Rude Awakening (13 page)

She looked out over the night-filled pool below, as it reflected the little light given off by the moon, wondering if she could fly again, this time for real. Just let go and swoop down into the pool like an eagle or a hawk, fly off, following the stream of Mountain Falls Creek as it moved on to wherever it went, maybe to the Red River, even, or on into Texas. Maybe as far as the Gulf of Mexico.

But then from nowhere came a voice: ‘But what about your babies?' it asked.

‘Shhh,' Mary Ellen said into the silent night. ‘Shhh . . .'

It proved more difficult getting into patient records than it had getting into intern records. Actually, it was fairly close to impossible. It took a week of planning and sweet-talking a motherly nurse (which, ironically, was very close to what I was accusing Emil Hawthorne of), but I managed to get my hands on a year's worth of his patients' records. I knew I was breaking the law, risking my medical license, and I'm not sure if I was really doing it because of his past and future victims, or if I was just pissed off that he had intended for me to be one of them
–
maybe I was just seeking my own kind of revenge.

Emil Hawthorne was still sitting on his bale of hay, feeling sorry for himself. He didn't stir until he heard a commotion at the back of the barn. He turned, just in time to see Holly Humphries's backside slipping out a hole in the back wall of the barn. The kid was nowhere in sight.

‘Jesus H Christ on a bicycle!' Emil said, standing up and running to the back of the barn. ‘Holly!' he screamed through the hole. ‘Holly! You get back here! And bring that brat with you! Holly!'

Abruptly, he sat down on the barn's dirt floor and thought seriously about crying again. He took a deep breath of air, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. When someone answered, he said, ‘Things aren't going so well.'

Holly had no idea where she was. She was a Tulsa-born city girl, and didn't know diddly about the woods. And now, she was deep in them. She wished, for the first time in her life, that she'd paid attention the one time she went to a Camp Fire Girls meeting; maybe now she'd know which way was north. Not that she had any idea which direction Tulsa might be.

After aging out of the foster care system, Holly had stayed in Tulsa, the only town she had ever known, and initially moved in with three girls she knew through the system, one of whom left crack vials in the living room, and one who had a different guy spending the night every night. Holly and the third girl, Vivian, left after one such boyfriend tried to climb into bed with Vivian. The two got a very small efficiency apartment where they were able to live for almost six months, until Holly came home from one of her minimum-wage jobs to find a note from Vivian saying she'd decided to move to Dallas to find her father.

Holly wished her well but ended up bunking on someone's couch after her rent ran out on the efficiency apartment. She crashed on this couch until she met and moved in with the love of her life, Joshua. Joshua was a musician and didn't have a last name, so Holly signed the lease on a one-bedroom apartment, the most space Holly had ever lived in without a foster parent or halfway house director.

Holly stuck with her minimum-wage jobs, since Joshua wasn't yet making much money as a musician. Actually, he played for free most of the time – really, all the time – but he couldn't hold down a job because his gigs kept him up until the wee hours of the morning, and how could he hold down a job like that? So Holly took on a second minimum-wage job to pay the rent on the one bedroom. There were months when they went without electricity and water because she couldn't pay the bill, and often they would eat nothing but whatever leftovers Joshua brought home from the bars where he played for free. But Holly was in love and knew that one day Joshua would be a big star and she would live in a mansion and would be able to take acting lessons and maybe make her own movie.

Then one day she came home at her usual time from her earlier job to find Joshua in bed with another man. When she made a commotion about it, both Joshua and the other man suggested she join them. Holly packed her two bags' worth of belongings and ended up on someone else's couch. Again. She'd heard the landlord was trying to sue her over the broken lease, but since Holly had no actual address, she was never served.

The situation with Joshua had been over a year ago and she hadn't even thought of another man since, she'd been that broken-hearted. She also hadn't lived on her own since then. She brought the three bags containing all her worldly possessions with her when she came with Mr Smith, as the girl whose couch she'd been sleeping on had asked her to take her junk with her on the gig and to find somewhere else to live when it was over.

But now she couldn't help thinking of Tulsa, of the last warm room she'd had, sleeping on Jenny's couch, even though the girl told her not to come back. It had been a good couch, much better than the pine needles and fallen branches she saw around her now.

Holly looked down at her small charge, finally deciding she didn't have a better idea. ‘Eli, do you know which way we should go?'

Eli shrugged. ‘No,' he said, his lip starting to quiver.

OK, Holly told herself, squaring her shoulders. You're the adult now. Get a grip. ‘We're going this way!' she told Eli, pointing toward a friendly-looking pine tree and, taking Eli's hand, off they went.

SEVEN

W
ell, you can't just stand here, Dalton told himself sternly. You gotta do something. Unfortunately, he had no idea what it was that he was supposed to do. Finding his sister would probably be a good idea. But all he really wanted to do was to go home. Back to his mama's house. Back to the bedroom he'd slept in almost every night since he was brought home from the hospital after he was born. Back to the room where his framed baptismal certificate hung on the wall, with the B-52 model airplane he'd put together when he was eight hanging from a string over his desk, his junior high football pennant, signed by the entire team, the football he received as MVP after the last game of his senior year and his bowling trophies from eight years on the Prophesy County Employees' Bowling League. Back to
his
life, not some fantasy life of white picket fences and ladies in twin sweater sets with pearls.

‘Mary Ellen!' he yelled into the night. ‘I'm leaving! Mary Ellen! You hear me? I'm going home!'

There was no answer, but Dalton hadn't really expected one.

‘And I appreciate you taking this risk,' I said, smiling at her. ‘I'm not trying to get Melinda in any trouble
–
or you, for that matter. This has to do with someone else entirely.'

To fly or not to fly, Mary Ellen thought, that is the question. She smiled, remembering the English teacher from her senior year and how she loved to quote from
Hamlet
. ‘Well, you'd be proud of me now, Mrs Jackson,' Mary Ellen said aloud.

Mary Ellen stood up; the toes of her women's size-twelve Nikes dangling over the edge. She raised her arms like wings and, with a push of her feet, began to fly.

Following the reasoning that the minivan was pointed in the direction of a wooded area, where he now found himself, Dalton figured – and hoped – that going the opposite direction would lead him back to the highway.