She entered a small foyer to an examination room. A young woman stepped out in a white smock. A name tag said MARYELLEN STAFF NURSE.
“May I help you?”
Rachel explained that she was looking for her son.
“We have nobody here by that name. Did you check with Karl at the lodge?”
Rachel nodded. “Does the name Dr. Lucius Malenko mean anything to you?”
The woman repeated the name and shook her head. “Our camp doctor is Mark Walsh,” she added pleasantly. “May I ask what this is all about?”
Rachel shook her head. “Are there any other medical facilities around here? An infirmary, hospital, clinic?”
“This is the only infirmary we have. What are you looking for?”
Rachel took a deep breath to steady herself. “If a child got seriously injured—say a concussion or worse, where would you send him?”
The woman gave her a puzzled look. “Well, there’s the Coburn Medical Center in Barnstead about eight miles from here.” And she rattled off the directions.
“That’s the closest?”
“Yeah. If we have a serious problem, that’s where we’d take them. May I ask …?”
Rachel thanked the woman and left.
She stood on the porch for a moment. It had begun to drizzle, and the sky was darkening. In an hour, it would be night. She had been up since early that morning, exhausted from the flight, then the ride up here. On top of that, fear and despair were filling her up.
Brendan was in the car. She started toward it, her mind racing to decide what she should do. She cut across the road to the parking lot, when out of the gloom she heard a child’s voice.
“Mommy!”
Rachel turned around, and before she knew it a little boy wrapped his arms around her middle.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
For a split instant Rachel’s heart swelled with joy. Suddenly she gasped in horror. It was not Dylan.
Still clinging to her, the child said, “I love you, Mommy! I love you, Mommy! I love you, Mommy!”
A woman rushed up to her. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said and tried to peel the child off Rachel. But he would not let go, and Rachel struggled to keep from being toppled.
Suddenly the boy began to wail as the woman tugged at his arms.
“Daniel, no! Let the lady go. She’s not your mommy.”
But the child fought her, pulling with one hand at Rachel’s blouse. Finally, the woman grabbed both of Daniel’s hands and yanked him free.
He continued to blubber and grasp at Rachel. As the woman apologized and pulled him away, Rachel noticed that the boy was wearing a red plastic band on his left wrist. And there was an awful vacant look in his eyes as the woman held him back, explaining that Rachel was not his mother. In the confusion, the baseball cap he had been wearing fell off, and instantly the woman put it back on his head. But before she did, Rachel noticed the boy had no hair.
“Sorry,” the woman said, and led the little boy to a dark van.
Rachel returned to her car, and through the windshield she watched the woman put the child inside. She was probably an aunt or guardian, and they were up here to visit an older sibling, Rachel told herself.
For a brief moment before she got in herself, the woman looked over her shoulder at Rachel. For a second, Rachel felt something pass between them. Then the woman got in and drove away.
Rachel started the car, shaking as if the drizzle had turned to sleet. “Brendan, think again. Are you sure this is where you followed him? Are you sure this is the road he turned down, not some other dirt road?” From the main road, they all looked alike.
Brendan looked at her solemnly. “It’s the right road. I r-r-remember the sign.”
She pulled out of the campsite and up the drive to the main road.
“Where we going?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You’re almost out of gas.” The dashboard warning light was on. “There’s a self-serve M-Mobil station we passed about two miles up the road.”
Brendan was right about the gas station. After a few minutes Rachel pulled up to the pumps. While Brendan got out and pumped the gas, she called the number for the Coburn Medical Center. When the operator answered, Rachel asked if they had a recent admission named Dylan Whitman or a Dr. Lucius Malenko on staff. There was a promising pause, then the operator said there was no record for either name.
Her body began to shake again, and tears flooded her eyes. Any moment she might begin screaming and not stop.
“Mrs. Whitman?” Brendan’s head was at her window.
She rolled down the window and handed him a wad of money then began to raise the window.
“Mrs. Whitman, I think Dr. M-M-Malenko just drove by.”
“What?”
He nodded in the direction they had come. “It was hard to tell, but a red Porsche j-just went by.”
“Get in! Get in.”
“B-but … the g-gas?”
He had only put in a couple dollars’ worth. “We’ve got enough.”
Brendan lumbered into the station to pay as she turned the car around.
In a few seconds, they were on the road racing through the rain in the direction of the Porsche.
Brendan didn’t know if it was Malenko, but how many red Porsches were there in this part of Maine? And if it was Malenko, she prayed he wasn’t driving far, because she had barely a quarter tank of gas.
The pavement was slick, and she had to take care rounding the corners. After several miles, she still had not caught up, and less than a mile ahead was the cutoff for Camp Tarabec.
When she came to the entrance, she began to turn down when Brendan stopped her. “No. Straight. There aren’t any tire tracks in the mud.”
He was right. She backed up, leaving clear tracks, but the rest of the dirt road was unrutted mud. She shot back onto the street. Thankfully, there were no other driveways or side roads for a couple miles. But there would be more, so she accelerated in case he turned off.
After maybe another two miles of black woods, she saw red taillights flicker ahead of her. They passed a sign saying MARLON’S HEAD BEACH—3 MILES. They were heading for the coast.
“That’s him,” Brendan said.
A red Porsche.
The road opened up on either side, as the woods gave way to fields then to saltwater marshlands. In the distance, she could see the Porsche pull behind more cars, and just beyond it, about half a mile, was a bridge.
Suddenly, red and yellow lights began flashing ahead as bells clanged.
“Oh, God, no!”
Maybe a quarter mile ahead, the Porsche shot onto the bridge just as the gate came down. It was a drawbridge, which had opened to let sailboats pass. In the distance was the ocean.
Rachel came to a screeching halt before the gate. Three mast vessels lined up to pass through. It could take fifteen minutes before the bridge was passable again.
While the lights blinked, the first sailboat slowly glided through the opening. Holding her breath, Rachel watched the Porsche take off toward the shore road. In a matter of seconds, he would turn one way or the other and be gone.
But instead of proceeding to the beach, the car turned right into a parking lot maybe half a mile away. The taillights flared as it came to a stop.
Brendan got out. A moment later he stuck his head into the window. “Mrs. Whitman?” He handed her a large black pair of binoculars.
