Молчаливая ночь [with w_cat] - страница 18

[296] Michael was sitting in the front seat with Officer Ortiz, sipping a soda. A brown paper bag with remnants of a packet of ketchup was standing on the floor in front of him. Catherine squeezed in beside him on the front seat and smoothed his hair.

[297] “How’s Dad?” he asked anxiously. “You didn’t tell him about Brian, did you?”

[298] “No, of course not. I’m sure we’ll find Brian soon, and there was no need to worry him. And he’s doing just great. I saw Dr. Crowley. He’s a happy camper about Dad.” She looked over Michael’s head at Officer Ortiz. “It’s been almost two hours,” she said quietly.

[299] He nodded. “Brian’s description will keep going out every hour to every cop and car in the area. Mrs. Dornan, Michael and I have been talking. He’s sure Brian wouldn’t deliberately wander away.”

[300] “No, he’s right. He wouldn’t.”

[301] “You talked to the people around you when you realized he was missing?”

“Yes.”

[302] “And no one noticed a kid being pulled or carried away?”

[303] “No. People remember seeing him, then they didn’t see him.”

[304] “I’ll level with you. I don’t know any molester who would even attempt to kidnap a child from his mother’s side and work his way through a crowd of people. But Michael thinks that maybe Brian would have taken off after someone he saw take your wallet.”

[305] Catherine nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s the only answer that makes sense.”

[306] “Michael tells me that last year Brian stood up to a fourth-grade kid who shoved one of his classmates.”

[307] “He’s a gutsy kid,” Catherine said. Then the import of what the policeman had said hit her. He thinks that if Brian followed whoever took my wal let, he may have confronted that person. Oh God, no!

[308] “Mrs. Dornan, if it’s all right with you, I think it would be a good idea if we tried to get cooperation from the media. We might be able to get some of the local TV stations to show Brian’s picture if you have one.”

[309] “The one I carried is in my wallet,” Catherine said, her voice a monotone. Images of Brian standing up to a thief flashed in her mind. My little boy, she thought, would someone hurt my little boy?

[310] What was Michael saying? He was talking to the cop Ortiz.

[311] “My grandmother has a bunch of pictures of us,” Michael was telling him. Then he looked up at his mother. “Anyhow, Mom, you gotta call Gran. She’s going to start worrying if we’re not home soon.”

[312] Like father, like son, Catherine thought. Brian looks like Tom. Michael thinks like him. She closed her eyes against the waves of near panic that washed through her. Tom. Brian. Why?

[313] She felt Michael fishing in her shoulder bag. He pulled out the cellular phone. “I’ll dial Gran,” he told her.

[314] In her apartment on Eighty-seventh Street, Barbara Cavanaugh clutched the phone, not wanting to believe what her daughter was telling her. But there was no disputing the dreadful news that Catherine’s quiet, almost emotionless voice had conveyed. Brian was missing, and had been missing for over two hours now.

[315] Barbara managed to keep her voice calm. “Where are you, dear?”

[316] “Michael and I are in a police car at Forty-ninth and Fifth. That’s where we were standing when Brian… just suddenly wasn’t next to me.”

[317] “I’ll be right there.”

[318] “Mom, be sure to bring the most recent pictures you have of Brian. The police want to give them out to all the news media. And the news radio station is going to have me on in a few minutes to make an appeal. And Mom, call the nurses’ station on the fifth floor of the hospital. Tell them to make absolutely sure that Tom isn’t allowed to turn on the TV in his room. He doesn’t have a radio. If he ever found out that Brian was missing…” Her voice trailed off.

[319] “I’ll call right away but, Catherine, I don’t have any recent pictures here,” Barbara cried. “All the ones we took last summer are in the Nantucket house.” Then she wanted to bite her lip. She’d been asking for new pictures of the boys and hadn’t received any. Only yesterday Catherine had told her that her Christmas present, framed portraits of them, had been forgotten in the rush to get Tom to New York for the operation.