With Child

'Well,' she said in resignation, aware now that she really was beginning to feel ill, 'I had thought we'd make it to Portland tonight.'

'That's okay then,' Jules said. 'I'm not starving.'

'No, I mean I don't think we'll make it. I'm afraid we're going to have to stop, anyway.'

Through the incipient nausea and the tightening throb of her peripheral vision, Kate saw Jules look at her quickly.

'Your head?'

'I'm afraid so. I haven't had one for nearly a week; I thought they were over. Sorry.'

'Oh God, Kate, don't apologize. Just stop.'

'I could go on for another hour, I think.'

'Why?'

Why indeed?

'We can't just stop. It'll have to be a place for the night, so I can go to bed. I'll be fine in the morning,' she lied. She would be shaky and distant tomorrow, but functional.

'There're a couple of motels and restaurants two exits from now - that's what made me mention dinner. The sign said five miles.'

'Would that suit you?'

'Sure. I have a book.'

'I'm really sorry about this.'

'Oh hey, it's a real hardship, stopping at four o'clock instead of seven. Like, major downer, man, I just can't stand it; I'll have to walk to Portland without you.'

'Is downer back in? I've heard cool and even bummer, which was out of it by the time I was growing up. Bad trip will be revived next.' Kate was trying, but it was getting bad fast.

'Cool is cool, but out of it is out of it,' Jules informed her.

'Wouldn't you know?' she said lightly, and in a few minutes, she asked, 'Which do you want, Best Western, Motel Six, or TraveLodge?'

'Which one has cable? This one says it does, but that one is farther from the freeway, so it'd be quieter.'

'Jules, choose. Now.'

'Turn right.'

Kate signed the register with unsteady hands, one small and fading part of her carrying on in the onslaught inside her tender skull, arranging cable for Jules's room, arranging meals on the bill, taking the keys, aware of Jules, solicitous and worried at her elbow, practically guiding Kate up the stairs and dumping Kate's bag on the chair.

'Can I do anything for you?'

'Pull the curtains shut, would you? That's better.'

'Do you want a doctor or something?'

'Jules, please, I just need to be alone and quiet.' She squinted across the room at the girl and saw the fear in her eyes. 'Jules, I promise you, I'm okay. It's just a kind of spasm that happens. I've had them before, and I'll probably have them again. They're' - she had to hunt for the word -'temporary. In the morning, I will be fine. Now, you go have some dinner.' The lurch of her stomach was almost uncontrollable this time, and she swallowed the rush of saliva in her mouth. 'Watch MTV until midnight, and I'll see you tomorrow. Did I give you the car key?'

'Yes. I have it. And should I take your room-key, just in case…?'

'I really don't want you to come over, Jules, but if it makes you feel better, take it.' And go! she wanted to shriek. Jules either saw the thought or sensed it, because she picked up Kate's room key and went to the door.

'Jules, I'm really sorry.'

'Don't worry, Kate. I hope you sleep well.'

'G'night.' The door started to close, but one last stir of her carrying-on self urged Kate to say, 'Jules?' and the girl stuck her head back in. 'Don't go anywhere, will you? Other than the restaurant.'

'Of course not,' the girl said, and closed the door firmly behind her.

Kate took six rapid steps to the toilet, where she was comprehensively sick. Afterward, she washed her face with tender care, brought each shoe up to untie the laces before stepping on the heels to pull them off, and then slid gratefully between the stiff, sterile sheets. And slept and slept.

In the morning when she woke, Jules was missing.

THIRTEEN

It did not help, being a cop. There was no armor against this, no reserves of professional impersonality to draw from, no protection. If anything, being a cop only intensified the horror, because she knew the dangers all too intimately. Kate had a full portfolio of images to draw from, all the dead and mangled innocents she had seen in her job, feeding into the standard reactions of any adult whose beloved child has disappeared: the rising tide of panic when there was no response next door and no familiar butch haircut in the restaurant, the muttered fury of just what she would do to the child when it turned out to be a false alarm - how could she put Kate through this routine, she who had always seemed so responsible? Why didn't she leave a note, a message? And by God, if she was in the shower all this time, oblivious to the pounding and shouting - The only way to keep from losing it, Kate's only hope against the almost overpowering urge just to bash her aching skull against the metal post that held up the overhang on the walkway, was to find the armor of Police Officer, buckle it on, and cope.

She tried very hard, but it would not stay in place. 'Yes, of course I looked in the restaurant. I looked in all three restaurants,' she told the man at the reception desk, a different man from the sharp-eyed Middle Easterner who had been there the night before, though like enough to be a brother or cousin. But stupid. 'Nobody saw her since last night. I just want the key. Yes, I know it's not on the hook - the man who was on duty yesterday gave it to us but the girl in that room took it, and I can't find her. Just let me borrow your master key; I'll bring it right back. Oh, surely you can leave the desk for two minutes.' The armor slipped, and the elemental and terrified Kate looked out. She leaned forward and snarled into the clerk's face, 'I'm a police officer, and I'll have your balls in jail if you don't have that room open in thirty seconds.'

It was not until Kate stood in the doorway of the empty room and saw the bed and the three keys on the table - one for the car and two for their rooms - that the cold precision of routine slid into place. The coverlet was wrinkled, the pillows piled against the head-board, a black remote-control device lying to one side: the bed had not been slept in. The television at the foot of the bed was on, showing the menu screen and giving out no sound.

Kate's hands went automatically into her pockets, her ingrained response to avoid contamination of a crime scene. The clerk was peering over her shoulder, but Kate did not move from the doorway. 'Go and call the police,' she told him, her voice impossibly level. 'Tell them there may have been a kidnapping.' How can I be saying those words? her brain yammered. I'm the one who answers the call, not the one who makes it.

'There is a telephone just there,' the clerk said.

'Call from the office.' When he did not move, she snapped, 'Sir, now. Please.'

He left. She stepped into the room, her eyes darting across every bit of floor and surface. At the door to the bathroom, she took her right hand from her pocket and, using the backs of her fingernails, pushed the door open. The toilet had been used but not flushed (a true child of California's perpetual drought, Kate thought absently), one glass had been unwrapped, and there was a crumpled hand towel on the fake marble of the sink. Beside the towel lay the new zip bag Jules had bought on the shopping trip in Berkeley, filled with the new cosmetics she had bought in the drugstore in Sacramento, but Kate could see no sign of a toothbrush or hairbrush, and she did not want to disturb the bag to look. Back out in the room, Kate checked the closet: empty, though one hanger had been pulled out from the cluster that was pushed against the end. She felt in her pocket, pulled out a pen, and used it to open the drawers: empty, all of them, but for one that held stationery and a Gideon Bible. She closed the drawers and went out of the room just as the excited clerk came back up the stairs. She put the key that he had given her into her pocket and asked him, 'When does your cleaner come?' His face was avid, greedy as a panhandling drug addict, and she had to push down a surge of pure hatred.

'She's down at the other end, downstairs. She works her way up here by about ten or so - another hour at