Danny Abbott nodded quickly, and his eyes dropped. “She’s in the caves, taped up inside a gunnysack.” His voice was sullen and afraid. “Pete’s right, it was just a joke.”
Old Bob studied him a moment, weighing the depth of the truth in the boy’s words, then let him go. “If she’s come to any harm,” he said to all of them, looking deliberately from one face to the next, “you’ll answer for it.”
He walked back to where Nest’s friends waited in a tight knot at the edge of the parking lot, their eyes bright with excitement. He surveyed the crowd, looking to see if there was anyone he could call upon to help. But none of the faces i were familiar enough that he felt comfortable involving the few he recognized. He would have to do this alone.
He came up to Nest’s friends and gave them a reassuring smile. “You young people go on home now,” he told them. “I believe I know what’s happened, and it’s nothing serious. Nest is all right. You go on. I’ll have her call you when she gets home.”
He moved away from them without waiting for an answer, not wanting to waste any more time. He followed the edge of the paved road toward the west end of the park and the caves. He went swiftly and deliberately, and he did not look over his shoulder until he was well away from the crowd and deep into the darkness of the trees. No one followed him. He carried the flashlight loosely in his right hand, ready to use it for any purpose it required. He didn’t think he would be attacked, but he wasn’t discounting the possibility. He glanced around once more, saw nothing, no one, and turned his attention to the darkness ahead.
He followed the roadway to where it looped back on itself under the bridge and turned down. The streetlamps provided sufficient light that he was able to find his way without difficulty, keeping in the open where he could see any movement about him. He was sweating now from his exertion, the j armpits and collar of his shirt damp, his forehead beaded. The park was silent about him, the big trees still, their limbs and leaves hanging limp and motionless in the heavy air, then” shadows webbing the ground in strange, intricate patterns. A car’s headlights flared momentarily behind him, then swung away, following the road leading out of the park. He passed beneath the shadow of the bridge and emerged in muted starlight.
“Hang on, Nest,” he whispered quietly.
He moved quickly down the road toward the black mouth of the caves. The river was a silver-tipped satin sheet on his left and the cliffs towered blackly above him on his right. His shoes crunched softly on gravel. In his mind, he saw again the look in Evelyn’s eyes, and a cold feeling reached down into his stomach. What did she know that she was hiding from him? He thought suddenly of Caitlin, falling from these same • cliffs more than a dozen years earlier to land on the rocks below, broken and lifeless. The image brought a bloodred heat to his eyes and the back of his throat. He could not stand it if he were to lose Nest, too. It would be the end of him-the end of Evelyn as well. It would be the end of everything.
He reached the entrance to the caves and flicked on the flashlight. The four-cell beam cut a bright swath through the darkness, reaching deep into the confines of the rock. He worked his way carefully forward, pausing to listen, hearing something almost immediately-a muffled sound, a movement. He scrambled ahead, plunging inside the caves now, swinging the flashlight’s beam left and right with frantic movements, searching the jagged terrain.
Then abruptly the light found her. He knew at once it was Nest, even though she was trussed up inside a gunnysack with only her ankles and feet showing. He scrambled forward, calling out to her, stumbling several times on the loose rock before he reached her.
“Nest, it’s me, Grandpa,” he said, breathing heavily, thinking, Thank God, thank God! He reached into his pants and brought out his pocketknife to cut away the tape and burlap from her ankles. When that was done and the sack was removed, he cut the tape from her hands as well. Then, as gently as he could, he pulled the last strip off her mouth.