Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller (16 page)

Woods hesitates. ‘So far we've tracked it to a bounce in Nicaragua. Obviously, we're going from there.'

Every bit of energy and hope drains out of me. ‘So that's it, then? The best you can do?'

‘The kidnapper did a good job of covering his tracks, but we're on it and we
will
find them, it'll just take a little more time.'

‘And meanwhile, your experts have tripped all over his software alarms. Well, he warned me. I can only hope that burning down my house satisfies him so he doesn't kill Caro and Andee in revenge.'

‘That's your theory? The kidnapper burned down your house to punish you for bringing in the FBI?'

I settle back in the chair. ‘You read the note. Don't bring in the FBI or there will be repercussions. You have a better theory?'

‘I'm just wondering here, you know? Why it is that
Marsha
gets victimized in
your
house, right after you supposedly find out she had an affair, back in the day, with your husband?'

‘Oh, please. That was years ago. And I already knew he was having an affair, I just didn't know who with.'

‘You seemed pretty upset when we confronted you with it the other day.'

‘My granddaughter has been kidnapped. How do you expect me to react? You are a complete moron. I have bent over backward to work with you, and to cooperate with that idiot Harris in Arkansas, and my house gets burned down in the process? And there you sit, like a lump on a log, still making accusations?'

‘I think it's a leap, that this guy burns down your house twelve hours after you come to us. We were very careful to cover our tracks.'

‘So, what, you're telling me it's unrelated? Because I think it's a leap to think he didn't. And the smoke coming out of my house says to me you guys
didn't
cover your tracks. Face it, your computer people klutzed it up, and the kidnapper knows you've tracked his location. He may move the girls by the time you figure it out, and then we'll have a big fat nothing. No location, and a totally pissed off sociopath. Stop rubbing your thumbs.'

It was out of my mouth before I knew I was going to say it. Woods sighed and laid his hands flat on the table.

‘We
will
get that address, have a little faith. In the meantime, let's clear the air. Take a lie detector test. Then we won't have to keep having these painful conversations.'

‘That's what this is about? You bring me in here right out of the damn fire truck to pressure me? Because I'm vulnerable?'

‘Some of the people on the team think there's a connection between you and this kidnapper. They think you're withholding critical information, which, by the way, is a Class D Felony offense. Now if that's
not
the case, then let me rule it out. Of course, if there
is
some connection, then by all means
don't
take it.'

I stand up and speak softly and slowly. ‘I have been up since four a.m. this morning. I have driven twelve hours straight. I have heard my own death announced on the radio and I've come home to find my house burned down. I've lost everything that I own. My cousin Marsha is in the hospital, and instead of going there, which is where I need to be, I came straight here under police escort because you supposedly need my help.' I take a breath. ‘And what I get from you is harassment, insults and
ludicrous
accusations. Now, Agent Russell Woods, you will listen to me.'

I open my wallet and take out four snapshots of Andee. I lay them across the table.

‘See this picture, right here? It was taken in the pool behind the house in Arkansas. Look, isn't Andee cute? I said
look
at it. She's wearing a little shark hat that makes it look like there's a fin in the pool. Amazing, isn't it, the stuff they make for kids these days? When Andee was three years old, and one night I was cooking dinner, she came in the kitchen and hugged my leg and said “I smell hungry”. That's funny, don't you think? Look at this one, it's my favorite, this is Andee with her pet chicken. She was four then. That's the kind of mother Caroline is, the kind who lets her little girl have her own pet chicken. It belonged to a friend of theirs who had a farm and it was little and being picked on, so Andee took it home and took care of it – it lived three years. They buried it under the biggest pine tree in their backyard.'

I push another picture across the table. ‘Look at this one. This is Andee in my kitchen with her dog Ruby who, as you can see, is wearing a t-shirt. Andee loves to play dress up and Ruby just goes along.'

Woods holds up a hand. ‘You don't need to do this.'

‘Why not, Agent Woods? You show
me
pictures. You show me pictures to evoke emotions and confessions, so I'll do the same for you. I want to evoke you to stop wasting your time on me and find my granddaughter. She's a real little girl, different from every other little girl in the world. So, here are some things you might like to know. Andee won't eat cheese or yogurt. She's very quiet around people she doesn't know. She has chapped lips a lot – if you look hard here in this last school picture you can see a ring of pink around her mouth. She sleeps on top of her blanket and sheets, but under the bedspread. She used to color everything pink and yellow, even though I bought her the biggest box of crayons they make. When she was in first grade she had trouble learning how to skip, and she still doesn't know how to whistle, but she works on it all the time. When she stays with me, I cook her a Moon Over Miami for breakfast. Do you even know what that is?'

‘You take a piece of bread, tear a hole out of the middle, put it in a frying pan with melted butter and put the egg in the hole.'

‘You amaze me, Agent Woods. Is it possible you might be
human
?'

‘Look—'

‘Andee's afraid of basements. She's afraid of worms. She's afraid to sleep without a nightlight. Wherever she is now – what if she doesn't have a nightlight? It's been four days. What do your statistics tell you about her odds after four days? My only child is dead, and Andee is all that I have left of him. She is the only connection I've got, the only person who makes the pain go away. You
find
her and you leave
me
alone.' I take a step backward, pull my purse strap over my shoulder. ‘I'm leaving now to see my cousin Marsha in the hospital.'

‘We're not done here.'

But we are done. I hear him in the hallway, Hal Reinhardt, asking for me. I hear objections and Hal apologizing and all kinds of noise and the door to the room bursts open. Leo comes running in, followed by Cindy Lou, Ruby and a sheepish-looking Hal Reinhardt. I bury my head in Leo's neck and he pants and licks me and knocks over the trash can with the wag of his tail.

‘I'm so sorry,' Hal says to Woods, then looks over at me. ‘The hospital is trying to reach you. Marsha is conscious and she's been asking for you.'

Woods waves a hand at us. ‘
Go.
And take those dogs.'

‘It's OK, sir,' Hal says. ‘They're specially trained service dogs.'

Ruby puts her paws up on the table and noses an old cup of coffee. The Styrofoam cup tips and spills. She takes a tentative lick, loses interest and heads my way.

‘Sorry about that,' Hal says.

Woods slumps in his chair, shrugs. ‘It's bad coffee. I don't drink it myself.'

T
he hospital ICU has its own waiting room, cozier than the one off the main lobby downstairs. The floor has aqua carpet. There are six recliners, two couches and eight chairs. Also two televisions, a coffee pot and a phone with an outside line. A third of the chairs and couches are full and I see Marsha's parents, Aunt Cee and Uncle Don. Marsha's Aunt Chloris is probably on her way in from Detroit.

I am plotting, planning, coping. Marsha will take whatever time off she needs to heal, and once she is well I will give her the job back if she wants it. She's going to need careful nursing once the worst is over, and my mind jumps between home care nurses, skin grafts and rehabilitation. Our insurance coverage at Miller Ministries is no better than average, but the board has been known to make special dispensations for times like these. If I have to, I'll put her down as one of our charities, and funnel a reasonable portion of funds her way. I have the final say, though I rarely exercise it.

‘Joy?' Aunt Cee has spotted me from one of the recliners in the waiting room. A stranger would see an aging woman, grossly overweight, with heavy glasses and coarse red hair trimmed unattractively close to her head. I see the woman who came to my dorm room the night my parents died. In my mind's eye I hold the image of the stunning beauty with the radiant smile who graduated with a degree in elementary education from EKU.

I go straight to her and she stands up and gives me a hug. She is crying and so am I.

Uncle Don nods at me and pats Cee's back. Over and over. Pat pat pat. He always reminds me fondly of a giant penguin, the way he hunches over us, the way he moves. His face sags like the jowls of a bloodhound. His signature eyebrows are thinning, and his hair is a mix of brown and grey.

Cee holds a crumpled tissue in her fist. ‘You need to go in there, honey. She's been asking for you.'

I try not to think about my last conversation with Marsha. I wonder if Cee knows I fired her daughter the last time we talked.

Uncle Don looks at Hal. ‘Are you one of the firemen who pulled my daughter out?'

‘Hal Reinhardt, sir.' He shakes hands with my uncle. ‘Why don't you head on in, Joy? I'll sit with your aunt and uncle and answer any questions they might have. I'll be here to drive you home.'

‘Oh, honey.' Aunt Cee breaks into ready tears. ‘I just can't take it in. Your house burning down like that. But you come and stay with us. We're your family. We're your home.'

‘I'll keep it in mind, Aunt Cee, thank you.'

‘Why don't I make a fresh pot of coffee?' Hal says.

‘Sounds like a fine idea.' Uncle Don is still patting my aunt's back.

I push through the swing doors that lead into ICU, ignoring the posted set of rules and warnings. A muscular man in scrubs sits behind a horseshoe desk making notations in a stack of charts, and he frowns and flushes red when he sees me.

‘Excuse me, but you—'

‘I know. I'm sorry. My name is Joy Miller, and I'm here for Marsha Dewberry, the burn victim brought in late this afternoon.'

‘
Joy Miller?
Good. She's been asking for you. We were afraid you weren't going to make it in.'

I close my eyes, thinking of the time I have wasted with the FBI.

‘Is this her?'

The voice is female and I see the nurse nodding at someone behind me. I turn to see a trim woman, looking fresh and focused in her scrubs.

‘Joy Miller?'

‘That's right.'

‘I'm Dr Samuels, Marsha's physician. I thought I was
your
physician. When they brought her in, they identified her as you.'

Dr Samuels has a narrow, cat-like face, and she wears black-framed glasses with small, rectangular lenses, like the reading glasses you buy at the drugstore. A surgical mask hangs by a string around her neck. For all that it is three a.m. in the rest of the city, it might as well be high noon, here in ICU.

‘Yes, I heard. How's Marsha doing?'

‘Well enough that she's been asking for you since we got her stable,' Dr Samuels says.

She gives my shoulder a quick squeeze. Her energy is reassuring. I feel like a zombie beside her.

‘As to how she is?' Dr Samuels' tone is low and she looks me straight in the eye. ‘We're making her as comfortable as we can.'

I have seen this before, while counseling families in the small private niches a hospital offers when the people you love face death. Some patients survive against the tide, others go under the smallest wave, but there's no doubt that Dr Samuels is hanging the crape.

‘Her burns are severe, third and fourth degree, which means careful management and a long recovery period on down the road. The immediate concern is lung trauma, inhalation injuries. It appears that only one lung sustained significant trauma—'

‘That's good, anyway.'

‘Yes and no. Hyperemia is mediated by a neural inflammatory response. Which means that even though the other lung wasn't initially affected, there's a strong chance we'll see edema and tissue damage there too. We're treating the airways aggressively. If we're lucky we can head off complications in the gas exchange.'

I am trying to follow all of this and look intelligent but all I understand is that Marsha is in trouble.

‘She has second degree burns to the chest wall, which is a problem with the inhalation injuries. We're monitoring respiratory deterioration – her breathing is labored, you'll see that when you go in. We may have to put her on a ventilator, but that can complicate things, so we'll avoid it if we can. So far we don't think we'll have to get a surgeon in for an escharotomy, which is surgery to the chest to mitigate the tightness and pressure. At this point, she's hit the peak of edema formation, and I'm optimistic we won't have to go there. If we do, then we'll definitely have to ventilate.'

She raises an eyebrow at me and I wonder if she knows how little I understand. ‘So. Go in. Be calm. Don't stay more than five or six minutes. And you're going to need to wear a mask and gown. Janet?'

A woman in blue scrubs stops in her tracks. ‘Yes, doctor?'

‘Help Mrs Miller get suited up. She's here for the patient in three.'

Janet, clearly on her way to do something else, takes us all in and regroups. She is a large woman, big-boned and heavy, with dark roots and a blond ponytail. I follow Janet to an anteroom off a supply area, and she guides me into a mask, a gown and antiseptic booties that go right over my shoes. Janet is talkative and brisk, and I don't register a word that she says.