“Aunt Pam gave you a drink, though, didn’t she?”
“She put it in my Pepsi?”
“Probably.”
“So
She could’ve killed me,” he said indignantly. “That stuff’s like poison if you take too much.”
“I don’t think she meant to hurt you, Cal. I think she just wanted to make sure you’d stay quiet.”
I almost smiled at his skeptical “Humpf!” but then his voice came small and tentative.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Aunt Pam said a lot of awful crazy stuff while we were hiding.”
“Like what?”
But Cal wasn’t quite ready to go there. “Is Miss Deborah okay? Aunt Pam hit her really hard.”
“She’s got a big lump on her head, but nothing serious.”
“Good. I was afraid Aunt Pam killed her. When we were looking for Mother . . .”
“Yes?”
“Aunt Pam said Mother was in trouble. I wanted to go 29 back and get you, only she said Mother said for me to go with her and not to let anybody know or she’d be hurt, but then she kept driving around and around till it was almost dark because she said somebody was following us, then we sneaked in the Morrow House while Mr. Mayhew was back in the office. I thought Mother was going to be there, but she wasn’t. We went upstairs to that secret room with the Jesus pictures and she said we’d be safe there. She said a bad guy took Mother and wanted to take me, too, and we’d have to stay there for a while. I kept telling her you’d take care of any bad men, but she wouldn’t listen. She said they had bloodhounds and could track us down.”
“Sounds scary,” said Dwight.
“Well actually, it was a little bit,” Cal admitted. “Especially when I woke up and Aunt Pam was gone, but then she came back and everything she said was just flat-out crazy because she said Mother was dead and I’d have to stay really quiet or they’d get me, too. I tried to make her tell me what happened to Mother, but she didn’t make any sense and then I kept being so sleepy I couldn’t stay awake.”
There was a long silence, then Cal said, “Dad? Is Mother actually dead like Aunt Pam said?”
“I’m afraid so, son.”
Cal began to cry and I opened my eyes a narrow slit to see Dwight lie down beside his son and hold him till we both fell asleep again.
C H A P T E R
32
Night’s dark sky was a dirty gray when the three of us were awakened by a nurse with strawberry blond hair who came in to check Cal’s vitals and to remove the IV needle from his wrist. We could hear the clatter of the stainless steel food cart working its way down the hall.
“Looks like this room’s going to be empty real soon,”
she said cheerfully.
I could never deal with the life-and-death traumas of medicine, so whenever I come across someone like—I looked at her nametag—like Stephanye Sanderson, RN, I am always grateful that such women are there for the rest of us.
“How is he?” I asked.
She smiled at me, but addressed Cal with a formality that left him gravely pleased. “Your blood pressure’s back in the normal range, Mr. Bryant, and your breakfast tray will be here in a little bit. What about you, Judge Knott?
How’s your head?”
“Much better,” I told her. “It’s still tender, but I don’t have a headache anymore.”
“Good. The doctor usually makes rounds by eight, so this young man can probably get dressed as soon as he’s been examined.”
I had caught a whiff of Cal’s clothes in the ambulance last night and knew he’d be embarrassed to realize that he’d wet himself during one of the long sleeps of his cap-tivity.
“Tell you what,” I said, after I’d splashed water on my face, combed my hair, and put on lipstick. “How about I go pick up our toothbrushes and bring you some fresh clothes?”
“I can do that,” said Dwight.
Cal put out an involuntary hand to hold him there, but I didn’t take it as a slight. After what he’d been through, of course he wanted his dad there.
“No, you stay with Cal.” I picked up the plastic bag with Cal’s dirty clothes and slung my purse over my
