I went in the kitchen to face what looked like an interrogation. Martin and Karl had taken the paper bag from Rory, and as I entered they dumped it on the table. I gasped. Besides the usual deodorant and razor, underpants and condoms, the bag contained packages of bills. Just like the one in the baby's diaper bag, the one I'd discovered in Lawrenceton.
"They were under the sheet on the crib," I said, into the silence.
"It's mine," Rory said sullenly. "As long as you can't find Regina, it's mine.
She shows up, I share it with her. But we owe some of it to the midwife." "Where'd it come from?" Martin asked. It was the opening salvo in a long bombardment.
An hour later, no one had gotten anywhere, except me. I'd looked up Bobbye Sunday's address in the telephone book, which covered several small towns in the area. The midwife lived in Bushmill, and she wasn't answering her phone. I'd tried her number several times while Martin and Karl questioned Rory. Rory, who was wily if not intelligent, had made up his mind he wasn't going to tell anyone anything. I felt like I was some kind of civil rights observer, there to make sure Rory wasn't thumped by an increasingly exasperated Martin. Karl seemed to consider this Martin's show, but he contributed to the atmosphere of menace by smoldering at Rory, with some effect.
"I never meant to hurt Therese," the boy blurted out of the blue. Karl slammed his palm against the kitchen table with explosive force. "I told you never to say her name!" he said. Then he turned to me. "Therese is simple," he said bluntly. "She can cope with life, but just barely. Then this guy shows up, tells her after one date he loves her, gets her knocked up. I have to take Therese for an abortion. Phoebe's young enough to have one of her own if she wants, we don't want to raise Therese's kid and it's not our job. She can't raise a kid, he can't raise a kid, he doesn't even want to marry her. But he had a fit when she had the abortion, which left her crying for weeks. He had a use for the baby, but not for Therese, who hasn't seen or heard from him since." I looked at Rory in a new light. Rather than a passive accomplice to a plot not yet determined, he was an instigator of a subsidiary plot. Not a very efficient instigator, since Therese's father had taken care of the situation, and would have outfaced Rory under any circumstances... I was sick of trying to figure out what had happened in this farmhouse in the past few months.
"I'm going to take a ride," I said abruptly.
"You're going to drive in this snow?" My husband looked amazed, and that was all it took to make me grab my coat. I'd been dragged along on this, outvoted by my husband as to the wisdom of bringing Rory back to Corinth, stuck with the care of Hayden, forced to consort with Martin's ex-wife. I was in a royal snit compounded of grievance and self-pity.
"Yes, I am," I replied briefly.
Even as my better sense - and I did have some - told me to stay at the farmhouse, I grabbed the keys from the counter and my purse from the table and rode the crest of my snit out to the Jeep. I climbed into it, and switched on the engine. It would have served me right if the engine had refused to start or I had driven into the fields on my way to the county road, but to my surprise I got to Route 8 just fine. I paused at the end of the driveway for a minute or two, looking at the map I'd yanked out of the glove compartment. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the sky outside was about to loose its load of snow. I wished I could close my eyes or wiggle my nose and make the kitchenful of men disappear. Then I could go back to the farmhouse without losing face.
But I turned right, on my way to the tiny town of Bushmill. It was easy, after all, to find Bobbye Sunday's office. It was the little building with the snow all over the blackened and broken roof. The trailer parked behind it didn't look damaged, but the snow around it was unbroken. I looked out of the foggy window of the Jeep, shivering despite its efficient heating.
The nearest convenience store was manned (and I'm using the word loosely) by an adolescent male with acne and chin-length hair parted down the middle. It was not a flattering style, but I told myself that was just because I was old, and feeling older by the minute.
I smiled as winningly as I could. "Can you tell me what happened at the office down the street?" I asked.
"Which one?" he asked indifferently.
I will not snap, I told myself. I will not snap and snarl. "The burned one," I said gently.
"It burned," he said, smirking at the points he was scoring off the old dame who was at least in her thirties. I wondered if he would think it was as funny if I kicked him in the groin. I took a deep breath. Overreaction. "When did it burn? Was anyone hurt?"
At least he didn't care why I wanted to know. "I guess it was a couple nights ago," he told me finally. "Someone broke in after midnight, the police figure. Stole some computers and stuff, set a fire. I bet she had some painkillers and stuff in there, someone could sell around here." He smirked again. I felt like giving him a little pain.
"But Miss Sunday is all right?"
"Yep. She was at home when the fire started. She went down there in her nightgown, I heard." Another smirk.
I turned to leave the store, lost in thought.
"Don't you want to buy something?" the boy asked pointedly.
"I do want to find where Bobbye Sunday lives."
"I already told you a lot of stuff," he grumbled. "You need some gas, some cigarettes?"
"No, thank you," I told him, out of all the things I could have said. It had just dawned on me that I probably knew where Bob-bye Sunday lived; the small trailer behind the little office.
The woman that answered my knock was in her early thirties. She was plump and had hair the color of a rusty chrysanthemum. It was either a very inept or a very avant-garde dye job. Either way, it was notable. The cut itself was conventional, short and curly. But her ears were pierced at least four times apiece. Then again she was wearing nurse whites and orthopedic shoes. Miss Mixed Signals.
"Bobbye Sunday?" I asked.
"Yes." She didn't invite me in, but she didn't bar the door. "Have you come about the fire, are you from the insurance office?" "No, I'm afraid I'm not." I tried smiling, but she didn't respond. "Could you tell me what happened?"
"Why should I talk to you?" she asked. She slammed the trailer door in my face.
Bushmill was chock-full of reticent people.
I trudged back to the Jeep through the snow, feeling my blue jeans brush against my boots with the heavy feel of wet material. My feet were warm and dry, at least, and I made myself stamp the snow out of the treads of my boots before I hoisted myself up into the Jeep.
"Wait!" Bobbye Sunday slogged through the snow, holding her hands out for balance.
"I'm sorry I was so short with you," she said, when she'd reached the side of the Jeep. I'd shut myself in, but rolled down the window. "I lost so much in that fire," the midwife continued. "My patient records, the computers and software I'd just gotten ..."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm glad you weren't hurt."
"I keep telling myself that."
"Sometimes that's not much consolation, I guess."
"If you aren't from the insurance company..." "I just wanted to ask you about a patient you had, a baby you delivered, around three weeks ago? Here, at your office."
"Oh, I can't tell you about that," Bobbye Sunday said firmly. "That's private." She hesitated. "I usually go to the mother's house for delivery, but every now and then I deliver a baby-here. That's all I can say." I could tell she meant it, and I felt sorry for her. "Goodbye," I said, so she could get in out of the cold. "I hope your insurance comes through for you, soon."
She made a face at me, half doubting, half smiling. "Thanks." She turned and made her way through the yard back to the trailer door. So that was another door shut.
I found myself wondering about the so-timely fire, destroying the record of Regina's prenatal visits and delivery - if she had indeed delivered in Nurse Sunday's office - right after Rory came back to Corinth. When I thought of Rory's handsome young face, impossibly guileless, I heaved a long sigh. What would we do with Rory? Would he be safe, riding back into Corinth with Karl? Did I care? Would Martin be willing to keep the boy in the house overnight? I wasn't sure I would.
I was grateful to see the entrance to the farm, and even more grateful when I entered the kitchen to find Rory intact and Martin and Karl apparently holding on to their tempers. I tossed down the keys and my purse, realized I'd forgotten to take my boots off at the door, and knelt to dry them with a towel. "So, what have you guys been talking about?" I asked. I looked up at Karl.
"This fool - " he began, and then the window exploded. Since I'd been kneeling well away from it, I clearly saw the shards of glass flying into the kitchen, glinting in the fluorescent light. The glass sprayed Rory's left side as he sat slumped at the table, sprayed Martin's right side as he stood across from him, and grazed Karl who was perched beyond Rory on one corner.
And the bullet that had broken the glass, that bullet hit Rory in the neck on the left side, punching a mortal hole and exiting on the right, causing a shower of blood and tissue that rained on Karl, as the same bullet struck Karl's thigh, hitched over the corner of the table.
At that moment, it seemed, Martin screamed, "Down, down, down!" and took a flying leap to land on top of me, flattening me to the floor. A heartbeat later - a heartbeat Rory didn't have - I was facedown on the floor amid the glass and blood, my heart racing at a terrifying pace. Karl was screaming, and Rory bonelessly slid out of his chair and landed two feet away from me, blood pouring out of the wounds in his neck to puddle under him. His eyes were open. I shrieked without knowing I was going to do it. With Martin weighing me down, I lay shivering and shaking on the floor with Rory's blood spreading toward me. And then the kitchen was silent.
After the longest minute I'd ever lived through, no more bullets punched through the window. Martin gradually eased off me. I made myself crawl over to Karl, who had begun to moan steadily. The floor was covered with glass, and I found myself thinking of brooms and dustpans - and mops - as the advancing pool of blood stopped inches from me.
"Martin?" I asked hoarsely.
"Yes," he said, breathily.
"Honey, I think Karl has to have a tourniquet."
"Rory?" he asked.
"Dead," I said.
Trying not to sit up, I fumbled my belt out of its loops, and wound it around Karl's thigh. To my intense relief, Martin scooted on his elbows to the other side of the wounded man and drew the belt tight. Karl became silent, and I risked looking at his face to see he was as pale as his complexion would permit him to get.
I glanced at Martin, wanting to see if Karl's poor condition had registered with him.
I made an incoherent sound of horror. Martin was covered with blood.
My husband, the invincible and strong, the coper with crises. "Oh, honey," I said. "Oh, honey, you're hurt." Sometimes the obvious truth is the only one that fills your mind and you don't care if you sound smart or not. "Cuts from the glass," he said briefly. But he was breathing shallowly, and his color was as bad as Karl's.
Without wasting further breath, Martin reached up a cautious hand to get the telephone sitting on the counter.
From upstairs, Hayden began crying. It came over the monitor clearly. I made as if to rise, and Martin clamped a hand on my shoulder. His grip wasn't strong, but the force of his will was.
"Are you crazy?" he hissed. "Stay down!" He dialed without holding the phone to his ear. I was closer to it, and I could see that the little light, the one that comes on to illuminate the numbers so you can dial in the dark, was off. "Phone's dead," I told him, unable to control the shaking of my voice. I followed the wire with my eyes, and when it came to the jack, I saw that the phone had not been cut off outside the house, but inside; the little plastic connector had been cut off. I pointed, and Martin followed the line of my finger. For the first time since I'd met him, I saw despair in his eyes. Martin held it up to his ear to confirm what his eyes had already checked. One of the people who had been our visitors in the past two hours had done this. They'd all been in the kitchen. This was the only phone in the house.
"Where's the cell phone?" I asked.
"It's out in the Jeep."
Of course. I'd seen it there minutes before.
"We'll have to get Karl into the Jeep. We'll call the hospital on our way into town."
"You and the baby have to come." Though he seemed barely conscious, Martin crawled over to the wall and got Karl's rifle.
I couldn't remember how close the Jeep was to the front door. "Let me go check where I parked the Jeep," I told Martin, and crept on my hands and knees to the front door. I stretched up a hand and opened the door, peering around the frame to keep as much of myself covered as possible.
The Jeep was wonderfully close. I felt a surge of hope. We'd get out of here, into town, to the little Corinth hospital.
Then I noticed that the Jeep was canted oddly to one side. My heart did something painful inside my chest when I realized that two of the tires were flat, the two on the side away from the door.
I shut the front door, ran in a crouch to the stairs. They weren't visible from any windows, or at least the angle would be quite acute. I sprinted up as fast as I could, reached the top safely. I stood and panted for a few seconds, trying to get my breathing rate down to something approximately normal, then scurried into Hayden's room, which was over the kitchen. It was safest for him right where he was, I made myself admit, though my every instinct was to pick him up and take him with me. But I couldn't stand the crying. I tried popping his pacifier in his mouth. That would hold him, I hoped. I didn't want to tell Martin about the Jeep's being disabled, but I had to. He looked even worse than he had three minutes ago, and Karl, I thought, was unconscious.
Martin was still thinking clearly, though.
"Check to see if the phone's still in the Jeep," he told me, though he clearly hadn't much hope. This silent admission that he was not capable of action was more terrifying than anything to me in that horrible kitchen. Martin, strong, dangerous, and brave, had been like a rock at my back for three years. I felt exposed and anguished. "If the phone's not in the Jeep, Karl's pickup is parked behind that clump of trees down in the south field. He went out there to check to see what kind of vehicle whoever was looking in our windows had driven. Then he walked up to the house, following the tracks." "Okay," I whispered, half distracted by the continuous sound of Hayden's renewed complaining. "So?"
"You'll have to go get Karl's pickup."
"How do we know someone's not out there?" I asked, thinking Martin was nuts. I wasn't about to leave him.
"No more shots," Martin said succinctly.
"Unless they're waiting for us to stand up so they can shoot again," I protested.
"He would've come closer by now and picked us off, if he was still out there.
I'm assuming he just wanted Rory."
I glanced over at Karl, whose face was a waxy color I associated with Madame Tussaud's. He was covered with sweat, and blood, and bits of stuff. He looked very bad. Martin had spots of blood on his shirt, mostly on the back where glass slivers had pierced the material as he lay covering me. There was one long cut over his right eye that looked particularly bad, hut I reminded myself that head cuts bleed worse than anything. I couldn't give myself any comfort over his color, though, and I knew that something worse than a few cuts was wrong with Martin. I found myself too scared to ask him.
"Take the baby," Martin said.
"What?" This was crazy. It had begun to snow again.
"Take the baby."
"Are you serious?" I said savagely, because I was terrified. "Out in the cold, and I don't know who's out there? I'll drive back here, we'll load Karl in the pickup bed so he can keep his leg stretched out. I'll get the baby then." "I'm thinking you should drive straight to town. Don't stop." "Martin, I can't leave you," I began, unhappy all over again to hear how distraught I sounded.
"Go!" he said harshly. "For once, don't think about it!"
He knew something I didn't.
"Okay," I said, trying to sound less tearful than I felt. I accepted the keys he handed me, the ones he'd taken from Karl's pocket. I ran back up the stairs, bundled and wrapped up Hayden. Then I stood by the front door, terrified of stepping out. I looked into the kitchen at Martin sitting by his friend on the floor. From somewhere, Martin dredged up the strength to give me an encouraging nod.
In retrospect, my agreeing to leave him sounds crazy; but at the time I was so seriously upset that Martin's request made some kind of sense to me. Though I was absolutely terrified, I stepped out into the snow holding the baby. The cold hit me in the face. But no bullet. I was at the Jeep in four steps, looking through the windows. No phone. It had been taken. There were footprints, sure, but in the gray dim light and falling snow they were surprisingly hard to follow, and there were many other footprints in the parking area now. So I began my trek through the falling snow clasping Hayden, who at least at this moment was quiet. I scanned the whiteness, looking for some sign of life out here in the bleak fields, but I saw nothing. A bone-scraping wind sprang up and scoured my face, and flakes clung to the knit cap I'd pulled over my hair. Hayden snuffled against my chest. I clutched him closer. It was no great distance to the copse, perhaps not even a half mile, but the ground was uneven and the contours concealed by the snow. Halfway there I became aware that I was crying, and I nuzzled the baby's cheek as if he could comfort me. I knew something was wrong with my husband, and yet he had told me to leave him. Did Martin think the shooter would come around the house to make sure of Rory, and therefore invent some reasoning to make sure I left? And then I realized why Martin had told me to take Hayden.
Hayden was my insurance.
Martin knew the shooter wouldn't try for me if I was holding the baby. Hayden was the whole point of this. I wasn't even sure what "this" was, but Hayden was the center. Now I had the protection of Hayden's presence: and Martin didn't. I nearly decided to turn back twice, even stopped and physically began to reverse, but I couldn't seem to figure out anything. I was shocked and freezing and desperate, and the remembered urgency of Martin's tone kept me on my course. The snow and the baby and the rough ground made the walk seem twice as long as it actually was, but finally I was among the trees. There was Karl's black pickup, carefully parked so it was unobtrusive. I got the keys from my pocket and climbed in awkwardly, the baby making an upset choky noise in protest at the continued cold.
I laid Hayden on the floor on the passenger side. That was the best I could do. Then I scooted the seat up so my feet could reach the pedals. The pickup started on the first turn of the key just like the Jeep had, which was a real blessing, and it had an automatic shift, which was another blessing. The heater roared into life, and after a few minutes I felt a sheer, pathetic gratitude for the onset of warmth. I began backing out of the trees. When I'd turned the truck to face the road, I saw a little track at least two vehicles had made. Under those tracks must be the dirt road Margaret had told me about. I followed them up the gentle slope to the county road, figuring the smoothest ground would lie that way, and though the pickup lurched a couple of times, we reached the road in one piece.
I started to turn the wheel left, toward town. Then I thought longingly of the Granberrys to the right, so much closer.
But Martin had said to go to town, and Martin always had a reason for making a decision. So I prepared to turn left, and I peered both ways to see if anything was coming.
It surprised me that something was.
And to compound the surprise, the traveler was Margaret Granberry, in her Dodge pickup. She stopped when she saw me by the side of the road and lowered her window.
"What are you doing?" she called. "Isn't that Karl's truck?" "Margaret, you should get home and lock the doors!" I yelled. "Someone came up to the house and shot him!"
"Shot Karl?" Margaret's pale face looked even whiter, and she jumped out of her truck, which she left running in the middle of the road, and made her way swiftly over the packed snow to my window, her hands shoved in her pockets. "He's bad," I told her. "I have to get to town to get help."
"What about Martin? And Rory?" Margaret asked.
"Rory's dead," I said baldly.
"So you left the baby there?"
Just then Hayden began crying, and I looked down to the floorboard to make sure he was okay.
When I looked back to the window, Margaret had a gun in her hand.
"Oh shit," I breathed. "Don't shoot, Margaret."
"I won't if you'll come without any trouble."
"Sure," I said instantly.
"Then you bend over and pick up my baby."
I did, though it was difficult to maneuver both our bundled bodies in the cab of the pickup.
Margaret stepped back from the door. "Now, get out holding the baby. And don't try anything like throwing him at me to get me to drop the gun." "I wouldn't dream of that," I said indignantly, and then told myself it would be a good thing to keep my mouth shut.
Margaret's head was uncovered, and her red hair had caught a lot of snowflakes. She turned her head uneasily from side to side, like she was tracking movements invisible to me.
I slid down off the high seat, holding Hayden.
Margaret seemed to be thinking hard.
"Go get in my pickup," she ordered. "You're going to have to drive." So I struggled uphill to the road, praying for more traffic to come along. This wasn't the day for my prayers to be answered the way I wanted them to be. The road was empty as far as I could see, north to south. Following Margaret's directions, I got in the driver's seat, having slid Hayden over to the passenger side. The truck, still running, was older than Karl's fancy pickup and it had seen harder usage. Before I could do more than formulate the thought that I could throw the truck in drive and take off, Margaret had grabbed Hayden and was getting in herself, the gun pointed at me. "Go up to your driveway," she instructed.
I drove slowly, still hoping someone else would come along and read something strange into the situation, call the police. I turned in when she told me to, only to reverse and back out into the road again, this time pointed south. "We've already turned into your driveway twice, so that ought to account for our tracks," Margaret said. "With more snow falling, it'll be hard to read the tracks anyway."
I wondered what Martin had thought when he'd heard the truck, near the house. He'd probably thought help had come quicker than he'd expected. He'd have felt proud of me...
Instead, I'd been tricked, and I hadn't gotten help.
Shame broke over me in a wave of blackness.
It was followed by a rage so overwhelming that I had trouble seeing the road ahead of me. I seldom lose my temper, and this was far beyond that, light years beyond. I knew I had blocked from my complete awareness, until this moment, just how bad Martin had looked, just how much he too needed a doctor. Now this woman was keeping me from getting help for him, and Karl, too. I remembered Rory's empty eyes and the pool of blood around his head; but Rory was beyond human assistance, and I had no more grief for him. My sense of urgency vied with my terrible rage for supremacy in the limited emotional room I had to spare.
I tugged at my ear on my left side, away from Margaret. My earring slid out, the back rolling down my collar and into my shirt. The small earring, just a little gold knot design, went down in the deep crack of the seat. Some policeman would find it and nail Margaret Granberry, I hoped most devoutly. Aurora Was Here.
I pressed my fingers to the wheel, the steering column, the seat adjustor, the window, as unobtrusively as possible, hoping she'd overlook a print when she wiped down the truck. Maybe I'd seen too many movies and too many episodes of America's Most Wanted, but I was doing the best I could for myself. Margaret told me to turn into her driveway. It was the first time I'd seen the Granberry's house. It was a farmhouse with extras added, in keeping with what Cindy had told me about their lifestyle. Gleaming white, with spanking green shutters and a hot tub in a sunroom to the south, it was farming deluxe. Luke came running out the front door as we lurched to a stop, his face twisted with anxiety. There was a rifle in his hands.
"What happened?" he cried.
"Look, honey!" Margaret called, holding up the baby so he could see it.
Luke's face went slack with horror.
"What have you done, sweetheart?" he asked.
"Don't worry, she was heading to town in Karl's truck. He was parked down at the copse," Margaret explained. "But she was taking the baby with her, and I figured this might be our last chance."
"But..."
"And sweetie, she says you hit Karl too," Margaret interrupted.
"I only fired once," he said, protesting.
"The bullet went through Rory," I told them, hardly able to choke out the words through the rage.
"He's dead," Margaret said, relief clear in her voice. "So we don't have to worry about that anymore."
Luke's shoulders slumped with the same relief. "Let's get you all inside the house," he said briskly.
"I can show Lucas his nursery," Margaret said, delight coursing through her voice.
"Hayden," I said.
"No, that's the nasty name she gave him," Margaret told Hayden's scrunched little face. "His real name is Lucas." , While her attention was riveted on the baby, I risked a glance at Luke. He, too, was looking at Hayden. If he hadn't been armed, I would have had him, and at the moment I felt equal to a pro boxer. Nothing would have stopped me, if I hadn't known I had to ask him for something. "You have to call an ambulance and send it to the farm," I said, sounding as reasonable as I could, considering I was in a frenzy. "Why? Rory's dead!"
"I realize he's beyond consideration," I said, hardly knowing what words were issuing from my mouth. "But Karl is very badly hurt and Martin is not well. I'm afraid he's... I'm afraid he's... really sick." I was making a superhuman effort to sound calm and matter-of-fact.
The couple looked at each other, communing silently.
"Don't think we can risk it," Luke said.
Margaret started into the house. "No," she threw over her shoulder, "I don't see how we can."
"You have to," I said. I stood in the snow, looking up at Luke, whose brown eyes were clear and blank. "You can't let my husband die. You can't." "Margaret? Maybe we could send an ambulance?" he called to her, though he kept his guard on me.
"I'll bet they can trace a nine-one-one call," she said doubtfully. "Let's get inside and think about it. I bet our baby is hungry." They weren't going to help.
That was the final straw.
I jumped him, rifle and all.
I woke up on a floor, a cold concrete floor. It was in a windowless room lit by a bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the ceiling. My mouth was dry as cotton and my head hurt like hell. I tried to lift it, and the effort left me shaken and nauseated. I satisfied myself with just shifting my eyes around. I thought of all the books I'd read, all the mysteries. Spenser wouldn't have ended up this way. Neither would Kinsey Milhone. Or Henry O. Or Stephanie Plum. Well, yeah, maybe Stephanie Plum. "Hey."
I found the source of the voice. A young woman, dark haired, was sitting on a straight-backed chair against the wall.
"Aunt Roe, are you all right?"
I hadn't realized I'd been sure Regina was dead until I saw her sitting there alive and well. But it wasn't possible for me to feel more shocked than I already did; I just accepted our niece's presence with no more than dull surprise. "Regina," I whispered.
"Yeah, it's me!" she said cheerfully. "Hey, how are you feeling? And how's the baby? I've been going nuts down here."
"Where is here?"
Regina thought that one over for a second. "Oh, you mean, where are we right now?"
"Yes," I said, without the energy to be exasperated.
"We're in the Granberrys' basement."
I'd never had a basement. Not that many houses in Georgia do. I'd only opened the door to the basement in Martin's old farmhouse, shuddered at the dark cold that rolled up the stairs, and shut the door with alacrity. Now here I was in a basement, a windowless, below-ground prison.
"How long have you been here?"
"Since that night at your place. Well, minus the trip back to Ohio, but I don't remember much of that. Margaret gave me a bunch of sleeping pills." I knew anguish was waiting just around the corner. When Luke Granberry had knocked me out, he'd done me a favor. I tried to stave off the misery for a few minutes. "Tell me what happened," I croaked.
"Oh, well, the Granberrys showed up," Regina said, making a face as if Margaret and Luke were particularly undesirable party crashers. "Why?"
"Well... you know ... to get the baby. But Craig beat them there."
"Why?"
"Well... to get the baby."
I felt a tear roll down my cheek sideways on its way to the floor. Martin, alone with the dying Karl Bagosian, waiting for the ambulance I was supposed to send, the help I was supposed to bring... "Tell me from the beginning," I said, in a voice I didn't recognize as my own.
"When I got pregnant, it was like, a big disaster. You can imagine!"
No, I couldn't.
"I'd just married Craig. Well, it happened before we got married, if you can count you can figure that out, and you better believe the old ladies around here can count! Especially after my mother had that baby, you know, the big scandal." "Yes."
"But we got married, so hey, everything was cool. But I still didn't tell anybody, because frankly, I was thinking about getting rid of it. I mean, I'm just too young to have a baby. Right?"
"Yes."
"And the idea of Craig as a daddy, well, that just didn't feel right. But I wasn't throwing up or anything, felt great, so I just decided to wait a while and see how I felt. A baby might be kind of neat. They love you, right?" A tear flowed down my other cheek.
"So, anyway, I began showing. Craig and Rory thought that was just amazing. Feeling the baby move. But I still thought about getting rid of it. Then the Granberrys showed up one night and told us they'd been thinking." "And?"
"Well, they said they really really wanted a baby and they couldn't have one, and they had noticed I was gonna have one, and they wondered since we were kind of strapped for money, if we would consider letting them adopt the kid? That seemed like a great idea the more we thought about it, Rory and Craig and me, so I told them, sure. They paid for me to go to the midwife, one in the next county so no one from Corinth would see me, and they asked me not to go to town, because they didn't want anyone telling the baby where he'd come from until they decided it was time. That seemed right to me, too, so I just hung out at the farm. It was boring, let me tell you!"
"I'm sure," I murmured, feeling the hair on either side of my face grow damp as the tears flowed. The basement was lined with shelves and crowded with odds and ends. I saw that Regina had made a sort of nest for herself in one corner. There was an ancient easy chair, a lamp, and a board across two cement blocks that served as a table beside the chair. It was piled high with magazines. A mattress topped with a sleeping bag was pushed against the wall. There was a cubicle that I suspected hid a toilet and maybe a shower, close to the base of the stairs. "Have you tried to escape yet?" I asked, interrupting Regina's account of the onset of her labor. She sounded exactly like she was the only woman in the world who'd ever had a baby.
Regina gaped at me. "Are you kidding?" she asked incredulously. "As soon as Craig and Rory show up with the baby, Margaret'll let me go. I'm just, like, a hostage! If I tried to escape, they might hurt me!" Ah-oh. She didn't know. If I could have felt worse, I would have. "What do you think happened in Lawrenceton?"
"See, I had the baby," Regina said, and I sighed. She was not going to edit her adventures. "And when I saw him, I just thought I couldn't give him up. And Craig got put in jail, so he couldn't make me. I told Margaret and Luke I had to breastfeed for the first few days, that the midwife had told me so, but really I'd had the shot to dry my boobs up. I just said that so I could take him home with me. But I knew the Granberrys were dying for me to give him up; they'd been pestering me from the hour I had him."
"So you ran?"
"Yeah, man, I just took off. I didn't think that Craig and Rory would figure out where I'd gone. And I never thought they'd get out so quick. I mean, I missed them, Craig especially. But I couldn't make up my mind. And I had really thought the Granberrys would be great for the baby, but then I began thinking Margaret was a little weird, and she could make Luke do anything. So maybe she wouldn't be a good mother. And," Regina's voice lost its bounce, "I really loved the baby. I kind of wanted to keep him, even if we really needed the money. So one day when I knew the Granberrys had gone into the city for some art thing, I lit out."
"The Granberrys had already paid you some?"
"Oh, yeah, they gave us half the cash when he was born. They were gonna give us the other half when we turned him over. I hid the money, except for some I took out for the trip."
She'd hidden it in the crib mattress. Where Rory had found it.
"What about the legal part of it?"
"Margaret said she and Luke'd move as soon as the baby was old enough. She figured wherever she lived, no one would ask questions. She read a couple of books on how to get a birth certificate for him. You know you can get books that tell you how to do that? She was gonna change his name to Lucas. I just called him Hayden for my great-uncle on my father's side. He was my favorite when I was a little girl."
I thought about all this. Finally, I told Regina I was thirsty, and she jumped up to bring me some water in a plastic cup. There was a sink on the wall, stained and ugly and old, but functional. Regina slid a hand under my head so I could raise it enough to sip from the cup.
"What's wrong with my head?" I asked, staving off the inevitable. Besides, I did want to know.
"I guess Luke hit you with the stock of his rifle. Margaret says you jumped him!
That was kind of crazy, Aunt Roe."
"Yes," I agreed.
"Anyway, you have this big bruise and swollen place on your forehead, it goes up into your hair, and a little blood dried on your face. So, have you seen Craig? When's he coming to get me? Did Rory get sick in Lawrenceton? He sure was acting awful funny."
"What do you remember about that night?" Hard to believe it had only been five days.
Regina looked down at me doubtfully. She was sitting on the floor beside me now, the cup still in her hand. I became aware I was lying on yet another sleeping bag, and she was crouched on the cold concrete. Her black hair was a mass of tangles and her eyes were puffy.
"After you guys left to go to that dinner, I was in your house fixing up some supper, one of those Healthy Choice microwave meals you had in the freezer." I would have nodded if my neck wouldnt've snapped. "Then I heard a car pull up, and I knew it wasn't you because you guys were gonna be gone longer. So I look out, and it was a black kid. He was real polite, said a friend had brought him out to get his dad's truck. I thought I saw something fall out of the back of the trailer as he was turning it around, but I didn't tell him. I figured I'd go pick it up later. After he'd driven the truck out of your backyard, and the guy who'd given him a ride had followed him out of the driveway, Craig and Rory turned in. They came into the house with me, and we started fighting almost right away. I was mad. I'd left because I needed time to think, and here he was right on my tail.
"I began to get a little nervous, alone with the guys, them being so mad at me. Course Craig would never hurt me, but he was really furious, it was the worst fight we'd ever had." Regina's face softened. "He's usually so sweet," she said almost tenderly. "It was one reason I almost kept the baby." I had my serious doubts that Craig had been the baby's father. In my secret brain compartment where I keep a lot of thoughts I want to hide from myself, I'd stored the idea that the baby looked much more like Rory. Rory's baby picture, framed in his sister's house, had been the spitting image of Hayden. "So Rory began feeling bad?" I asked weakly.
"Yeah, he was acting really strange. He said he was so sleepy he couldn't stand up, and I told him to go lie on the couch. He said some blonde-haired woman, some older gal in a fancy car, had asked them to help her in the liquor store parking lot, and she gave them a couple of beers to say thank you, I think her car had gotten stuck in a dip or something, and they'd helped her rock it out. Rory thought there'd been something in the beer; he said when he got through there were some speckles in the bottom of the bottle." "So you went over to the garage apartment?"
"Yeah, actually, Craig and I..." And here Regina turned coy. In between quarrels, they'd wanted a passionate reunion, apparently. "You took Hayden?"
"Yeah, sure, we couldn't leave him in the house over there, with Rory out of it! On the way over, Craig picked up something from the yard. It was a hatchet, from the back of the guy's pickup, and he put it on the steps so the guy would see it if he missed it and come back."
That was where the hatchet had come from. One small question explained.
"So you took the baby over to the apartment."
Regina turned a dull, unbecoming red. "He was asleep," she said defensively. "We didn't have time to put up that crib thing, so I laid him in his infant seat in the recline position."
"Then?"
"Well, before things got... serious, you know... we heard another car pull up, and Craig said, 'Hey, what is this place, Grand Central Station?' and I looked out the front window and it was the Granberrys!" Regina shook her head. "I said, 'Craig, you're not gonna believe this!' and he says, 'Hey, we're not letting them have our baby, cause here they are following us!' and I said, 'You're right, let's keep Hayden.' " Regina sighed, offered me some more water. I started to shake my head no, then realized that was a very bad idea. "No," I said. "Thanks." I wondered if Regina had ever made a reasoned decision in her life.
"While Craig was zipping up, getting ready to go down the stairs, I took the baby and kind of slid him under the bed. He was so sound asleep, he didn't even peep. He's so good! I didn't want them to walk in and see him and get all grabby, like they did once before. I told Craig what to say." "Why didn't the Granberrys get there when Craig and Rory did?" "Well, they'd stopped to eat. At the last gas station they'd stopped at, Craig and Rory had asked for directions to Lawrenceton, so Margaret and Luke knew where they were going. When they were talking later about following Craig, they said they'd been scared to follow too close. When they got to Lawrenceton, they just looked in the phone book for familiar names, came up with Bartell in five minutes."
"So, what happened then?" I closed my eyes, listened to Regina's voice wash over me. She was glad to have someone to talk to, so glad she hadn't noticed I hadn't answered any of her questions.
"I heard Craig yelling at them, telling them he'd decided they couldn't have his boy after all. That he'd been willing because a deal was a deal, but now they'd tracked him down from Ohio and he didn't like that at all. So after a while, Margaret came in the room, she said Luke was down there talking to Craig, where was the baby?"
"And you told her - ?"
"The same thing I'd told Craig to tell Luke. That you and Martin had the baby, that you'd taken him riding with you so he would go to sleep, that you wouldn't be coming back for a long time."
"She want to know where Rory was?"
"I told her he was over in the house."
"So?"
"So, she wrote him a long note and stuck it under the windshield wiper of their car. I don't know what it said, not everything, cause she had pulled a gun on me by that time. You could have knocked me over with a feather, Margaret Granberry pulling a gun on me! So I was sitting there, quiet, and I couldn't fight, because Hayden was there under the bed and who knew what would happen to him? And I was scared to death he'd wake up and make a noise."
"But he didn't."
"She looked around the room, but she never thought of looking under the bed," Regina said. "So she told me to get in my car, we were going to drive some." "And you went down the stairs?"
"Yes. It was hard to leave Hayden, but I knew once we left, Craig and Rory would search for him; Craig knew for sure he was in that room!" Regina beamed fondly. "Where was Craig when you left?"
"Oh, he and Luke were still arguing. Craig didn't say anything when he saw me coming out without the baby, and I knew he'd take care of Hayden and come after me."
I took a deep breath, and my head throbbed as though it were splitting.
"Aunt Roe," she said suddenly, "what are you and Uncle Martin doing in Corinth? Every now and then if Margaret and Luke are talking in this room right overhead I can hear them through the gap around the dryer vent, and I heard that you were at the farm. Doesn't anyone know where I am? Aren't Craig and Rory looking for me? Why do you have Hayden?"
I had to tell her about us bringing the baby and Rory back to Corinth, about what had happened before we'd brought them here. It wasn't kind to let her ignorance go on any longer, though I still had lots of questions. "So when you and Margaret drove off in your car," I began, "Luke was still arguing outside with Craig?"
"Yeah, they were standing on the steps."
Where Craig had left the hatchet. While the note to Rory began to disintegrate in the rain. What had Regina imagined the note said? Why hadn't Regina figured the Granberrys had no reason to leave Rory a note if they planned to leave Craig there alive?
"Regina," I said, trying to sound gentle, succeeding only in sounding weary, "after you left, Luke killed Craig."
Regina stared down at me. "Why would he do that?" she asked finally. Her voice had a tremor in it.
"I guess they fought," I said. "Craig didn't want Luke to have Hayden. You both had gone back on your agreement. Luke was mad." Regina didn't seem to have much grasp of consequences.
"What about Rory? Did Luke go in the house and kill him too?" "No. Luke needed him to stay, get the baby back, and return him to Corinth. I suppose in the note... Margaret promised him more money if he brought the baby to them. But we brought the baby, and we wouldn't have given him up to Rory. All Rory was, was a problem. So today, Luke shot Rory." I could see the whites all around Regina's irises.
"Both gone," she whispered. "Then why am I alive?" That was a good question, and unexpectedly astute of Regina if she'd meant it literally. While she sat in disbelieving silence, I gave her the bare bones of our trip to Corinth, of what had happened at the farm this afternoon. And I had to tell her that Margaret and Luke had the baby. Regina began to cry, but I had no comfort to offer her. My own problems overwhelmed me. I couldn't move without waves of pain and nausea, and I could no longer put off my fear for Martin. I didn't have enough energy to worry about Karl Bagosian, too; I thought, obscurely, He's got plenty of family, and I did my best to dismiss him from my mind.
My thoughts wandered away from the chilly cellar and the stupid young woman beside me. I fantasized that maybe Martin had managed to make it to the road and was flagging down some passing car. That was the least taxing way to get help I could imagine. Even then, the struggle down the snowy driveway, the long cold wait... I remembered how sick Martin had looked, and I wondered what was wrong. After a while, I admitted to myself that I figured it was his heart. I recalled Martin's hesitance when I asked him about his physical, in what seemed the long-ago past. I suspected that Martin had learned then that something was going wrong inside him. But with the troubles of his family, and the troubles of my family, he'd thought it best to put off having that explored; that was what I would have done, and I was sure Martin would think that way. "You think Uncle Martin will get us out?" Regina asked, in a voice worn limp with tears.
I lay there and hated her. "He didn't look good when I last saw him," I said.
"Over at the farmhouse."
"We're on our own?" Regina sounded as if that was unbelievable. All her layers of backup, gone. I could sympathize. "Have you heard from my mother?" "Not a word."
"So she's still on her cruise," Regina said. She sat for a long time in silence, which I welcomed. When she finally spoke, it was hardly reassuring. "So they'll kill us, now that they've got the baby," she said, and I whispered, "Yes." She'd reasoned herself to the end of the line.
We fell silent. We waited.