She crouched, twisted about, and scooted in on her backside, deeper and deeper, snapping off tiny twigs that sounded, with the voice raging in the air around them, like rifle shots. Amado crawled in after her, as far as he could go, and they sat, face-to-face and knee to knee, in a dark so profound all he could make out was the pale blur of her face. The smell, mold and rot and marijuana, made his head swim.
"Izzy! Goddammit! Get out here, you bitch!"
Her hands fluttered against his, and he caught them, squeezing hard. She had calluses, as he did. A woman used to hard work, as he was. Even in his tight grip, her hands shook. He tugged her, gently, firmly, until she leaned forward, and he could wrap one arm around her shoulders and press her head into the crook beneath his neck. She shuddered and breathed deeply. Stopped shaking. He held her, this stranger, against the voice, raging and snapping and threatening things he could not begin to know.
VI
The Washington County Emergency Department charge nurse did a double-take that would have been funny, if Clare hadn't been so tired.
"Reverend Clare? Is that you?" Alta came around the intake counter, her eyes never leaving Clare's uniform, whose coffee-stain design now also sported several streaks of crushed-grass green and leaf-rot brown after almost two hours spent crawling through the woods, searching in vain for the missing men. "Good lord, you haven't left the ministry, have you? Weren't you just on call last week?"
Clare held the rotating-and unpaid-post of hospital chaplain, along with the Reverend Inman of High Street Baptist and Dr. McFeely of First Presbyterian. She sighed. "Hi, Alta. Yes, I was here last week, and no, I haven't left the ministry. I'm a weekend warrior."
Alta looked dubious. "It's Tuesday night."
"I'm a weekend warrior who is way, way behind on her flight hours. I've been heading to Fort Dix or Latham on my days off to get in more air time."
"Flight hours? You're not a chaplain?"
"Nope. They've got me in the pilot's seat again."
"Well. God bless you." Alta, for the first time in their almost-three-year acquaintanceship, hugged her. "Stepping forward when your country calls." She held Clare out at arm's length. "I'm proud to know you."
Clare made a miserable attempt at a smile. "Yeah, thanks. Look, I'm here to see Sister Lucia Pirone. She was brought in-"
Alta stepped back behind the counter. "Broken hip and internal hemorrhage of indeterminate origin, ayeh. She's been transferred to Glens Falls for an MRI." Evidently, the special tribute was over.
"How about the injured men she was driving?"
Alta bent over her computer. "The unconscious-with-contusion's been admitted for observation overnight." She looked up at Clare. "Routine. Checking for symptoms of concussion." She straightened up. "The abrasions-and-contusions got patched up and was R.O.R. 'bout half an hour ago. I have no idea where he is now."
"You just let him go?"
Alta looked over her shoulder and beckoned to Clare. Bemused, Clare moved in closer. "An agent from Albany showed up."
"An agent?"
"ICE." Alta rolled her eyes. "Formerly known as INS. Some twenty-five-year-old with an MBA probably told them to rebrand themselves." She dropped her voice. "So, anyway, I gave the guy ten bucks and the homeless shelter pamphlet. Don't know if it'll do him any good, since he didn't speak English, but-"
"The hospital reported these guys?"
Alta drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. "Of course not! Someone at the accident site called it in, apparently."
One of the MKPD? No. None of Russ's officers would make a call like that without his say-so. Now John Huggins-that was a whole 'nother kettle of fish. "What about the third man?" she asked Alta.
"The broken arm? He's getting casted. He'll be ready for release as soon as Dr. Stillman clears him."
"So soon?"
Alta gave her a glance that said, And your medical knowledge is…?
"It's just that when Chief Van Alstyne broke his leg last year, he went into surgery and had to stay overnight."
"The chief"-was it her imagination, or did Alta put a peculiar spin to those words?-"had an open fracture requiring pins. The illegal has a plain-as-vanilla greenstick fracture. Slap some fiberglass on it and he's done."
Clare found herself looking over her shoulder just as the charge nurse had. "What's going to happen to him? When he's discharged?"
Alta threw up her hands. "Lord knows. The lady from the ICE already looked at his papers." She shook her head. "All the way up from Albany for three farmworkers. I wish the government had moved that fast when my ex-husband was skipping out on child support. Their sponsors are on the way over to talk with her."
"Their sponsors?"
"The folks who hired 'em. They're responsible for their work permits. Leastways, that's how it was explained to me."
Sponsors. Would that be the business that arranged the paperwork and the transportation? Or would that be-
The Emergency Department's old-fashioned swinging doors thumped open, admitting Russ Van Alstyne. He didn't look happy, and his frown grew even deeper when he caught sight of Clare.
He strode up the institutional green hallway toward the waiting room. An anxious-looking man with more hair in his mustache than on his head entered in his wake, along with a rangy blond woman who looked enough like a female version of Russ to be his-
– sister. Oh.
"What are you doing here?" Russ demanded. "I thought I told Knox and Kevin to take you home after the search."
She squelched the first reply that came to mind: You're not the boss of me! "Don't blame them," she said instead. "They tried."
The doors to the examination and treatment area clunked open. A white-coated doctor stepped inside, headed for Alta's desk. He paused when he saw Russ, and opened his mouth, but the chief of police went past him without a second glance and stopped in front of Clare. "Oh, I don't blame them, believe me."
Clare did a lot of counseling as a priest, and she was good at it. She recognized the weapons of grief: anger, lashing out, keeping the world at bay. She knew the postures of guilt: bending over, ducking away, doing almost anything to avoid confronting the festering wound to the heart. She recognized. She knew. And it didn't do her a damn bit of good, confronted by Russ Van Alstyne acting as if she had somehow done him wrong.
"If you have a problem with me, spit it out," she snapped. "Otherwise, get out of my face."