up. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the agent,” he said. “Do you have his home phone number?”

As the two officers left the house a minute or two later, Kara wondered if they were going to talk to Mark Acton or whether they’d just taken his number to appease her.

She strongly suspected it was the latter.

And she hated it.

Chapter Nineteen

Pain.

Pounding pain, hammering at her head like a great mallet.

Pain so overpowering that it was all Lindsay felt as she slowly rose up through the layers of consciousness.

She tried to shrink back from it, tried to sink back into the blessed nonreality of unconsciousness, but the pain wouldn’t let her.

And with consciousness came the memories.

Memories of him. Except they were barely memories at all, for she had no face to put to them.

Only impressions.

Hands closing on her ankles.

Then he was on top of her, scuttling out from beneath the bed like a rat from the sewer, his weight pinning her to the floor, crushing her.

Then there had been something over her face, pressing down on her, and she couldn’t breathe and tried to struggle but she wasn’t strong enough and she thought she was going to vomit and — Nothing.

She opened her mouth to scream, to cry out against the blackness and the throbbing pain in her head, but before any sound could escape her throat, she cut it off.

Quiet, she commanded herself. Be still and make no sound and maybe it will go away. Maybe the pounding will stop.

Maybe it’s just another bad dream.

Lindsay tried to take a deep breath, but her heart was racing harder and faster, which made her head hurt even more, and she knew it wasn’t just a bad dream.

She moaned, and heard the sound of it echo hollowly.

Where was she?

Panic rose up now, and she tried to move, but couldn’t. It was like the terrible helplessness of nightmares in which her feet felt mired in mud and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t escape whatever terror pursued her.