The Dark Ones Read online

  Laura watched the girl. Her face was smeared with dirt and brambles filled her hair. The right knee of her pants was muddy and torn. A travel bag, slung around her back, bounced up and down as she struggled to keep the apple away.

  Laura set her tray on a counter. She went and asked the cashier, “What’s the problem?”

  The cashier, who looked solid enough to take on The Rock in a cage match, said, “Caught her stealing this apple.”

  The girl’s gaze flicked from the cashier to Laura.

  “Let her go. I’ll pay for the apple.”

  The cashier arched her eyebrows.

  “I can’t tolerate stealing.”

  “Let her be,” Laura said. “I’ll handle it. Now how much for the apple?”

  “Fifty cents.”

  Laura dug two quarters from the pocket of her lab coat and handed them to the cashier. The cashier gave the girl a killer look and went back to her register.

  The girl looked at Laura as if expecting to be rebuked.

  “You’re welcome,” Laura said.

  The nurse returned with a blue-clad security guard in tow. He approached, thumbs in his belt and said, “Problem here, Dr. Pennington?”

  “I took care of it.”

  The security guard looked at the girl, shrugged, and walked away.

  “Sorry,” the girl said. “And thanks.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “My name’s Sara.”

  “Are you seeing someone in the hospital?”

  “I came looking for my mother.”

  “Is she a patient? Maybe I can help you locate her.”

  “She’s a doctor,” Sara said.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Laura Pennington.”

  This was a joke, and a goddamned sick one at that. Who would do such a thing?

  “Who put you up to this?”

  Sara set down her duffel bag. She unzipped it and pulled out a pile of newspaper articles. They were the safety tips Laura had done for the Buffalo News two summers ago. “What is this supposed to prove?”

  “Do you know a man named David Dresser?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “I thought he was my father, and now I’m not sure. I found these pictures. He kept another picture of my supposed real mother, but it’s a fake. You’re my mother.”

  “How old are you?” Laura asked.

  “Sixteen.”

  She took a good hard look at the girl. She hadn’t noticed before, but the eyes were the same light blue, the hair the same shiny black. Sixteen, the right age. There was one more test she could do, one that would seal the deal. It probably wouldn’t amount to anything, and she was foolish for getting her hopes up.

  Heart racing, she said to Sara, “Come with me.”

  She brought Sara to Room 4 in the ER and drew the curtain around them. Sara set her bag down and propped herself on the gurney. The sheets were fresh and white, and they crinkled as she sat.

  “Did someone send you here to mess with me?” Laura asked.

  The girl shook her head.

  Maybe it was Callahan. He was the worst joker in the hospital, one time filling her locker with roughly a hundred Super Balls. She’d spent a half hour tracking them down and throwing them in the garbage for fear of someone slipping. But to play a joke like this was monstrous, cruel, even though it wasn’t completely out of the question that her daughter might be alive somewhere. No body had been found, no suspects apprehended.

  “So what’s this test you’re going to give me?” Sara asked.

  “I had a daughter, but she was kidnapped as an infant. She had a birthmark on her lower back that we called ‘Australia’ because it was shaped like the continent.”

  “So you want me to show you my back.”

  Laura smiled. “You catch on quickly.”

  The curtain was yanked aside and Carol Wardinski, one of the nurses, told Laura a multiple gunshot wound was on the way in.

  Laura looked at Sara, then back at the nurse. To Sara, she said, “Stay in the waiting room. Can you do that? I’ll talk to you when my shift is up.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sara said.

  Laura’s muscles ached, her feet throbbed, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed when her shift was up. The GSW had turned out to be a real hummer. Six people shot, all gangbangers. One of them had died while the trauma team worked on him; the guy had been riddled with slugs. The other five they had saved, although two of them would wind up paralyzed and one was nearly brain dead. There had been more gray matter on the gurney than in the guy’s skull.

  Now, as she strode into the waiting room, she found Sara curled up in a chair with her bag propped under her head for a pillow. She shook the girl’s shoulder and Sara snored once and then snapped up to a seated position. She looked around, dazed, and then up at Laura.

  She noticed Sara’s bloody knee, and took her in back. After cleaning and bandaging the wound, she said, “Ready?”

  Sara nodded and picked up her bag. They walked outside into dancing leaves and a stiff October breeze. Laura buttoned her coat, pulled the collar closed.

  “Warm where you came from?” Laura asked.

  “Indiana, gets cold there same as here.”

  “Where?”

  “Little town called Lexington.”

  They walked for a while in silence. The girl didn’t seem fully awake yet, and Laura didn’t tell her, but she had risked losing her wallet and watch by falling asleep in the waiting room.

  As they reached Laura’s Honda, she said, “You can stay at my place for the night.”

  “I’d planned on it. Got nowhere else to go, right now.”

  Laura unlocked the doors and they got in. Laura pulled out. As they drove, she snuck glances at Sara, who didn’t seem to notice. She looked at the hair, the eyes, the set of jaw and the more she looked, the more it seemed possible that Sara could be hers. Or was it just the hope of a fool who wanted her child back?

  It seemed she had heard if a kidnapped child were not recovered within twenty-four hours of abduction, then they were as good as gone. But still, she could hope for a miracle. They happened to other people, so why not her?

  Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Laura’s place. Laura parked and they got out. They took the elevator to the building’s tenth floor and Laura took out her key and opened the apartment door. She flipped on the lights, hoping Sara wouldn’t see her hands shaking.

  “Something to drink?”

  “No thanks. So what is it you’re looking for. This proof?”

  Laura exhaled. “A birthmark. Lower back. I thought it looked like Australia. I used to think of Megan as my ‘Down Under’ baby because of it. Corny, I know. But people can have birthmarks that are similar, right? I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “Well?”

  “Let’s see.”

  Sara set down her bag and turned around. Laura almost couldn’t bear to look. What if it wasn’t her daughter?

  Sara lifted the back of her shirt up, and sure enough, a birthmark, roughly six inches by six, blotchy red, across the small of her back. And it was Australia, or at least that was how Laura perceived it. She heard herself gasp and the room began to tilt a bit as she staggered backward, her legs hitting the Queen Anne chair and forcing her to flop on her butt. My God, she’s found me.

  Sara lowered her shirt and sat on the couch, opposite Laura.

  Laura said, “How?”

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me what you do know.”

  “My father, or the person who says he’s my father, is named David Dresser. I’ve been with him my whole life. I just found these photos the other day. He had them hidden.”

  “What possessed you?”

  “I needed twenty bucks until payday. He keeps a stash under his mattress, which he thinks I don’t know about. It’s money from his drywall jobs, and I was going to pay him back, just a little light though. Anyw
ay, this manila envelope is poking out, so I tug on it and it falls and out flops these newspaper articles with your picture,” Sara said. “And a letter saying you can never find out I’m yours.”

  This was getting nuttier. “Your mother? What did he tell you?”

  “That she died. Cancer of the ovaries. He kept a picture on his dresser, black hair, blue eyes. It could have been my mom, so I never questioned it.”

  “How could he conceal this?”

  “We moved a lot. Fresno, Portland, El Paso. Every few years, he said he needed to find work, that the construction jobs were drying up. I’ve gone to a dozen different schools.”

  The poor girl. Here she had lived for years under the illusion that her mother was dead, and that the man she had known all along was her father. Why would someone do this?

  “Who was my real father?”

  Laura was still having trouble absorbing this. There were tests they could run, and she was already planning to contact the lab at the hospital in order to confirm it. But she had seen the birthmark, the pictures, the resemblance. “I’d like to say I knew him.” She felt her face reddening. “But I met up with a guy after a Van Halen concert and we hooked up in the parking lot. I’d had too many wine coolers and he was higher than a satellite. His name was Rick.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” the girl said. She got off the couch and came to Laura and Laura stood up and embraced the girl, who returned her hug fiercely. This was her daughter, or at least that’s what some form of maternal instinct told her. It felt right, like Sara was hers. She had heard theories about bonding and instinct but had never believed them until now. The hell with blood tests.

  “I screwed up that night, or at least that’s what I thought. But I got a beautiful little girl out of the deal. My father was nervous, scared, but not mad. He helped me out, paid for my schooling. Jesus, I don’t know what to think. I did good until they snatched you from me. I just turned my back for a goddamned second.”

  Sara, her face pressed into Laura’s shoulder, said, “I’m not leaving you again.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.” Laura gently pushed the girl away. “My next move is to find this Dresser jerk. I’m sure the FBI would like to have a word with him.”

  “No, please don’t. I’m mad at him, too, but he’s a good man. Besides, I have a feeling he’ll come looking for me.”

  “Sara, he lied to you for years. He took you from me.”

  Laura went to the rolltop desk and took out a legal pad and red pen. “Did he mention anyone else? Give me some names.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want Dad—or Dave, arrested.”

  “He kidnapped you!”

  Sara recoiled. “I’ve had a good life. I’m just confused. Shit, I’m fucking baffled, to be honest with you. This really rocked my world. But don’t turn him in.”

  “That’s an understatement. I need more names, information.”

  “Do you think I could get something to eat? It might help my memory.”

  What would it hurt? It had been a mystery for sixteen years. Another hour while they had a meal wouldn’t hurt. But she would still find this Dresser, and when she did, he would be better off if they locked him in San Quentin.

  Laura gave her a sly smile. “Let’s eat.”

  They sat in the kitchen after finishing grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Laura had garnished it with dill pickles and potato chips, and although it was far from gourmet cooking, in her book you couldn’t beat grilled cheese and a pickle on the side. The meal reflected her style of living, as did the kitchen. It had a butcher-block table for two. The counter had a coffeemaker, toaster, and microwave. She owned four plates and four sets of silverware. There were no magnets on the fridge, no sunflower paintings or plaques with cutesy aphorisms on the walls. It was strictly functional. With most of her time spent at the hospital, she didn’t see the need for clutter and fancy decorations.

  Sara helped her wash and dry the dishes, and when they were in the drain, Sara asked if she could clean up. She still had smudges on her face and dirt under her nails. Laura hoped to hear her tale, but only if she was ready to tell. Laura got her out a white towel and a pair of blue sweats and a T-shirt that read PENN STATE. She then directed Sara to the bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later, Sara came out looking freshly scrubbed and vital. With her glasses off, the resemblance to Laura was striking. They could have been sisters separated by a few years.

  “Did your memory improve with that meal?” Laura asked.

  Sara twirled her hair with her finger. “Yeah, there was one other thing they talk about sometimes.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “David and Reverend Frank. Once in a while when they don’t think I’m listening, or when Dave’s on the phone, I hear him talking to someone. More and more in the past few weeks.”

  “Why would that be suspicious?”

  “A couple times, I enter the room, and if Reverend Frank is over, they get real quiet all of a sudden, like they were talking about me, but they’re not. It’s the guy.”

  “You get his name?”

  “I think he’s from Buffalo. First name is Charles. They call him Charlie, or the Gray Crusader, then laugh about it like it’s the funniest damn thing in the world. Hey, you okay? Your face is as white as that wall.”

  She felt hot and sick all at once. It couldn’t be. But hadn’t Dad referred to himself as a “Gray Crusader” on more than one occasion? Usually when he was off to a Common Council meeting, charging off like some half-assed Don Quixote on a quest to save the brewery.

  “Laura?”

  “The man you just described,” Laura said, “is my father.”

  Laura approached the phone. She stared at it as if it might jump from the table and bite her. The wall clock ticked in the background. It was like waiting for the chaplain and guards to enter your cell, waiting for that long walk to Old Sparky. Would calling her father clear up the mysteries that had plagued her for the past sixteen years? She wanted to know and she didn’t.

  “Are you going to call him?” Sara asked.

  Laura reached out her hand, wiggled her fingers. There was no good excuse for not calling other than the fact she was completely terrified at the moment. She realized she might not know her own father completely, and while that scared her, the fact that he may have known the whereabouts of her little girl scared her more.

  She picked up the phone and dialed. She let it ring nine times. His machine came on. “Dad, call me. As soon as you can, okay?” she said, voice cracking.

  She hung up the phone and turned to Sara, who sat on the edge of the couch, arms crossed. “Well?”

  “I’m off tomorrow. We’ll go look for him.”

  In the spare bedroom, Sara turned down the sheets on the twin bed. There was a television in the room and she had flipped through the news stations and thought she might catch a story about Joanne’s death. There had been nothing.

  Laura entered the bedroom with a pink and white afghan. “It can get chilly in here. Keep this on the bed.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Sara said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why are you waiting to talk to your dad?”

  “Another day won’t make a difference. It’s been this many years. I guess I’m just glad to have you back.”

  “I suppose we can find him tomorrow.”

  “Are you worried about it?”

  Sara smoothed out the comforter. “The sooner, the better, I guess.”

  “Are you scared?”

  She knows something, Sara thought. “Why?”

  “I don’t mind telling you I am.”

  Scared of what? “I don’t follow.”

  “You. Back in my life after all these years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited and happy and I feel like I could fly to the damned moon, but where do we go from here?”

  Sara didn’t have the answer to that. “I guess it’s just important that we’re together again.”

  �
��We’ll take it slow, okay?”

  “Get to the bottom of this.”

  “Starting with David.”

  Laura gave her a hug and whispered, “I am glad you’re back; you have no idea. We’ll find our way, won’t we?”

  “Together.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Dave drove the truck over the last hill and Routersville came into view. As they dipped down the long hill, the rows of ranch houses at the edge of town spread before them. Beyond that was Main Street and the brick clock tower that marked town hall. The main road jogged again in the distance and led to an extruding plant and above it a hundred-foot-high smokestack that rose like a castle tower. As the road rose again on the far side of town, his eyes were drawn to it. The armory, constructed in 1911, had turrets and high walls and two massive steel doors that opened into an archway. It looked as if it had dropped in from a fairy tale. It had most recently housed National Guard units, but was now abandoned except for a minimal maintenance crew.

  He had been through here one other time and guessed that it took a grand total of five minutes to travel Main Street end-to-end. That was Routersville, blink and you miss it.

  “Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Frank said.

  “Not exactly the big city.”

  “But important, no doubt.”

  They started through the outskirts of town, where every house seemed to have a pickup truck in the driveway, many of them sporting stickers that said things like BUSH/CHENEY and I OWN A GUN AND I VOTE.

  “Where does Chen live?”

  “Off the main street. Near the clock tower,” Frank said.

  They entered the business district and passing through, David noticed all the buildings were the same neat red brick. The businesses, with names like Ruby’s Diner and The All Niter Laundromat, had potted plants out front, mums or other brightly colored flowers. The moldings and doorways were all painted a clean white and the signs for the businesses were scripted in the same elegant gold on hunter green. David figured it must be a town ordinance, as many small towns liked to keep things uniform, especially if the buildings had historical significance.