HILLARY and Josh Lydecker were among the throngs of people crowding the Promise Falls General Hospital ER and adjoining hallways. Doctors were now looking at their daughter, Cassandra, whose symptoms were pretty much the same as everyone else’s.
The Lydeckers had made a trip to the hospital chapel and prayed quietly for their daughter to pull through.
But they prayed for their missing son, George, too.
They were heading back to the ER from the chapel when Hillary spotted the detective who had been to their house after they’d reported George missing.
“Detective!” Hillary called out. “Detective Carlson!” She started running down the hall, her husband right behind her.
Angus Carlson had been talking to one of the doctors when he heard his name called out. He turned, saw the Lydeckers, and said to the doctor, “Thanks, we can talk later.”
He waited for the Lydeckers to close the distance between them, then said, “Hello. Why are you here? Who’s sick? Is it George? Has George turned up?”
Hillary, nearly out of breath, said, “Cassie.”
“Your daughter,” Carlson said, remembering.
“Yes. She’s very sick.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s hit so many people.”
“Is there any news about George?” Josh Lydecker asked.
Carlson’s lips pressed tightly together before parting. “I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
“Cassie told us,” the father said. “About what George has been doing.”
Carlson waited. “You mean—”
“Breaking into garages,” Hillary said. “She said he does it all the time. That he breaks in, that he steals things. I can’t believe he would do that. Is it true?”
“According to your daughter, yes. I’ve asked to be notified of any garage break-ins, see if they might be connected at all to your son’s disappearance, but there haven’t actually been any such occurrences in the last week, at least none that have been reported to the Promise Falls police.”
“So what else are you doing to find him?” the woman asked.
Carlson said, “Well, right now, as you can see—”
“But before all this happened,” the father said. “What have you been doing?”
“We’ve put out a description to all officers, I’ve spoken to George’s friends, I’ve looked for any activity on his cell phone, and—”
“Have you searched?” Hillary Lydecker asked. “Have you gone door-to-door? Have you—I don’t know—searched people’s basements and . . . and abandoned buildings, someplace where he might have fallen and gotten hurt, or—”
Carlson reached out a comforting hand to the woman’s arm. “We can’t just search random houses, ma’am, without cause. We’re doing what we can, believe me.”
“How can this be happening to us?” she asked. “One child missing, now the other sick? What did we do? Why would God do this to us?”
Carlson said, “That’s out of my area, I’m afraid. But if I hear anything about your son, believe me, I will be in touch. I hope your daughter’s going to be okay.”
He made his way outside the hospital so he could use his cell phone. He’d learned a few things since Duckworth had left, and felt it was time to update him. He made the call.
“Duckworth.”
“Carlson, sir.”
“Where’ve you been? Finderman was trying to reach you earlier.”
“Why?”
“She was going to send you out to Thackeray, but I got pulled off and had to take the call.”
“You know there’s no cell coverage in the ER. What happened at Thackeray?”
“Homicide.”
“What? Who?”
“Student named Lorraine Plummer. She was one of the ones—”
“I interviewed her,” Carlson said. “I remember. What happened?”
“Later. Why are you calling?”
“I’m still at the hospital. Story’s not really changing. Same symptoms with everyone. Number of people coming in has slowed. Guess the word’s getting out. Local and state health officials already all over it, taking samples, looking for E. coli, like maybe there’s sewage or animal waste in the water, but it’s not like they can tell you immediately whether that’s the cause or not. It takes several hours to do the tests on the water to confirm what it is.”
“Is that their best guess?” Duckworth asked.
“They’re kind of hedging. The symptoms they’re seeing are not totally consistent with E. coli. So they’re not issuing a boil-water advisory. Like, if they were pretty sure it was E. coli, they’d say if you boil the water, that’ll kill the bacteria, and then it’s safe to drink. But lots of people, they had boiled the water, and they still got sick.”
“The overnight guy at the water plant—shit!”
“What?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Duckworth said. “Maybe he’s one of the ones who got sick.”
“Say again?”
“Find out if someone named Tate Whitehead has been admitted.”
“I’m going back in. I’ll get back to you.”
Carlson ended the call and reentered the hospital. A paramedic told him a list of patients’ names was being kept at the admitting desk, on paper and on computer. Carlson saw a nurse behind the desk. Early twenties, fair-skinned, black hair that would have fallen to her shoulders if she didn’t have it pulled back into a ponytail.
Carlson gave her the name.
“Whitehead,” she said. “Whitehead.” She looked up, shook her head. “Nothing. Maybe he’s sitting out there and hasn’t checked in with us.”
“Thank you,” Carlson said.
He was about to step away when the young woman looked at him, her eyes filled with fear, and said, “Eighty-two.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eighty-two people have died. And the number just keeps going up. I feel . . . I feel—”
“Scared,” he offered, and she nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Sonja.”
“Sonja what?”
“Sonja Roper.”
“Sonja, everyone’s scared. I know I am. We’re scared for ourselves and our loved ones.” Amid the chaos, he smiled. “Do you have children?”
“No,” she said. “Soon, I hope. My boyfriend—his name is Stan and we’re going to get married in the fall—and I really want to have kids. He’s missed all this, lucky him. He’s a pilot for Delta and won’t be back till Monday.”
“When you see what’s going on here, does it make you rethink that? That the world is too dangerous and unpredictable a place?”
Her eyes moved down to the desk as she thought about that. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Sonja!” someone shouted. “We need you!”
“I have to go,” she said, and flew away from her desk.
Carlson took a position in the middle of the ER waiting room and shouted loud enough to be heard over the chatter: “Is there a Tate Whitehead here?”
The noise dropped slightly for several seconds, people glancing at one another, waiting to see if someone would step forward.
One man raised a weak hand.
“Mr. Whitehead?” Carlson said.
“No. But I know him, and he ain’t here. Haven’t seen him.”
Carlson went back outside to give Duckworth the news.