Authors: Terri Blackstock
Morgan was bent over, groping her stomach in pain.
Jonathan leaped off the porch and ran to her. “Honey, are you all right?”
Morgan didn’t answer, just moaned as the contraction held on.
Sheila stopped, frozen. She couldn’t leave Morgan like this.
As the contraction eased, Morgan relaxed. Suddenly water trickled down her leg. “Oh, no! My water broke!”
“She’s in labor!” Jonathan yelled. “I’ve got to get her to the hospital.”
Sheila just stared at them, knowing he was right.
“You have to stay here,” Jonathan said. “You’ve got Caleb asleep upstairs. Felicia’s sleeping too, and she’s not good with Caleb. Let the police handle the search for Sadie.”
Sheila didn’t say anything as Jonathan took Morgan out to the car. “Pray for us!” he shouted. “The baby’s a month early. It’s too soon.”
She wanted to scream that she didn’t have time to worry about Morgan or her baby, that her own children were in much more immediate danger. But she only stood there, crying.
“I mean it, Sheila,” Jonathan called from the car. “Stay here!”
Sheila stood on the porch and watched them pull out. When they were gone, she went into the kitchen, grabbed the other set of keys. But she couldn’t leave Caleb alone.
She didn’t trust Felicia to wake up if Caleb needed her, so she called Karen, who had been a former member of the household until she’d moved out to marry another resident.
Gus answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Gus, this is Sheila Caruso. I’m sorry to call so late, but it’s an emergency. Can I speak to Karen?”
“Sure, mon. What’s wrong?”
“Morgan’s gone to the hospital. She’s in labor.”
“This soon?”
“That’s right. And Sadie’s missing. I have to go look for her.”
“What?”
“Please, can I speak to Karen?”
Karen came on the line, her voice raspy with sleep. “Hello?”
“Karen, could you come over and babysit for me? It’s an emergency.”
She heard Gus’s voice mumbling softly across the wire, and she knew he was informing her about Morgan. “Of course, Sheila. I’ll be right over in just a few minutes.”
Sheila was pacing on the front porch as Karen drove up in Gus’s ten-year-old Toyota. Karen got out and ran to Sheila, threw her arms around her. “Is Morgan gonna be all right?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard a thing.”
“What about Sadie?”
“Sadie’s in a lot of trouble.” Sheila started to cry again. “Oh, Karen, I’ve got to go. Please pray that I find her.”
“I will. Call me soon as you know something.”
Sheila started out to Jonathan’s pickup truck, then realized she was going unarmed. She just might need a gun. Morgan and Jonathan had one that they kept in their room. She ran back up onto the porch. “I forgot something. I’ll be right back.”
Karen nodded and went into the house, turned on the kitchen light, and started making coffee.
Sheila ran up and tiptoed into Morgan and Jonathan’s room. Where would she keep a gun, if she had one? Probably right next to the bed, Jonathan’s side. She saw his bedroom slippers parked on the right side of the bed, so she went to his bed table and pulled
out the drawer. Just as she hoped, the gun lay there. She pulled it out in her trembling hands, checked to see if it was loaded. It wasn’t.
She held the weapon in her hand and went through the drawers, looking for bullets. Of course he wouldn’t keep the gun loaded. There were ex-cons in this house, former drug addicts … He wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a loaded gun where anyone could take it.
But the bullets had to be somewhere. She went through every drawer, found nothing, then tried the closet. There was nothing on the shelves that could have contained the bullets, so she ran to their private bathroom. In the bottom drawer of the vanity, she found his shaving kit, unzipped it.
There they were, in a box, at the back of the kit, next to a new tube of toothpaste. Her hands trembled as she loaded the gun. She double-checked the safety, then tucked it into the waistband of her jeans, pulled her shirt over it, and ran back outside.
She would do whatever she had to do to get her daughters back.
And she didn’t care what the consequences were.
T
he flashing lights from half a dozen police cars lit up the Flagstaff Motel when Sheila pulled Jonathan’s truck into the parking lot. A crowd of tenants leaned over the rails on the second floor, watching the activity as the cops went in and out of the room next door to Amelia and Jamie’s. She saw Joe in his car with the driver’s door open, talking into his radio, so she went over and leaned in.
“Joe, what have you found out?”
He held out a hand as he finished the call, then he turned to Sheila. “We haven’t found Sadie, but we’re trying to run down all the information we can about this guy named Nate.”
“Nate?”
“Yeah, he was the one in the room next to Jamie and Amelia.”
“Then he’s the one Sadie came here to find.” She peered up at the room. “Is he there?”
“Nope. Nobody knows where he is.”
“What about Gibson?”
“We don’t think he’s involved, Sheila. He’s under heavy surveillance.” She heard someone call Joe’s name from the room in question, and Joe got out. “I’ll be right back. Looks like I’m needed.”
She nodded and stood by his car, watching him run up the stairs and into Nate’s room. Had they found any evidence that Sadie was there, that there was a struggle, that her daughter was taken against her will? Did they know what kind of car Nate drove, where he lived when he wasn’t in the motel?
Then she looked on the seat of Joe’s car, saw a writing pad on his seat. It was the pad he kept in his shirt pocket all the time. He’d been jotting on it as he’d radioed for information, and he’d left it here.
She looked around, hoping no one would see her, and slipped inside the car. She tore the page off of the pad, stuck it into her pocket, then slipped back out of the car. No one had noticed.
She hurried back into Jonathan’s truck and looked at the paper. There was an address written there. Sheila started the truck and headed to Hinesville to find that address. If that was where this Nate person lived, maybe it was possible that both of her daughters were there.
She prayed that they were still alive.
B
lair raced to the hospital as soon as she got the phone call that her sister was in labor. When she arrived, she couldn’t find a parking space. “It’s the middle of the night, for Pete’s sake! What are they having, a convention?”
She double-parked, ran inside, and bolted up to the information desk. “My sister just checked in. She’s in labor. Morgan Cleary.”
The elderly woman at the desk took her time typing Morgan’s name into her computer. “Yes, here she is. Room 403. The elevators are that way, dear.”
Blair dashed toward the elevators, almost taking out a nurse and a man in a wheelchair.
The elevator wouldn’t come, so she ran to the exit door and headed up the stairs. By the time she reached the fourth floor, she was dripping with perspiration.
She saw room 426 and took off down the hall, counting down as she went. Finally, she came to her sister’s door.
She burst inside and saw Morgan in the bed, soaked with her own sweat, clutching Jonathan’s hand as a contraction gripped her.
A doctor and nurse at the foot of her bed turned as Blair shot in. “I’m her sister. Is she all right?”
Jonathan looked up at Blair but kept whispering to Morgan. “Breathe, honey … come on, baby, one, two, three …”
“She’s doing fine,” the doctor said in a low voice. “We’re about to take her to delivery. She’s fully dilated and ready to go.”
Morgan came out of the contraction, and Blair could see her relaxing.
“Blair, I’m glad you’re here …”
She went to Morgan’s side and took her hand as the nurse busied herself unlocking the bed so they could move it. “They can’t be delivering the baby! Isn’t it too soon? Can’t they stop it?”
“No,” Morgan said. “I’m too far. The baby’s coming.”
Blair shot Jonathan a distressed look. “It’s okay,” he said, but she saw the fear on his face. “Babies come early all the time.”
“That’s right.” The doctor smiled as they got the bed moving. “We have an excellent neonatal staff here. And the baby’s heartbeat is strong.”
Blair waited as they pushed Morgan into the hallway, and then she caught up and walked beside it.
“Are you coming with her?” the nurse asked. “If you are, you’ll need to change into some sterile scrubs.”
Blair looked down at Morgan. “Do you want me to come?”
Morgan shook her head. “Stay here. I want you to call home and find out if Sheila’s still there.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m worried about her. She was trying to go to the Flagstaff to find Sadie. She’s missing, Blair. We can’t find her anywhere, but if Sheila went to that motel, there’s no telling what might happen to her.”
Blair looked across Morgan to Jonathan. “Is that why Morgan went into labor? Because of the stress about Sadie?”
“No doubt,” he said.
Another contraction clamped on Morgan, and she pulled her legs up and moaned. Blair touched her sister’s shoulder, wishing there was something she could do to help. But Jonathan was right there with her as they hurried down the hall, talking her through the pain in a calm voice.
When they reached the double doors to Labor and Delivery, Blair hung back. “Take care of her, Jonathan.”
“I will, Blair. Pray, okay? Pray hard.”
She watched as her sister disappeared through the doors. As they swung shut behind them, she felt as if the world had plummeted out of control again.
Her sister was in labor, Sadie was missing, Amelia might be dead, Cade was implicated, and now … Sheila. Blair pulled her cell phone out and called Hanover House. A voice Blair didn’t recognize answered the phone.
“Who’s this?”
“Karen. Is that you, Blair?”
“Yes, what are you doing there?”
“Babysitting Caleb. Sheila called me—”
“Oh, no. Where did she go?”
“She said she was going to look for Sadie.”
Just as Morgan feared. Blair leaned her forehead against the wall.
Now
what?
“How is Morgan?”
Blair tried to refocus her thoughts. “She just went into delivery. Please pray for her. The baby’s too early.”
“Call me when she comes out, okay, Blair?”
“I will. And do me a favor. If you hear from either Sheila or Sadie, please call me at this number.”
“Sheila seemed really upset about Sadie,” Karen said. “I wouldn’t put it past her to walk into something dangerous. I’ll call you if I hear from her.”
Blair clicked her phone off, then dialed Cade’s cell phone number. She knew he hadn’t been to bed yet tonight.
“Chief Cade.”
“Cade, it’s me.”
“Hey, babe. How’s Morgan?”
“In delivery. Listen, Morgan’s worried about Sheila. She left Hanover House to go to the Flagstaff. She was panicked and desperate to find Sadie. I’m worried she might get into trouble.”
“I’m at the Flagstaff right now. Sheila was here for a few minutes, but she left.”
“Left? Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say. I figured she just went back home after she saw that we had things under control here.”
“She didn’t.”
He sighed, and Blair couldn’t blame him. The last thing he needed was another missing person. “I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out. I’ll call you back if I learn anything.”
Blair hung up and dropped the phone back into her pocket, then stood there, staring at those doors. She started to cry. She should have argued with Morgan and gone in with her. What would her mother have done?
If only her parents were here with her, reassuring her and praying with her. They would have words of comfort and faith. Her mother was supposed to be here at a moment like this. She was supposed to celebrate the news of her grandchild’s birth, praying for safe entrance into the world.
Blair went to the waiting area and sat down, trying to trust God. She knew He could orchestrate things perfectly to bring a healthy, beautiful baby to her sister. But He’d allowed Morgan to lose a baby before.
Please, God, let this be a day of joy and not a day of grief.
Those fateful words—“Not my will, but Thine”—hung on her tongue. But for the life of her, she was unable to speak them.
D
aylight dawned by the time Sheila found the address in Hinesville, twenty-five miles southwest of Cape Refuge. The address was a route number on a rural road, and there was no way to tell which dirt road to turn down. She’d ambushed a mailman as he loaded his truck out in back of the post office, and she flirted with him just enough to get the information she needed.
She made a few drive-bys first to check out the layout and realized that the moment she pulled her car down the drive, whoever lived there would be alerted that she was there. Instead, she parked her car about half a mile down on the side of the road and walked the rest of the way.
She stayed in the trees as she followed the driveway down to the house. It looked as if there were about five acres here, a little run-down house at the front of the property, and a ramshackle barn at the back. Thick trees covered most of the land, and as she made her way up to the house, Sheila skimmed those trees, staring hard at the buildings.
Were Sadie or Amelia in there somewhere?
The only vehicle on the property was an old rusty pickup truck with grass growing beneath it. It looked as if it hadn’t been moved in months, maybe even years.
She tried to decide on a strategy to get into the house and look around, but it was too dangerous. She sure wouldn’t do Sadie and Amelia any good if she offered herself up freely to the murderer. But as she came out of the trees, she realized a strategy might not be needed. An old man who looked as if he were pushing a hundred sat rocking on the front porch, staring off into space.
He looked as if a strong wind might shatter his bones into dust. Surely this wasn’t the killer! But maybe he knew something. Maybe she should just hide until he went back inside, then peer through the windows, searching out the property …