Chapter 24

Brendan Jordan spent a restless Friday night after walking Lindy to her car that morning. She had tried to lighten the mood by making jokes about the size of her hometown and what it would probably be like today, but Brendan could read her very real fear just under the banter.

"Are you sure you don't want me to go along?" he said. "I haven't got anything scheduled this weekend, and I get antsy with nothing to do."

"That's sweet of you, Brendan, but I couldn't put you through that. It's like you said, there's nothing deadlier than going to somebody else's class reunion."

"Call me when you get there," he said.

Lindy had looked long at him then. He was not a man who normally worried about a woman if she was out of his sight.

"I'll call you," she said, and kissed him as he left her in the boarding area.

* * *

But she hadn't called. According to his figuring, she would have arrived at Wolf River some time Friday afternoon, but there had been no word. Brendan reminded himself that there were countless reasons why she might not have called, but he didn't like the sound of it. If Lindy promised to do something, she could be counted on to do it.

He got out of bed early for him on a Saturday when he was not scheduled to fly. He turned on the coffee maker, brought in the newspaper, and dropped into a kitchen chair.

He sipped his coffee and tried to read the sports section of the Times that he had propped against a napkin container on the kitchen table.

Martina Navratilova was, as usual, playing in the Wimbledon finals against some German girl. The Dodgers were having pitching, fielding, and hitting problems. The Angels were trying to stay at .500. Several more professional athletes had been charged with crimes ranging from drug abuse to manslaughter.

His heart wasn't in the sports page. Lindy had been gone since only yesterday, but he missed her. More than that, he was worried about her. It was a vague, unformed worry that touched on the strange happenings she had described to him. He wished now that he had paid more serious attention when she was telling him about them.

Their last night together before she left had been the worst. For no reason at all, in the middle of their lovemaking Lindy had started to scream. She had pushed him away violently and seemed to be trying to scramble out of bed. It had only lasted a moment, but it took an hour of holding her and saying reassuring things to calm her down.

Afterwards she wouldn't go into detail about what had happened, telling him only that she had had some kind of crazy hallucination. Lindy was not a woman given to hallucinations or to hysterical outbursts. Something was deeply troubling her. Something she didn't want to share with him. Brendan didn't press the subject, but he held her especially close throughout the rest of the night.

The telephone rang.

Brendan tilted back in the chair and uncradled the wall extension phone. The voice on the other end was small and frightened.

"Brendan? This is Nicole."

"Hi, kid. What's happening?"

"It's Mom."

Brendan was instantly alert. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Nicole said quickly. "At least I don't think so. I tried to call her this morning, but I couldn't get through."

"What do you mean, couldn't get through?"

The girl's voice began to rise. "Just what I said. I tried to call her at the hotel where she's staying, but I couldn't get through."

Brendan grabbed the notepad from the counter under the telephone. He read from the top page.

"You called her at the Wolf River Inn?"

"Yes."

"Area code 715, 555-0226?"

"I think so. Whatever. But I couldn't get through."

"Okay, sit tight, Nicole. Let me try it."

"I'm scared, Brendan. I don't know why."

"Don't start worrying," he said. "There's a thousand things that can foul up telephone communications. It's been like that ever since they broke up Ma Bell."

"I just have this feeling that something's, I don't know, wrong."

"Let me try the number."

"Will you call me back?"

"As soon as I find out anything."

"Thanks, Brendan."

He broke the connection, gave it ten seconds, and dialed the number of the Wolf River Inn.

The receiver buzzed twice in his ear. A male voice spoke. "The telephone number you have reached is not in service at this time. Please be sure you have checked your directory and are dialing properly. This is a recording."

"No shit," Brendan muttered into the phone. He hung up again while he checked his directory, not to be sure of the number he was dialing - he didn't make mistakes like that - but to get the service number of the telephone company.

Ten minutes later, having talked to three different telephone functionaries, the only information Brendan had was that circuits to Wolf River, Wisconsin, were temporarily inoperative, and that all concerned expected the problem to be rectified momentarily.

Brendan sat for a minute scowling into his cooling cup of coffee. Then he made a decision. Lindy might never let him forget it, but it was better to risk looking like a damn fool than to be a whole lot sorry later on.

He grabbed the phone again and dialed the number of the people where Nicole was staying. She came on the line immediately.

"What did you find out?"

"Nothing to worry about," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "Just some snafu in the telephone lines."

"Did you talk to Mom?"

"No, but they expect to have the problem cleared up anytime now."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, I just talked to everybody at AT&T except Cliff Robertson."

Nicole was unconvinced. "It's just that... things have been so weird."

"Yeah, well, as a matter of fact, I've got a flight out that way this morning. I can check on your mom in person just to ease your mind."

"Oh, Brendan, would you?"

"No problem, kid. Talk to you later."

Brendan hung up the phone thoughtfully. The flight to the Midwest was a fabrication. He didn't have another charter assignment until Monday, and that one was a group of Corporate executives going to British Columbia. But there was no use letting Nicole know he was as worried about Lindy as she was. Whether it was the girl's fear communicating itself to him or legitimate anxiety on his part, Brendan could not be sure. He had only a powerful hunch that Lindy needed help.

* * *

Brendan's charter company, Coastaire, flew out of Santa Monica Municipal Airport, but he kept his personal Cessna 310 at Whiteman Air Park in the San Fernando Valley. There was no tower, no red tape, just a compact little field for private pilots.

The twin-turbo 310 was probably more airplane than he really needed, but Brendan had got a good price on it from Coastaire five years before. He kept the trim little red-and-white plane gassed up and air-ready at all times, so when an impulse hit him to fly to Vegas or Catalina or wherever, he could hop in and go.

He filed his flight plan at Whiteman at nine-thirty Saturday morning. Shortly before ten he settled behind the wheel, scanned the horizon, and took off into a light easterly breeze.