"I want to sleep," she said. Doug stayed with her awhile longer, helpless to soothe her silent rage and pain, and then he left her alone.
Laura was afraid of sleep, and what might be waiting for her there. Rain tapped at the window, a bony sound. She got up to get a drink of water from the bathroom, and she found herself opening the dresser drawer where the gun rested.
She picked it up. Its evil, oily smell came to her. A small package of death, there in her hands. Mary Terror must know a lot about guns. Mary Terror lived by the gun and would die by the gun, and God help David.
Their pastor from the First United Methodist Church had come to see them that evening and had led them all in prayer. Laura had hardly heard the words, her mind still bombarded with shock. She needed a prayer now. She needed something to get her through this night. The thought that she might never hold her child again was about to drive her crazy with grief, and the idea of that woman's hands on him made her grip the gun with bleached knuckles.
She had never thought she could kill anyone before. Never in a million years. But now, with the gun in her hand and Mary Terror on the loose, she thought she could squeeze the trigger without flinching.
It was a terrible feeling, the desire to kill.
Laura put the gun back into the drawer and slid it shut. Then she got down on her knees and prayed for three things: David's safe return, that the FBI found that woman quickly, and that God would forgive her thoughts of murder.
6: Belle of the Ball
As Laura prayed in Atlanta, a gray Coupe De Ville slowed on a forested road sixty miles northwest of Richmond. The car took a curve off the main road onto one that was narrower, and continued another half mile. Its headlights glinted off the windows of a house on a bluff, nestled amid pines and century-old oaks. The windows of the house were dark, and no smoke rose from the white stone chimney. Telephone and electric lines stretched from here to the highway, a rugged distance. Natalie Terrell stopped her car before the steps of the front porch, and she got out into the bitter wind.
A half moon had broken free of the clouds. It threw sparks of silver onto the ruffled water of Lake Anna, which the house overlooked. Another road snaked down the hill to a boathouse and pier. Natalie saw no other car, but she knew: her daughter was there.
Shivering, she walked up the steps to the porch. She tried the doorknob, and the door opened. She walked inside, out of the wind, and she started to reach for the light switch.
"Don't."
She stopped. Her heart had given a vicious jolt.
"Are you alone?"
Natalie strained to see where her daughter was in the room, but couldn't find her. "Yes."
"They didn't follow you?"
"No."
"Don't turn on the lights. Close the door and step away from it."
Natalie did. She saw a shape rise up from a chair, and she stood with her back against a wall as it passed her. Mary stared out a window, watching the road. Her size – her largeness – made pure fear leech to Natalie's stomach. Her daughter was taller than she by about four inches, and much broader through the shoulders. Mary stood motionless in the dark, her gaze on the road as her mother shrank back from her presence.
"Why didn't they follow you?" Mary asked.
"They… went somewhere else. I sent them…" Fear had her by the throat and wouldn't let her speak. "I sent them to the beach house."
"They had a tap on the line."
"Yes."
"I figured they'd have one of those new phone-tracer gizmos. That's why I didn't call from here. Like I said, Big Brother's in action, huh?"
Mary's face turned toward her mother. Natalie couldn't make out her features, but something about her face was brutal. "So how come you didn't tell them I was coming here?"
"I don't know," Natalie answered. It was the truth.
"Mother," Mary said, and she walked to her and gave her a cold kiss on the cheek.
Natalie couldn't suppress a shudder. Her daughter smelled unclean. She felt Mary's hand rest against her shoulder, there was something gripped in it, and Natalie realized Mary was holding a gun.
Mary stepped back, and mother and daughter stared at each other in the dark. "It's been a long time," Mary said. "You've gotten older."
"No doubt."
"Well, so have I." She wandered to the window again, peering out. "I didn't think you'd come. I figured you were going to send the pigs after me."
"Then why did you call?"
"I've missed you," Mary said. "And Father, too. I'm glad you didn't bring the pigs. I saw your car pull in, and I knew pigs don't drive Cadillacs. But I'm parked down at the boathouse, and if I saw somebody following you I was going to take my baby and get out on the lake road." The lake road was a trail, really, that wound around much of Lake Anna before joining the main road. This time of year a gate closed the trail off, but Mary had already broken the gate off its hinges to allow a quick escape.
My baby, Mary had said. "Where's the child?" Natalie asked.
"Back bedroom. I've got him wrapped up in a blanket so he'll be all comfy-cozy. I didn't want to start a fire. You never can tell who might smell the smoke. The rangers' station is still a couple of miles north, isn't it?"
"Yes." The lake house, constructed for summer use, had no furnace but there were three fireplaces for cool nights. Right now the house was as chilly as a tomb.
"So why didn't you bring the pigs?"
Natalie could feel her daughter watching her, like a wary animal. "Because I knew you wouldn't give up if they caught you. I knew they'd have to kill you."
"But isn't that what you want? You said it in the papers: you wouldn't cry if I was dead."
"That's right. I was thinking of the baby."
"Oh." She nodded. Her mother had always loved babies; it was when they got older that she turned her back in boredom. Mary had taken a gamble, and it had worked. "Okay, I can dig it."
"I'd like to know why you stole him from his mother."
"I'm his mother," Mary said flatly. "I told you. I've named him Drummer."
Natalie moved out of the corner. Mary's gaze tracked her across the room, and her mother stopped near the cold fireplace made of fieldstones. "Stealing a baby is a new one for you, isn't it? Murders, bombings, and terrorism weren't enough for you? You had to steal an innocent child not two days old?"
"Talk, talk," Mary said. "You're still the same, talking that shit."
"You'd better listen to me, damn it!" Natalie snapped, much louder than she'd intended. "By God, they're going to hunt you down for this! They'll kill you and drag your body through the street! Sweet Jesus, what's in your mind to make you do such a thing?"
Mary was silent for a moment. She set the Colt down on a table, close enough to get it fast if she needed it. The coast was clear, though; the pigs were sniffing around the family's beach house by now. "I always wanted a baby," Mary told her. "One of my own, I mean. From my own body."
"And so you steal another woman's child?"
"Talking shit," Mary chided her mother. Then: "I almost had a baby once. Before I got hurt. That was a long time ago, but… sometimes I still think I can feel the baby kick. Maybe it's a ghost, huh? A ghost, up inside me trying to get out. Well, I let the ghost out. I gave him bones, skin, and a name: Drummer. He's my baby now, and no one in this mindfucked world's going to take him away from me."
"They'll kill you. They'll hunt you down and kill you, and you know it."
"Let them try. I'm ready."
Natalie heard a sound that made her sick with anguish: the thin noise of a baby crying, from the guest bedroom. Mary said, "He's a good kid. He doesn't cry very much."