“My mama was so good. She was so, so good. She didn’t even fight him. Just let him knock her down so’s she could get back up, over and over until he heard somebody coming and had to stop. Then he knocked her down into the hole, and she stayed there.”
She broke and ran. Laneer lunged forward and actually touched her as she left, but his frail grip could do nothing to stop her.
Sylvia, a generation younger, hurdled the back of the chair in front of her, which was only empty because Kali had left it. Linton knocked Laneer’s empty seat out of his way and joined her in chasing the girl, but she had a head start that had already taken her out the sanctuary’s side door.
The rest of the room sat still for a moment, shocked into silence and inaction. After an odd delay, the congregation erupted. People were yelling and jumping out of their seats, but most of them just got in each other’s way. Laneer kept hobbling forward, far behind Kali’s other pursuers, but determined.
Some people rose to their feet but stayed put, muttering with their companions. Others hurried after Linton and Sylvia, close enough to see what was happening but far enough away to ensure that they didn’t get involved. Maybe they were trying to help but didn’t know how, or maybe they just didn’t want to miss any excitement. Faye couldn’t tell, but there was no doubt that they were adding to the turmoil.
Still others moved the opposite direction, having decided that the funeral was essentially over and why should they wait while the misbehaving child’s elders rounded her up? They had other places to be. These people scattered like sports fans watching a lopsided football game, thinking that if they hurried, they could get their cars out of the parking lot before everybody else.
Faye was caught in the press of people trying to move in both directions. Being shorter than most, she found herself pushed face-first into one person’s back and then another person’s sternum. Seeing her problem, McDaniel grabbed one of her forearms and yanked her free of the mob in the center aisle. Then he kept dragging her as he headed for the side aisle, then forward to the door where Kali had left the building. They were still dodging people, but there were fewer of them.
He didn’t even turn around as he told her why he was dragging her along with him. “The child won’t speak to anybody else. If anybody can get her to come back, it’s you.”
With McDaniel clearing their path, they made progress toward the open door. Faye was grateful for his help, but there would be a ring of bruises around that arm when the melee was past.
As they emerged from the chapel, they found themselves in a parking lot surrounded by woodlands. Behind the church, a creek much like the one in Kali’s neighborhood ran along the back property line. There were lots of people in sight, but none of them was a little girl in a black sundress, a ponytail, and black patent-leather Mary Janes.
Laneer was walking back and forth, calling Kali’s name. In the instant since she left his side, he had changed. He had been old before, with a tremor and wrinkles and a head of hair turning white. Now he looked elderly and infirm. And terrified.
“Where is she?” Faye asked McDaniel. “People don’t just disappear.”
Sylvia looked in no way elderly or infirm, but she, too, looked terrified. “Kali! Where’s my girl? You come here to Sylvia right this minute!”
The searchers fanned out. Linton and Walt sprinted into and across the parking lot, then straight down into the creek, splitting up as they crossed it and disappeared into the woods. Mayfield skirted the creek, disappearing behind the church building.
Jeremiah was calling his crew to him. As they gathered, Armand left his side and walked toward McDaniel, asking “What can I do to help?”
Before McDaniel could answer, Jeremiah spoke a few words and Stephanie and Ayesha dropped to all fours. They started looking under cars while Jeremiah and Richard took to the woods. At a hand signal from Jeremiah, the two men split, heading east and west, then deeper into the trees.
Faye’s first impulse was to head into the woods with them until, watching Stephanie and Ayesha check beneath one car after another, her heart stopped. Could Kali be hiding under a car? What if someone unknowingly started it up and drove away?
She looked up at McDaniel. “Nobody can go anywhere until we’ve checked under every one of those cars.”
Armand, now standing at McDaniel’s side, nodded. “You got that right.”
McDaniel turned to Armand and said, “You want to help? Stay right here and keep an eye on these cars. Check their trunks and back seats. I have to go to the lot on the other side of the church and do the same thing.”
He ran to the other parking lot and Faye hit the pavement. She started crawling from car to car, gravel digging into her bare knees until they bled.
The asphalt was hot and sticky under her palms and it smelled like hot motor oil. She worried as she crawled, because nearly half of the lot was already empty. Plenty of people must have gotten to the cars and left while she and McDaniel were still trying to get outside.
She told herself that it didn’t matter. The grisly truth was that she would have heard the screaming by now if someone had run over the little girl. Unfortunately, another truth was that she would have heard the crowd celebrating if anyone had found her, and she hadn’t heard that, either. Kali could have been in the trunk of any of the cars that had already left, and that trunk might also hold a shovel and a
