Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 37

His body still hurtling forward, Ryan’s left foot, stretched out as far as he could reach it, hit the top of the low balustrade on the roof of the building behind The Rockwell. As he felt himself start to pitch forward, he threw out both arms and his right leg, but it wasn’t enough to break the momentum of his jump and he sprawled out face down, feeling a sharp stinging in his left hand as something on the rooftop cut into it. Rolling over and sitting up, he instinctively started sucking on the wound on his hand. As the pain began to die away, he took a quick inventory of the rest of his body. Except for his left hand, and a bruise on his right knee, he was uninjured. Next he began checking the contents of his pockets. The flashlight was still there and still worked, although the lens had cracked. The last four batteries were still in the left pocket; the key ring was in the right, along with the marking pen and his knife. Satisfied, he got gingerly to his feet. Except for his right knee and his scraped hand, nothing hurt.

He headed toward the closest fire escape, and peered over the edge of the balustrade. A rusty ladder bolted to the wall went straight down to the top landing, but after that there was a series of metal stairs. It was too dark to see clear to the bottom, but he was pretty sure that once he got to the second floor, there would be another ladder, one that would drop down to the sidewalk.

Climbing onto the balustrade he turned around, then clung to the rails of the ladder so hard his fingers hurt as he felt for the top rung with his right foot. Finding it, he tested his weight on it, but despite the rust, it felt solid. He moved his left foot down, then lowered his hands one at a time so one of them always had a tight grip on the ladder’s rails.

Moving slowly and carefully, but with his nerves steadying a little more with each rung he conquered, he finally came to the highest landing. Something creaked as he put his full weight on it, and for a moment he froze. The night seemed suddenly quiet.

Too quiet?

He looked around. The window opening onto the fire escape was dark, but there was just enough moonlight so that he could see the backs of the drapes that were pulled across it. His heart began to pound as he imagined the drapes suddenly being opened, and someone looking out at him. He froze, just the thought of being caught on the fire escape petrifying him. Then the sound of a car horn startled him, making him jump so badly he grabbed at the rail with his injured hand.

The sting of the rusty metal grinding into the raw flesh of his palm galvanized him into action, and he started scurrying down the flights of steps, moving as silently as he could, but not pausing on any of the landings even long enough to see if any of the windows were uncovered. In less than a minute he came to the lowest landing, and was peering down into the narrow gap that separated the building from The Rockwell.

A rat was working its way along the bottom of The Rockwell’s back wall, and as Ryan watched it scuttled up the wall then leaped into one of the garbage cans whose lid didn’t fit right. A couple of seconds later another rat followed. Shuddering, Ryan looked away from the trash barrel, and concentrated on the ladder that would get him to the ground. It turned out to be easy — there was nothing more than a simple hook holding it in place, and as soon as he released the hook, he could push the ladder down to the ground. Once he’d climbed down, its counterweights took it back up. With one last glance at the trash barrel the rats had disappeared into, Ryan scurried out of the alleyway into 70th Street, turned left, and headed west.

The Biddle Institute on West 82nd.

Coming to Columbus, he turned north and hurried along the sidewalk. He’d never been out this late by himself, and tonight the streets seemed a lot scarier than they ever had before. The sidewalk was busy, and Ryan kept dodging in and out, threading his way uptown as quickly as he could. He could feel people looking at him, but Ryan was careful not to look back at them. Then, when he finally came to 82nd Street, he realized he had no idea which direction to go. He peered first one way, then the other, but neither of the blocks he could see looked much different from the other. Then he figured it out — he’d start by going toward the park, looking at every building on the south side, then cross to the north side and head west again. When he got back to the corner he was on, he’d keep going west, going back and forth across the street if he couldn’t see a sign clearly.

But what if there wasn’t a sign? What if it was one of those places that only had an address showing from the sidewalk?

He decided not to think about it.

Turning east, he started along the narrow sidewalk, reading every sign and examining every building that had no sign as carefully as he could. A couple of times he even snuck up onto the steps to read the names by the mailboxes.

When he finally came to Central Park West, he crossed the street and started back west.

Nothing.

He crossed Columbus and worked his way toward Amsterdam. He was staring at one of the buildings on the south side, trying to read the address, when suddenly he heard a voice.

“Looking for something, son?”

Jumping, Ryan spun around to see a tall man dressed in khaki pants and a tee shirt looking at him, his head cocked slightly to one side. ‘Never talk to strangers,’ he heard his mother’s voice whisper inside his head. ‘And if a stranger tries to talk to you, run away. If he chases you, start yelling as loud as you can.’

“It’s kinda late for a kid your age to be out, isn’t it?” the man said. Now he glanced up and down the street. To see if there was anyone else on the block? To see if anyone was watching? Ryan’s heart pounded harder, and he tensed himself, ready to run if the man came any closer. But then the man spoke again. “Look, kid — I don’t know what you’re doing out here by yourself, but it’s not very safe. All kinds of—” He hesitated, then finished. “There’s all kinds of weirdos in this city. So if you’re lost, just tell me, and I’ll help you find where you’re going.”

Ryan hesitated, and the man took a step toward him.

“Run,” he heard his mother’s voice say. “Run as fast as you can.”

Spinning away from the man, Ryan raced down the block.

“Hey!” the man called after him, but Ryan didn’t even look back until he came to the corner of Amsterdam, where the bright lights and stream of traffic made him feel safer. Pausing to catch his breath, he finally looked back.

The man had vanished.

When his breathing evened out, Ryan crossed Amsterdam and continued along 82nd, but now he kept glancing backward in case the man in the tee shirt — or anyone else — was following him. And then, half a block past Broadway, he found it. He almost missed it, because it looked more like a house than anything else, and all that was over the door was the address. But as he was about to go on, a glint of light caught his eye, and he saw the small brass plaque mounted next to the door: ‘The Biddle Institute.’

Now that he’d found it, though, how was he going to find his mother? Just looking at it, he was pretty sure it wasn’t like a hospital, where you could just walk in. But at least he had to try.

Glancing up and down the street — and seeing no one — he scurried up the steps and tried the door.

Locked.

Going back to the sidewalk, he crossed the street, an idea already formulating in his mind.

Maybe he could get into The Biddle Institute the same way he’d gotten out of The Rockwell.

Looking up, he saw that the roof of The Biddle Institute was exactly level with the roof of the building next door. And the building next door was an apartment building.

Apartment buildings were easy to get into — all you had to do was ring a bunch of bells, and wait for someone to buzz you in — he’d seen it on TV lots of times.

Except that when he tried it, only one person answered, and she wouldn’t let him in, even when he said he was there to see his grandmother.

Abandoning the bell panel, he started hunting for a service passage, and found it at the far end of the building. And on the back of the building, he found the same kind of fire escape he’d come down half an hour ago.

But the bottom of the ladder was way out of his reach. Then he saw a row of large, plastic garbage cans lined up along the back of the building. Recently emptied, their lids were lying next to them.

Dragging three of them over to the spot directly below the fire escape, he turned them upside down and lined them up next to each other, then stacked two more on the bottom three. The sixth one was harder, but he finally got it on top of the pyramid. Now, if he could just climb up, he was pretty sure he could reach the ladder.

The first step was easy, but he could feel the can teetering slightly under his feet. Steadying himself against the wall and trying to keep his weight balanced, he managed to climb up onto the second tier.

The ladder hung above him, and now he was sure that if he could just get onto the top garbage can, he could reach it. But if the whole pyramid collapsed under him—

Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself up so his belly was flat on the top can. Then he pulled his right knee up, tucking it under his body, following it with his left. Steadying himself as best he could against the wall, he straightened up so he was kneeling. Taking another deep breath, he lifted his right knee and put his foot on the can, then waited a moment while he gathered his strength. Finally he heaved himself upward and a moment later both his feet were flat on the bottom of the can, his hands on the wall. The makeshift pyramid wobbled, but didn’t collapse.

Reaching up, Ryan’s hands closed on the bottom rung of the fire escape’s ladder, and less than a minute later he was on the apartment building’s roof.

There was no gap at all between the roof he was on and the one next door — all he had to do was climb over the low ramparts of both buildings, and he was almost at his goal.

He found the roof door — an old-fashioned one, but with a lock that was different from the kind the doors The Rockwell had. He tried it, wasn’t surprised to find it locked, and began experimenting with the keys on the ring.

When none of them fit his heart sank, but then, as he was staring at the door — willing it to open, even though he knew it wouldn’t — he noticed a place where the paint on the wood frame was peeling away, and the wood beneath the paint was splitting. Pulling out the knife, he set to work. The wood, exposed to the weather for decades, was not only splitting, but decaying with dry rot as well. The deeper he dug the softer it became, and less than fifteen minutes later he was inside the building. But how was he going to find his mother?

The stairs from the roof led steeply down to a small landing, and below the landing there was a stairwell that went all the way down to the ground floor, with a landing at every floor.

He started down, and when he came to the next floor, found a door that opened onto a long hallway that was dimly lit by fixtures that hung on the wall every twenty feet or so. He stayed where he was, listening, but heard nothing. Finally he ventured out into the hall, moving quickly down its length, his feet making no sound at all on the carpeted floor.

A dozen doors opened off the hall, and each door bore the kind of little metal frame he’d seen on the drawers of the old-fashioned desks in the antique shop, that you could put a card into so you’d know what was in the drawer.

But none of the frames held any cards at all, and finally Ryan tried one of the doors. Finding it unlocked, he pushed the door open and peered inside. Enough light came in from the street outside that he could see a hospital bed, and a table, and a chest of drawers. But the bed was empty, and there was nothing on either the table or the chest.

He moved on, checking all the rooms.

All of them were empty.

Going back to the stairs, he went down to the next floor.

And halfway down the dimly lit hall found a door with a label in its metal frame.

Caroline Fleming.

His heart pounding, he tried the door.

Locked.

Pulling the key ring out of his pocket yet again, he set to work. This time he got lucky, and on the fourth try the lock clicked open and he pushed the door open.

Just enough light came in through the doorway so he could see his mother lying in bed, her eyes closed. After glancing up and down the hall, he slipped into the room, closed and relocked the door, and started toward the bed.

“Mom?” he whispered.

It’s a dream, Caroline thought. In spite of her determination to stay awake and find some way to escape whatever hospital to which Tony had committed her — and committed was the right word, for she was certain she wasn’t ill, either mentally or physically — she’d fallen asleep, and now she was dreaming.

Dreaming she heard Ryan calling her.

“Mom?”

She heard him again, a little louder this time, but when she opened her eyes she saw nothing more than the dim glow cast by the small night-light plugged into a socket near the floor. But then a shadow passed over the ceiling.

A shadow with a human form.

Someone was in the room! But she hadn’t heard the door open, hadn’t heard anything until Ryan’s voice had disturbed her sleep.

The shadow grew larger, and now she could feel the presence in the room hovering close to the bed. Then, as her heart began to pound, she heard Ryan yet a third time. This time the whisper was almost vocalized.

“Mom!” And there he was, standing next to the bed, looking anxiously at her.

“Ryan!” she cried. “Where—”

But before she could finish her question his hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her.

“Shh! Do you want me to get caught?”

Caroline’s mind spun. Caught? What was he talking about? He couldn’t have gotten in without anyone seeing him. Unless—

“What time is it?” she whispered.

“A little after eleven,” Ryan replied. “Get up! We have to help Laurie!”

Laurie! The last image she’d had of her daughter rose out of her memory, and the pain of it almost made her cry. Almost, but not quite. “Pull the covers off and undo the straps,” she told Ryan. He looked at her blankly. “They strapped me to the bed,” she whispered.

Ryan pulled the sheet and thin blanket back, and stared at the woven nylon straps that imprisoned his mother’s wrists and ankles. For just the tiniest fraction of a second he hesitated, but then went to work on the buckles that held them fast.

In a few seconds less than a minute — a minute that seemed more like an hour to both of them — Caroline was free. She sat up, and was just about to swing her feet off the bed when she heard something.

A key, being fit into the lock of the door!

Ryan heard it too, and now he was staring at her, his eyes wide with sudden terror.

“Down!” Caroline whispered, and without even a split-second’s delay Ryan dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed so he was on the side away from the door. In the same instant, Caroline yanked the sheet and blanket back up, and dropped her head onto the pillow. By the time she heard the latch of the door click open, her eyes were closed and she was concentrating on keeping her breathing smooth and even.

Footsteps approached the bed, and a moment later she could feel someone standing next to her.

Feel the person looking at her.

Then she felt the sheet and blanket being gently pulled down, as if whoever was uncovering her didn’t want to wake her. But if the covers were pulled too low, and whoever had come into the room saw that her wrists were no longer bound by the straps—

The thought died as the covers stopped moving and she felt something cold touch the skin of her right arm.

Something cold and wet.

An alcohol swab!

Whoever was there was about to give her a shot! And if that happened—

Caroline lunged upward and to the right, hurling all her weight at the person standing next to the bed. Caught completely off guard by the sudden attack, whoever it was lurched backward, went off balance, and fell to the floor.

“Help me!” Caroline whispered as loudly as she dared, throwing herself on the figure on the floor that was already trying to stand up.

In an instant, Ryan slithered back out from under the bed, and as Caroline struggled to hold the figure down, he grabbed a pillow off the bed, put it over the person’s face, then threw himself onto it, the entire weight of his body pressing the pillow over the mouth and face.

In the dim light of the room, the figure on the floor thrashed and kicked, trying to escape Caroline and Ryan.

Both of them held tight, neither of them saying a word.

The silence stretched on, but in less than a minute the kicking and thrashing grew weaker, and at last the form beneath Caroline was still.

“I–Is she dead?” Ryan whispered, his voice shaking.

Slowly and carefully — ready to launch another attack if the still figure so much as twitched — Caroline got to her hands and knees.

It was a nurse — wearing the same kind of uniform as the one who’d given Caroline the pills she hadn’t swallowed a few hours earlier. Caroline picked up her limp wrist and felt for a pulse.

At first there was nothing, but then she felt a faint throbbing under her fingers.

“She’s alive,” she whispered. “Help me!” Pulling a wad of Kleenex from the box on her nightstand, she stuffed it into the nurse’s mouth. “See if there’s anything in the closet,” she told Ryan.

A second later he was back, holding the robe she’d been wearing when she found Tony and his friends— She cut the thought off, focusing her entire mind on the problem at hand. Jerking the belt of the robe free from its loops, she wrapped it around the nurse’s head a couple of times, then tied it tightly over her mouth, holding the Kleenex firmly in place.

“What if she chokes?” Ryan asked.

Caroline ignored the question. “Help me get her clothes off her. Start with her shoes.” As Ryan began pulling the nurse’s shoes and white stockings off, Caroline began unbuttoning the blouse of the uniform. In less than another minute they were done, and a minute after that they’d succeeded in hauling the nurse’s unconscious body off the floor and onto the bed. Then Caroline attached the straps that had bound her own limbs only a few minutes ago to the arms and legs of the nurse, making certain they were just as tight on the nurse’s wrists and ankles as they had been on hers. “Pull the covers up,” she told Ryan as she stripped off the nightgown and put on the uniform she’d taken from the nurse. It was about two sizes too large, but Caroline didn’t think it would matter — it would just look a little bulky, and it was better than wearing a nightgown out into the streets in the middle of the night. The shoes, too, were a little too large, but she pulled the laces tight, and they fit well enough that she was fairly sure they wouldn’t come off even if she had to run. “How did you get in?” she whispered as she tied the last knot.

“The roof,” Ryan replied. “It was really easy. I climbed up the—”

“Show me,” Caroline cut in. “If you didn’t get caught sneaking in, maybe we won’t get caught sneaking out.” Checking the gag on the nurse one last time, she followed Ryan to the door. He opened it a crack, and they both listened. Hearing nothing, he opened the door wider and peered out into the hall outside.

Nothing.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Follow me.”

“You climbed up this?” Caroline asked as she peered down the ladder that led to the first landing of the fire escape on the back of the building next door to The Biddle Institute. Just looking at it made her dizzy, and the thought of climbing down it made her stomach churn.

“It was easy,” Ryan said. “Lots easier than jumping off the roof of The Rockwell.”

Caroline stared at him, but could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth. But instead of speaking the words that rose in her throat — the words of a horrified mother who can’t believe how stupid her own child could be — she choked them back. Battling the vertigo that threatened to overwhelm her, she stepped up onto the rampart at the roof’s edge, turned around, gripped the top of the ladder as hard as she could, and started down. I’ll never make it, she thought. I’ll miss my step, and lose my grip, and—

“Remember what Dad always said,” Ryan whispered, sensing his mother’s fear. “Never give up!”

As Brad Evans’ words echoed in her ears she decided that no matter what happened, she wouldn’t miss her step.

And she certainly wouldn’t lose her grip — not on the ladder, and not on her mind.