Forsaken (19 page)

I hit the radio button, killed the heater, and listened. The only sound was the hum of the idling engine. I released the safety on my pistol. My brain inventoried all of the harmless things that could have hit the
roof: a small tree branch carried by the wind, a dead bird . . . I really couldn’t think of anything else. It wasn’t very windy, and what were the odds on the bird? My stomach rumbled. If I wanted to find out what
did
hit the car, I would have to get out and look. That struck me as a stunningly poor option.

I continued to listen, my neck swiveling to cover the windows. I cursed the inventor of the SUV—way too much glass. Several old camp stories found their way forward from my brain’s deep-storage vaults. Each one seemed to end with a dead girl near a car on a dark country road.

Ultimately I determined that sitting in the car and torturing myself over whether something was on the roof was worse than getting out and dying. I gripped the door handle.

Should I ease out and peek above the SUV, or throw the door open and jump clear before turning to look? I opted to jump clear and spin back toward the car as soon as I got my feet under me. That way maybe I could at least create an advantage with surprise.

I braced my right foot against the base of the console and stared at the door. Leaning toward the door handle, I prepared to yank and dive. My head was so close to the handle that my breath fogged the chrome. I hadn’t realized how silent the night was until I began to imagine how loud it would sound when the door handle popped the door open. I would have to move fast. I tightened my grip on the handle and counted: one, two . . .

Something banged against the passenger door behind me. Before I could react, the door swung open. I spun and pointed the gun—directly at Kacey’s face. She lunged into the front seat and threw her muddy arms around my neck. Then she pulled back. “Where’s Dad?”

I reached across her, slammed the door shut, and punched the auto lock. “First, where are they?” I scanned the windows.

“They drove off as soon as they let me out on the other side of the creek. I waded the creek and ran through the woods.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

I stretched my arm across her chest and pushed her back to the seat. “Hold on.” I threw the SUV into reverse and mashed the accelerator. We squealed backward all the way to the intersection, where I spun the car ninety degrees, threw it into drive, and stomped the accelerator again.

Kacey looked at me, eyes wide. She grabbed her seat-belt and buckled it.

We shot back across the bridge. I checked her out of the corner of my eye. She was clutching the sides of her seat. “Don’t worry, I know how to do this. I have no intention of letting those guys change their minds.”

A few minutes later, when we were back on the highway, I eased my foot off the accelerator and handed her my cell phone. “Punch eight. It’s a speed dial to your father’s hospital room. He’s waiting to hear from you.”

“Hospital?”

“Only a hospital could have kept him away. He’s had some excitement too, but he’s fine.”

As she talked to Simon, I pulled the Internet directions to the Elgin Police Department from my pocket and held them up to the tiny dome light. We were just a few minutes away. I wadded the paper and dropped it on the floor.

When we pulled into the police station parking lot, Kacey flipped the phone shut. I turned off the car and looked at her. Her clothes were coated with mud, and she was missing a shoe. Her face and neck were covered in wet brown splotches. I reached out and gently lifted her left hand. A filthy gauze bandage covered her missing fingertip.

“I’m fine.”

I wiped mud from above her eye. Suddenly I began to cry.

She touched my hand. “I said I’m fine. Are you?”

I waved my hand in the air. “Oh, I’m okay. I do this sometimes. I’m just really happy that you’re alive.” I swiped my sleeve across my face, spreading mud over the bridge of my nose. Her hug had made me nearly as muddy as she was.

She laughed. “We look great. I sure hope there are photographers in there, don’t you?”

“You bet. Let’s make our entrance.” I pulled the key out of the ignition.

As we walked in the front door of the station and headed for the intake desk, clumps of mud dropped
behind us like bread crumbs. The cop at the desk was hunched over a computer, typing. He looked up at us and his mouth dropped open.

“This is Kacey Mason,” I said. “Have you got a shower around here?”

Without taking his eyes off us, he picked up his phone and punched a button. “Sam, you’re never going to believe this.”

BY THE TIME WE got cleaned up, several Chicago police officers and two FBI agents had arrived at the station. They questioned us for a few hours, trying to gather every detail that might matter to their investigation. Then they put us on a charter flight to Dallas with the understanding that Michael Harrison and the Dallas FBI would want to talk to us again after Kacey saw her father.

Late that afternoon Kacey and I turned the corner into Simon’s hospital room. She ran across the floor and practically leaped into the bed. Even from the doorway I could see him wince as she squeezed against the wound on his chest. He gritted his teeth but didn’t complain. His face was pure joy.

“I was scared to death I’d never see you again,” he said. Are you all right?” He looked at her finger. She had a new bandage, compliments of a Chicago police doctor.

“I’m fine. The doctor with the police said the terrorists did a good job on it. I asked him if he thought I should send them a thank-you note.”

Simon’s eyebrows narrowed. “You’re really okay?”

“If you’re worried that I’m going to be messed up or something, I’m not. I’ve got half a finger less than I had a week ago, but I’ll survive.”

“I just want you to know that you don’t have to act tough around us.”

“I’m not. I was terrified, believe me. I was asleep when they did the finger. They had a doctor—or he acted like a doctor—and he put me out. I didn’t know what they were doing. When I woke up part of my finger was gone.” They gave me pills for the pain, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“Did they . . . do anything else to you?”

“Don’t worry, Dad, they didn’t touch me. They hardly even talked to me.” She pointed at the bandages that were visible above the neck of his hospital gown. “How about you? I heard you got beat up.”

He smiled. “He mugged me. Taylor laid him out, though.”

“I heard that too.” She smiled at me. “Pretty cool, Taylor. Can you teach me to do that?”

I looked at Simon, and he nodded. “Sure. I can teach you some things. You’re a good athlete. You’ll learn quickly.”

She held up her hand. “Good, because nobody’s ever going to do this to me again.”

THAT EVENING THE HOSPITAL staff brought another bed into Simon’s room. Kacey and Simon went to sleep around 10:30, but not before Simon received a call from the vice president expressing his and the president’s happiness that Simon had gotten Kacey back safely. The Dallas police stationed two officers outside the door to replace the FBI agents. They both poked their heads around the corner when Simon cleared his throat and said, “Hello, Mr. Vice President.”

Once Simon and Kacey were settled for the night, I drove to my apartment to clean up and get something to eat. When I returned, I pulled the only available chair over from the nurse’s station and joined the policemen
outside Simon’s door. The chair was straight-backed, and the night promised to be long and uncomfortable. I nodded my appreciation when a sympathetic nurse with a round face and a green hair clip offered me a pillow and cotton blanket.

The hospital wing was a rectangle with rooms around the outside and a nurse’s station in the center. From where the policemen and I sat, we could see the television at the nurse’s station but could not hear the sound. A flushed anchorman with unnaturally thick black hair sat in front of a photo of Kacey. He held several sheets of typing paper in his hands and stared earnestly into the camera. His lips moved above a scrolling ticker that carried a quote by the Elgin police chief. One of the nurses reached up and changed the channel, then changed it again. Simon and Kacey were the story on each station.

I scanned the hallway that surrounded the nurse’s station. Everything was quiet. The hospital had a no-media policy on patient floors, and I hoped their security team knew how to enforce it. It didn’t require much imagination to envision photographers trying all sorts of schemes to reach Simon’s room. I didn’t want a tussle with the press tonight.

Just before 1 a.m., my chin was drooping to my chest when I heard the elevator doors open at the end of the hall. I shook my head and sat up. Elise stepped out of the elevator and looked around. When she spotted me, she frowned and strode down the hall, her blonde curls bouncing. By the time she was within ten feet, she was already wagging a finger and scolding me for not
calling her to let her know what had been happening. I glanced at the door to Simon’s room and held a finger to my lips. “Keep it down; it’s a hospital.” She lowered her voice but continued her assault.

The reality was that with all of the excitement I just hadn’t thought to call her. Neither had Simon and Kacey, a circumstance she chose to overlook. In the meantime Elise didn’t say a thing about my risking my life to bring Kacey back. Since Simon and Kacey were asleep, Elise made me promise to tell them she would return in the morning. She pivoted on the heels of her tan loafers and stomped back to the elevator.

I squeezed out a few hours of neck-wrenching sleep and was happy to hear Simon rustling in his bed around six. He must have hit the call button, because within a few minutes a nurse clip-clopped into the room pushing a white cart. I heard her say something about a fever. The doctor entered soon after, and before long they had Simon hooked up to an intravenous antibiotic for an infection in his chest wound. The doctor made it clear that Simon would not be leaving until the next day. Maybe not then.

Thankfully, the antibiotic worked quickly. Later in the morning Simon was already feeling much better. He stood up on his crutches and made his way into the bathroom to shower and shave. Kacey stayed with him, while I made a run to their house to pick up snack food, playing cards, and clothes.

By the time I got back, Simon had his bed in the sitting position. The three of us ate junk food and played
spades on his food tray. If it weren’t for the antiseptic smell of the place, it would have been like a little party in the den.

Around noon Elise stuck her head in the door. She saw me and scowled. Did the woman make a conscious decision to do that every time she saw me, or had it become a reflex thing, like breathing or blinking? When she saw Kacey, she ran over and wrapped her arms around her. “Are you all right, honey?”

“I’m okay. Dad’s the one who’s a mess.”

Simon gave her a weak smile. “What a wimp, huh?”

“You shouldn’t be sitting up, should you?” Elise looked at me as if I’d planned every ill-conceived moment of Simon’s after-care program. “I would think they should both be resting, not playing cards.”

I shrugged and popped a cheese puff into my mouth.

Kacey jumped in. “It was my idea, Elise. We were getting bored just lying around. Dad doesn’t want to watch TV.”

“Too bad. You’re on every station.”

Simon shot her a look. “I’m sure someone is recording it for us. I want to spend some family time before we have to deal with the media.”

Elise flushed. “Of course.” She was off to another great start with Simon.

I wasn’t eager to listen to another of their awkward conversations, and this time I had a way to save her. “Oops, that reminds me—” I dug my hand into my
purse—“I brought my other phone for you. It’s loaded with music.” I handed it to Kacey.

Her face brightened. “You’re a life saver—I guess that’s literally true, right, Dad?”

“You better believe it.”

Elise moved to the corner of the room and sat in a chair directly beneath the television, which hung on brackets from the wall. She folded her arms across her chest and may as well have clucked her tongue. I tried hard not to wish for the television to fall.

Kacey put the phone’s earbuds in and hit the menu button. “I guess I’ll be buying a new one of these,” she said. “The kidnappers weren’t courteous enough to gather my things for me before they put a bag over my head.”

I smiled. “My stuff’s probably not exactly what you would choose to listen to, but I’ve got some Beatles and some other oldies you might like. If you’ve never heard The Doors or Blind Faith, you might like them. My dad listened to them when I was growing up, so I kind of got hooked.”

“I like guitar.”

“Then you’re going to love the Allman Brothers Band. I’ve got a lot of their stuff.”

Elise stood. “There are a million reporters outside. They’re asking when someone’s going to talk to them.”

We all turned and looked at her. She sat back down and put her hands in her lap. “I was just wondering if you ought to say something to them, Simon.
Michael already read them a statement from the FBI’s perspective.”

Simon shook his head. “I’m not talking to them today; and probably not tomorrow, either.”