Black River

FORTY-SIX

Laura Jordan thought she heard the sound somewhere in her dreams. They were hostile dreams — nightmares. Images of her dead husband in the casket right before it was closed, his once handsome face vacant and gaunt, despite the black magic of the mortician. She could smell the flowers on both sides of the casket and hear the subdued sounds of weeping coming from behind her. Then there was the sound of someone scratching — a clawing noise — as if an animal was trapped inside her bedroom wall. Maybe Jack’s alive. Let him out!

“Jack!” she blurted in her sleep. Laura opened her eyes. She glanced at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock. 2:42 a.m. Her breathing was fast. Heart racing. She looked across the bedroom to the window. The full moon shown through the branches of a live oak tree in her back yard, shadows dancing from the moss-covered limbs moving behind the white drapes, like stick figure marionettes in the night breeze.

Laura heard her neighbor’s beagle bark three times. She sat up in bed, her sleep deprived mind feeling drugged from exhaustion. She stepped over to the drapes, slowly parted them less than two inches and looked out and across her back yard. The white moonlight turned her yard into a backdrop of grays and blacks, a moonscape devoid of colors lit by the sun. She saw a nighthawk dart over the tree line, and then a cloud rolled in front of the moon, casting the yard into black.

Laura crawled back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. God, how I miss Jack, miss so many things I took for granted about him — the way he squeezed my hand before we fell asleep — times I’d reach over and touch him as he slept. I must get some rest.

She adjusted her pillow, turned away from the shadows pirouetting on the curtains, and closed her eyes. Laura felt lethargic from nights of sleep deprivation. The threats she had received, the feeling she was being followed, the questions Paula was asking — questions which had no rational answers that a child could understand. As her thoughts drifted like a boat without an anchor on a dark sea, the fog of sleep moved in on her perception. She thought she heard the neighbor’s beagle bark once more. A sharp, clipped bark. And then silence.

Somewhere in the darkness of a 4:00 a.m. morning, she felt the mattress move, slightly, as if Paula had crawled into bed. Laura reached for the opposite side of the bed, the side where Jack always slept. She touched the mattress, expecting to feel Paula’s small body. Nothing. Only the flat surface of her blanket and comforter. She slowly opened her eyes, her mind waterlogged in fatigue, unable to fully comprehend what she saw. Must be a bad dream.

No! Hell no!

A man stood in silhouette; the pale white curtains an eerie backdrop, shadows from oak limbs swaying behind him. He held a child in his arms. He whispered, “Do not scream if you want her to live. We mustn’t awaken your daughter, Laura.”

“Please…dear God. Please, don’t hurt her.” Laura sat up in bed, staring, her mind grasping for the right words. He cradled Paula, sleeping, in his arms. Her head rested her against his chest, her breathing slow and steady, a plush giraffe tucked under her chin. “Please, set Paula down.”

“All in good time,” the man’s voice was calm, a tone of irrelevance and absolute control. “You see, Laura, how easy it was for me to enter your home. Oh, the new alarm you had installed — it took me less than twenty-nine seconds to disarm it. How does it feel now knowing that you and little Paula are so unsafe, so unprotected? Rather unnerving, I would imagine.”

“What do you want?” Laura blinked back the horror in her eyes, the tears she wouldn’t allow to flow. “If you hurt my daughter—”

“What will you do, Laura? I have no intention of hurting Paula if you perform as I say. She will not have her throat slit like I had to do with the dog next door.”

“Dear God.” Laura held her hand to her mouth, nausea building in her stomach.

“Where is the Civil War contract? I know it’s here in your home. If you don’t want to bury your daughter like you did with your husband, show me the contract.”

“It’s not here! I swear. I don’t have it.”

“Where is it?”

“Gone. It’s being tested at the University of Florida.”

“Tested? Who is testing it?”

“A professor.”

“Don’t play games with me, Laura. I need a name, or I’m going to twist this little girl’s neck.”

“Kirby…Professor Ike Kirby. He’s in Gainesville.”

“Oh really? Gainesville, you say. Then why did I find a notepad in your kitchen that had Professor Kirby’s name and phone number on it and also a number for a hotel room at a place not far from here? I believe Kirby drives a ten-year-old Volvo…the same Volvo that was in your driveway a few hours earlier. And listening to your voice-mails on your mobile, I did hear the message from the good professor indicating he was staying at that hotel through tomorrow. So, just to clarify, Laura, you gave him the document, correct?”

Paula opened her eyes, the murkiness of sleep still in them. “Mommy…Mommy…”

“I’m here, baby, Mommy’s right here. Everything will be okay.”

“Answer me, Laura! I told you, it would take me just a split second to end this kid’s life.”

“Yes, that’s what he told me.”

The man set Paula on the bed and stepped back, his face and body still in deep silhouette. Laura reached for Paula, pulling her close, holding her head against her breasts, Laura’s hands covering Paula’s eyes.

“I’m leaving now, Laura. I hope what you told me is the truth — because, if you’re lying, I will return. And when I do, you can plan another funeral. The consolation is this: a smaller coffin is less expensive.” He stepped to the door and said, “Your mobile no longer functions. I see you do not have a landline. Don’t even try to run to the neighbors to make a call. They have a mess to clean up anyway. Remember how easy it was to visit you and Paula tonight. Think about that if you decide to call the police. So unsafe. So unprotected. Now, who are you going to call? No one, Laura. No one on earth can protect you.” He left, deftly closing the bedroom door.

Laura clutched Paula, the tears running down her cheeks spilling onto her daughter’s small shoulders…shoulders that now seemed as fragile as the wings of a sparrow.