end. People from all over town went out to help.”
Denise shook her head, amazed. “But they didn’t even know me.”
“People have a way of surprising you, don’t they? But there are a lot of good people here. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t surprised at all. Edenton’s a small town, but it has a big heart.”
“Have you lived here your whole life?”
Judy nodded.
Denise whispered conspiratorially, “I’ll bet you know practically everything that goes on here.”
Judy put her hand over her heart like Scarlett O’Hara and slowly drawled out the words.
“Darlin’, I could tell you stories that would make your eyebrows curl.”
Denise laughed. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to visit sometime and you could fill me in.”
Judy played the innocent southern belle to the hilt. “But that would be gossiping, and gossiping’s a sin.”
“I know. But I’m weak.”
Judy winked. “Good. I am, too. We’ll do that. And while we’re at it, I’ll tell you what your mom was like as a little girl.”
An hour after lunch, Carl Huddle met with Denise and finished up the remaining paperwork. Lighthearted and far more alert than the evening before, Denise answered everything in detail. Even then-since the case was more or less officially closed-it didn’t take more than twenty minutes. Kyle was sitting on the floor, playing with an airplane that Denise had fished from her purse. Sergeant Huddle had returned that as well.
When they were finished, Sergeant Huddle folded everything into a manila file, though he didn’t rise right away. Instead he closed his eyes, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.
“Excuse me,” he said, trying to shake the drowsiness that had come over him.
“Tired?” she asked sympathetically.
“A little. I had an eventful evening.”
Denise adjusted herself on the bed. “Well, I’m glad you came by. I wanted to thank you for what you did last night. You can’t imagine how much it means to me.”
Sergeant Huddle nodded as if he’d been in similar situations before.
“You’re welcome. That’s my job, though. Besides, I have a little girl of my own, and if it had been her, I would have wanted everyone within a fifty-mile radius to drop what they were doing to help find her. You couldn’t have dragged me away last night.”
From his tone, Denise didn’t doubt him.
“So,” she asked, “you have a little girl?”
“Yeah, I do. Her birthday was last Monday. Just turned five. It’s a good age.”
“They’re all good ages, at least that’s what I’ve learned. What’s her name?”
“Campbell. Like the soup. It’s Kim’s-my wife’s-maiden name.”
“Is she your only child?”
“So far. But in a couple of months she won’t be.”
“Oh, congratulations. Boy or girl?”
“Don’t know yet. We’ll be surprised, just like we were with Campbell.”
She nodded, closing her eyes for a moment. Sergeant Huddle bounced the folder against his leg, then rose to leave.
“Well, I should be going. You probably need some rest.”
Though she suspected he was speaking more for himself, Denise sat up higher in the bed. “Well . . . um . . . before you go-can I ask you a couple of questions about last night? With all the commotion then and everything this morning, I really haven’t learned what went on. At least, not from the horse’s mouth.”
“Sure. Ask away.”
“How were you able to . . . I mean, it was so dark and with the storm . . .” She paused, trying to find the right words.
“You mean, how did we find him?” Sergeant Huddle offered.
She nodded.
He glanced at Kyle, who was still playing with an airplane in the corner.
“Well, I’d like to say it was all skill and training, but it wasn’t. We got lucky. Damn lucky. He could have been out there for days-it’s that dense in the swamp. For a while there, we had no idea which way he’d gone, but Taylor sort of figured that Kyle would follow the wind and keep the lightning behind him. Sure enough, he was right.”
He nodded toward Kyle with a look like that of a father after his son hits the game-winning home run, then went on. “You’ve got one tough boy there, Miss Holton. His being okay had more to do with him than any of us. Most kids-hell, every kid I know-would have been terrified, but your little boy wasn’t. It’s pretty amazing.”
Denise’s brow furrowed as she thought about what he’d just told her.
“Wait-was that Taylor McAden?”
“Yeah, the guy who found you.” He reached up and scratched his jaw. “Actually, he was the one who found both of you, if you want to get right down to it. He found Kyle in a duck blind, and Kyle wouldn’t let go of him until we got him to the hospital. Clamped on to him like a crab claw.”
“Taylor McAden found Kyle? But I thought you did.”
Sergeant Huddle picked up his trooper hat off the end of the bed. “No, it wasn’t me, but you can bet it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying. It’s just that Taylor seemed to have a bead on him all night, don’t ask me how.”
Sergeant Huddle seemed lost in thought. From where she was lying, Denise could see the bags under his eyes. He looked drawn, as if he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed.
“Well . . . thank you anyway. Without you, Kyle probably wouldn’t be here.”
“No problem. I love a happy ending, and I’m glad we had one.”
After saying good-bye, Sergeant Huddle slipped out the door. As the door closed behind him, Denise looked upward, toward the ceiling, without really seeing it.
Taylor McAden? Judy McAden?
She couldn’t believe the coincidence, but then again, everything that happened last night had fluke written all over it. The storm, the deer, the seat belt over her lap but not her shoulder (she’d never done that before and wouldn’t do it again, that was for sure), Kyle wandering away while Denise was unconscious and unable to stop him . . . Everything.
Including the McAdens.
One here for support, the other one finding her car. One who knew her mother long ago and one who ended up locating Kyle.
Coincidence? Fate?
Something else?
Later that afternoon, with the help of a nurse and the local telephone directory, Denise wrote out individual thank-you notes to Carl and Judy, as well as a general note (addressed in care of the fire department) to everyone involved in the search.
Last, she wrote out her note to Taylor McAden, and as she did so, she couldn’t help but wonder about him.
Chapter 10
Three days after the accident and successful search for Kyle Holton, Taylor McAden walked beneath the marlstone archway that served as an entrance and made his way to the headstone in Cypress Park Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Edenton. He knew exactly where he was going, and he cut across the lawn, weaving around memorials. Some were so ancient that two centuries of rain had smoothed away nearly all the writing on the stones, and he could remember times he’d stopped to try to decipher them. It was, he soon realized, impossible.
Today, though, Taylor paid them little attention as he moved steadily beneath a cloudy sky, stopping only when he reached the shade of a giant willow tree. Here, on the west side of the cemetery, the marker he’d come
