Come And Find Me Part 9

Only Ashley had the key to her mailbox. Diana's hand flew to her throat. "Thank G.o.d, she's back!"

From the way his sharp eyes probed her reaction, she knew there was more than just an all clear. "So why the h.e.l.l hasn't she returned my calls?"

He suppressed a smile, then his look turned somber again. "The thing is, she's not answering her door. I knocked. Rang the bell three or four times. I haven't got probable cause to bust down the door."

"Maybe she came and rushed out again?" Diana said.

"That's possible," Officer Gruder said, giving her a long level look.

A chill pa.s.sed through her. "You think she could be there? Inside? And won't . . . or can't answer the door?"

"I have no way of knowing. But you seemed so concerned. And you said you have a key."

"I do. Of course I do. And that would be the wise thing to do, wouldn't it?" Her voice sounded robotic. "Go over and let myself in and just see what's up."

"Seems wise. " He seemed infinitely patient. Diana couldn't help thinking it sounded as if he were talking to a child. "But if it was my sister, I'd want to check to be sure. In person. It's a reasonable thing to do."

He stood to one side, as if he were waiting for her to come with him.

Diana took a step back, even though she knew she had to go. She had no choice. She looked past him to the police cruiser parked at the curb.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?"

All she had to do was get from here to there. Beyond her electronic fence, but just a few steps beyond, barely farther than she pushed herself every day. This was the moment that she'd been training for. First she needed to find the key to Ashley's apartment.

"Just give me a minute," she said.

She forced herself to slow down, to move deliberately and breathe evenly as she walked into her bedroom. She found her wallet in the top drawer of her bureau and stuffed it into her pants pocket. Scooped her key ring from a bowl. Checked that the key to Ashley's apartment was still on it.

Stay in control.

Then she continued into her office. From there, she armed all the doors and punched in the code that would activate the inside security system. Thirty seconds. That was how long she had to get out and lock the front door.

"Quite a setup." The voice came from behind her.

Raw panic surged through her and she spun around. Officer Gruder had followed her into her office. Diana clapped her hand over her mouth and the scream she hadn't realized she was making stopped.

Gruder's eyes widened and his hands flew up in a gesture of surrender. He stumbled, tripping over his own feet in his haste to back out of the room and down the hall toward the front of the house.

Diana sat in her desk chair, gasping for breath.

"Sorry if I startled you," he called.

Sorry? What the h.e.l.l was the matter with him, violating her s.p.a.ce? Had she invited him in? Surely it wasn't standard procedure to follow a citizen, deep into her home.

"I'm going outside. I'll wait for you by the car," he added.

She steadied herself against the desk. She had to stop overreacting to every unexpected thing that happened. She couldn't afford for this police officer to dismiss her as a nutcase.

"That sound okay?" Gruder's voice came from farther away.

"Okay," she managed to call out, her voice hoa.r.s.e. "I'll be right there. I just have to . . ." She remembered the alarm. It would go off any second. She raced to the keypad. What the h.e.l.l was the code to cancel? Her mind had gone blank.

When the eight-digit code finally came to her, her fingers felt like fat sausages. Twice she keyed it in wrong and had to start over. Again she tried. Just as she was about to press in the final number, a deafening Klaxon started, blaring from speakers both inside and outside the house.

Moments later, her phone rang. She grabbed it. "Ashley?" She had to hold her hand over her ear to block out the clanging. "Ashley?"

"Twenty-three Linden Place?" said a woman's voice.

"Yes?" Diana shouted.

"This is Metro Security. Verifying an alarm."

Of course. This was what they were supposed to do. "It's a false alarm. Can you turn the d.a.m.ned thing off?"

"I need your name and verbal pa.s.sword?"

"What?"

"The name on the account?"

Diana gulped for air. "Diana Highsmith."

"Pa.s.sword?"

She cupped her hand over the receiver. "Daniel."

"Thank you. Verified."

An instant later, the alarm fell silent.

"Thank G.o.d," Diana whispered.

She hung up the phone and lifted the shade to look out the front window. Officer Gruder was out front by the patrol car, waiting for her as promised, apparently unfazed by the alarm. She slipped the pill bottle from her pocket, took out a pill, and rolled it between her fingers. But that didn't help. She still felt jumpy, on the verge of a meltdown.

Another whole pill would knock her out. She broke the pill and swallowed half of it dry. Automatic pilot, she told herself. Don't think, just do.

She set the alarm again. At the last moment, she remembered to grab Ashley's laptop.

Chapter Fourteen.

This time she was out of the house with time to spare. The cruiser was parked not more than twenty feet away from her front door. She'd ridden in a car a million times. It would be like riding a bike, she told herself. You climbed on and it came back to you.

But as she started down the front walk the distance seemed to lengthen. She stumbled and fell, and in an instant Gruder was out of the car, coming toward her. He put his arm around her and helped her up.

"You sure you can do this?" he asked, studying her closely.

She nodded. She had to.

Gruder walked her to the cruiser, supporting her like she was old and infirm. The sight of the mesh barrier between the front and backseat forced her into reverse. She scrabbled back, feeling the same panic she'd felt when that cage had dropped over Nadia.

"Whoa," Gruder said. "Take it easy. I know, it looks like jail in there. Freaks a lot of people out. Would you rather follow me in your own car?"

"I . . ." A car, a black limousine with dark tinted windows, accelerated past, followed by a battered red pickup truck, its m.u.f.fler pipe dragging. Diana swallowed. "I don't think I can."

"How about this?" Gruder opened the front pa.s.senger door. "You ride up front with me."

She leaned down and peered in. Static crackled from an oversize console installed roughly where a car radio would be. This she could manage.

Diana sat. Rea.s.suring smells of coffee and vinyl enveloped her.

Gruder leaned down. "Okay?"

She managed to nod and swung her legs into the car.

Gently he pressed the door of the cruiser shut. Was that pine? The scent that she so a.s.sociated with Daniel unnerved her, but just for a moment. Then she noticed the green cardboard pine tree silhouette swinging from the rearview mirror. Car freshener.

Gruder got in the driver's side. The car beeped when he inserted the key. He slid her a sideways look. "Seat belt."

She'd forgotten about seat belts. Daniel had always loved that New Hamps.h.i.+re held out, the last state with no seat-belt law-"live free or die" was their motto. She buckled up.

The car started to pull away from the curb. "So, have you always been like this?"

Diana couldn't hold back a bleat of hysterical laughter. "Like what? Afraid of my own shadow?"

Gruber shrugged. "My sister-in-law gets panic attacks. That's what it is, isn't it?"

Diana nodded. "And no, I haven't always been like this."

Diana had grown up pus.h.i.+ng past boundaries, not cowering behind them. She'd crossed streets before her mother gave her permission. Ridden her bike to places much farther away than her mother would ever have allowed her to go. She'd been eager to learn to drive, and even before she got her license she'd snuck the car and driven to Cape Cod to hear Sandra Day O'Connor speak at Barnstable High School's graduation.

She'd been so together, or so she'd thought, and determined to become a political activist. Then her mother got sick and she'd come apart. Daniel had glued her back.

As the cruiser rode through the center of town, Diana tried to anchor her attention on what she saw, streets both familiar and not. The movie theater was shuttered. The corner coffee shop had a new name. The storefront that years earlier had been a children's bookstore was still empty. They continued along residential streets, past a blur of houses and small apartment buildings.

Gruder turned, following a sign to the town's boat basin at the mouth of the Neponset River. At the end of the road was the entrance to Wharf View, the ma.s.sive two-tower complex where Ashley lived. Gruder turned in.

"What kind of car does your sister drive?" Gruder asked.

She told him.

"That should be easy to spot. You look right, I'll look left."

He started driving slowly through the outdoor parking, up one aisle and down the next. Most of the s.p.a.ces were empty. It was easy to see that Ashley's car wasn't there.

"Her neighbor said there's underground parking too," Diana told him.

Gruder found the entrance and drove down the access ramp, taking them from sunlight into shadow. Diana tried not to flinch as beams pa.s.sed overhead so close it looked as if they'd whack the cruiser's roof. She pasted her attention on the occasional parked vehicle that seemed to slide past.

No gold Mini Coopers.

They emerged aboveground. Diana realized she'd been holding her breath. She let herself exhale as Gruder pulled the cruiser into the otherwise empty visitors' parking opposite the front entrance to the complex. They both got out.

A fierce wind sliced off the river. Diana s.h.i.+vered and pushed through it, carrying Ashley's laptop up the brick path toward the building entrance. Video cameras were mounted over the gla.s.s double doors. She counted up eight stories to the floor where Ashley lived. A figure stood looking out of one of the windows.

Diana broke into a trot, and Gruder caught up with her and strode past, holding open one of the doors. She stepped through, into the familiar lobby. Philodendron cascaded down a backlit wall of gla.s.s brick. A blast of warm air greeted her and she felt immediately calmer.

She started toward the elevators and paused at a bank of mailboxes. They were bra.s.s, each with a little window in it. She found 88N and peered into the dark interior. Gruder unhooked a flashlight from his belt and s.h.i.+ned the light through the slits in the metal door, confirming Diana's first impression. Empty. Most of the mailboxes surrounding Ashley's looked like they had mail. Ashley had to have come back and picked up her mail, Diana a.s.sured herself.

"Elevator's here," Gruder called to her. He was holding the elevator door open for her.

Diana took a quick look through the mail scattered across a long, narrow hall table beneath the mailboxes. Nothing there was for Ashley Highsmith.

Feeling relieved, she started toward the elevator. But when she got there, she hesitated. The compartment was so small.

"You want to take the stairs?" Gruder asked. "We can do that. It's seven flights up."

Would climbing the stairs be any easier? Diana pushed herself forward and stepped into the elevator. Gruder followed. She took a step nearer to him as the doors slid shut with a sigh. If he minded her hanging on to his sleeve, he didn't say.

The elevator rose slowly, dinging as it bypa.s.sed each floor. The doors slid open on the eighth floor and she followed Gruder out. The hallway, with its fancy gold sconces and white-on-white wallpaper, was comfortingly familiar. At the same time, a warm floaty feeling bloomed from her chest, across her shoulders, and wafted up the back of her neck-the extra medication she'd taken was kicking in.

She followed Gruder down the hall. It seemed shorter than she remembered it. He stopped in front of Ashley's door.

"No restaurant menus," Diana murmured. Elation pierced the haze of medication and she pushed past Gruder. "Ashley?" She knocked. Pressed the bell. "Ashley, are you in there?"

She could feel Gruder standing there, watching her as she banged on the door.

"Ashley Highsmith! You answer the door this minute!" Diana felt her face grow warm. She sounded exactly like their mother.

At the opposite end of the hall, a door opened and a man stuck his head out. He had on a loose-necked unders.h.i.+rt and his hair was tousled. He seemed about to yell at them when he registered Gruder, there in his police uniform. Before the man could disappear, Gruder went over to him.

Diana watched them, listening at the same time for any movement behind Ashley's locked door.

Gruder spoke to the man. She couldn't hear what he said, but the man just shook his head and yawned in response. Gruder asked another question. This time the man pointed toward Ashley's door. Diana's heart leaped. Gruder took out his pad and took a few notes.

A few moments later, the man went back inside his apartment and Gruder returned, looking perplexed.

"Did he see her?" Diana asked. "Did he see Ashley?"

"No. But he says a man was out in the hall an hour ago."