It was Oklahoma City all over again. Fleeing in the night. Leaving everything behind. At least this time there had been no beloved dog for them to kill.
Her chest began to heave with sobs. It was all too much. If she survived this night, was this to become the pattern of her life? Always hiding? Always running?
So what was the alternative? To give up? To die?
She cradled her baby in her arms and forced her mind away from hysteria. She had to be calm. To think. To plan.
She tried to remember what time the moon had risen last night. She probably should leave now, taking advantage of the moonless darkness. Yes, that was what she should do. But still she waited a few minutes more, taking deep breaths, willing whatever residual courage still resided within her to come forth and fortify her. Then, clinging to her baby with one arm, she crept out of her hiding place.
Keeping to the low spaces between the dunes, she headed away from the cabin. She walked for a long time, an hour or more she estimated, staying south of the beach road until the terrain changed, and the cover offered by the dunes and grasses diminished in favor of wide beaches. She waited out of sight by the road, watching for any sort of movement or sound, then took a deep breath and dashed to the other side, where the cover was better. Finally she took the time to put Billy in the sling and catch her breath. Then, keeping the road on her left, she kept out of sight as best she could, which was difficult in the darkness. Several times she stumbled; twice she fell, putting out her hands to protect Billy. Her hands and knees were cut and bruised, her arms and legs scratched and bleeding from brambles. If only she had pulled on sweats this morning instead of shorts. Her only spare clothing in the canvas bag was a T-shirt and a pair of underpants. She ate a handful of trail mix and drank some more water, but she was still hungry. And exhausted. Filled with self-doubt. What if she was doing the wrong thing? What if Joe was apprehended when he returned to the cabin? Maybe she would never see him again. But for lack of another plan, she kept walking. When she reached an intersection, she turned north and, still keeping well out of sight of passing motorists, followed the new road. Occasionally she would take a few more bites of trail mix and drink a little water.
The sun was almost ready to peek over the horizon when Billy began to protest his confinement. She pulled him out of the sling and carried him over her shoulder as she headed down a country lane. He was howling with hunger by the time she found a sheltered spot in a dry creek bed where they could spend a few hours. The creek bed’s sandy bottom welcomed her exhausted body. When the sun rose, a nearby black willow would shade them. She drank some water while Billy nursed, then gratefully closed her eyes. Billy would just have to amuse himself for a while.
She wondered where Joe was at this moment. Were those men still waiting for him back at the cabin? What would they do to him if they caught him?
It was all so unreal. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to ordinary, law-abiding people. Not here. Not in the United States of America.
Joe muttered a curse when he saw the signs warning that there was roadwork ahead and all traffic was being funneled into the right lane. Getting stuck in traffic at this hour of the night was unanticipated, to say the least. Joe got more and more impatient as he drove at a snail’s pace behind the impossibly long line of vehicles.
He felt like a middle-aged man driving a recreational vehicle down the highway. He would have to keep his speed under the posted limit at all times. Speed was the only thing that might attract attention to the vehicle. He was certain that the RV and its license number weren’t on any law-enforcement watch list. He and Jamie and the baby would seem like an ordinary family on vacation. Mr. Morgan had given him a nationwide listing of campgrounds. Once he had Jamie and the baby onboard, they could move around the country effortlessly. Maybe if they could stay pretty much continuously on the move for a few months or even a year, the baby thing would become a moot issue. Amanda Hartmann would have learned to love the other baby and forgotten all about Jamie’s kid.
Of course, Joe knew that such a scenario was just wishful thinking on his part. Fear was going to be their constant companion until the business with the Hartmanns was resolved. Already his stomach was in knots because he had been away from Jamie and the baby too long.
Joe and Mr. Morgan had spent much of the day tossing out ideas to each other and searching for information on the Internet. When the garage finally returned the RV, the two of them put away the provisions that Mr. Morgan kept carrying out from the house-canned goods, paper towels, toilet tissue, soap, beer. Then they had dinner, and Joe suggested a game of chess, not because he wanted to play but because he knew Mr. Morgan was itching to. And he had decided that he shouldn’t leave until Mr. Morgan’s neighbors had bedded down for the night and wouldn’t be out in their yards or walking their dogs and observe an unfamiliar person driving away in Harvey Morgan’s RV.
At ten o’clock, they walked out to the garage. Joe unscrewed the lightbulb mounted on the overhead garage-door opener so he could make his exit in darkness. Then he punched the button to open the door and embraced Mr. Morgan.
“I wish I could tell you to call me and keep me posted,” Mr. Morgan said, “but don’t even think about it. No postcards with cryptic messages. The next time I see you I want you to have hair on your head and Miss Jamie and little Billy at your side.”
Joe had waved out the window as he drove away. And now, an hour later, he was less than fifteen miles from Mr. Morgan’s home, but the roadwork was behind him.
Finally he reached the Freeport turnoff, and shortly he was driving through Neptune Beach, with its darkened stores and restaurants. He parked the RV near a picnic area, locked the vehicle, shoved the key deep in his pocket, and made his way across the beach. When he reached the hard, wet sand by the water’s edge, he broke into a run. He ran with joy in his heart, each step taking him closer to Jamie.
A thin sliver of moonlight reflected on the water and provided sufficient illumination for him to avoid stranded jellyfish and pieces of driftwood. When he reached familiar terrain, he cut inland and wound his way through the dunes for the last couple of hundred yards-just to be on the safe side.
Finally the cabin, silhouetted against the night sky, came into view. He dropped low behind a clump of beach grass to survey the scene and make sure that all was well.
The cabin was dark, which didn’t surprise him. Then he noticed that the trash container had been moved from its former position alongside the building to a place by the back porch. Which hardly would enhance the view. And besides, the thing smelled like shit.
Maybe the trash container had been pushed over by a stray dog or an armadillo in search of leftover food, Joe speculated, and Jamie had simply turned it back over and not bothered to drag it back to its original position.
He was still pondering the trash container when he noticed that the only vehicles in the entire enclave were two identical black vans, each parked by a different cabin.
As much as he wanted to go dashing up to the cabin and tap on the door, Joe decided to hunker down and watch things for a while. For fifteen minutes, he would do that, he decided, and looked down at the glowing dial of his watch.
He watched. Everything was peaceful. The only movement was the waves on the beach.
At the end of fifteen minutes, he decided to stay put for another fifteen. Just to be sure.
And then he saw something out of the corner of his right eye. Just a glint of reflected moonlight from up there on higher ground.