Torn Apart (14 page)

Charlotte was in the middle of writing the last three digits onto an official message slip when she realized Macklan’s overseas call was on the line. In her haste to connect, she didn’t even notice that she transposed the last two digits.

Hershel waited for nearly an hour without a return call.

Frustrated by the lack of communication, he decided he couldn’t wait any longer to talk to Katie. After what Frances had told him, it wouldn’t be long before word began to spread, and Katie deserved to hear the truth from him.

What bothered him was how to break the news. It wasn’t exactly a case of “I have news—some good, some bad; which do you want to hear first?”

How did you tell a mother they had good reason to believe her child hadn’t died but had most likely been abducted?

If the abductor was Bobby’s father, then the chances of his life being in danger were probably nil. But if J. R. Earle was
not
the man who’d taken him, then not only did a total stranger have her little boy, he might already be dead, and no matter what, the man who’d taken him had a four-day head start.

Penny Bates was trying to figure out how best to help Katie Earle cope, along with wondering why J. R. Earle hadn’t checked on his family, as she pulled up into her driveway, then parked beneath the portico.

“We’re here,” she said unnecessarily. When Katie didn’t respond, Penny led the way into the house and down the hall. “This will be your bedroom. There’s a private bath beyond that door. We’ll make a list later, and go get you some clothes and toiletries.”

Katie stared around the room, taking in the neat blue curtains and white spread, but Penny kept talking, and she knew she was supposed to respond. Then she saw Oliver propped up against the pillows, and her heart twisted. She walked over to the bed and sat down, then pulled the bear up beneath her chin, the same way Bobby slept with him every night.

“Thank you,” Katie said, then added, “I have money to pay for the stuff I need to buy.”

“I know you do,” Penny said, and then hugged her. “I’m going to go make us some lunch. Are you hungry?”

Katie slumped. How did you explain to someone that the pain in your heart is too sharp for the food to go down?

“Not much,” she said, then saw the phone. “Do you mind if I use your phone? I want to call J.R.”

Penny frowned. “Of course you can use the phone. Use anything you need, although you should know that neither the hospital nor the police have been able to contact him since…when you…” She sighed. “You know.”

Shocked by the news, the knot in Katie’s belly twisted tighter. “He never called back…ever?”

“According to the hospital, no. I can’t speak for the police department,” Penny said, then pointed at the phone. “You make all the calls you need. Come to the kitchen when you’ve finished, and we’ll have lunch.”

Katie waited until Penny was gone, then picked up the receiver. She punched in J.R.’s cell phone number, then closed her eyes and willed herself to be calm as she waited for him to answer. She didn’t know how she was going to tell him what had happened, because so far she had been unable to say the words aloud—even to herself.

When she heard the first ring, her palms began to sweat.

He’s going to hate me.

When it rang the second time, her throat began to tighten.

Why wasn’t I the one who died?

When the call rang a third time, then a fourth, before going to voice mail, she almost hung up. She didn’t want to hear his voice and remember how it sounded when he whispered in her ear, or when he laughed, or the tenderness that used to be there when he just said her name.

“Hi. This is J.R. I’m away from the phone, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll call you right back.”

Her fingers curled around the receiver as she waited for the beep. Even so, when it came, she was caught off guard.

“Um, uh, it’s me. I need you to call me as soon as you get this message.”

She hung up, then rolled over onto the bed, curled up into a ball and closed her eyes. She kept remembering how she’d felt when she’d gotten the news that her parents’ bodies had been found. Her pain then was nothing to what she was feeling now. She’d messed up her marriage and lost J.R. That she had accepted. But the pain of knowing she would never see her baby again was enough to make her want to die.

The stuffed bear’s softness reminded her of Bobby, and she hugged it to her, aching for the feel of Bobby’s warm little body squirming against her, aching for the sound of his voice and the peal of his laughter—aching, aching, in every facet of her being.

“Oh, God…why my baby?”

Her voice broke. She was still crying when Penny knocked on the door, then came hurrying in.

“Katie! Chief Porter is here to see you.”

Katie’s heart nearly stopped. She tossed the little bear aside and quickly rolled off the bed, tears still drying on her cheeks. All she could think was that the only reason he would be looking for her was to tell her that they’d found Bobby’s body.

When Penny saw her face, she opened her arms, her own voice trembling as Katie let herself be comforted. Finally it was the opportunity Penny had been waiting for.

“Katie…if it would bring him back, I would take my own life this minute.”

Katie wrapped her arms around Penny’s ample frame and hugged her as fiercely as she was being hugged.

“It’s not your fault. Whatever happened, it happened because of the storm,” she said.

Penny took a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to Katie.

“Here. Wipe and blow. Hershel seems anxious, so let’s go see what he has to say, okay?”

Katie nodded, wiped her face and blew her nose, then followed Penny to the living room.

Hershel stood as they entered, then offered his hand.

“Katie…I’m sorry I didn’t get by to see you in the hospital. Bordelaise has been in a bit of a mess. However, I need to get to the reason for the visit. I have news.”

Katie’s body went limp. “You found my… You found his…” She couldn’t say the words.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Hershel said. “I’m sorry. I should have said that the minute you came in.”

Katie staggered backward to the nearest chair, then covered her face.

Penny frowned. “Chief, if you could get to the point…”

Hershel nodded. “We got news this morning that leads us to believe your son was not caught in the tornado, after all.”

Katie’s head came up as a bolt of joy shot through her.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God! What do you mean? Are you saying that he’s alive? My little boy is alive?”

“I’m saying we don’t think the tornado got him. But we still don’t know where he is.”

Joy turned to panic as Katie’s voice rose. “I can’t handle riddles! What are you trying to tell me?” she cried.

Hershel sat down in a chair across from her, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Frances Maxwell brought her little girl, Holly, to the station this morning with a story that gave us a whole new take on your son’s disappearance. According to Holly, she saw a man—who she thought was God—pick Bobby up from the playground, put him in his truck and drive away.”

Penny gasped.

Katie’s heart skipped a beat, then she moaned.

“Abducted? You’re saying Bobby was abducted?”

“If we believe Holly, I’d say yes.”

The room started to spin. Katie held on to the arms of her chair to keep from falling out.

“Oh, my God…why didn’t she say something sooner?” she wailed.

“It’s a long story,” Hershel said. “But suffice it to say, she heard too many people say Bobby was dead, heard too many people talking about God taking people to heaven, so she thought she’d seen God as he came for Bobby.”

Katie’s mind was reeling as fast as her hopes were being dashed.

“But maybe she was just confused and really didn’t see—”

Hershel picked up a stack of papers from the table beside him and handed them to Katie.

“That’s what I might have thought, too, only Frances showed me these.”

Katie frowned as she leafed through the drawings, then laid them aside. “What do these have to do with Bobby’s disappearance?”

“See the man in the blue truck…in all those pictures Holly drew?”

“Yes, I saw him, but what does he have to do with any of this?”

“According to Holly, that’s what God was driving when he came for your son.”

Foreboding. It was the first thing Katie felt as she looked back at the pictures and began grasping the implications.

“She saw a man in a blue truck snatch my son and thought he was God?”

Hershel nodded. “That’s what we think. Now I have a question to ask you. I’ve been told that your husband, J.R., drives a blue truck. Is that true?”

Katie’s heart skidded to a stop. Oh, my God. He wouldn’t. He
couldn’t
. “Yes, he does, but—”

“When’s the last time you talked to him?” Hershel interrupted.

Katie thought back. “Friday, because he called to tell me he couldn’t come get Bobby because of work. The last thing he said was that he’d come see him as soon as he could.”

“He hasn’t returned my call. Have you heard from him since the storm?”

Katie’s body was beginning to shake. Surely to God J.R. wouldn’t snatch Bobby? Surely. She didn’t trust herself to speak and just shook her head.

“When’s the last time you tried to call him?”

Katie swallowed around the lump in her throat. “About ten minutes ago.”

“And no answer?”

Her voice was barely above a whisper. “No.”

“Well, then,” Hershel said, “is there anything else you can tell me that might lead me to believe someone other than J.R. could have taken your son?”

“No,” Katie said, then remembered. “Oh. There
was
one time when Bobby had a bad dream and swore there was a monster at his window.”

Hershel sighed. “That’s pretty much every kid’s nightmare, isn’t it? Either at the window, in the closet or under the bed. Was anyone there?”

Katie frowned. “No. And it was before J.R. left, so he went outside and looked around, but he didn’t see anything suspicious.”

Hershel nodded. “Did it happen again?”

“No,” Katie said, then remembered her last conversation with Bobby. “But when we were walking to church last Sunday, Bobby said he liked staying in New Orleans with J.R. because the monster didn’t live there.”

Hershel frowned. “Did you ever consider this might be something J.R. was feeding him to get him to persuade you to move?”

Katie shivered. “I never thought of it like that,” she whispered. “Once I would have said J.R. would never do something like that, but now…I don’t know what to say, because I never thought that we’d ever be living apart, either.”

“Okay,” Hershel said. “That’s about all I can tell you for now.”

“Chief, do you believe Bobby Earle is still alive?” Penny asked.

Hershel didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I do.”

Penny’s eyes welled. “Thank the Lord. Thank the Lord.”

“What are you going to do? How will you know where to look? Do you think it was J.R.? What if it’s not? What if there really was a monster and he has my son?” Katie’s thoughts were examining a dozen different scenarios at once, and with every question she asked, her voice rose in panic, and her hands curled into fists as she suddenly clutched them against her belly. Then she gave voice to what Hershel had been thinking from the moment he’d heard Holly’s story. “What if it’s too late? What if the monster who took my son has already done what he wanted to do?” Her voice sank to a whisper. “What if he’s the kind of monster who doesn’t leave witnesses?”

Hershel’s gut knotted. “I can’t read the future, Katie. But we won’t leave a stone unturned in looking for him. And I need to talk to J.R. Since he’s the obvious suspect, we need to rule him out. I don’t have to tell you that if you hear from him, you need to tell him to call me—immediately.”

“Yes, I will,” Katie said.

Hershel nodded. “Well, I guess that’s all for now. I’m sorry I don’t have better news.”

Katie stood as well, then impulsively threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “The news you gave me was nothing short of a miracle. This morning my son was dead. Now he’s alive. It’s the kind of miracle a parent prays for.”

Hershel blushed as she took a quick step back. “Yes, ma’am. That I understand. I’m relieved beyond words myself, but I won’t feel good about any of this until we find your boy. Say your prayers, and I’ll stay in touch.”

Penny saw him to the door. When she turned around, Katie was nowhere in sight. She went looking for her and found her in the kitchen, digging through drawers.

“Honey, what are you looking for? Let me help,” Penny said.

“Pen and paper. I need to make a list. I need to get some clothes and shoes. I need a phone—mine went with the house. I need to talk to Holly Maxwell. I’m going to make so many calls to J.R. that he’ll
have
to call back.” Then her face lit up. “Oh, Penny! My little boy is alive!”

Penny nodded but chose not to remind her that if J.R. didn’t have their child, given that he’d been abducted days ago, there was a very good chance that no matter what Chief Porter said, Bobby was, in fact, still dead—just not from the storm.

Eight

T
he sea was rough today, but the sun was shining. White foam hung on the edges of the waves like lace on a skirt as the massive waves pounded against the base of the rig, while gulls circled above it in ever-widening orbits.

Even though J.R. was standing stories above the belly of the rig, the loud and steady thump of the massive pumps rang incessantly in his head.

Sick and tired of his forced stint on the rig, he’d chosen to go topside and had been at the helipad for nearly an hour, waiting for the arrival of the inbound chopper and, with it, the new crew chief. Stanton Blalock and his cronies were standing nearby, talking among themselves and casting angry glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. He knew they were pissed, but he didn’t give a damn. They’d all four broken hard and fast rules. All he’d done was enforce them.