it had completed its first ring. “Hello? Donna? Is that—”
“Is this Mr. Trenton?” A man’s voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Sheriff Bannerman, Mr. Trenton. I’m afraid I have some rather upsetting information for you. I’m sor—”
“Are they dead?” Vic asked. Suddenly he felt totally unreal and two-dimensional, no more real than the face of an extra glimpsed in the background of an old movie such as the one he and Roger had been watching. The question came out in a perfectly conversational tone of voice. From the corner of his eye he saw Roger’s shadow move as he stood up quickly. It didn’t matter. Nothing else did, either. In the space of the few seconds that had passed since he had answered the phone, he had had a chance to get a good look behind his life and had seen it was all stage scenery and false fronts.
“Mr. Trenton, Officer Fisher was dispatched—”
“Dispense with the official bullshit and answer my question. Are they dead?” He turned to Roger, Roger’s face was gray and wondering. Behind him, on the TV, a phony windmill turned against a phony sky. “Rog, got a cigarette?”
Roger handed him one.
“Mr. Trenton, are you still there?”
“Yes. Are they dead?”
“We have no idea where your wife and son are as of right now,” Bannerman said, and Vic suddenly felt all of his guts drop back into place. The world took on a little of its former color. He began to tremble. The unlit cigarette jittered between his lips.
“What’s going on? What do you know? You’re Bannerman, you said?”
“Castle County Sheriff, that’s right. And I’ll try to put you in the picture, if you’ll give me a minute.”
“Yes, okay.” Now he was afraid, everything seemed to be going too fast.
“Officer Fisher was dispatched to your home at Eighty-three Larch Street as per your request at twelve thirty-four this morning. He ascertained that there was no car in the driveway or in the garage. He rang the front doorbell repeatedly, and when there was no answer, he let himself in using the key over the porch eave. He found that the house had been severely vandalized. Furnishings were overturned, liquor bottles broken, soap powder had been poured over the floor and the built-ins of the kitchen—”
“Jesus, Kemp,” Vic whispered. His whirling mind fixed on the note: DO you HAVE ANY QUESTIONS? He remembered thinking that note, regardless of everything else, was a disquieting index into the man’s psychology. A vicious act of revenge for being dumped. What had Kemp done now? What had he done besides go through their house like a harpy on the warpath?
“Mr. Trenton?”
“I’m here.”
Bannerman cleared his throat as if he were having some difficulty with the next. “Officer Fisher proceeded upstairs. The upstairs had not been vandalized, but he found traces of—uh, some whitish fluid, most probably semen, on the bedspread in the master bedroom.” And in an unwitting comic ellipsis, he added, “The bed did not appear to have been slept in.”
“Where’s my wife?” Vic shouted into the phone. “Where’s my boy? Don’t you have any idea?”
“Take it easy,” Roger said, and put a hand on Vic’s shoulder. Roger could afford to say take it easy. His wife was home in bed. So were his twin girls. Vic shook the hand off.
“Mr. Trenton, all I can tell you right now is that a team of State Police detectives are on the scene, and my own men are assisting. Neither the master bedroom nor your son’s, room appear to have been disturbed.”
“Except for the come on our bed, you mean,” Vic said savagely, and Roger flinched as if struck. His mouth dropped open in a gape.
“Yes, well, that.” Bannerman sounded embarrassed. “But what I mean is that there are no signs of—uh, violence against person or persons. It looks like straight vandalism.”
“Then where are Donna and Tad?” The harshness was now breaking up into bewilderment, and he felt the sting of helpless little-boy tears at the corners of his eyes.
“At this time we have no idea.”
Kemp . . . my God, what if Kemp has them?
For just a moment a confusing flash of the dream he’d had the previous night recurred: Donna and Tad hiding in their cave, menaced by some terrible beast. Then it was gone.
“If you have any idea of who might be behind this, Mr. Trenton—”
“I’m going out to the airport and rent a car,” Vic said. “I can be there by five o’clock.”
Patiently, Bannerman said: “Yes, Mr. Trenton. But if your wife and son’s disappearance