“How long ago?”
“Forty minutes.”
“Forty minutes,” Bree cried. “Are you kidding me?”
I closed my eyes, seeing M in the moments after Sampson shot him, remembering how he’d shown fear and said he couldn’t feel a thing. And the surgeon had said his spine was cracked and bruised, hadn’t he?
“I don’t understand how he’s standing, much less walking,” I said. “And if he had help, he’s way beyond that ten-block perimeter. He could be long gone out of the city.”
Bree said, “He can’t last in his condition.”
“He got up in that condition, yanked his IVs out in that condition, and killed a cop in that condition!”
“We’ll catch him, Alex.”
“What if he gets to Ali before we do?”
“Alex, we can’t think that—”
“What other way is there to think, Bree? He obviously moved Ali out of the anthill before he came to our home. He’s obviously heading to wherever he has our son stashed now. God only knows what he’ll do,” I said. I paused and then shook my head in disgust. “ ‘Listen to your heart, Mr. Psycho Killer.’ Could I have been more of an idiot?”
“You tried to reach him the only way you thought possible. It was brilliant.”
“And he brilliantly used it against us.”
“Go home. Get some rest. You’ll think straighter.”
“You’ve had less sleep than me.”
“But for some reason I’m more clearheaded. I feel in my heart that he’s coming home. So sleep a few hours, then call me. You’re no help to me or Ali like this.”
I didn’t reply, didn’t say a thing to Sampson, just turned and left. On the elevator, on the cab ride home, and going back into the house, my emotions swayed from enraged to demoralized to defeated.
I had tried to stir some reconnection to humanity in M. That failed miserably.
I tried to think about the other things he’d said to me in his hospital room. Had he really been in foster care? Did he really beat a man to death with a chain for raping and murdering his sister? Or was that all made up on the fly?
Our kitchen clock said five minutes past six when I went in and flipped on the light. I hadn’t slept enough in weeks, and yet I felt wired, unable to even contemplate going to bed. If I went up there now, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get Ali out of my mind.
What was he going through? Was he suffering? I closed my eyes, terrified by the thought that, with M on the loose, I might end up finding my son strangled with a silk tie or missing his head.
I looked at the coffeemaker and then past it to the cabinet where we keep the liquor. I couldn’t stomach the thought of whiskey, but I knew booze could take me where I wanted to go, to the darkness, to no past, no future, no now, no—
The front doorbell rang.
At ten after six in the morning?
The bell rang again, and I hustled into the hall, not wanting to wake Nana or Jannie if I could help it and feeling dizzy and disoriented, as if I were about to be hit with a migraine on top of exhaustion.
I opened the door. Dwight Rivers stood there, leaning on his crutches and breathing hard.
“Mr. Rivers?” I said.
“I drove straight here, Dr. Cross,” he said. “I thought you should be the first to see this.”
“What is it?” I asked as he started down the stairs.
Rivers didn’t answer. He reached the sidewalk and crutched his way to a pickup with a camper on the back. He opened the camper’s rear door and motioned with his chin for me to look inside.
The sun was up and strong enough now to throw a glare that made me squint at the shadows inside. For a moment, I couldn’t make out what Rivers had brought me.
But then I saw movement in the lower bunk at the back.
“Who’s that?” a woman’s soft, shaky, frightened voice asked. “Who’s there?”
In the top bunk, a weaker voice said, “That’s my dad, Mrs. J.”
Chapter 106
My heart spoke its own language and nearly exploded with joy as I leaped inside the camper and went to the bunk. Rivers flipped on a light, and there my little boy was, looking like he’d been through a war and trying to smile through tears of pain and hope fulfilled.
“Ali,” I whispered, gazing at his sheer presence in wonder and at his condition with much deeper concern.
He was barefoot and bare-chested, covered with scratches, cuts, and welts. The shirt he’d worn to school the day of his disappearance was wrapped around his head and soaked in blood. His eyes seemed a little unfocused before they shut.
“Call 911!” I shouted to Rivers.
“I don’t have a cell phone!”
“What?”
I don’t like to conform, man.”
“We both fell last night,” said the woman in the bottom bunk, who was also filthy and banged up. “After everything, he hits his head, and I break my arm and probably my leg.”
I had my phone out and was punching in 911. I said, “Hold that thought, ma’am.”
The dispatcher answered, and I described the situation. “Keep your son awake,” she told me after I said there was a possible head injury.
I shook Ali lightly, and he opened his eyes a little.
“Stay with me, pal.”
He smiled lazily. “Dad?”
“Right here,” I said, and I held his hand.
“Ambulance ETA two minutes, Dr. Cross,” the dispatcher said.
“Is this a dream, Dad?”
Though I knew I had to be calm and collected for his sake, that question broke me in a way I’d never expected, and I choked out, “No. No, Ali. This is no dream. You’re here, and I’m here.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks as his grin broadened.
“I knew we’d make it,” he said. “Right, Mrs. J.?”
“You never doubted it,” the woman said. “Even when I did.”
Sirens wailed down our street.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Diane Jenkins,” she said. “I live in Ohio.”
My jaw sagged a moment before I smiled in disbelief and said, “Of course. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Can I call my husband?”
“Right after we get you some medical help.”
“Dad?” Ali said as two ambulances wailed and sped down our street toward us.
“Right here,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“Mrs. J. is really good with a blowtorch.”
“It was his idea,” she said.
Ali’s eyes started to wobble closed.
“C’mon, stay awake, pal,” I said, shaking him again.
“I really wanna sleep, Dad. I’m tired. We’ve been up all night.”
“I know you do,” I said, stroking his cheek. “But I need you to stay awake a little longer.”
“Do I get to ride in an ambulance?” he said as the sirens whooped up beside the camper and stopped.
“You do,” I said, feeling more love for him than I’d thought possible.
“You should see your face, Dad,” he said, smiling and licking his lips as the EMTs came to the door behind me.
“I know,” I said, tearing up again. “The happiest father alive.”
“We’re coming in,” the medic said.
I let go of my son’s hand.
His eyes widened. “Don’t leave.”
“Don’t worry, pal,” I said. “Dad will be with you every step of the way.”
Chapter 107
Two days later, on the third floor of the neurology unit at Georgetown University Medical Center, an orderly wheeled Diane Jenkins on a gurney toward me. Her right arm was in a cast; her leg was heavily bandaged.
Her husband, Melvin, walked at her side. He came straight to me and shook my hand. “I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Dr. Cross.”