Her brain had been deprived of oxygen, the doctors said. She was in a coma. The hospital's posturing told Barb that it might be irreversible.
By the time Levon had been reached at the office, Kim had been medevaced to a trauma unit in Chicago. He and Barb had driven three hours, got to the hospital, and found their daughter in intensive care, groggy but awake, a terrible bruise around her neck, as blue as the scarf that nearly killed her.
But she was alive. She wasn't back to a hundred percent yet, but she'd be fine.
“It was weird inside my head,” Kimmy had said then. “It was like dreaming, only much more real. I heard Father Marty talking to me like he was sitting on the end of the bed.”
“What did he say, sweetheart?” Barb had asked.
“He said, 'I'm glad you were baptized, Kim.' ”
Now Levon took off his glasses, dried his eyes with the back of his hand. Barb passed him a tissue, saying, “I know, sweetie, I know.”
This is how they wanted to find Kim now. Fine. Levon gave Barb a crooked smile, both of them thinking how the story in the Chicago Trib had called her “Miracle Girl,” and sometimes they still called her that.
Miracle Girl who got onto the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Miracle Girl who was accepted into Columbia premed. Miracle Girl who'd been picked for the Sporting Life swimsuit shoot, the odds a million to one against her.
Levon thought, What kind of miracle was that?
Chapter 14
Barb twisted a tissue into a knot, and she said to Levon, “I should never have made such a fuss about that modeling agency.”
“She wanted to do it, Barb. It's no one's fault. She's always been her own person.”
Barb took Kimmy's picture from her purse, a five-by-seven headshot of eighteen-year-old Kim, taken for that agency in Chicago. Levon looked at the picture of Kim wearing a low-cut black sweater, her blond hair falling below her shoulders, the kind of radiant beauty that gave men ideas.
“No modeling after this,” Levon said now.
“She's twenty-one, Levon.”
“She's going to be a doctor. Barb, there's no good reason for her to be modeling anymore. This is the end of it. I'll make her understand.”
The flight attendant announced that the plane would be landing momentarily.
Barb raised the shade and Levon looked out at the clouds flowing under the window, the peaks of them looking like they'd been hit with pink spotlights.
As the tiny houses and roads of Maui came into view, Levon turned to his wife, his best pal, his sweetheart.
“How're you doin', hon? Okay?”
“Never better,” Barb chirped, attempting a joke. “And you?”
Levon smiled, brought Barb close, and pressed his cheek to hers, smelled the stuff she put in her hair. What Barb smelled like. He kissed her, squeezed her hand.
“Hang on,” Levon said, as the airplane began its steep, sickening descent. And he sent out a thought to Kim. We're coming for you, honey. Mom and Dad are coming.
Chapter 15
The Mcdanielses stepped from the plane's exit door to a wobbly staircase and from there down to the tarmac, the heat suffocating after the chilled air on the plane.
Levon looked around at the volcanic landscape, an astounding difference from Michigan in the black of night, with the snow falling down the back of his shirt collar as he'd hugged his sons good-bye.
He took off his jacket, patted the inside pocket to make sure that their return plane tickets were safe – including the ticket he'd bought for Kim.
The terminal was full of people, the waiting room in the same open-air section as the baggage claim. He and Barb turned cards over to an official in blue, swearing they were not bringing in any fruit, and then they looked for taxi signs.
Levon was walking fast, feeling a heightened need to get to the hotel and not watching his feet when he sidestepped a luggage trolley and just about stumbled over a young girl with yellow braids. She was clutching a fuzzy toy, standing in the middle of everything, just taking it all in. The child looked so self-assured that she reminded Levon again of Kim, and a wave of panic rose in him, making him feel dizzy and sick to his stomach.
Levon swept blindly forward, asking himself if Kim had used up her quota of miracles. Was her borrowed time up? Had the whole family made a tremendous mistake buying into a headline written by a reporter in Chicago, giving all of them a belief that Kim was so miraculous that nothing could ever hurt her?
Levon silently begged God again to please let Kim be safe at the hotel, make her be glad to see her parents, have her say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry.
With his arm around Barb, the two headed out of the terminal, but before they reached the taxi rank, they saw a man approaching – a driver holding up a sign with their name.
The driver was taller than Levon. He had dark hair streaked with gray, a mustache, and he wore a chauffeur's cap and livery jacket and alligator cowboy boots with three-inch heels.
He said, “Mr. and Mrs. McDaniels? I'm Marco. The hotel hired me to be your driver. Do you have claim tickets for your luggage?”
“We didn't bring any bags.”
“Okay. The car's right outside.”
Chapter 16
The Mcdanielses walked behind Marco as Levon noted the driver's odd rolling gait in those cowboy boots and the man's accent, a trace of something – maybe New York or New Jersey.
They crossed the arrival lane to a traffic island where Levon saw a newspaper lying faceup on a bench.
In a heart-stopping double take, he realized that Kim was looking up at him from under the headline.
This was the Maui News, and the large black type spelled out, “Missing Beauty.”
Levon's thoughts scattered, taking him a few stunned moments to understand that during the eleven or so hours he and Barb had been in transit, Kim had officially gone missing.
She wasn't waiting at the hotel.
Like the caller said, she was gone.
Levon grabbed the paper with a trembling hand, his heart bucking as he looked into Kim's smiling eyes, took in the swimsuit she was wearing in this picture, probably taken just a couple of days ago.
Levon folded the newspaper lengthwise, caught up to Marco and Barbara at the car, asked Marco, “Will it take long to get to the hotel?”
“About a half hour, and there's no charge, Mr. McDaniels. The Wailea Princess is paying for as long as you need me.”
“Why are they doing that?”
Marco's voice turned soft. “Well, in light of the situation, sir.”
He opened the car doors, and Levon and Barbara climbed in, Barb's face crumpling when she took the paper, crying while she read the story as the sedan slipped into the traffic stream.
The car sped onto the highway, and Marco spoke to them, his eyes in the rearview mirror, gently asking if they were comfortable, if they wanted more air or music. Levon thought ahead to checking in at the hotel, then going straight to the police, the whole time feeling as though he'd suffered a battlefield amputation, that a part of him had been brutally severed and that he might not survive.
Eventually, the sedan crawled down what looked like a private road, both sides massed in purple flowering vines. They drove by an artificial waterfall, slowed to a stop in front of the grand porte cochere entryway of the Wailea Princess Hotel.
Levon saw tiled fountains on both sides of the car, bronze statues of Polynesian warriors rising out of the water with spears in their hands on one side, outriggers filled with orchids on the other.
Bellhops in white shirts and short red pants hurried toward the car. Marco opened his door, and as Levon walked around the sedan to help Barb he heard his name coming at him from all directions.
People were running toward the hotel entrance – reporters with cameras and microphones.