Thirty-two

MARY WOKE TO the too-familiar strains of “William Tell.” She’d slept with her cell phone under her pillow, on the bed Gabe made up for her. Groggy, she made a grab for it before it could wake him. Her muscles tightened with apprehension as she read the screen, then she relaxed. It was just a phone call. Nothing new from Lily.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“Mary?” Danika’s voice resounded in her ear. “Have you found the baby?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in a friend’s trailer,” Mary explained, keeping her voice low. “We keep getting these e-mails. We think whoever stole Lily is taking her along the old Cherokee Trail of Tears.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Danika. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so, but thanks. I’ll let you know if something comes up. Any more from Mott?”

“We played basketball last night. The bastard acted as if nothing had happened.”

“That’s Mott for you.” Mary gave a bitter laugh. “Everything’s got to be his way or the highway.” Gabe was beginning to stir in his passenger-seat-turned-bed. “Look, I’ve got to go. Thanks for calling. I’ll talk to you later.”

She switched off the phone and waited a mo­ment. Gabe moaned once, then grew silent. Sleep a little longer, Semper Fi, she bade him silently as she tiptoed into the bathroom. You need all the rest you can get. We all do. It had been a long three days, and who knew how much farther this madman was going to chum them along with Lily?

She washed in the sink and used Gabe’s clove toothpaste to brush her teeth, emerging to find him still asleep. She crossed over to the trailer door and opened the louvered window. Outside, the sun had climbed well past the horizon, and the statue and the park around it glistened in clear morning light. She glanced to her right, then jumped with surprise. Ruth sat on the hood of Jonathan’s truck, again dressed in her filthy red T-shirt, staring at the van door. Though she’d supposedly returned to the truck to sleep, she looked as if she’d sat there all night, just waiting for them to awaken and start searching the monument for clues.

“This is driving her mad,” Mary whispered, comparing the beautiful, clear-eyed poster girl on television with the dirty, erratic husk of a woman who now eyed their camper like a hungry vu1ture. “It’s got to end soon.”

She turned away from the door and stepped over to Gabe. “I hate to wake you, Semper Fi,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his cheek. “But it’s almost nine a.m. We need to get up and get busy.”

Twenty minutes later they stood at the base of the statue, dressed and ready to go. Mary’s eyes felt grainy from lack of sleep and Gabe men­tioned feeling queasy, but Ruth had returned to her hyperdrive, her movements fast and jerky, like a puppet dancing on a string.

“What should we look for? Where should we start? Should we spread out or stay together?”

“Why don’t we form a line and do a sweep around the statue?” asked Gabe. “If we stand six feet apart and walk slowly, we shouldn’t miss anything.”

“Good idea,” Mary said, grateful to have the former Marine’s calm logic counterbalancing Ruth’s frenzy.

They did as he suggested, making a careful sweep of the perimeter of the monument. When the first pass revealed nothing, they spread out farther and repeated the process. For the next half hour they combed the area around the statue. Gabe picked up two beer cans to recycle; Mary found two used condoms that she opted to leave alone. Beyond that, nothing. The grass around the monument looked as if it had been swept with a rake. Morning commuters made a northbound traffic line into Nashville along the quaintly named Granny White Pike, while jog­gers and dog walkers made their way south along the pretty tree-lined street. A tall woman with two ebullient boxers waved at them as she let her dogs off-leash to romp in the little park that surrounded the monument. Leaving Gabe and Ruth to make another sweep, Mary trotted toward her.

“You guys lose something?” the woman called as Mary approached. She was attractive, prematurely gray, and she smiled as if not too much would surprise her.

“Kind of,” replied Mary as both boxers bounded up to her, wagging their stubby tails. “You haven’t seen anybody taking pictures of a baby around here, have you?”

“At the statue?”

Mary nodded, trying to pet both dogs with­out getting flattened by the affectionate pair. “A little baby. Wrapped in a blanket.”

“I saw one last week,” the woman answered thoughtfully. “She’d just started to walk. I had to keep Sophie and Charlie on their leashes. I was afraid they’d knock her down.”

“No, this would be a much younger child,” said Mary. “An infant.”

The woman thought a moment, then she looked over Mary’s shoulder, frowning in concern. “Hey, I don’t want to worry you, but I think last night might be catching up to one of your friends.”

“Excuse me?”

“Up there.” The woman pointed. “Somebody looks pretty sick.”

Mary turned. While Ruth stood reading the inscription on the monument, Gabe was on his knees in the grass, clutching his stomach.

“Oh, gosh!” cried Mary.

“Give him a little vodka and tomato juice,” the woman said with a laugh. “Hair of the dog, and all that.”

Except he hasn’t been drinking, Mary thought as she thanked the woman and hurried back to Gabe.

“Gabe?” She knelt beside him as he retched miserably. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “I was doing okay, then all of a sudden, I got really sick.”

“Come on,” she said, helping him to his feet. “Let’s get you back in the van. Logan didn’t leave any clues here.”

He did not protest as they walked back to the trailer. In fact, he leaned heavily against her as if his legs could barely support him. Mary put him in the bigger bed, and covered him with a blanket. Moments later, Ruth appeared at the door. “Where did everybody go?”

“Gabe got sick,” explained Mary.

“Sick?” Ruth climbed into the camper and looked down at him. “What’s wrong?”

Teeth chattering, he said, “I don’t know.”

“Let’s just let him rest now,” said Mary, gently nudging Ruth away from Gabe. “I’m going to call Chip Clifford again. Why don’t you call Sheriff Dula?”

With the trailer configured for both beds, they had no room to sit down, so Mary pulled another blanket over the shivering Gabe and stepped back into the bright morning, Ruth fol­lowing. They made their respective calls, Mary leaving another detailed entreaty on Agent Clif­ford’s answering machine, Ruth talking to a clearly uninterested sheriff.

“That went well,” Ruth said sarcastically as she clicked off her phone. “All Dula can talk about is the charges he’s filing against Jonathan. Lily’s dropped off his list of priorities altogether.”

“I imagine Jonathan will put her back at the top,” said Mary. “He can be pretty persistent when he wants to.”

“That he can.” Ruth cast a sidelong glance at Mary. “How did you do with the Feds?”

Mary shrugged. “I left a message. I just hope Chip will act on it.”

“So what do we do now?” Ruth started plucking at the hem of her T-shirt.

“We’ve done everything we can do,” Mary told her. “Now we just wait for the next call. It’ll either be Chip Clifford or—”

“Another picture of Lily.” Ruth finished her sentence.

“Come on.” Mary locked arms with Ruth.

“Let’s go check on Gabe.”

Inside the van, Gabe lay trembling like a man with malaria, his pillow soaked with sweat. Mary was shocked at how much worse he’d grown in just the time it had taken them to make their phone calls.

“Gabe?” She put a hand on his forehead. It felt cold and clammy. “How are you feeling?”

“Not so great,” he answered sluggishly, his pupils wide as a crackhead’s. “Tired…”

“How about some ginger tea?” Ruth chirped.

“I don’t think so, Ruth.” Mary spoke gently, but she was growing irritated at Ruth’s total be­lief in the powers of herbal medicine. “By the way, what was in the tea you gave us last night? That was the last thing he drank.”

“Just sassafras and ginseng,” Ruth replied huffily. “Totally harmless. We all drank it, and neither of us is sick.”

Mary saw Ruth’s point, then she realized, too, that she and Gabe had consumed virtually the same food and drink for the past two days, yet he lay prostrate and sweating while she felt fine.

And he’d gotten sick so quickly. He must have caught some weird germ, she decided. Probably at that godforsaken rally.

“Come on,” she told Ruth. “Let’s fold the other bed back up. That way we can stay in here and keep an eye on him.”

Mary brewed a pot of coffee while Ruth scampered back to her truck for more tea. With the sun warming the dashboard of the van, they sat waiting for Mary’s cell phone to ring, and checking on Gabe. At ten o’clock he said he felt better, but at eleven she could not rouse him from his sleep.

“Gabe?” Mary whispered, growing truly alarmed. She grabbed his hand. It felt like ice. “Gabe, can you talk to me?”

He made no response; not even his eyelids moved at the sound of his name.

“Hand me my phone, Ruth.” Mary tried to keep her voice even. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”

“Over a stomach virus?” Ruth looked at her as if she’d gone insane.

“Yes.” Mary snatched the phone from her hand. “Over a stomach virus.”

Fifteen minutes later, two burly EMTs bent over Gabe—one taking a history, the other checking his temperature and blood pressure.

“You guys been doing any nose candy?” the history-taking EMT asked.

“No,” said Mary. “Not at all.”

“Any loaded brownies? Peyote buttons?”

“No.”

“It’s okay if you have.” The medic’s tone was calm, but grave. “Something’s really doing a number on this guy. If you know what it is, you need to tell me, now.”

“We haven’t taken any drugs.” Mary fought back a rising panic. “He and I have been to­gether for the past two days. Eaten the same food, drunk the same drinks.”

“And you feel okay?” The man looked at her with new concern.

“Yes. Fine.”

He wrote something down on his chart, then glanced at his partner.

“We need to get him to the ER,” the other medic said as he slipped his stethoscope from his ears. “His pressure’s going south, fast.”

Mary watched as the first EMT grabbed his clipboard and followed his partner out of the van. A moment later they were back, strapping Gabe onto an aluminum stretcher. She felt as if she were in the middle of a sudden tornado, with everything swirling out of control around her. “Where are you taking him?”

“Vanderbilt Emergency.”

As they lifted Gabe up to maneuver him out the door, Mary leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry, Semper Fi,” she whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.” She squeezed his hand, hoping to fill him with her own warmth and strength, then the medics carried him out the door.

“Hey,” she called as they loaded him in the back of the ambulance. “How do I get to Vanderbilt?”

“Just follow us,” called the EMT. “It’s only five minutes away.’’

“Thank God,” said Mary, buckling herself into the driver’s seat of Gabe’s van, praying that the hopeful words she whispered to him would turn out to be true.