“She get herself dressed, did she?” I asked.
He blushed harder. “Um, no, sir, I had to help her with that, too. Couldn’t see lettin’ her go half-nekkid down the damn hall. Said she had to get up with you. Said I had to spring her, that they was people comin’ to get her, same people as what cracked her head.”
I had to wonder where the hospital staff had been for this little drama, but I was glad he’d gone along. “You did the right thing,” I told him. “I think.”
“She gonna be okay?” he asked. “I can take her on back, you say so. Them nurses is gonna be havin’ themselves a hissy by now.”
“They know you aided and abetted?”
“No, sir, don’t believe so. They was busy bein’ distracted, sorta.”
I didn’t want to know any more. I told him it was okay and that he should go back to the hospital and tell them she’d checked herself out. “If she seems off in the morning, I’ll bring her back, but she’s probably safer here than in the hospital. There still a county vehicle out in the parking lot?”
“One comin’,” he said. “John was here, but he got called out. You got you a gun?”
I told him I had Nathan’s ten-gauge, and then remembered that I hadn’t baked out the shells. He grinned.
“John said you kicked his evil ass.” Then his face sobered. “He’s gonna do somethin’ about that, you know. They’re gonna do somethin’, best believe it.”
“So I’ve been told. Make sure the deputy in the parking lot knows about that possibility. In the meantime, it’s been a long damn day and night. I’m going to bed. She’s safe here with the shepherds. We’ll reevaluate tomorrow morning, okay? If there’s any shit, they can come see me. I’ll keep you out of it.”
He nodded, looking relieved, and left.
I secured the cabin, put the ten-gauge and the least soggy shells near the bedroom door, and then went in to check on Carrie. She was sleeping, or so I thought. I adjusted her covers, and then one small hand came out of nowhere and grabbed mine.
“Hold me,” she said.
I considered it and then said okay. I got undressed and slid into the bed with her. She rolled onto her left side and I put my arm around her. She took my right hand and pressed it to her left breast and then began to snore quietly as her body relaxed into mine and she dropped off into real sleep, probably for the first time in forty-eight hours.
I hadn’t been in bed with a woman since losing Annie Bellamy to the cat dancers mob. Carrie’s hair smelled of Eau de Betadine and hospital soap. Still, it was a nice feeling. The wind came up outside, and a rain squall pattered on the windows. The shepherds abandoned their porch and snuck into the bedroom. I pretended not to notice.
11
The county hospital people were less than pleased about Carrie’s checking herself out, but were pacified by some exculpatory paperwork from her via one of Sheriff Hayes’s deputies. I’d awakened before she had. I took the dogs out for a morning walk in the lodge precincts, making sure to stay within visual range of my cabin while she was in there by herself. When I got back she was in the shower, which I thought was a good sign. I made coffee, and when she came out she looked a lot better. Over coffee, she told me about hearing a loud crack, seeing stars, then falling. The shock of icy water revived her, and she remembered crawling into the rocky shallows only to be grabbed up by Lucas a few minutes later and hauled into the woods. He’d used duct tape to blindfold and gag her, and some kind of clasp chain to pin her arms and hands.
“My head was on fire, I was soaking wet and bleeding like a stuck pig-you know, head wounds-and I couldn’t see or shout. So he pulled and I stumbled along behind him. He put me into some kind of van, put a towel around my head, and told me to shut up or he’d cut me.”
“I wanted to come back for you,” I said.
“No sweat,” she said. “I was only semi-conscious when I went into the water, but I still heard the gunfire. There was no way you could have done anything.”
“Still,” I said. “Your good buddy Gelber thinks I’m some kind of cowardly rat.”
“Gelber?” she said, surprised. “When did you run into him?”
I told her about the SBI sending in a posse, my final little seance with King, and his pungent parting advice.
“Gelber hates everybody,” she said. “Mostly himself, I think. He was involved in a bad ambush deal several years ago. He was the only survivor. Three other agents died. Screwed him up. They should have retired him, but he is one tenacious SOB. They call him Fang.”
“An interesting boss?’”
“To say the least,” she said. “He has no life, though, and when we normal humans wanted time off, he was eternally disappointed in our lack of dedication. So: Your turn-what happened to you after I went in?”
I told her. She nodded when I told her what Lucas had said about the Creighs wanting her brought in, dead or alive. She wasn’t surprised at King’s reaction to her theories about a child-trafficking ring in Robbins County. She did pick up on the fact that the FBI might have something on it. Then I told her the story Big John had told me about the foreign doctor, and what I’d witnessed at Grinny’s cabin.
“Son of a bitch,” she said, sitting upright and then wincing when the sudden movement pulled her stitches. She patted her scalp gingerly. “That’s a direct tie. Children at the Creigh compound? Foreign doctor? Airport security? That old hag is probably having them sterilized before she sells them. Did you tell Sam King this?”
“I told Hayes,” I said. “King actually didn’t want to hear it. According to him, your theories are tainted by a personal angle, and he’s sick to death of Robbins County legends. Like I told you, he invited both of us to go away. I think he regrets losing you at the SBI, but he as much as said that everyone up here would be glad to see the back of us.”
“Screw that,” she said promptly. “I need to talk to Big John and hear that story for myself, and then I want to find out what it was the Bureau was going to reveal to Sam King.”
“And how the hell are you going to do that?” I asked her. “They won’t talk to either one of us, and after what happened to Rue Creigh, we wouldn’t last a day if we step back into Robbins County. Mingo didn’t report Rue’s demise, which means the Creighs are taking that on as a personal vendetta.”
“Where’s Sheriff Hayes in all this?” she asked.
I described our conversation. “But you know what? I still think he’s not well,” I said. “I’d bet on a heart condition. I think he believes me, but he’s just not up to taking real action, especially if the SBI’s not willing to get out in front.”
“That pisses me off, too. Do you think Laurie May gave us up to Nathan and the rest of them?”
“If she did, it was under duress. Can’t prove that, but that’s what I think.”
“Yeah, me, too. How about Baby Greenberg? Can he help us?”
“Not officially. I can give him a call, see what’s shaking. Maybe he could find out what the Bureau has on Grinny Creigh.”
She beamed. “Now you’re talking. You have any real food here?”
“Um, I can get some. But look: Sam King hinted that SBI, and perhaps other alphabets, may have something working on this problem, and that the last thing they needed right now was interference from outsiders.”
“Horseshit,” she said. “I would have been told about anything SBI had going in Robbins County.”
“But you’re basically internal affairs, right? Why would you or your office have been in the loop for an undercover operation?”
She didn’t answer that. I asked her about her oblique comments to Greenberg that there was an operation going down.
“I may have been posturing,” she admitted. “He’s a fed. But Sam King is a senior manager. He’s got a full plate, just like everyone else, and he doesn’t want another helping of trouble.” She paused to take a breath. “You said yourself you think there are other kids up there. You heard her say she might have to ‘move’ the whole passel of them. I can’t abide the thought of that.”