There was a brief silence. Then a voice said, “Dr. Jennings, this is Frank Zwick.”
Will shook his head. The FBI man didn’t give up easily, he had to give him that. There was no telling how long they had been making that radio call. Ever since he switched off his radio, probably.
“Doctor, we intercepted part of that last cell phone transmission. We heard what Hickey said about your daughter.”
Will didn’t respond.
“Where are you, Jennings? Let us help you.”
“Where I am doesn’t matter.” He kept his eyes on the interstate to his right. “Tell me one thing. Did you ever figure out how Hickey escaped from the airport?”
“We’re pretty sure he carjacked a Toyota Camry from a woman who arrived in the garage at the same time he and your wife did.”
“What color was it?”
“A silver ninety-two model. We got it off the garage security tapes. We just had the Highway Patrol put out a BOLO on it.”
“Could you answer one question for me?”
“What is it?”
Will steeled himself. “Has my wife’s body turned up anywhere?”
“No. We have no reason to believe that your wife has been injured. Doctor, we need to know where you are. We can’t-”
Will switched off the radio.
“Have you seen anything?” he asked Cheryl.
“I’m looking,” she assured him. “I’ve seen every other kind of car, but no Rambler.”
“Scan, don’t focus. If you see anything that looks remotely like it, sing out. I’ll come around with the flow of traffic.”
“Is that Brookhaven over there?”
“Where?”
She pointed east. “Yonder way.” “Yes.”
“Hey!” she cried. “There’s the motel! That’s the Trucker’s Rest! Right by the exit.”
“Can you see the parking lot?”
“We’re too far away.”
Will didn’t think Huey could have reached the motel yet, but he couldn’t afford to pass it by without a look. He pushed the engines harder and circled back to check the parking lot. Skipping the Baron over a cellular transmission tower, he floated past the exit ramp and dropped over the parking lot of the Trucker’s Rest like a seagull looking for scraps.
“No Rambler,” Cheryl said.
Will shot back over the interstate and resumed his course parallel to the southbound lanes coming out of Jackson. He saw Tauruses, Lexuses, SUVs by the dozen, semi-trucks, Winnebagos, and motorcycles. But no Rambler.
“Be right,” he said softly, holding the image of a Rambler in his mind. “Be right.”
“Oh my God,” Cheryl said, which sometimes seemed the sum total of her vocabulary.
“What is it?”
She was staring down at the interstate with her mouth hanging open.
“What?”
“I saw it.”
“The Rambler?”
She turned to him and nodded, her eyes wide.
“Are you positive?”
“It was them. I saw Huey’s face. I saw your little girl in the passenger window.”
Will suddenly found it difficult to breathe. He craned his neck to look back, but the spot was far behind them now. Climbing skyward, he pulled the Baron around in a turn so tight the nose could have kissed the tail.
“What are you going to do?” Cheryl asked.
“Make another pass. You make damn sure it’s them. And belt yourself in.”
“Oh my God.”
TWENTY
“Let me tell you something about revenge,” Hickey said.
He and Karen were twenty-five miles south of Jackson, and his mood seemed to improve with every mile. She could see anticipation in the way he leaned into the wheel as he drove. She looked through her window. A long field of cotton was giving way to a field of house trailers. PREFABRICATED HOUSING! blared the banner hanging over the lot’s entrance. GET A DOUBLE-WIDE DELUXE TODAY!
“You remember what you asked me this morning?” Hickey asked.
“What?”
“Would I kill you instead of your kid?”
Karen nodded cautiously. Hickey was fond of games. Like a cruel child teasing a wounded animal, he liked to probe her with a sharp stick and watch her squirm.
“You still want it that way? If somebody has to die, I mean?”
“Yes.”
He nodded thoughtfully, as though considering a philosophical argument. “And you think that would do the trick? Your dying would hurt your husband enough to pay him back for killing my mother?”
“Will didn’t kill your mother.” But someone should have, she thought. Before she birthed you, you son of a bitch.
“See, I don’t think it would,” Hickey said. “Hurt him that much, I mean. And the reason is interesting. See, you’re not his blood.”
She refused to look at him.
“If you died, he might miss you for a while. But the fact is, you’re just his wife. He can get another one. Damn easy, with all the money he’s got. A lot newer model, too. Hell, he might be tired of you already.”
Karen said nothing.
“But your little girl, now, that’s different. That’s blood of his blood. That’s him, the same way Mama and me were joined. And nearly six, that’s old enough for him to really know her. He loves that kid. Light of his life.”
At last she turned to him. “What are you telling me? Are you saying you’re going to kill Abby?”
He smiled. “I’m just explaining a concept to you. Hypothetically. Showing you what’s wrong with your idea from this morning.”
“This morning you told me I didn’t need to worry about that. You said nobody was going to die.” And somebody already has, she reminded herself, thinking of Stephanie.
Hickey tapped the wheel like a man content. “Like I said. Hypothetically.”
As soon as Will completed his turn and settled the Baron back over the oncoming traffic, he saw the small white car Cheryl had seen. Box-shaped and splotched with primer, it was piddling along compared to the other traffic, constantly being passed on the left. Cheryl was right: it was a Rambler. Will reduced power, slowing the plane until it was practically drifting up the interstate toward the car.
Then he saw it.
A small head in the passenger compartment of the Rambler, sitting close to a huge figure behind the wheel. A figure so large that it seemed to dwarf the car itself. The child was moving in the front seat, and as the Baron closed on the Rambler, Will made out the form and face he would have known by the dimmest candlelight. A relief unlike anything he had ever known rolled through him. Abby was alive. She was alive, and nothing on God’s earth would keep him from her now.
“Hello, Alpha-Juliet,” he said softly. He waggled his wings once, then again.
