Mother May I(76)

He knew where Robert was.





20




Marshall arrived an hour before sunrise. He’d gone home to shower, shave, and change. Trey and I did the same, putting on jeans and good walking shoes. Then I started a fresh pot of coffee, and I made us all eggs with fruit and toast. We needed fuel, whether or not any of us felt like eating.

We sat at the breakfast table dutifully putting food into our stomachs, and Marshall told us that he now believed Coral Lee was holed up at Funtime with Robert. That she’d been at Funtime since the second time she called me.

“She knows the place. She feels safe there, and she understands, better than anyone, how completely isolated it is,” Marshall said. He was tearing through the food. “Plus, she’s sick, so how much energy does she have to travel? Not to mention Lexie’s rehab must have close to wiped her out. Squatting there is free.”

His new plan was simple. When I walked up to the carousel to meet her, Coral would have to leave Robert alone. I would distract her long enough for Marshall to sneak up the hill past us and find the hidey-hole. He’d spent time learning the area on Google Earth and in his maps app with the help of Mariah Denton.

“That was . . . challenging,” he said, and his tone made it clear this was an understatement. “She doesn’t own a computer, never has, and she couldn’t get her head around the idea that satellites are taking pictures of . . . well, everything. Wanted me to zoom in on her old house, then the Kroger.” He buried his face in his hands briefly. “Anyway. Once I got her on task, she pretty much pinpointed it for me. I’ll find Robert and evacuate him while you keep Coral busy.”

“No,” Trey said. “I don’t want Bree to meet her at all. That woman is insane. She could be armed. She could—”

“She has no interest in hurting me,” I interrupted. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. I was a mother, like her. I reminded her of her own child. I was the mother Lexie had never gotten to be. No, she wanted Trey. She’d take Robert. But not me. More important, he was arguing the wrong things. Marshall’s plan was too easy and too reckless both. “Robert can’t be there, Marshall. She wouldn’t hide him so close. Her whole leverage is that if I send the cops instead of bringing Trey to her, she’ll kill herself and leave Robert to—” I blinked back tears. “If he’s that close, the police would surely find him.” I remembered Spencer, spasming and foaming, and I shuddered. “She wouldn’t bluff about this. She means him harm if I don’t give her Trey.”

Marshall swallowed the last of his toast. “I agree it’s not a bluff. She’s after blood.” He was remembering Spence, too, I thought. The pills she’d convinced me were roofies. “But she knows this place intimately. With the bird’s-eye view she has, she can see the parking lot. I bet she can see the road, too, for miles, and it’s the only way in. Maybe there’s hiking trails, but she knows those, too. Meanwhile she’s told us she’s leaving the baby elsewhere and driving to meet us. So if we, for example, send cops in early to set up an ambush, she’s already there, watching them arrive. If she sees or hears anyone but you and Trey, she has plenty of time to—” His voice cut out abruptly. He didn’t want to say what she would do, but he didn’t have to. By the time the police made their way to the hidey-hole, they would find only the bodies.

Trey had gotten up while Marshall spoke. He was pacing, jittery from caffeine and sleeplessness and waiting. “You think she would leave Robert alone in that cabin when she comes to meet Bree? What if you get to the cabin and Lexie is there. Armed. With our kid.”

I answered first. “She won’t have Lexie anywhere nearby. Period.”

Not only because we could send the police and she wanted to keep Lexie’s hands clean. Of all the things she’d told me, that one had the most of my faith. But because she wouldn’t ask Lexie to harm a baby. What Coral had done to Geoff had a ricochet. Coral had felt it. She wouldn’t want her frail, newly sober child to do that. I knew it deep in my own motherhood, so solid and strong that I’d bet Robert’s life on it. Not that I had another choice.

We spent our last hours chewing it over, the three of us, back and forth and around and around. Trey was mutinous. He hated the idea of me walking up alone to meet with her while he sat all the way down the hill in the car in relative safety.

I didn’t want Trey to come, period. I was afraid she’d kill him outright, but Marshall said she would have to be a marine sharpshooter to pick Trey off from the top of the hill. But what if she got lucky? Or what if she saw us coming and walked down to the parking lot to meet us with a shotgun? Trey said there was no way in hell he was sitting home, though, and Marshall agreed. Coral needed to see Trey arrive. We had to look like we were complying. We argued about that until it was almost time to go, recycling the same points and fears and hopes without making any headway, churning fruitlessly. Marshall’s plan won out.

Marshall looked relieved and also a little sick. We were betting so much on his gut instinct. If he was wrong . . . Still, his gut instinct had gotten us this far. I couldn’t see clearly past any moment where Marshall was wrong, so he wasn’t wrong, and that was all. Our course was set.

As we got up to leave, Trey said, “We should take your car. It has the base of Robert’s car seat.”