As she answered, Denise’s eyes flickered with a mixture of hope and fear, and her expression seemed to clear. She broke in with a question, but this time the words came out more lucidly than before.
“Have you heard anything?”
The question was sudden, but Judy realized that she should have expected it. Why else would she have come to see her?
Judy shook her head. “No, nothing. I’m sorry.”
Denise pressed her lips together, staying silent. She seemed to be evaluating the answer before finally turning away.
“I’d like to be alone,” Denise said.
Still uncertain of what to do—Why on earth did I come? She doesn’t even know me—Judy said the only thing she herself would have wanted to hear, the only thing she could think to say.
“They’ll find him, Denise.”
At first Judy didn’t think that Denise had heard her, but then she saw Denise’s jaw quiver, followed by a welling of tears in her eyes. Denise made no sound at all. She seemed to be holding back her emotions as if she didn’t want anyone to see her this way, and that somehow made it worse. Though she didn’t know what Denise would do, Judy acted on motherly impulse and moved closer, pausing briefly beside the bed before finally sitting. Denise didn’t seem to notice. Judy watched her in silence.
What was I thinking? That I could help? What on earth can I do? Maybe I shouldn’t have come. . . . She doesn’t need me here. If she asks me to go again, I’ll go. . . .
Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice so low that Judy could barely hear it.
“But what if they don’t?”
Judy reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “They will.”
Denise drew a long, uneven breath, as if trying to draw strength from some hidden reserve. She slowly turned her head and faced Judy with red, swollen eyes. “I don’t even know if they’re still looking for him. . . .”
Up close, Judy flashed upon the resemblance between Denise and her mother—or rather, how her mother used to look. They could have been sisters, and she wondered why she hadn’t made the connection at the library. But that thought was quickly replaced as Denise’s words sank in. Unsure if she had heard correctly, Judy furrowed her brow.
“What do you mean? Do you mean to say that no one’s kept you informed of what’s happening out there?”
Even though Denise was looking at her, she seemed very far away, lost in a kind of listless daze.
“I haven’t heard a thing since I was put in the ambulance.”
“Nothing?” she finally cried, shocked that they had neglected to keep her informed.
Denise shook her head.
At once Judy glanced around for the phone and stood up, her confidence rising with the knowledge that there was something she could do. This must have been the reason she’d felt the urge to come. Not telling the mother? Completely unacceptable. Not only that, but . . . cruel. Inadvertent, to be sure, but cruel nonetheless.
Judy sat in the chair beside the small table in the corner of the room and picked up the handset. After dialing quickly, she reached the police department in Edenton. Denise’s eyes widened when she realized what Judy was doing.
“This is Judy McAden, and I’m with Denise Holton at the hospital. I was calling to find out what’s going on out there. . . . No . . . no . . . I’m sure it’s very busy, but I need to talk to Mike Harris. . . . Well, tell him to pick up. Tell him Judy’s on the line. It’s important.”
She put her hand over the receiver and spoke to Denise.
“I’ve known Mike for years—he’s the captain. Maybe he’ll know something.”
There was a click, and she heard the other end pick up again.
“Hey, Mike. . . . No, I’m fine, but that’s not why I called. I’m here with Denise Holton, the one whose boy’s in the swamp. I’m at the hospital, and it seems that no one’s told her what’s happening out there. . . . I know it’s a zoo, but she needs to know what’s going on. . . . I see . . . uh-huh . . . oh, okay, thanks.”
After hanging up, she shook her head and spoke to Denise while dialing a new number. “He hasn’t heard anything, but then his men aren’t conducting the search because it’s outside the county lines. Let me try the fire station.”
Again she went through the preliminaries before reaching someone in charge. Then, after a minute or so, her tone becoming that of a lecturing mother: “I see . . . well, can you radio someone at the scene? I’ve got a mother here who has a right to know what’s happening, and I can’t believe you haven’t kept her informed. How would you like it if it was Linda here and Tommy was the one who was lost? . . . I don’t care how busy it is. There’s no excuse for it. I simply can’t believe you overlooked something like that. . . . No, I’d rather not call back. Why don’t I hold while you radio in. . . . Joe, she needs to know now. She hasn’t heard a thing for hours now. . . . All right, then. . . .”
Looking at Denise: “I’m holding now. He’s calling over there with the radio. We’ll know in just a couple of minutes. How’re you holding up?”
Denise smiled for the first time in hours. “Thank you,” she said weakly.
A minute passed, then another, before Judy spoke again. “Yes, I’m still here. . . .” Judy was silent as she listened to the report, and despite everything, Denise found herself growing hopeful. Maybe . . . please . . . She watched Judy for any outward signs of emotion. As the silence continued, Judy’s mouth formed a straight line. She finally spoke into the handset. “Oh, I see. . . . Thanks, Joe. Call here if you find out anything, anything at all. . . . Yes, the hospital in Elizabeth City. And we’ll check back in a little while.”
As she watched, Denise felt a lump rise in her throat as her nausea returned.
Kyle was still out there.
Judy hung up the phone and went to the bed again. “They haven’t found him yet, but they’re still out there. A bunch of people from the town showed up, so there are more people than there were before. The weather’s cleared up some, and they think Kyle was moving to the southeast. They went that way about an hour ago.”
Denise barely heard her.
It was coming up on 1:30 A.M.
The temperature—originally in the sixties—was nearing forty degrees now, and they’d been moving as a group for over an hour. A cold northern wind was pushing the temperature down quickly, and the searchers began to realize that if they hoped to find the little boy alive, they needed to find him in the next couple of hours.
They’d now reached an area of the swamp that was a little less dense, where the trees grew farther apart and the vines and bushes didn’t scrape against them continually. Here they were able to search more quickly, and Taylor could see three men—or rather their flashlights—in each direction. Nothing was being overlooked.
Taylor had hunted in this part of the swamp before. Because the ground was elevated slightly, it was usually dry, and deer flocked to the area. A half mile or so ahead, the elevation dropped again to below the water tables, and they would come to an area of the swamp known to hunters as Duck Shot. During the season men could be found in the dozens of duck blinds that lined the area. The water there was a few feet deep year-round, and the hunting was always good.
It was also the farthest point that Kyle could have traveled.
If, of course, they were going in the right direction.
Chapter 7
It was now 2:26 A.M. Kyle had been missing for almost five and a half hours.
Judy wet a washcloth and brought it to the bedside and gently wiped Denise’s face. Denise hadn’t spoken much, and Judy didn’t press her to do so. Denise looked shell-shocked: pale and exhausted, her eyes red and glassy. Judy had called again at the top of the hour and had been told that there still wasn’t any news. This time Denise had seemed to expect it and had barely reacted.
“Can I get you a cup of water?” Judy asked.
When Denise didn’t answer, Judy rose from the bed again and got a cup anyway. When she returned, Denise tried to sit up in the bed to take a sip, but the accident had begun to take its toll on the rest of her body. A shooting pain coursed from her wrist through her shoulder, like a surge of electricity. Her stomach and chest ached as if something heavy had been placed on top of her for a long time and now that it had finally been removed, her body was slowly coming back to shape, like a balloon being painfully reinflated. Her neck was stiffening, and it seemed as if a steel rod had been placed in her upper spine that kept her head from moving back and forth.
“Here, let me help,” Judy offered.
Judy set the cup on the table and helped Denise sit up. Denise winced and held her breath, pursing her lips tightly as the pain came in waves, then relaxed as they finally began to subside. Judy handed her the water.
As Denise took a sip, she shot a glance at the clock again. As before, it moved forward relentlessly.
When would they find him?
Studying Denise’s expression, Judy asked: “Would you like me to get a nurse?”
Denise didn’t answer.
Judy covered Denise’s hand with her own. “Would you like me to leave so that you can rest?”
Denise turned from the clock to Judy again and still saw a stranger . . . but a nice stranger, someone who cared. Someone with kind eyes, reminding her of her elderly neighbor in Atlanta.
I just want Kyle. . . .
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” she said finally.
Denise finished her cup and Judy took it from her. “What was your name again?” Denise asked. The slurring had lessened a little, but exhaustion made the words come out weakly. “I heard it when you made the calls, but I can’t remember.”
Judy set the cup on the table, then helped Denise get comfortable again. “I’m Judy McAden. I guess I forgot to mention that when I first came in.”
“And you work in the library?”
She nodded. “I’ve seen you and your son there on more than a few occasions.”
“Is that why . . . ?” Denise asked, trailing off.
“No, actually, I came because I knew your mother when she was young. She and I were friends a long time ago. When I heard you were in trouble . . . well, I didn’t want you to think that you were in this all alone.”
Denise squinted, trying to focus on Judy as if for the first time. “My mother?”
Judy nodded. “She lived down the road from me. We grew up together.”
Denise tried to remember if her mother had mentioned her, but concentrating on the past was like trying to decipher an image on a fuzzy television screen. She couldn’t remember one way or the other, but as she was trying to do so, the telephone rang.
It startled them both, and they turned toward it, the sound shrill and suddenly ominous.
A few minutes earlier Taylor and the others had reached Duck Shot. Here, the marshy water began to deepen, a mile and a half from the spot where the accident had occurred. Kyle could have gone no farther, but still they’d found nothing.
One by one, after reaching Duck Shot, the group began to converge, and when the walkie-talkies clicked to life, there were more than a few disappointed voices.
Taylor, however, didn’t call in. Still searching, he again tried to put himself in Kyle’s shoes by asking the same questions he had before. Had Kyle come this way? Time and time again he came to the same conclusion. The wind alone would have steered him in this general direction. He wouldn’t have wanted to fight the wind, and heading this way would have kept the lightning behind him.
Damn. He had to have moved in this direction. He simply had to.
But where was he?
They couldn’t have missed him, could they? Before they’d started, Taylor had reminded everyone to check every possible hiding place along the way—trees, bushes, stumps, fallen logs—anywhere a child might hide from the storm . . . and he was sure they had. Everyone out here cared as much as he did.
Then where was he?
He suddenly wished for nightvision goggles, something that would have rendered the darkness less crippling, allowing them to pick up the image of the boy from his body heat. Even though such equipment was available commercially, he didn’t know anyone in town who had that type of gear. It went without saying that the fire department didn’t have any—they couldn’t even afford a regular crew, let alone something so high-tech. Limited budgets, after all, were a regular staple of life in a small town.
But the National Guard . . .
Taylor was sure that they would have the necessary equipment, but that wasn’t an option now. It would simply take too long to get a unit out here. And borrowing a set from his counterparts at the National Guard wasn’t realistic—the supply clerk would need authorization from his or her superior, who’d need it from someone else, who’d request that forms were filled out, blah, blah, blah. And even if by some miracle the request were granted, the nearest depot was almost two hours away. Hell, it would almost be daylight by then.
Think.
Lightning flashed again, startling him. The last bout of lightning had occurred a while back, and aside from the rain, he thought the worst was behind him.
But as the night sky was illuminated, he saw it in the distance . . . rectangular and wooden, overgrown with foliage. One of the dozens of duck blinds.
His mind began to click quickly . . . duck blinds . . . they looked almost like a kid’s playhouse, with enough shelter to keep much of the rain away. Had Kyle seen one?
No, too easy . . . it couldn’t be . . . but . . .
Despite himself, Taylor felt the adrenaline begin to race through his system. He did his best to remain calm.
Maybe—that’s all it was. Just a great big “maybe.”
But right now “maybe” was all he had, and he rushed to the first duck blind he’d seen. His boots were sinking in the mud, making a sucking sound as he fought through the ground’s spongy thickness. A few seconds later he reached the blind—it hadn’t been used since last fall and was overgrown with climbing vines and brush. He pushed his way through the vines and poked his head inside. Sweeping his flashlight around the interior of the blind, he almost expected to see a young boy hiding from the storm.