Chelsea.”
She smiled faintly. “He’s their father. Why would he need to kidnap them?”
“He’s taking them to South America. He has a second family there and he killed Sam Helmstetter to cover up a mistake and now he’s . . .”
But Rosie was shaking her head. “Where are you getting that? A second family? That’s . . . silly. Eric and I have been having problems, sure, but what couple doesn’t?” She spoke in complete sentences. Either the poison was working itself through her system or her increasingly emotional state was burning it out fast.
“Do you have passports for the girls?” I asked. “Where are they?”
“Passports?” Rosie tried to get up. “Kitchen desk. But . . .” She put her hand to her forehead and fell back. “So dizzy . . .”
“Where are they?” I stood.
“Right side,” she said, panting. “Second drawer.”
I ran to the kitchen and yanked open the drawer. Papers of all sorts, but no little blue passport books. I rifled through the drawer’s entire contents. No passports. I opened the rest of the drawers, pulled cookbooks off shelves, flipped through telephone books. No passports. “They’re not here,” I called.
“No,” Rosie said. “They wouldn’t be. We carry them when we go across state lines.”
Frustration clawed at me. She had to believe me. What could I do to convince her? I paced the floor, balling my hands into fists until my knuckles ached. Think, Beth. Think! We didn’t have time for me to trot out all the evidence I’d gathered. What would convince her? Who would convince her?
Bingo.
I grabbed the cordless phone off the wall, ran it into the living room, and thrust it into her face. “He has his cell phone, doesn’t he? Call him. Call Eric. Ask him about Eva. And Chago and Rafael. Ask him about the purple ink. Ask him about the picture in his desk blotter. Go ahead, ask him.”
Rosie’s hand lifted, hesitated, then took the phone from me. As she punched in the numbers, we stared at each other wordlessly. She didn’t want any of this to be true. She wanted everything to be the way it was yesterday, and she wanted me to be stark, raving mad.
“Eric?” she asked. “Are the girls with you?”
I leaned close enough to hear his reply.
“Right here,” he said. “Did you want to say good-bye?”
She smiled at me. “That’s right. Put Amelia on, will you?” She gave a few mom endearments and kissing noises to her daughters.
“Ask him about Eva,” I whispered.
“Have a good time with the palm trees, honey,” she said. “Now let me talk to your dad again.”
“Rosie,” Eric said, “we’re getting ready to go through security. I have to hang up.”
“Rosie?” Eric asked. “Did you hear me? I have to—”
All in a rush, in a tumble of words and feelings and doubt and fear, Rosie asked a single question. “Eric, who’s Eva?”
There was a short silence. So very short, but long enough to tell long tales of lies and betrayal and untold amounts of heartbreak. Then there was a click and the line went dead.
I took the phone from her. “Let me call the poison control center,” I said. “First thing is to make sure the poison won’t—”
Tossing off the blanket, she grabbed the phone out of my hand and flung it out of reach. “First thing—the
She ran for the door, and I was right behind her.
Chapter 19
“Can’t you go any faster?” Rosie begged.
Since I was already driving faster than any rational human being should drive in three inches of wet, sloppy snow, I didn’t answer. For years I’d driven like . . . well, like a mother carrying precious cargo. I hadn’t pushed the edge of my driving capabilities in over a decade. Lucky for Rosie, I’d learned to drive in an area of Michigan that got a hundred and fifty inches of snow a year. Some things you never forget.
At least I hoped so.
We were headed west on Highway 30, chunking over the rows of slush kicked up by passing cars and large blocks of snow dropping off fenders.
Stay on target. Stay on target. . . .
The car began sliding right, starting to turn, starting to spin out of control, and Rosie’s hands shot out and latched on to the dashboard. “Beth! Watch out! Beth!
“Got it,” I said calmly. Or as calmly as I could. My right foot had come off the accelerator when the car started slipping. I desperately wanted to whip the wheel left, but knew I couldn’t. “Turn into the direction of the skid,” my father’s voice said. “Don’t fight the slide—work with it.”
The car slowed, I turned slightly right, hoped my seat belt was on tight, prayed that the air bags wouldn’t injure us too much, wondered if I’d paid the car insurance bill, and, above all, wished I was home in bed.
We slid for a year and a day, through a white blurry world, through a soundless universe, and just before the car went into the ditch, I felt control come back to my hands. I eased the wheel left and there we were, driving along in the right lane as if nothing had happened.
“Just like riding a bike.” I swallowed down the bitter taste of fear.
“What’s that?” Rosie asked. “This is taking too long.” She pounded the dash. “Can you go any faster?”
I risked a glance at my passenger. Nothing but large eyes, white showing all around. “Why don’t you call 911?” I asked. “Maybe we can get some police help.”
“Right.” She rustled around in the purse she’d grabbed as we’d run out her front door.
She was still explaining the situation to the dispatcher when we drove into the Dane County Regional Airport. “We’re at the airport right now,” she said. “He said they were going to Denver first. What airline? Um . . .” She pressed the tips of her fingers into her forehead. “Um . . . United? Pretty sure it’s United. Departure time?” She gave me a wild look. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember!”
Panic was starting to grab hold of her, which would do none of us any good. I risked taking a hand off the wheel and gave her arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“Okay,” she was saying. “I’m taking a deep breath. Okay. Yeah, I’m okay. Eric left late because I was sick”—her eyes narrowed to the thinnest of slits—“and in this snow it might have taken twice as long to get here, so they could be flying out any minute. How long before someone can get here?” She paused, listening, and any semblance of calm vanished. “You want me to
“Um . . .” Hanging up on a 911 call couldn’t be a good idea.
“I know,” Rosie said, “I shouldn’t have done that. But she was telling me to stay outside. To wait for the police to arrive!”
Either the dispatcher didn’t have children or she was just doing what her job told her to do. No mother worth the name would willingly stand idle while her children were in danger. It was a physical impossibility and cruel to even ask.
Just shy of the second entrance to the terminal, the closest entrance to the United ticketing desk, I started braking into a sloppy stop. Even before the car stopped moving forward, Rosie and I had opened our doors and were out in the cold, running as fast as we could.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” a skycap said, “but you can’t leave your vehicle there. Ma’am? Ma’am!”
Rosie and I rushed into the building, brushing the edges of our shoulders on the too-slow automatic doors. Inside, we came to an instant stop. All was bedlam. Children screeching, adults scolding, teenagers sulking, airport personnel looking harried and worn. It was Thanksgiving week, and the mass movement of Americans had begun.
