Forty-four

Rain banged on the hood and strong winds buffeted the Tahoe’s exterior, but it handled well for the first leg of the trip downtown. Holding tight to the steering wheel, fighting the powerful winds, I tried calling the captain and David again and got another round of fast busy signals. When I repeated the exercise a few minutes later, I got a crackly connection to his voice mail. “David, it’s me, Sarah,” I shouted so he would be able to hear me over the bellowing weather. “I don’t think Benoit’s in Galveston. I think he has the boy in downtown Houston, near the meeting point of I-45 and I-10, maybe on this one underpass I know where 10 goes under 45. It floods down there,” I said, and then, thinking I needed to explain: “I got help with the symbols, more information. Anyway, I think I’ve got it figured out now, what all the clues mean, and my best guess is that’s where he’ll take the boy. I’ve called for backup. I know you can’t help, that even if you get this message, you’re stuck on the island. David, please find a safe place to ride out the storm. Please stay safe. I love you.”

As soon as I closed the phone, I wondered if I should have finished the message with those three words. I’d never told David I loved him before, and he’d never said it to me. I wasn’t sure until that moment that I did love him. I’d thought about the possibility but never really embraced it. I guess it scared me a little. And now, with our relationship hanging in the balance, it seemed a particularly unfortunate time to profess my feelings. Still, I couldn’t take it back, and in case something did happen to me, if I didn’t get to tell him in person, I wanted him to know what he meant to me.

The freeways were deserted. The mayor and police department had warned folks not to venture out into so powerful a storm, and they’d obeyed. At least I had no other drivers to contend with. Before long, I took the exit to the right off FM 249, the freeway that links Tomball with Houston, and got on the access ramp that leads to the Sam Houston Tollway. As the SUV accelerated upward, I felt Hurricane Juanita’s brute strength. One lane with cement barriers on either side, the incline soared seventy feet into the air and offered no protection. Gusts hit the side of the Tahoe like blows from an invisible fist, and I fought the steering wheel, pulling the car to the left to keep from falling right, tipping over, and plummeting onto the concrete below.

“Hold on,” I urged as I wrestled with the wheel, forcing the Tahoe into a gradual left. The rain intensified, hailing upon the car with such force that I wondered if water could dent the SUV’s metal shell. The windshield wipers had no hope of keeping up, and I strained to see ahead. At the top of the ramp, the force of the wind coupled with a thin layer of water collecting on the cement, and the Tahoe took flight, rising off the road and hydroplaning to the right. The rear fishtailed to the left, and I drifted, suspended, until the back bumper slammed the concrete barrier. The impact shook the SUV, and I strained, forcing the wheel to the left, righting the wheels, and swinging back straight, as the ramp descended and the rain gushed in waterfalls from the rectangular openings in the base of the ramp’s concrete barriers.

Once I’d made it onto the tollway heading east, I wove from lane to lane, searching for higher ground as the curve of the massive four-lane road undulated from side to side. Water pooled in the low-lying lanes, and I had no way to gauge its depth. Rainwater rapids on the feeder road rushed over the curbs, collected, and twisted down sewers in dangerous whirlpools. Above me, the freeway lights, beacons perched on hundred-foot-high poles, appeared to sway in the fierce winds. Driving in the right-hand lane, I heard a loud crack and thought, Thunder. Instead a thick, twisted limb of an ancient oak tumbled down, its fingerlike appendages reaching onto the tollway. I swung to the left and barely missed smashing head-on into a wide, bulky branch, but I couldn’t escape running over its spindly fringes submerged beneath the water.

Overcompensating, I steered too hard left and hit a deep pool. Water splashed high over the SUV’s hood, blocking my already sparse view. Unable to see where I was headed, I felt the front end rise, the tires float. Out of control, the Tahoe swerved to the left, then the right. Panic wrenched my chest into a tight knot as the SUV’s wide tires with their deep grooves suddenly hit the road and slammed down hard. I jerked the wheel to the right, and the Tahoe jolted mercifully forward.

Overhead, freeway signs announced the approach of I-45, my route downtown to the underpass where I believed Benoit intended to murder Joey Warner. On the right, the feeder roads overflowed, spilling off rainwater that gushed from the highway and neighboring roads, forming a swift current filled with broken branches and shingles blown from nearby roofs. The only other route was the overpass onto I-45. Like the one I’d taken onto the tollway, it surged up high over the flat landscape, and the Tahoe would again be exposed to the full force of the treacherous winds. As I approached I-45, I debated what to do, whether to risk the fierce gusts on the overpass or the swelling, debris-ridden floodwaters on the feeder road. In the end, I had no options. At the last exit before I-45, a massive pine lay on its side, its battle-scarred trunk blocking the exit ramp onto the feeder. With no alternative, I steered up onto the overpass.

Off the tollway, I swung to the right, the Tahoe climbing the ramp yet again prey to the hurricane’s full force. The SUV was built solid and strong but boxy, not designed to encounter such strong winds, and I heard creaking steel as I fought to steer to the top of the ramp. Once there, I gunned the engine, eager to start the path down. The SUV swayed, and I felt the driver’s-side tires lift from the road, but as I took the curve at the top, the Tahoe righted itself and dropped to the pavement, again forging ahead.

Once on I-45, I considered what waited downtown. Would Joey already be dead? It was still early in the storm, and I thought the boy would be alive. As a twelve-year-old, Benoit had taken his time trying to kill the girl, drawing it out. As an adult, he’d chosen to poison his father, a slow death, not a quick one. This was a man who savored the killing.

“He’ll take his time, and he’ll want to be there,” I whispered. “He’ll want to see it happen.”

The only vehicle on the freeway, I continued to weave between lanes as the water rose beneath the truck. I neared a section of highway thick with wreckage, broken glass, and bent steel. Flying debris had shattered windows across one side of an office building that loomed beside the freeway. The building remained standing, a damaged skeleton, while glass, furniture and paper, a copy machine, and computers rained out from wall-less offices. A glimmer caught my eye, and instinctively I sped up and turned the steering wheel to the left, but not in time to prevent a flying sheet of metal from hitting the windshield. Instantly, a crack webbed its way diagonally, etching jagged fingers into the glass.

“Damn,” I whispered, wondering if the break would weaken the windshield enough for the strong winds to crash it in on me.

Then, a mile north of the 610 Loop, the inner circle around the city, Houston plunged into darkness.

No lights shone on the one-hundred-foot poles above the freeway or in the bordering neighborhoods and businesses. No streetlights or city lights lit my way for as far as I could see. The storm had taken control, and the power was out. I slowed, worried about the road ahead, unable to see what waited. The wet pavement glistened dark in my headlights. I no longer had any frame of reference, no way to estimate the depth of the water pooling on the road, if the pavement lay inches, a foot, or feet below the black, shimmering surface of the floodwaters.

Approaching a low spot in the freeway, I slowed to keep from splashing up into the undercarriage of the car, where water could stall the engine. Taking my time, I kept my foot steady on the gas pedal. A third of the way through what looked like a small pond, I felt the road dip, and I feared all was lost. Instead, only a few feet ahead, the front tires hit a bump and the front of the Tahoe rose. I kept the gas steady, and the SUV crawled forward, out of the water. Somewhere ahead of me waited Houston’s skyline. On any other night it sparkled, lit by tens of thousands of streetlights and office lights, car head-and taillights, neon signs, brightly lit restaurants and theaters, and the Ferris wheel along I-45, turning with riders who stared in wonder out at the city and up at the moon and stars. This night, nothing was visible, only the driving rain and the scrap of road ahead revealed in my headlights.

All remained shrouded in darkness until lightning hit, blinding white explosions of light. For just a moment, downtown Houston’s ridge of skyscrapers lit, silhouetted in the glow. The lightning revealed the undersides of heavy black clouds tenting the night sky, and the overhead signs, too, became visible. I was only three miles from the I-10 exit, my destination. Perhaps less. Distracted, I didn’t notice at first that out of the darkness something flew toward the car, something green and white, something that crashed into the passenger-side door and then ricocheted off, like a door popping open after it’s been slammed. My heart pounding from the scare, I stared at the road ahead of me as a section of freeway sign, torn off by the wind, raced away, twirling and spinning until it smashed into a light pole and split in half.

Finally, I neared the I-10 exit and slowed, looking for the troopers who’d volunteered to be my backup. I saw no one. I pulled over to a high spot on the shoulder and put the Tahoe in park, and then I picked up my cell and called the office. No one answered. I tried again and got a fast busy. On the third attempt, my call went through.

“It’s Lieutenant Armstrong,” I said, the static-filled connection fading in and out. “I said it’s Lieutenant Armstrong. Can you hear me? I’m at the rendezvous location.”

“Is that you, Lieutenant?” someone replied.

“Yes, yes, it’s me,” I said. “Where are the troopers? I’m at the exit, waiting, but I don’t see them.”

“We lost contact with Hays and Branson about fifteen minutes ago,” he said. “We keep trying, but no luck reaching them.”

Then, only grating noise. “Where were they?” I asked. “When the phone cut out, where were they?”

“I can’t hear you,” he said. “But if you can hear me, listen. We don’t think—” Then his voice disappeared behind a sheet of crackling static.

“Come on, come on,” I said. “Where were they when you last heard from them?”

If the troopers were anywhere close, I could pick them up and take them with me. Again the connection broke up, but then, just as suddenly, it cleared. “Okay, if you can hear me, listen. The last we heard, their vehicle was flooded out on a feeder road, trying to get off the 610 Loop north and onto 45. We’re not sure where. Like I said, we’re trying to reach them but can’t get through.”

Bad news. I would have had to backtrack and still most likely would never find them. My last possibility for help had evaporated. I would have to face Benoit alone. “If you hear from them, tell them I’m at the meeting point,” I said, my voice strong, fighting not to reveal my rising fear. “Tell them I’ll wait for five minutes. Then I’m going in.”

With that, I realized the phone was dead. I tried to call again, hungry for any connection to a human voice, but got no signal. Somewhere, I assumed, the hurricane had claimed yet another victim, the cell phone tower that was my only link to my office, my last hope for help. The storm raged, and I waited. One minute passed, three, five. I did nothing, just sat as six minutes clicked past, then seven. I felt unable to move. I was afraid.

Outside, the rain and wind ravaged the city, tearing at the darkened landscape. The clamor of the wind buffeting the SUV neared deafening, sounding and feeling as if it came from all directions. The Tahoe rocked, swayed by the force of the wind, and I held on to the steering wheel, put my head down on it, prayed, and considered what to do. I thought about Maggie, waiting for me at home. I thought about my promise, to do my best to stay safe. And I thought about Joey Warner, in the hands of a monster.

Ten minutes after my call to headquarters, I tried 911, my last-ditch effort. Again, I had no signal. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered. The mayor had announced there would be no emergency services during the storm. There was no one to rush to my aid.

Not sure what to do, not wanting to go in alone, I thought about Buckshot, dead, his body smoldering in the street. Then, again, I thought about Joey, remembered his shy smile in the photograph David first showed me and the happy little boy tumbling through the grass in a photo his grandmother had displayed on the Today show. As frightened as I was, I didn’t have a choice. I put the Tahoe in gear and pulled back onto the road, heading toward downtown.

Where I-10 wraps under I-45, I took the left-lane exit leading to I-10 east. At the end of a ramp, I threw the Tahoe into a lower gear and made a sharp U-turn, heading west on the deserted eastbound freeway. A distance ahead, I saw the underpass I was thinking of, the one that can become a lake in a bad storm, and I slowed. In the darkness, I searched, but in the slice exposed by my headlights, I saw nothing alive, only unceasing rain and debris flying in the violence of a gale-force wind. My headlights shimmered on the building body of water where the I-10 freeway should have been. I couldn’t tell how deep it was in the center, but I thought maybe not too deep, maybe not impassable. Still, that wasn’t my intention.

Watching the shadows but able to see little in the darkness, I pulled onto the right shoulder near the underpass and jerked the car to the left. The engine in park, I slipped on my night vision goggles and cinched the jacket’s hood over my head, shut down the headlights, and took my .45 out of the holster. Holding my breath, I tried to open the driver’s-side door. It didn’t budge. From that angle, the wind hit the door head-on. Instead I clambered over the center console, lowered myself into the seat, and unlocked the passenger-side door. It swung open.

Although warm, the rain whipped down with a force that hurt like icicles hitting my face, and the wind howled so loud, I heard nothing else. Shielded by the Tahoe, I picked my way around its frame, but as soon as I passed the front fender, the wind hit, propelling me backward, pushing me down flat into a puddle on the rain-soaked cement.

“Damn,” I chastised myself. “Get up!”

Fighting the wind, I crawled onto my feet. Rather than stand, I stopped at a crouch, reasoning that it made me smaller, less of a target. Carefully, I edged forward, watching, waiting, straining to see, and holding my .45 as if it were a buoy in a violent sea, my only hope for survival. Although it was just a short distance, it seemed to take forever before I stood in the darkened underpass, ankle-deep, scanning the surface, my vision limited by the confines of the goggles. Through the eyepieces, the concrete glowed yellow in a sea of green, and the water glistened dark, nearly black.

Taking my time, I inspected the concrete forms, the massive pillars holding up the freeway over my head. At any moment, I feared, Benoit could lunge out of the darkness or shoot at me from behind cover. If he was watching, he had the advantage, waiting, already in place and undoubtedly prepared for my arrival. In the wind I lost ground, until I stood pinned against a concrete wall. Anxious to find the boy, sure he had to be there, I watched the water but saw nothing. My eyes searched first the flooded roadway and then the cement structure, even the underpinnings of the freeway over my head. When I saw no sign of either Benoit or the boy, I pushed myself off the wall, bending at the waist, and waded through the water, as though my upper body were a battering ram, toward the divider between the opposite lanes of the freeway. Once in the center, I held desperately to a railing and repeated my hunt, searching for someone, something, anything to indicate Benoit was or had been there, that this was the place his clues were intended to lead me, the site where he would murder the boy.

But I saw nothing, no one. My heart drilled as if it would break through my chest, and I knew I’d been wrong.

Slowly, I willed my feet to hold me upright through the cascading floodwaters running off the freeway into the underpass, and I picked my way back to the truck. Fighting great gusts of wind that threatened to topple me, I retraced my steps to the Tahoe, again to the passenger-side door. I thought about Joey, knowing I’d failed him. Somewhere, at that very moment, Benoit might be murdering the boy, and despite all my work, all my hopes, I’d been unable to find the child. In that moment, I knew that the four-year-old’s face, like those of others I’d failed to save, would haunt me every day of the rest of my life.

Wondering if I should fight the storm home or try to find somewhere safe to hunker down for the next nine hours, until the hurricane had passed through, I opened the Tahoe’s door and slid in. I climbed back over the console, took off the night goggles, and turned on the headlights, then put the SUV into drive. I stepped on the gas, eased into a slow U-turn, and made my way to the entrance ramp, where I retraced my path onto I-45. Once there, I drove north in the empty southbound lanes, toward Tomball and the ranch, all the time wondering where Benoit and little Joey were and thinking: I had to be right. It had to have something to do with the crossroads. It fit so well. It had to be right.

A sick ache in my stomach, I swallowed back bile that welled up from somewhere deep inside. All I could think of was what might be happening at that very moment, where the boy was, and what Benoit had planned for him. I had to be missing something. I had to have misjudged. In my mind, I reconstructed the diagram on the map and where Reverend Fred had drawn the intersection of the two lines, based on the kill sites of the longhorns. How could I have misinterpreted the clues? But there was no arguing with the obvious. I was wrong. I’d failed.

Despondent, I drove a short distance on the abandoned freeway, dodging rubble in the road, fighting the push of the wind against the side of the SUV. I felt as if all were lost. I looked for shelter, but nothing was open, no safe places. Every store and shop was closed for the duration of the storm. Their owners were undoubtedly holed up in their homes, wondering if they’d have businesses to return to. It turned out that was what I should have done, stayed home and ridden out the storm with my family. My rush downtown in the middle of a hurricane was well-intentioned but misguided. I’d accomplished nothing.

I decided I had no option but to brave the storm and head home.

At least Maggie would be relieved. I’d take my time, be careful, and be there when she woke up in the morning. That made me smile, and I relaxed behind the wheel a bit, resigned. Buoyed by the prospect of returning to my family, I momentarily dropped my guard, despite the hurricane and my worries about the boy. That was when something occurred to me. I thought about how the map hadn’t been big enough to precisely plot the ranches, much less the pastures where the bulls had died. That meant that the locations on the map were far from exact. After Reverend Fred connected the dots, I’d chosen the I-10 and I-45 intersection because it was near the center and it fit the description as Houston’s main crossroads. What if it’s someplace else, someplace close but not precisely that underpass? I thought. Ideas attacked my mind with all the force of the rain that pelted the Tahoe. While mentally flipping through the possibilities, I made another U-turn and once again drove toward downtown’s skyline, still hidden in the powerless landscape of a violent night. Fighting the wind and watching the water rise and rush around me, I rethought all I knew about Benoit.

Where would he take the boy? I wondered.

This was a man who lived to play games, who relished leaving clues. Somehow, at some point, I felt certain he’d told me where he’d take the boy, where he planned to murder him. I just had to be smart enough to figure it out.

As I retraced my route, I replayed my final conversation with Benoit on the telephone. Although I analyzed every word, nothing that came to mind pointed at a location. It was only when I reconstructed my encounter with him at the Westover Plantation that I suddenly remembered something he’d mentioned in passing.

At the time, the way he’d stared at me, cold and distant, had kicked my instincts into high gear, but once I’d left the plantation, I’d thought little of what he’d said about his carefully constructed plans for the slaves quarters. Now it took on a whole new meaning: “The site is perfect, picturesque, on a slope near the pond. We’ve built the piers because, in any tropical storm or hurricane, that part of the park, the section closest to the pond, floods.”