Mother May I(81)

She started to turn away, and I clutched at her hand with both of mine, almost tugging. “I did nothing to you.”

“I know. But the world ain’t fair, Mrs. Cabbat. I sent my girl off in good faith, and your husband and his friends ruint her. They stole away every bright future that my family might have had.” I had misread her softness. It wasn’t mercy. It was more like regret. As if her plan had already played out to the finish. I understood then, there was no changing her. Everything was over already, in her mind. Done. This was just us working out a last small detail. Trey or Robert.

I let go of her hand and stood, looking past her down into the lot. All I saw was the SUV, all doors closed, Trey in the driver’s seat. Surely Marshall was almost to Robert. I had to hold her attention a little longer. If he was right, if all went well, in five or six more minutes, maybe less, my son would be safe in his arms.

That word, haunting me again. It was too much hope and terror for two letters to hold. If.





21




Marshall ran, quick and quiet, angling up through the thin trees at the base of the hill. His heart was pounding, but not from the run. He had missed something. Something wasn’t right.

He could almost feel his wife moving with him through the trees. Betsy’s ghost, who just after her death had come to haunt him every shift. Reminding him, You have a kid. You have our kid. You have no backup. It was the reason he’d changed jobs.

Strange to feel her presence now, so close that he could almost smell her jasmine lotion. The crazy corkscrews of her hair were in the breeze that touched his face as he ran.

But he was not in danger. Bree was. Bree, alone with Coral Lee Pine. That was probably what was bothering him.

He glanced at his phone. Bree and Trey had both lost signal, but his shittier carrier somehow still had a faint connection. He was navigating with the map on his phone and some still shots he’d taken off Google Earth. All aerial views, looking down on his location from space. It had been fall the last time the satellite passed over. The pictures made this place look lonely and cold, with brownish red clay the only warmth threading through dark granite and the thick cover of the turning leaves.

Today, though, was all sunlight filtered through the vivid green. There was birdsong, and to his left something small, a squirrel or a rabbit, dashed away. Down here it was a beautiful spring day, and he had missed something. He knew it. He’d made a mistake. But what?

He ran as lightly as he could, avoiding twigs that might snap and the low, leafy branches that might rustle. If Coral Lee heard him, if she realized what they were doing, she might decide it was better to take Trey’s wife away from him than take nothing. That must be why he felt Betsy brushing through him as he hurried up and up, the hill so steep that he was already a little winded. But they’d known this risk going in. Bree believed that Coral would not hurt her, and if she was wrong, she didn’t care. All she wanted was for him to find the baby. Get Robert out safe. That was his only job.

He was skirting close to Funtime, but the woods were thick and well shaded, widespread branches reaching for the sun in competition with one another. That would make him harder to see, plus it meant that there was not a lot of ground cover. The time he was saving felt worth the risk.

He caught a flash of electric blue through the trees far off to his right. Funtime Jack’s hat. He was already flanking the entrance. The carousel was just beyond. Was he too close? He had on his good hiking boots and dark jeans with a green-patterned shirt he hoped might blend with the woods. Now he must stay fast and yet be so quiet. He said it over and over to himself, like a mantra. Fast and quiet, fast and quiet.

The top edge of the carousel’s collapsed roof came into view. He angled out, though he was too far to clearly see Bree or Coral. If they were talking, he could not hear their voices, and this was good. He hoped to God this meant they could not see or hear him.

Then he was past the carousel roofline, heading northwest on an angle farther up the slope. If this was not officially the Blue Ridge Mountains yet, it was damn close. It was plenty hilly here. His breath came short.

There was no fence around Funtime proper. He had to guess how far he needed to go to get around the old gold-panning site. In the aerial pictures, it had been two matched squares of dirt, wood-framed, behind the carousel. Gold-mine attractions like these were often nothing but large planting boxes full of sandy earth. He and Bets had taken Cara to one up near Dahlonega when she was little. The owners seeded the loose soil with souvenir “nuggets” and let kids pan until they got something. The pits did not take up a lot of room. He must be past them now.

He angled back the other way, skirting the back edge of Funtime. According to Mrs. Denton, there had once been a path leading directly from the gold mine to the hidey-hole. He scanned for gaps in the trees that felt deliberate, but the woods were thinner here. Any of the spaces through the trees could be parts of a former path.

He turned back up the slope and pressed on, no longer running. Now he was searching. There should be a cleared space up nearby, the remains of the Dentons’ old garden. Past that was the hidey-hole, which might be hard to see. He hadn’t been able to see it at all on Google Earth.

He felt that it was close. He also felt his unease rising, the smell of danger. He’d missed something. He was so tired. He felt that he’d aged years, as if the last two days had been a shortcut straight to middle age.