The Girl in the Maze (22 page)

Morris pulled the Tahoe into the empty gravel parking lot of Hoyt's boatyard, closed now because of the storm, and turned off the engine.

It was only six o'clock, but almost like nighttime. He'd managed to make it across the rickety trestles of Fowler's Creek Bridge before things got too bad and now he was back on the mainland. Safe.

The rain fell steadily, slanting across his windshield and carrying along bits of wet leaves and pine needles. Lightning flashed behind the swaying palms. Not much wind, though. At least, not yet.

It bothered Morris now, what he'd done. More than he thought it would. But it had to be done. All of it.

He certainly had paid his dues. Fifteen years of public service. Living the life of a public servant…pushing papers, more paperwork and politics than people realize, especially in a sleepy hamlet like this. It wasn't the career he'd chosen. It had chosen him. So he'd played the game. Sucking up to the commissioners. Concealed his true self.
Remember their names. Keep on smiling. And never, ever let them know how smart you are.

People liked him. His charm was his currency, and for the most part, throughout his career, he'd remained honest. His character was his ironclad alibi. But when the time came, he'd been surprised at how easy it was to step across the line.

Maybe this was the moment he had prepared for his entire life, unconsciously. His life had just gotten stuck. The whole goddamned town had gotten stuck. Somebody had to play the hero, somebody had to do
something,
for Christ's sake. It was time to move on. Manifest destiny.

Morris tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Astrid and Jarrell—done, taken care of. Too bad that troubled young man, on the run from the authorities, decided to end it all that way. At the mother's house, they would find Jarrell's suicide note with its brief message: “See you in hell.” And too bad his concerned mama, when she went looking for him, wound up drowned in the storm surge. Very sad. But that's what had happened. Not a soul alive to know otherwise.

Now all he had left to think about was the girl. Jarrell said he left her in the marsh before his deputies intercepted his boat. After twenty-four hours out there, she was likely dead—this time, for real. It was a near certainty.

But Morris wanted closure. He'd never left anything to chance, and he wasn't going to start now. He popped open the glove compartment and took out the evidence bag that had contained the piece of root. Martha's serpent root. The bag was empty now, except for one tendril that had broken off.

Morris took the strand out, rolled it between his thumb and finger. He shut his eyes.

No. You aren't done yet.

He put the bag away, started the engine and pulled back out onto the road, and headed north, toward the island causeway.

The wipers of the Passat sloshed volumes of water back and forth, revealing and blurring the surface of Interstate 16 in the gray slurry ahead. Vince squinted through the windshield, trying to stay focused on the white lines. The rain had gotten heavier by the mile since he'd left Warner Robins, and now it was like driving through a waterfall.

Vince pulled off into the emergency lane for a breather and threw the car into park. The emergency lights clicked. The shadows of the rain rippled across the items on the leather seat next to him—the printed MapQuest directions, a heavy-duty aluminum flashlight, and a white pharmacy paper bag holding two vials of antipsychotics. After getting a busy signal ten times, he'd given up trying to call the number that his answering service had traced.

He was on an absurd quest. An overvalued idea. The name from the phone call was probably—almost certainly—a coincidence, or a misunderstanding. The notion that he would find Martha out there, still alive, was the product of his mind's desperate hopes. He should have told Chen about the call. He should have told the police. He should have done a thousand things.

But what if it
was
her? That meant she wanted his help. If the police came, they would handle her like a dangerous criminal—perhaps with good reason. If she was there in Savannah, wandering around homeless and lost, he wanted to be the first to make contact. He wanted to be there when the police arrived, at her side during the arrest and processing. It was the least he could do for Martha. He might have let her down once, but he wouldn't do it again.

Strip bare the soul of any therapist alive, and you'll find the desire to rescue someone. It's built into what we do.
The words of his supervisor echoed in Vince's mind as he pulled back onto the freeway.

A green sign with reflective letters emerged from the murk:
FORT STEWART. HINESVILLE. NEXT LEFT.

He had the eastbound side of I-16 to himself now. It occurred to Vince that he hadn't passed, or been passed, by another car for an hour. The westbound side of the highway, on the other hand, was a ribbon of inching, baleful headlights.

Vince slowed the Passat. About one hundred yards ahead, it looked as if a giant spaceship had landed on the highway. A congregation of blue and yellow lights pulsed in the rain. State troopers.

Caution lights mounted on sawhorses winked and wavered ahead of him, and Vince stopped the car. A shape in a poncho trotted out of the murk, came up to the driver's-side door, and knocked. Vince lowered the electric window. Outside, it sounded like a million ball bearings dropping onto an aircraft carrier.

“Highway's closed. Cross here and merge!” the patrolman yelled, pointing his flashlight toward a track across the median. The officer's face looked cherubic under the poncho hood.

“I've got an emergency,” Vince said. “I have to get through.”

The officer poked his face in the window. Water dripped from his hood and landed on the armrest. “What kind of emergency?”

“Psychiatric.”

“You a doctor?”

Vince pulled out a business card and his driver's license, handed them to the officer. The officer shined his flashlight on both, holding them inside the window.

“Dr. Trainer?”

“Trauger.”

“Psychiatrist?”

“Psychotherapist.”

The officer returned the card and license. “Sorry, I can't let anyone into Savannah. I can radio the EMT units in the landfall zone. Can you tell me the location of your patient?”

Vince glanced out the window. “It's hard to read the road signs. Where am I right now?”

“Highway Seventeen interchange. You're almost to the city limits.”

“Savannah? Oh my God, I've gone too far.” Vince groped in the sidewell of the door for his map of Georgia, thinking of ways to embellish his lie. He flicked on the dome light and squinted at the map. “My patient is actually in…Pooler. I should have taken that last exit, shouldn't I? Now I'll have to backtrack.” He cast a worried look at the exodus jamming the other side of the highway.

“You're going into Pooler?” The officer shined his light in the car. “That's twenty miles inland. You don't want to get into that mess over there.” The officer pointed his flashlight toward the empty highway ahead. “Go about a mile down, you'll see the exit ramp for Pooler. From there, go north. It's about fifteen miles.”

“Good. I need to get there quickly.”

“You won't hit any traffic that way.”

“Thanks for your help.”

Vince watched through sloshing wipers as a pair of poncho-clad officers lifted the end of a long barricade and muscled it aside.

It took forty-five minutes for Vince to reach Montgomery Street. He hunched over the steering wheel, veering left and right to avoid fallen branches, trash cans, and other scattered debris. Behind the gray curtain of rain he could make out vague façades of grand historic homes, set back from the street, their eaves gushing water.

The Passat bucked and shimmied in a sudden gust of wind that lifted a sheet of water off the pavement and dumped it onto the car. Pieces of Spanish moss and palm fronds flew through the air. Vince tightened his grip on the wheel. Okay, this was just the pre-show. Carlos wouldn't make landfall for several hours yet, the weather reports had been clear about that. He had enough time to get in, look around, and get out. If this was the prelude, he didn't want to stick around for the main event.

“Turn left on Liberty,” said the female British voice from his Magellan navigator. Vince rolled through a deserted intersection where a traffic light swung in the wind, its lenses dark. The road sloped downward through blasting sheets of rain toward the waterfront. Vince could see the wide, dark green channel of the Savannah River, churned and strafed by the pelting rain. The clipped voice from the dashboard told Vince to turn right on River Street. Vince pressed a button to silence the device and eased onto the cobblestone thoroughfare.

He hugged the curb and rolled past closed-up restaurants, taverns, and shops, and scanned for signs of movement. A green patio umbrella lay in the street, its pleats flapping in the wind.

Vince squinted at the storefronts. Some of the windows were barricaded with plywood. One piece had already started to pull loose and was scissoring in the wind. He passed a souvenir store, then a coffee shop with large, taped windows. Another boutique, then an alleyway, then finally, a store marked by a wide rectangular sign above plate-glass windows:
MITCHELL'S CAMERA & ELECTRONICS
. Vince curbed the Passat in front of the store and noticed something that caused a twinge in his gut. The door to the shop was busted.

He killed the engine, grabbed his windbreaker from the backseat, and worked himself into it. He tucked the white pharmacy bag into an inside pocket, then grabbed the flashlight and pushed the car door open.

Vince stumbled onto the sidewalk, the wind nudging him sideways and slamming shut the door of the Passat. He held the edge of his hood against the stinging rain, crossed the sidewalk, and ducked through the broken door.

Glass crackled under Vince's feet inside the shop entrance. He paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. The wind had scattered catalog fliers and flung intermittent bursts of rain through the door, soaking the merchandise. The shop had been looted. He pulled the hood back and scanned the room, considering the possibility that the perpetrators might still be there. But the room gave off no aura of human presence.

Vince pushed a toppled display stand out of his way and made his way deeper into the room, stopped, and looked around. Nothing. Then he noticed a smell—stale, like an old dog blanket. His flashlight beam fell on a rectangular shape mounted on the wall behind the counter at the back. A phone. The handset was off, and the cord dangled below the counter. He squinted at the shadows at the base of the counter. Something pale and white poked from behind it, like a mushroom. He felt blood rush to his head in a cold, steely ache. He shined his light downward. It was a foot.

He stepped over a pile of photo albums on the floor, went around behind the counter, and swung his flashlight toward a sodden pile in the corner. In other circumstances, he wouldn't have recognized her. She looked like a homeless person, damp and sour, streaked with dirt and blood, a tangle of clotted hair, pale skin dotted with pink welts, head tilted against the wall.

He slid behind the counter next to her, crouched down, and let the beam fall across her face. Dilated gray eyes. Her lips moved slightly.

“Martha…Oh thank God, Martha. Martha.” He crouched down closer so she could see his face. “Martha, it's Vince. Are you all right? Do you hear me?”

He touched her chin and she drew herself tight. She looked at him in glazed terror.

He touched the paper bag inside his jacket, contemplating the antipsychotics. Chances were, she was dehydrated; anemic, as well. God knows when she'd had her last meal. He couldn't give her meds in this condition.

Vince pulled out his Android and dialed 911. The screen read: “Call Failed. No Service.” He picked up the dangling wall phone, listened. Silence.

He kneeled in front of her. “Martha, I'm so glad you're alive. It's all right now. I'm going to get you out of here. We're going to get some help.”

He tried to take her by the arms, but she tensed, held an arm up defensively. She stared at him with wide, confused eyes. She was listening to some inner channel, tuned to something only she could hear. He knew this look well. Deep psychosis.

“It's all right, Martha. I'm Vince. I'm your friend, your doctor, remember? I helped you before. Listen to me, don't listen to the voices. Are you hearing Lenny? He isn't real, Martha.” Her lips moved wordlessly, like a monk reciting a prayer. “Martha, would you like something to drink? Some water?”

He saw some hint of recognition flash across her eyes. Her lips stopped moving.

“I just want to get you someplace warm and dry, so you can feel better. Will you let me help you?” He reached out his hand. She stared at it. “I've shaved my beard, Martha. I know I look different—I hardly recognize myself. But I'm Vince, remember?” He took both his hands and cupped them around his mouth and chin. Martha's eyes darted back and forth across his face.

“Come on, Martha. Let's go.” He took her hand. Her fingers were white and limp, unresponsive. But not resisting. “Do you think you can walk, Martha?”

“He killed her.” Her voice sounded low and airy, supernatural.

“Come on, Martha. Come with me.”

“Not me.
He
killed Lydia.”

“Who?”

“Him…that man…the one…” Martha's eyes widened, her lips working wordlessly.

Vince put an arm behind her, pulled her toward him. “Listen, you can tell me what happened. You can tell me everything. But not here. Let's go someplace where we can talk. Is that all right, Martha?”

Martha pushed back at him, tightened her shoulders. “You don't believe me.”

Vince crouched down to her level. “There's nothing I can do to help you here, Martha. It's dangerous to stay here; this storm is going to get worse. We have to go.”

“I have to help the child.” Martha peered at Vince, her eyes like gray ghosts.

A broken palm frond crashed against the window and was pinned there by the wind, then cartwheeled away. Martha turned toward the sound, then looked back at Vince.

“Martha, remember what we discovered together, in my office?” He held her limp hand in his. “The voices, Lenny and all the other voices, the voices you hear are really part of you. They seem real, Martha, the way dreams seem real when they're happening. But it's just you, talking to yourself. You're like a playwright or a writer, making up characters. But part of your brain is broken, the part that allows you to know what's inside of you and what's outside.”

Her eyes were fixed on the zipper pull of his jacket. He couldn't tell if she was hearing him. “Martha…Lenny wants you to not believe in yourself. But I believe in you.”

Martha lifted her eyes and spoke softly. “You'll put me back in the hospital.”

“Yes. You're sick. You need attention.”

She put her face in her hands, withdrawing.

“Martha—stay with me. Listen to me. I—”

She shook her head. “I don't care if I go to the hospital. But the child—”

“Yes? What about a child?”

“It will die. We have to help it.” Her voice was rasping. She was in the grip of some new delusion, utterly real to her. Vince didn't want to reinforce her psychosis, but he knew it was futile to argue at this point. It would only undermine her trust.

“You can't help anyone until you help yourself first, Martha. Helping yourself means getting out of this storm.”

Vince glanced toward the shop windows. Outside, a trash barrel rumbled down the sidewalk, then toward the middle of the street, spinning like a top. The Savannah River sloshed against the seawall, shooting tongues of spray into the air. It was time to go. Could he force her?

“Martha, I won't take you anywhere you don't want to go.” Vince felt his ears burning.

Martha lifted her face out of her hands and looked at him expectantly. “You'll take me to the boy first? Not the hospital—to the boy? After that, I don't care.”

“Just come with me. We'll look. Maybe we can find him. Together.” Vince winced inside. “Let's go, let's see what we can do, Martha. Let's get in my car, and you can talk to me about this child on the way.”

He put one hand under her arm and pulled. To his surprise, she cooperated, putting her other arm around his shoulder and holding on.

Vince eased her off the floor, pulled her damp, filthy body close to his, and felt a surge of emotion. He cared deeply about this young woman, whose future had been foreclosed on by the demons of psychosis. Whose future would be spent within the barriers of a high-security psychiatric hospital, with little chance for full recovery. Such institutions only perpetuated mental illness. But at least she was still alive. That was something. He could write recommendation letters, make sure she was committed to one of the better facilities. At least she would be well cared for, he could see to that. And maybe someday…