by Rick Mofina
She knocked on the motel room door.
“Hello, dear, I brought you more fresh towels.”
No response.
“Dear?”
She knocked again, louder, then tried to see through the crack in the drawn curtains. Where could she be? Breezes swept through the treetops and she glanced to the woods. Maybe she went for a walk to the creek. Shirley slid her key into the handle and opened the door.
“Hello, dear. I’ve brought you more towels.”
Lord Almighty.
Her jaw dropped.
Papers were strewn over the floor, the nightstand, the chair, the TV, the desk. They buried a laptop and much of the bed, where a suitcase had spewed its contents. This was not a mess. It was an explosion of rage, of something gone terribly wrong, Shirley thought, moving closer to the bed.
There, under the papers, she saw a baby’s bottle, a small pack of fresh disposable diapers. As Shirley touched other baby items, worry twisted in her stomach and kept twisting until it took her breath away.
She did have a baby.
Then Shirley Brewer, who had battled drunks, crackhead hookers, pimps, and the frightening pieces of scum who landed here, groaned with fear. For as she shifted her weight, the light adjusted and she saw the words dripping in red letters across the mirror.
“He’s My Baby!”
Shirley had to call the police now. She reached for the phone but froze.
“What are you doing in my room?”
Nadine stood in the doorway.
“Oh, dear, you startled me! Oh, I’m sorry. I just brought you these fresh towels,” Shirley said, disturbed by Nadine’s condition. “Goodness, you’re soaked to the bone.”
Nadine said nothing. Breathing hard, she was drenched, her hair, her clothes; water dripped from her, darkening the carpet at her feet. In the moment the two women looked at each other, the truth passed between them and the air tightened as if someone had just pulled back the hammer of a gun.
“Dear.” Shirley swallowed. “Where’s the baby?”
Nadine was lost in a trance, staring at nothing.
“Sweetheart, where’s the baby?”
“He’s my baby.”
“I’d love to see him.”
“He’s safe. He’ll always be safe.”
“Where?” Shirley’s knuckles whitened on her cane as she moved closer. “Honey, where is he?”
“Hey!” A distant voice outside. A man calling. “Hey, miss!”
In that instant, Nadine snatched her small bag from the round table near the door, ran outside, and got into her car.
“Wait!” Shirley started after her, but the Ford’s door slammed and the ignition turned. “Please! Wait!”
The engine revved and the tires squealed.
“Wait! Miss!”
The man emerging from the forest was in his forties, with glasses, a blondish beard, and a ball cap. His clothes were soaked too. He arrived just as the Focus roared away.
“Hey, what the hell’s going on?” Puzzled, he looked to Shirley for an answer. “I’m downstream taking bird pictures when I see this girl in my viewfinder. I thought she was drowning, so I set my gear down and rush across the creek to help, and she runs away. Ma’am?”
Shirley was chanting the license plate of the Focus. Over and over as she hurried back into the room, seized the phone, and called 911.
“Lord, hurry!” she told no one as the line clicked.
“Jee-zuss, what the hell happened in here?” The man looked around the room. “Is that woman all right?”
“Go back to the water”—Shirley pointed her cane at the birdwatcher.
“Why?”
“Go back to the creek and look for a baby!”
“What?”
“A baby—did you see a baby?” Shirley spoke into the phone, “Hello, police! Lord—!”
67
Time had run out.
Given what Jason Wade now knew about Nadine’s past, and now that she’d murdered two more people, he held little hope Dylan Colson would be found alive.
If they find him at all.
The downtown boardroom had emptied fast after the press conference had ended. Most news crews had packed up and left, a few stragglers were on cell phones talking to editors. He needed a moment alone with Grace Garner but had lost sight of her and the Colsons when his phone rang.
“It’s Spangler. The parents were riveting. What else you got?”
Stepping out of earshot of others, he decided it was time to tell him everything. “Some exclusive, compelling bio stuff on Nadine.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“She did this before in Toronto, abducted and killed a baby. I’ve got her file from Canada.”
“What? Where the hell is it? I want that file now.”
“I’ll get it faxed to you.”
“I want you to get more from the parents. I want you to get us an exclusive with the Colsons now!”
“I don’t know”—Jason looked around—“they took them away.”
“Find them and do it, Wade! Don’t let us down now!”
Grace would know, Jason thought after hanging up. But where was she? He needed her. He could feel time hammering against them. Nate Hodge, the Mirror news photographer, was in the hall, on his phone discussing his pictures with Bitner, the photo editor.
“Nate.” Jason grabbed his shoulder. “Did you see which way Grace Garner and the Colsons went?”
Staying on his phone, Hodge pointed down the hall to the right. Coins jingled in Jason’s pocket as he hurried, taking the corner as Perelli and Dupree shot by him in the opposite direction, concern stamped on their faces, cologne-scented breezes in their wake.
Something’s going on, Jason thought. As he turned to watch them, he bumped into Grace, her face tense with urgency.
“Grace, I have to talk to you about Nadine’s criminal history, about Toronto.”
“Not now, Jason!” Her phone was pressed to her head as she followed Perelli and Dupree.
“Grace, please, I need two minutes alone with the Colsons.”
“Dammit, Jason, not now! Something’s happened!”
“What’s going on?”
She couldn’t answer as she rushed by for the emergency exit stairs. He was following her when he caught sight of Lee Colson, alone at the end of the hall, stepping into a washroom.
Hodge called after Jason, but he’d followed Lee into the washroom. Colson was doubled over the sink, his hands shaking as he splashed water on his face. He met Jason’s reflection in the mirror. Colson looked utterly defeated.
“Excuse me, Lee, I’m so sorry. Jason Wade from the Mirror.”
“I know who you are. You’re the one who found Beth Bannon.”
“Lee, I was wondering if—”
“So if you’re so good, can you tell me what’s happening?”
“I was going to ask you—I mean, I saw Grace and the others hurry out of here.”
“They’ve just received a new tip but won’t tell us anything. They say they don’t want to raise our hopes. They want to take us home and have us wait. We can’t take this. We just want to find our baby boy. Goddammit! I feel so damn helpless.” He pounded the counter.
The door swung open as Hodge swept in, phone to his ear.
“Jason, Bitner says it’s all over the police scanners now. They got a 911 call—someone spotted Nadine! It’s a good tip, down to the tattoo.”
Hope blossomed on Colson’s face.
“Where?”
“Hang on!” Hodge listened to his phone. “In a Ford Focus somewhere near Aurora, direction unknown. They’ve put up the chopper. They’ll likely try to box her in, then take her down. Come on, Jason, we’ll take my Blazer, let’s go!”
“Hold on,” Lee said, “take us with you!”
Hodge and Jason stared at Lee.
“We need to be there. Maria and I will go with you.”
Jason seized the opportunity.
“Okay, do th
is: get Maria away from the uniforms now.”
“I can do that.”
“Just say the relative who is going to take you home has the car in the back downstairs, say the FBI arranged it.”
Lee nodded.
“Then meet us in the stairwell on the ground floor like now! Immediately.”
“Wait,” Lee said to Hodge, “did the 911 tip say anything about Dylan, did they see him?”
Hodge put the question to Bitner back at the paper, who shouted to the Mirror’s intern listening to the scanners.
“There were indications of a baby,” Hodge said. “Something about sending fire department divers to a river, but no baby was seen. We’d better move, now!”
68
Nadine’s world was crumbling.
As tears stained her face she drove through the traffic along Aurora Avenue. She had wanted to end it all at the creek. It was such a beautiful place—spiritual, really—but the stranger had interrupted her.
So it was not meant to happen there.
Nadine swallowed air.
She couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror, with her drying skin tightening, her hair frizzed, her clothes damp and chafing. She knew she looked a mess.
She brushed at her tears.
Her life was a mess, nothing more than a series of lies until it dawned on her that everywhere she’d turned, everyone she’d ever trusted, had tried to convince her that she was wrong. To make her believe that somehow her entire life was a lie.
Well, they were wrong.
Every goddamn one of them.
Liars.
That’s what they were.
A horn beeped, jerking her attention back to her driving. Nadine didn’t know exactly where she was going but she knew exactly what was true.
Dylan was hers.
He was the one person who did not lie.
The one person who loved her back.
“You’re so quiet, angel.” Stopped at a red light, Nadine looked to the rear floor where Dylan was lying. “In a little while, Mommy’s going to fix it so they won’t lie to us anymore. We’re going someplace where they won’t ever find us. Oh, green light.”
Nadine threaded the car through traffic, which, for some reason, seemed to be increasing.
“We’re going where I can love you and hold you forever. Where nobody lies.”
Nadine started humming a lullaby as her small blue Ford moved along Aurora, passing a sign indicating they were coming to the Aurora Avenue Bridge, which spanned Lake Union.
“Soon we’ll be in Heaven.”
69
God, please let me find my baby.
Buckled in the backseat of Nate Hodge’s speeding SUV, Maria Colson clamped her hands together and prayed. The cross-talk over the police radio in the Blazer intensified as dispatchers began betraying emotion over the air.
“Suspect’s vehicle sighted on the approach to the bridge. All units stand by—”
Hodge took every shortcut he knew but time was racing against them. They could hear distant sirens howling, see the police and news helicopters far off.
“All units, that sighting is confirmed. We do have the car approaching the bridge—”
“Hang on.”
The Chevy’s big eight cylinders hammered as Hodge stomped on the accelerator.
At first Nadine could not fathom why traffic had slowed to a crawl near the bridge.
As her Ford crept forward, she realized road construction had created lane reductions and delays.
Nadine squinted through her windshield in a futile effort to see ahead.
Suddenly, her Focus shuddered and the motor died. Her fuel indicator showed that her car was out of gas. Nadine slapped her hands on the wheel. Drivers behind her, already angry because of the gridlock, began honking. Some attempted to squeeze around her, creating more traffic problems and more honking.
Nadine had a plan. She got out, opened the rear door, took Dylan into her arms, and began walking toward the bridge.
He was such a good baby.
So quiet.
In the woods behind the Sweet Dreams & Goodnight Motel, Grace, Perelli, and Dupree had joined an army of police, firefighters, and paramedics.
Their radios crackled across the water, echoing through the forest.
Shirley Brewer and the bird man were also there, watching officials from the FBI, Seattle PD, King County Sheriff’s Office, Washington Highway Patrol, and neighboring jurisdictions look for a tiny body.
Fire crews had hauled rubber boats down the slopes and slapped them into the water. Other investigators waded in while K-9 units scoured the banks.
Based on what had happened here, Grace feared that Nadine had drowned Dylan and fled.
Would this be her third homicide in the case? Grace bit her lip as her cell phone rang with an update.
“It’s Boulder. They’re closing in on the Ford, Nadine’s been spotted near the bridge on Aurora and she’s definitely got a baby with her.”
“Alive, Stan? She could be carrying a corpse. Is the baby alive?”
From the newest transmissions, Jason, who’d been sketching a rough map of sightings, had it and pointed.
“She’s southbound coming to the bridge.”
Hodge’s Blazer was northbound, frozen in traffic but within sight of the bridge. The nearest marked police units, sirens wailing, weren’t getting much closer.
“All units, new call from a motorist on Aurora reports woman exiting the vehicle with baby, on foot on west side southbound—”
“Ten-four, we’re still too far back, stuck in this traffic—Larry, how’s it looking for you?”
“Not good.”
At this point the Blazer filled with the vibrating transmission from Guardian One, the King County police helicopter.
“We’ve got a visual—she has a child in her arms and is walking toward the bridge. Dispatch, can we get a call through to the road crew down there to wake them up to what’s going on? Somebody’s got to grab her now!”
The rear of the Blazer thudded as Lee hammered the side door in frustration. “Goddammit!”
Maria pleaded, “Somebody do something!”
Jason felt gooseflesh rise. Were the Colsons about to hear the murder of their baby over the air? He turned to Hodge, who had gritted his teeth and shifted gears.
“Hold tight, everyone!”
The Blazer’s motor growled as Hodge veered into oncoming traffic sounding his horn, flashing his four-way lights. I swear, Your Honor, it was a matter of life and death. The Chevy pinballed through traffic, around construction pylons.
“Faster!” Maria screamed.
Rising high over Lake Union, the Aurora Avenue Bridge offered sweeping views of Seattle, and of ships navigating the Ballard Locks and the Lake Washington-Lake Union Ship Canal on their way to the ocean.
Nadine had walked to the middle of its span when someone tried to stop her.
“Hold it right there!”
Two men wearing white T-shirts, jeans, hard hats, and orange vests were running toward her. She saw walkie-talkies clipped to their belts.
“We want to talk to you for a moment, please!”
Her face clenched, Nadine raised Dylan just over her head. He began to cry.
“You get away from me!”
The men flashed their empty palms. Then, amid sirens, horns, and the thumping helicopters, Nate Hodge’s Blazer screeched to a halt and Marie and Lee rushed toward Nadine, who backed hard against the bridge’s railing.
“Nadine, please. I’m Maria, Dylan’s mother! Please put him down!”
Nadine’s memory raced back to when Maria had jumped onto Axel’s van to stop her from taking Dylan, remembering how her eyes reflected the desperation she now carried in her heart.
Nadine was confused.
Don’t be tricked.
She looked at the people circled round her: the two construction workers, Maria, her husband, Jason Wade, and Nate Hodge, who was photographing it all as police
vehicles approached.
“Stay back! All of you!”
“Yes, Nadine.”
“He’s mine, Maria! You stole him from me!”
Nadine lifted Dylan to the railing, holding him on it.
“No, please, Nadine!” Tears filled Maria’s eyes as she edged closer, ever so closer, fighting her instinct to reach for Dylan, to lunge for him.
She was still too far.
“You stole my baby, Maria, and you lied!”
Maria nodded.
“Yes, he’s yours and I know you love him so much, no one understands that, but I do!”
Nadine nodded as she listened.
“So I’ll tell everyone here for you, Nadine, he’s your baby because you love him the most. I understand.” She pointed to Jason. “This man is a reporter. He’s writing down the truth.”
Nadine nodded slowly.
“But I love Dylan too. So please, could I hold him one last time, to say good-bye, please?”
Nadine repositioned her fingers on Dylan’s waist, keeping him on the railing edge while she thought, as Maria, and the police behind her, moved closer. Far back, a sharpshooter with a scope was lining up a head shot.
“Please, Nadine, may I hold him, one last time?”
“No!”
Maria leapt forward, her hands covering Nadine’s; now both women had hold of Dylan. Maria screamed, feeling Nadine growling and driving her feet hard into the ground, trying to propel herself, Dylan, all of them, over the side.
Maria fought back. Dylan wailed as the women struggled for him. The others had rushed forward to pull them away from the side. Maria had Dylan now, but in the surge, Nadine had succeeded in getting herself over the side. Hands reached for her but she fought them as she slid from their grip. A police officer had seized one wrist as her body dangled high above Lake Union.
Nadine never screamed.
She never uttered a word. Instead she fought with her free hand and kicked fiercely to loosen the officer’s grip even as another officer reached for her.
But he missed.