The Way of Women (21 page)

“He’s doing all right, then?”

“As well as can be expected. You’ll only be able to see him for a few minutes. He needs to rest.”

“Thank you.” Mellie hung up the phone, carried Lissa into the waiting room, and set them both down on the couch.

“Mommy, I have to go.”

“Can you wait awhile?”

“No.”

Sometime later, settled again, this time with Lissa drowsing off, Mellie closed her eyes, wishing only for her own bed and the covers to pull up over her head. Safe in bed with Lissa well again and Harv driving in the driveway.

She jerked upright. What if he’d gotten home and was trying to find her? Sliding out carefully and laying Lissa’s head on her purse, she looked around for a phone.

Hoping against hope, she dialed the phone in the hallway outside the waiting room, only to listen to the phone ring, five, seven, ten times before she hung up. Back in the waiting room, she sat in a chair near the burgundy couch and flipped through a
People
magazine. She’d finished two more before a nurse entered the room.

“Ms. Sedor.” She kept her voice low after glancing at the sleeping child. “You can come in now.”

“All right.” Mellie rose, debating whether she should pick up Lissa or leave her sleeping.

“You’ll only be a couple of minutes. I can show you the way and come back out here and watch her.”

“Would you really?”

“Come.”

Mellie followed the nurse past several beds separated by hanging curtains, being careful to not look at the patients, and trying to block out the beeps and hums of all the machines. Mr. Johnson’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and he gave a feeble wave with the hand not attached to lines and monitors.

“I’m sorry.” His voice sounded faint, as if he didn’t have enough air to breathe, let alone use for talking.

“No, I’m the one. I should never have asked you to do this.” She took his hand and leaned her cheek on the back of it. “But don’t you worry. You just get well.”

“Nice to … have … a daughter.” He spoke slowly, stopping often.

“Ah …”

“I told ’em you are, so you play along.”

Mellie nodded. “Was it your heart?”

“But not a bad one. I’ll be out of here in a day or so.”

“Home?”

He shook his head. “Other floor. Can you drive my car?”

“No.” Panic flared like gas on a charcoal fire. “I … It’s in a parking lot. Officer Stedman moved it and brought us here. The center is only a few blocks.”

“How’s Lissa?”

“Sleeping in the waiting room.”

“You go on over there. I had the nurse bag up my wallet and watch. You take ’em. There’s money there if you need it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t …”

He raised his head, causing the machine to beep, so she nodded. Anything to keep him calm.

“I have to go. The nurse is staying with Lissa in case she wakes and finds me gone.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be back by evening. You just rest, and don’t worry about us.”

“Right.” His left eyebrow arched. He squeezed her hand. “Later.”

She left the room, fighting the tears and the terror that tore at her throat. What else could she do? Harv missing, Mr. Johnson in the hospital, and Lissa so sick. Who would help her?

F
rank McKenzie, I’ve known you too long to take any bull, so just put a smile on your face and ask, please.” Maybelle Hartman exchanged glare for glare with the man standing in front of her desk. He finally shook his head.

“Please.” The other words he usually used and she refused to tolerate hung in the air anyway.

“Good.” She handed him an envelope that she retrieved from the drawer that always banged into her comfortable middle. “And you be nice to her. I remember when she followed you around like you were her hero and caused the moon and the stars to remain in their required courses.”

“You’re laying it on a bit thick.”

“You always were blind to her, still are, far as I can see.”

Frank slit the envelope open with his pocketknife and folded the blade back to put the knife away. While his hands focused on the job at hand, his gaze narrowed at the arrival of more civilian cars in front of the station.

Maybelle followed his line of vision. “I thought they’d set up a roadblock to send all of them to the shelter.”

“I thought so too.” Frank folded the envelope and stuck it in his breast pocket before striding toward the door, his left hand reaching for his walkie-talkie.

He’d rather be out in the field than behind a desk any day. He paused at the top of the three concrete steps. “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for information about our son.”

“Was he up on the mountain?”
Where he wasn’t supposed to be. If people had obeyed the restrictions … no sense going there
, it dug at him, like a tick burrowing under his skin. Both created an itch that scratching only made worse.

“Yes.”

He gave them the instructions to find the center and headed for his Blazer, where Sig waited. With the windows rolled down, the big dog sat in the front seat, watching the woman who leaned against the right front fender.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

Frank thought to the message in his pocket. He should have read it. He nodded. “No, you cannot go up with one of the rescue birds. They need every available space for lifting out the wounded.”

“If you think you can read my mind, you just blew it.”

“Oh.” He stopped about three feet away from her. “You’re looking better.”

“Why, thank you. Heaven above, a compliment.”

Was she laughing at him? Frank assessed her again. The bruises around her eyes had faded, some color returned to her cheeks, and she’d lost the war-orphan look. But her eyes, that was the real difference. No longer
dead, but alive, and if laughing at him was part of the parcel, so be it.

“So, if you don’t want to go up …”

“I didn’t say that. Of course I’d like to be up in a plane or helicopter and see what’s going on up there, but …”

She paused and he waited, settling back on his heels, his shoulders dropping a notch or two.

“But …?”

One eyebrow rose, as did her chin. “But no one would take me, and I don’t have a national television network at my beck and call.”

“They aren’t going up either.”

“So, I thought maybe you’d let me ride along with you, just in case, you know …”

“In case?” Ah, there came the sparks, that old pugnacious chin. She never could hide that for long. Her veneer was slipping.

“You get to go behind the barriers or up to the staging area. I promise to stay out of the way of the rescue efforts.”

“Right, one look at you and those flyboys will be falling all over themselves to do your bidding.”

“Why, Sheriff, I do believe you just gave me another compliment. And you’re still standing.”

He stopped his retort. “Standing?”

“Why, you haven’t keeled over with a heart attack.”

His snort widened her smile.

“You promise not to pester?”

“Pester! Frank McKenzie, I haven’t pestered anyone since I was twelve. Of all the pigheaded …”

“Get in. We’re wasting time. Over, Sig.” Frank strode around the rear of the truck, his heart lighter than any time in the last twenty-four hours.
Getting her riled did that for him, always had.
Pigheaded
had been one of her favorite names for him, and he’d be willing to lay dollar to doughnuts, she’d not said it since she left home. Indeed, her New York veneer was not only slipping, it had developed serious cracking.

“Why do you want to tag along with me?”

“You get to go where no one will let me otherwise.”

“And here I thought you admired my friendly personality.”

Her turn to snort, which she did in an entirely unsophisticated manner. “I’m thinking of a photo essay about the heroes behind the scenes, like the mechanics on the choppers, ambulance drivers, shelter personnel, that kind of thing.”

“You might talk to Maybelle. She keeps us all on track.”

“I tried to take her picture, and she about threw me out.”

“I’ll talk with her.”

“Oh, that ought to help a lot.”

“I
am
her boss.”

Another snort. “They’re letting traffic through on 5 again?”

“As of 8:00 a.m. after the engineers finished checking for damage from the flood. That wall of mud and debris from the North Fork nearly took it out.”

“Along with the flood plain of Castle Rock. Sure glad my folks’ place is high up in the hills.” She patted her camera. “I wanted to stay out all night shooting, but that doesn’t work so well. I got some good shots at daybreak.” She studied his profile for a moment. “You been even near a bed lately? I left a message at your house, but you never returned my call.”

“Haven’t been there. Slept a bit at the office. You think it’s bad now. If that jam at Spirit Lake goes …” He shook his head. “It’ll make the flooding so far seem like child’s play.”

Jenn melted back in the seat. “I heard some hydrologists and engineers talking about ways to minimize the damage.”

“They can talk all they want. There’s nothing they can do but pray—and talk some more.”

“You know Mitchell Ross?”

“Army Corps of Engineers?”

She nodded.

“How’d you meet him?”

“On my flight from New York.”

He saw her jaw tighten. “What happened. Did he hit on you?”

“Tried to. How’d you know?”

“He has a reputation as a skirt chaser.” The CB crackling caught his attention. He picked up the mic and responded, then hung it up. “The governor wants a report. Why can’t she watch television like the rest of them? Those reporters seem to know more than we do.”

“Or at least think they do.”

He turned the vehicle into Toledo Airfield, where the rescue choppers were deployed. “You get in anyone’s way and you’re back in the truck.”

“Give it a rest, Frank. I’m a big girl now.”

While she muttered into her camera case, he still heard her just before he slammed the door and strode across to the hangar. He caught himself whistling under his breath as he watched another Huey from the National Guard lift off.

Jenn watched him go, finished changing the lens on her camera, checked that she had enough film, and slammed the door behind her. An incoming
chopper hovered and landed, an ambulance already in motion. With the blades still rotating but visible now, two men in fatigues, gas masks dangling, hauled out a stretcher with an elderly woman strapped in it. Jenn made it just in time to snap one of the airmen handing the woman a muddy and wriggling dog. She wished she were close enough to get a shot of the woman’s face, but the EMTs blocked her view, and within moments the ambulance siren clicked on and headed out.

Jenn hovered on the outskirts, trying to hear what the flyboys had to say. Something about a flooded house was all she could pick up.

But they took time to bring in the dog, too. She wanted to hug them.

The next landing produced two body bags and a horror story about finding the two in their car. The heat and gases that stripped the paint off the car had most likely killed the occupants instantly. From the airfield she could see the tall pillar that still rose from the decimated mountain. Such awesome beauty, such terrible destruction.

When Frank waved for her, she capped her lens and returned to the Blazer. “Any suggestions where else I might go?”

“Not where you want, I’m sure.”

“I was out along the Cowlitz this morning. I’d go up the Toutle if I could …”

“You can’t.”

“There’s Swift Reservoir and Lake Merwin. Some real characters live out that way, but somehow …” She massaged her bottom lip with her teeth. “I hate to leave here in case something happens and I miss it.”

“Have you had lunch yet?”

“Not sure I had breakfast. My poor mother is positive I am going to starve to death. Her goal since I came home is to fatten me up.”

“She’d have to go some.” At the look she gave him, he said. “I’m not blind, you know.”

Ignoring his comment on her appearance, she continued. “Is there a list of those missing?”

“We’re compiling one as people report in.”