Reborn

11

Bill had watched the awesome fury of the storm with his parents from the family living room. Now that it had dwindled to a drizzle and a distant rumbling, he was on his way. The temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees. Winter was making a last stand against spring. He had the defroster temperature up as high as it would go to keep the windshield clear.

He had to pass Carol and Jim's old house on his way to Glen Cove Road, and he felt an ache in his chest as he drove by the charred ruins at 124 Collier.

That got him thinking about Carol and how she was managing, if she was all right.

But of course she was all right. She was out at the Hanley place with her in-laws.

Then why did he have this persistent gnawing feeling that she wasn't all right?

He was approaching Glen Cove Road and was about to turn south when he abruptly pulled the car over to the shoulder by a Citgo station and stopped. The feeling was growing stronger.

This is silly, he thought.

He didn't believe in premonitions or clairvoyance or any of that extrasensory nonsense. It not only went against the teachings of the Church, but it went against his personal experience.

Yet he could not escape the feeling that Carol needed him.

He put the car in gear, started toward Glen Cove Road again, then braked and pounded on the steering wheel with his fist.

He could see that he wasn't going to be able to rest easy until he had settled this.

He pulled into the Citgo station, dug the Hanley mansion's phone number out of his pocket, and dropped a dime. No ring. The operator came on and told him the phone was out of order. Lines were down all over northern Nassau County. The storm, you know.

Right. The storm. Maybe the mansion had been hit. Maybe it was ablaze right now.

Damn. He was going to have to take a run out there. Just drive by. He wouldn't stop in. Just make sure everything looked okay, then head for Queens.

He took the direct route through the harbor area but was slowed by the traffic being detoured away from a fire on Tremont Street. He joined the rubberneckers, straining to see what was burning up the hill. Whatever it was, it looked to be near Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. An awful thought struck him—maybe the burning building was Our Lady. He had said Mass there only this morning.

He was tempted to park and run uphill to see. If Our Lady was ablaze, maybe he could help Father Rowley. But the sight of the smoke heightened his anxiety about Carol's safety. He gunned the car toward Shore Drive.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the street in front of the mansion wall free of fire trucks and no pall of smoke dirtying the air over the roof.

But the driveway inside the gate was loaded with cars.

Something about that didn't sit right with Bill. He did a U-turn down the street and drove by again. Slowly.

A good half dozen cars in the drive—J. Carroll, both the Stevenses', and others he didn't recognize. Curious, he pulled in by the wall and walked around to the gate. Maybe he could knock on the front door and ask if anyone had seen his sunglasses. Nobody had to know that they were sitting on the dashboard of his car.

He was halfway up the drive when he heard Carol scream. He began to run.