Nothing. No sign of her.
Pam wouldn't have had any reason to go beyond Veda Mae's driveway. Missy stopped and looked just as Dumais started to turn.
"Excuse me," she asked. "Have either of you gentlemen seen another girl? She was coming down this way and got ahead of me."
As quickly as possible, Jacques-Pierre faced back to the garage door and pulled down the ski mask he was wearing. Involuntarily, he closed his eyes and placed his fingers against his temples. Such a headache, la migraine, to have on an important occasion, the sun glaring on the snow and the day scarcely begun! He should have realized that where one of the girls was, it was only likely that the other would not be far away. He turned.
Léon, you fool! Don't go dashing at her like that! Don't make threatening gestures!
Too late.
Missy opened her mouth and prepared to shriek at the top of her lungs.
Jacques-Pierre could tell exactly what the girl was planning to do. Among other things he had done in the course of his time in Grantville, in an effort to understand these up-timers, he had attended recreational league sports events. He had observed Mademoiselle Jenkins' coaching. Her voice had carrying power.
"Léon, you idiot, stop it," he exploded, keeping his voice down in so far as he could. "We're going to be late." Embellished with considerable profanity. He dashed after the other man, grabbed his shoulder, and dragged him down the street in the direction the men had taken the handcart.
Missy stood there, feeling a little silly for having almost screamed. But she still didn't see Pam anywhere. She stood there for a moment, undecided. Then she walked up Veda Mae's driveway, cupped her hands on either side of her eyes, and waited a moment for her pupils to adjust so she could see inside the garage through the dirty windowpane in the door.
That was what she was doing when Ron came up behind her. She jumped about a foot when he asked, "Missy? What's going on?".
"I have never been so glad to see anybody in my whole entire life," she answered. "I think I'm a damsel in distress. Or, at least, Pam is. Help me rescue her. There's something really weird going on this morning."
Ron felt distinctly relieved. He had felt very foolish all the way as he ran from Lothlorien into town after she had phoned him, with every footstep that slogged through the snow suspecting that he would be greeted with, "What do you think I am, anyway? Some kind of an incompetent ditz?"
They looked at the padlock, decided it was substantial, and reverted to Plan A, which involved crawling into the garage from the back. Except Ron decided that by this time there wasn't much point in pretending to be a raccoon. He simply grabbed a couple of the old boards and yanked them off by main force, stripping the rusty nails.
"Pam," Missy was saying. "Are you okay?"
Pam swung her feet to the floor and sat up. "I have a mouth full of acrylic fuzz that tastes like hair, that's how I am. What in hell was going on here?"
"I don't have any idea, but I think we ought to tell the police."
There weren't any police to be had. The dispatcher took the information when they phoned from Pam's apartment, but said that this was going to be very low priority. Probably somebody would get back to them tomorrow.
Chapter 46
"There are twenty-five or so men gathered in the parking lot at Leahy Medical Center," Gary Lambert said calmly to the police dispatcher, "with another group about the same size by the emergency entrance." The business manager was reluctant to sound alarmist. "They arrived about nine o'clock this morning and have been there for approximately three-quarters of an hour now, yelling anti-vaccination slogans and waving signs. Thus far, they have not interfered with traffic into and out of the building."
"If they have been there that long, why did you decide to call us now?"
"Because other people are joining them. The original group came together, had a leader, divided quietly, and appeared to be a disciplined protest. We don't enjoy that sort of thing, but we really have to put up with it. The regular police patrols swung by, took a look at the ones in the parking lot, and moved on. I assumed that this meant they shared my feeling that there was no immediate cause for alarm."
"What has changed?"
"Quite a few additional demonstrators are coming now. Not in a single group, but in smaller ones, three or four together. They are not waving prepared signs. They already outnumber the original party and they are still arriving. Instead of clustering in one or two places, in the parking lot and by the emergency entrance, they are scattering out here and there around the exterior of the building. A half dozen by the main entrance; eight by the pathway from the laundry to the service entrance; about the same number by the pathway from the bakery to the service entrance."