Helpless by Barbara Gowdy Page B

bed and stroke her quivering little form. If he has ever witnessed anything more heartwrenching, he can’t remember. He lifts the duvet and drops it over her legs. She flinches.
    “I’ll leave you to get yourself settled,” he says. “There’s a bathroom behind you, a clean glass if you’re thirsty.” The whimpering doesn’t let up. He’s not even sure she hears him. He keeps talking anyway, just in case. It’s important she understand he isn’t some kind of pervert. “If you get hungry or anything, bang on the door. I’ll hear you. There’s a twenty-four-hour variety store at the corner, and I can run out and get you whatever you like. Ice cream. A chocolate bar. Or I can fix you a sandwich. Grilled cheese. Bacon and tomato. Whatever you like.”
    The canopy’s net curtains are tied back, and for the sake of being able to see her from the doorway he decides to leave them that way. He goes out and double bolts the lock. Her cries seep through. “It’s for her own good,” he mutters. “Forher own good.” The apprehension of what he’s done, and what it signifies, is striking him in short, stunning blasts: he has abducted her; there’s no turning back; it’s too late.
    He heaves himself up the stairs.
    In the shop he paws through drawers until he finds a pack of matches. He strikes one after another as he heads for the kitchen. Nancy brought over a big scented candle a couple of weeks ago, and once he has that lit, he takes a couple of gulps of rye, then carries the candle and his drink back to the shop. He picks up the phone to call Nancy, but the line’s dead. He tries his cell. It works, but at Nancy’s end there’s a rapid busy signal. She has only the one phone. He’ll have to wait.
    He walks over to the stairwell and listens. She’s still whimpering. He returns to the counter and forces out a few whimpers of his own. He can’t keep it up, though. A little wick of elation has ignited inside him and is burning through the pity and astonishment, the fear.
    He has her. She’s his.

Chapter Twelve
    “ O KAY,” CELIA SAYS, once the police fill her in. She releases her breath. They shouldn’t have said missing. Rachel isn’t missing, she just isn’t here; she isn’t back yet. Obviously she’d have gone running for help. Maybe the person she’s with is waiting for the phone lines to come back on.
    “Celia…,” Mika says, coming to stand beside her. All she can see is the white towel he holds pressed to his head.
    “Why did you go down there?” she asks.
    He hesitates. She knows he’s only forming his thoughts but his silence goads her. “I don’t understand,” she says, her voice rising. “Why would you go down to the basement?”
    “To…to…”
    “To what?”
    “Get the lantern.”
    “But you have candles. Up here. All those candles in the dining room.”
    “I…I know. Celia…I’m…” He moves back to the sofa and sits. “I’m so…sorry.”
    “You went down there in the pitch dark.?”
    “Rachel had the penlight. She was behind me, in the kitchen, guiding the way. Then the damn dogs…they…”
    She stares at him, uncomprehending.
    One of the officers is speaking. “What?” she says, turning around.
    It’s the black officer. He has introduced himself as Constable Joe Bird. The name of the other officer—the young, lanky blond one—she has already forgotten.
    “We’re checking hospital emergency rooms. But with the phones dead, information is slow in coming in.”
    “Why are you checking emergency rooms?”
    “There might have been an accident. She might have fallen, running around in near-zero visibility.”
    “Oh, okay.” Celia can picture this: a fall, a broken arm or leg.
    “At Mr. Ramstad’s suggestion”—Bird nods at Mika—“we’ve had officers around to Tom’s Video and the variety store.”
    “Wong’s Variety,” the younger officer chips in.
    “She hasn’t been to either place but we’re continuing to canvass stores and homes in the