Barbara nodded. “There are thirty of them in New Jersey, but all I had to do was narrow it down to ones that existed when we were kids. That would be in the early sixties. Once I did that, I only had five to work with. Then I just worked with the ones that were on beaches. That leaves two. Despite its name, Haybrook’s Seaside Clam Bar isn’t always ‘seaside.’ “
“So which of the two do we go to?” Samantha asked.
“Well, Julie kept drawing jetties,” Barbara said. “So I made two phone calls and asked the obvious question. Only one clam bar, dated over thirty years old, situated near a jetty, was left.”
Wil laughed. “You’d make a great detective, Barbara.”
“I doubt it,” Barbara said without humor, “since it was so easy for someone to screw up my brain.”
They exited the airport and went to the car Barbara had rented.
“Is this the car you had when you arrived here with Julie?” Samantha asked.
“I suppose so,” Barbara said. “I had a key that identified it, or I wouldn’t have been able to find it. It’s fortunate the hotel had valet parking.”
They got into the car, and Barbara started on her way.
“Then you don’t remember renting it?” Wil asked from the back seat.
“I don’t remember anything at all,” Barbara said. “I only remember being home last night. I think the doorbell rang, but beyond that it’s a blank. Like I said, Samantha, now I know how frightened you must have been that night in your garage.”
“I still don’t know who attacked me,” Samantha admitted. “I thought it was that Mr. Henley.”
Barbara drove for a few minutes before venturing a question.
“Did you ever consider that it might have been Julie herself?”
“Oh! How did Julie drive a Bronco II all the way to Durango?”
“How did she get clear across the country to New Jersey?” Barbara asked.
Wil leaned forward.
“It’s a good point Barbara’s making,” he said. “I don’t think Raoul Henley was the mastermind behind all this. Not the way we found him.”
“How did you find him?” Barbara asked solemnly.
“Dead,” was Wil’s simple reply. “But I also don’t believe Julie had anything at all to do with that. I do think there might be a third party involved. And not necessarily an individual.”
Samantha breathed in deeply.
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re ever going to get any answers,” she said.
“Well, I have one answer for you,” Barbara said. “The name of the town where Haybrook’s is located. It’s called Shoaling. Does that ring a bell, Samantha?”
Samantha repeated the name several times, then shook her head.
“It doesn’t sound familiar at all,” she said.
“Shoaling,” Wil said. “Strange name for a town.”
“It’s a kind of wave,” Samantha said. “How far away is it?”
Barbara grimaced, an expression she could see in the rearview mirror.
“That’s the bad news,” Barbara said. “Even if we speed, and I don’t dare, Shoaling is a good five hours away.”
“Five hours!” Samantha cried out.
“Sorry,” Barbara said.
Wil sat back again. First, six hours by plane, then five hours by car; not to mention all the time it took them to trace Julie’s original destination. That gave Julie, or her abductors (and he believed they existed), a big head start.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Just get us to Shoaling. There’s nothing else to be done right now.”
“Nothing else to do but pray,” Barbara mumbled.
45
JOE TREFILL GLANCED in his rearview mirror just as the three children were crossing the railroad tracks. Swearing loudly, he swung the car around, the screech of the tires made louder by the relative peacefulness of the neighborhood.
“I’ll get you now, you little freak,” he growled, his voice deep and hoarse. He could see her up ahead, his vision blurred by the onset of madness. “I’ll get you now!”
She was with two other kids. Little bitch was pretty good at making friends, wasn’t she? Like a friggin’ puppy, Trefill thought.
He was so determined to catch up to her that he didn’t pay attention to the clang of the railroad crossing signals. He bumped onto the tracks just as they were coming down, bringing a series of three warning blasts from the Coastal Express. Trefil shot across the tracks, picking up speed as he neared the children. He’d run down the other two. He’d get rid of them so Lorraine had nobody to help her . . .
Up ahead, one of the children turned around. A black kid. What was she doing with a black kid?