She spent over an hour picking out just the right clothes for a “casual” look. Bridget rarely wore makeup, but she made an exception that night. It was while she was gingerly applying her mascara that she noticed a note to herself—taped to the bottom of her dressing table mirror:
Babysit—The Shieldses @ 8, Fri, 10/19.
“Oh, crap!” she groaned. “No, no, no!”
Bridget tried calling Mrs. Shields to cancel, but the line was busy. She tried several times—right up until a quarter to eight. But she kept getting the damn busy signal. Bridget waited around as long as she could, but David didn’t show up. She didn’t even get to say hello to him and let him see how cute she looked.
Bridget walked the six blocks to the Shieldses’ house, where she would be looking cute for nine-year-old Andy Shields. His toddler sister, Danielle, was probably already asleep. Danielle’s bedtime was eight o’clock. So basically, Bridget’s job would be keeping Andy entertained for the next few hours.
She hoped and prayed something would happen to get her out of babysitting for that little brat tonight.
Actually, she wasn’t being fair to Andy. He was a cute, skinny kid with red hair and a goofy face. He wore these ugly madras shirts all the time. And he loved his green Converse All-Star high-tops. Bridget often teased him that he “dressed like a dork.” Still, he was sweet and easy to get along with. He liked to draw and had given Bridget a pencil sketch he’d done of her. It was awful, but she’d kept it anyway. Tonight, they would probably watch TV and play Monopoly. He was big into Monopoly too. She would send him to bed at eleven.
Later, Mr. Shields would drive her home, and she would probably miss David again. Damn it. Why couldn’t she get a break? Was it too much to hope that she’d get to the Shieldses’ house and find nobody home?
Instead, as she turned down the block and approached the Shieldses’ small brick Tudor, Bridget noticed all the lights were on inside. And outside, a police car was parked in their driveway.
The front door had been left open, and as Bridget came closer to the house, she could see Mr. and Mrs. Shields through the screen door—in the living room. Mrs. Shields, a thin woman with short, wavy red hair, was sitting on the sofa, quietly talking with a policeman. Mr. Shields paced back and forth while he spoke into a cordless phone. “Yes, well, thank you,” he was saying—a bit loudly. “And please . . . please, call us if you hear anything. . . .”
Bridget always thought he was handsome in a bookish way—
bookish
because of his glasses. He was an accountant. He must not have changed his clothes since coming home from work. He wore a blue suit, and his tie was loosened.
“And listen,” he said into the cordless phone, “if you can’t get through to us, just leave a message with the police, okay? Thanks a lot.”
Bridget hesitated before knocking on the side of the screen door. Spotting her, Mr. Shields suddenly stopped pacing. She nodded and gave a tentative little wave to him on the other side of the screen. “Hi, Mr. Shields,” she said nervously. “It’s me, Bridget. Is—everything okay?”
Mrs. Shields and the cop stood up. Andy’s father hurried to the door and flung it open. “Jesus, I’m sorry,” he muttered. He reached into his pocket. “We should have called you, Bridget. Mrs. Shields and I aren’t going out tonight. We won’t need you, but thanks. You can go back home.”
Bridget thought of David Ahern, and realized she was getting her wish. She started to smile a little. But then she saw the torment in Mr. Shields’s eyes. He was holding out two five-dollar bills for her. His hand trembled. “Here, let me give you something for your trouble—”
“What happened?” she whispered. “Is Andy okay?”
“He’s missing,” Mr. Shields replied, his voice cracking. “He and two other boys in his class—the Gaines twins, Robbie and Richie—they wandered off during recess at school today, and no one has seen them since. I’ve been on the phone with just about everyone from his class. You haven’t heard anything, have you?”
Bridget numbly shook her head. “No. I’m—so sorry.”
“See if she can’t sit with Danielle for a while,” Mrs. Shields said, plopping back down on the couch.
“Would you mind, Bridget?” Mr. Shields asked. He held on to the screen door and moved aside to let her in. “Danielle won’t go to sleep. I think she senses something wrong here. Could you read her a story and keep her occupied until she drifts off?”
“Of course,” she murmured, heading for the stairs.
The phone rang, and Mr. Shields stopped to answer it. He waved her on. “Hello?” he said into the phone. “Yes, thanks for calling back. Andy was wearing a navy blue jacket with a zipper up the front, madras shirt, green sneakers . . .”
Bridget continued up the stairs by herself, passing through the darkened hallway to Danielle’s room. The little girl’s door was halfway open. Bridget slipped into the room, which had been decorated with a
Sesame Street
motif. There was wallpaper with
Sesame Street
characters on it, a Cookie Monster bedspread, and a five-foot, stuffed Big Bird standing in the corner. A lamp on the dresser had a heat-activated shade that rotated and cast moving shadows across the wall—colorful stars and birds. The three-year-old with curly red-hair lay quietly in her bed and stared at Bridget.
“Hi, Dani,” she whispered, stepping closer to the bed. “Your mom and dad wanted me to read you a story, so I came all the way over from my house to do just that.” She pulled a chair near the bed, then glanced at the books by the nightstand. “What did you want to hear, Dani?”
The little girl just stared at her with those big, innocent blue eyes. “Where’s Andy?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
Shrugging, Bridget reached for a book. “I don’t know where Andy is,” she replied. “He’s with some friends. He should be home soon. What do you think of this story?
Betty, the Bashful Bumblebee.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sure interested. Should I read it?”
Bridget didn’t even get halfway through the book before Danielle was nodding off. Lulling Andy’s little sister to sleep was easier than she’d thought it would be. The hardest part was lying to her about Andy coming back. While she read aloud from the children’s book, Bridget pretended not to hear Mrs. Shields crying downstairs. The sound drifted through the vent.
Bridget sat at Danielle Shields’s bedside for a few more minutes, watching the colorful shadows sweep across the wall, and listening to adults talking down in the living room. Between the phone ringing and whispered conversations, Bridget only caught snippets:
“. . . bringing in the state police,” the cop said at one point.
“Andy has never run away before,” according to Mrs. Shields. “Nancy Gaines said the same thing about Richie and Robbie. They’re good kids.”
Later, the phone rang again, and Bridget listened to the policeman mumbling for a few moments. Then she heard him tell Mr. and Mrs. Shields: “We have someone who says they saw three boys wandering down Briar Court around twelve-thirty this afternoon. That’s a cul-de-sac. They were headed toward Gorman’s Creek, the witness said. From the description she gave, it sounds like Andy and the Gaines twins.”
Bridget waited another couple of minutes; then she tiptoed out of Danielle’s room. From the darkened corridor, she peeked into Andy’s room. His desk light was on. She stared at the neatly made bed and wondered if Andy would ever sleep in it again. On the wall, between a couple of
Indiana Jones
posters, were several of Andy’s drawings. He’d told her that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up.
Bridget heard someone coming up the stairs, and she quickly stole out of Andy’s bedroom. She met his father at the top of the stairs.
“Danielle’s asleep now,” she whispered. “Is there anything else I could do to help? I could fix you and Mrs. Shields something to eat—a couple of sandwiches—”
“No, thanks, Bridget,” he said. “I don’t think either one of us could eat right now. I’ll drive you home.”
“Oh, you don’t have to bother. I can walk—”
“That’s okay,” he said with a pale smile. “I need to step out for a minute. And I’ll feel better making sure you get home okay.”
Mr. Shields said nothing as he drove the six blocks to Bridget’s house. She was reluctant to break the silence. She hated the tiny, most-selfish part of her that was excited to spend some time with David Ahern after all. Then Bridget stole a glance at Mr. Shields at the wheel. He was in profile as he watched the road ahead. The streetlights moved across his face, and she saw a tear on his cheek.
He pulled into the driveway and stopped the car at the stone walkway that led to the front door.
“I’ll say a prayer for Andy,” Bridget whispered. “Though I—I’m sure he’s okay, Mr. Shields.”
Nodding, Mr. Shields took off his glasses, then wiped his eyes. “Thanks so much, Bridget,” he said with a raspy, broken voice. “You take care now, sweetheart.”
“G’night, Mr. Shields,” she said. Bridget climbed out of the car and started up the walkway. But a strange sound made her stop in her tracks. It was a muffled wailing, like a wounded animal. Bridget turned and looked back at the car. Mr. Shields was slumped over the wheel, crying inconsolably. Those awful, painful sounds were coming from Andy’s father.
Retreating up the walkway, Bridget unlocked the front door and slipped inside. She could hear the TV on in the den, and recognized Marlon Brando’s voice. “Brigg, is that you?” Brad called.
“Yes, it’s me,” Bridget called back to him. She paused in the foyer for a moment. “But I’m going right out again.”
She knew David Ahern was sitting there with her brother in the den. All she had to do was stick her head in and say hello. But she didn’t deserve to see him. She didn’t deserve to benefit in any way from what had happened to Andy Shields.
Grabbing a jacket from the front hall closet, she turned and stepped out the door again.
Bridget watched Mr. Shields’s car back out of the driveway, then pull away down the road. She headed in the opposite direction—on foot. It was a chilly fall night. Dried, fallen leaves scattered along the sidewalk with the light wind. Many of the trees along the walkway were bare. Their branches hovered over her like spindly claws. Bridget hiked up the collar to her jacket. She hadn’t noticed how cold—and creepy—it was on her way to the Shieldses’ house earlier. But then she’d had David on her mind.
Now she was thinking about Andy Shields. She glanced at her wristwatch. Andy and the Gaines twins had been missing for nine hours now. If the boys didn’t show up by tomorrow morning, everyone in town would be racking their brains to remember if they’d seen any strangers along Main Street or by the grade school today. McLaren was the kind of small town where most everybody knew everybody else.
Bridget stopped at Briar Court, the dead-end street where Andy and the Gaines twins were last seen. Heading down the road, she spotted three police cars parked at the turnaround by the Fesslers’ house—and the start of Gorman’s Creek.
The Fesslers’ place was a large, mountain-cabin-style house, all dark wood and stone with big windows and balconies jutting off practically every room. The entire back of the house was on stilts, so it hung over the wooded ravine. It might have been gorgeous once, but the Fesslers had let the place go. The house desperately needed a paint job—and someone to trim back all the foliage and trees that threatened to swallow it up.
The trail through Gorman’s Creek started on the Fesslers’ property—by their driveway. Anyone choosing to brave that crude pathway had to pass by the dark, neglected house. The Fessler family—like Gorman’s Creek—was the subject of rumor among the townspeople. They said the Fesslers—and the deep, winding, wooded ravine behind their house—were cursed.
Mr. Fessler—or Loony Lon, as some called him—was a widower, and had been confined to a wheelchair for years. His daughter, Anastasia, was about fifty, very high-strung, and still lived at home. Apparently, she’d attempted suicide several times. The son, Lon Junior—or Sonny—was the town Boo Radley. He could be seen riding along the streets of McLaren on his old Schwinn bicycle, looking unkempt and unshaven, with his red hunting cap and an old merit badge from his Boy Scout days hanging from a string around his neck.
It seemed fitting that the Fesslers were the unofficial gatekeepers to Gorman’s Creek. Bridget had heard the stories of murder, suicide, and madness. She figured most of them were made up, local legends and spooky tales to keep people off the Fesslers’ private property—and away from Gorman’s Creek. But the legends also lured some people—mostly curious teenagers—to that forbidden path by the Fesslers’ home.
At the end of the long, sometimes treacherous trail was a pond perfect for skinny-dipping or lovemaking. Olivia Rankin claimed it was an ideal spot for a “drunk and dunk” on a hot summer night. Olivia, Fuller Sterns, and others had enjoyed a few private, impromptu parties at that swimming hole—until one night when Anastasia Fessler called the police on them. The cops nabbed Olivia, Fuller, and two others while they were skinny-dipping in the Gorman’s Creek pond. A couple of days later, a barbed-wire fence went up at the beginning of the pathway. But enterprising explorers could still find a way around that fence.
Bridget guessed that Andy Shields and the Gaines twins must have found a way. She stared at the thick, dark forest, illuminated in areas by beams of light that broke through the trees. It was an eerie, unsettling sight. The police were in there with flashlights, searching for the three missing boys.