Rescue Team

by Candace Calvert

  “For evidence,” he clarified, remembering his mother’s words: “Human remains.”

  “Here in Barton Springs?”

  In the greenbelt where you jog . . . “Yes. Though they haven’t released the exact site. So—”

  “I’m not asking. I just wondered if you were going to take part.”

  “I’ll be there.” He frowned. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “It’s been a long day, that’s all.”

  Wes wanted to jump in the truck and drive over there to hold her. “I have a few hours’ work here. We don’t usually work Saturdays, but there are some emergencies because of the storm. I could come by later if you want. Bring some burgers. And do my impression of Nancy Rae as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Guaranteed prescription after a rugged day.”

  Her short chuckle was something, at least. “Thank you for the thought, but I’m good. I’m going to do my workout, tackle that paperwork, then curl up on the couch with Roady.”

  New low: he was jealous of a stub-tailed cat.

  “We’ll plan on tomorrow evening, then. I’ll—” He stopped as his phone buzzed with a text message. “One second, Kate. I need to read an Amber Alert.” He scanned the details, noted the time. “Okay, got it.”

  “Will you be called for a search?”

  “Probably not. Unless they need volunteers to knock on doors. Law enforcement handles kidnappings. This one’s a baby.”

  Kate’s distress was audible.

  “Yeah. Two months old. A girl,” he added, sharing her sentiment, “named Harley.”

  - + -

  Judith shut off the shower and made a hasty reach for her robe. She’d been right; she hadn’t imagined the sound. Thumps, pounding. Shouts too. The TV was on, but it was too loud for even that. What on earth?

  She tightened her belt, glanced in the foggy mirror, and walked toward the living room. Scant steps into the hallway she realized someone was pounding on her front door. Then she heard the shout.

  “Judith Doyle? Austin Police Department. Open the door, ma’am!”

  “I DON’T BELIEVE THIS.” Kate sat cross-legged holding her phone, glued to the TV and reeling from the second shock in fifteen minutes. “The police actually suspect Judith—our Judith? Are you sure? The news isn’t saying anything about that. Though I think this is taped from a little earlier.”

  “I don’t want to believe it either.” Lauren sounded as stunned as Kate felt. “But I heard it from my friend who’s married to a PD officer. And there’s only one Austin Grace volunteer named Judith that I know of. Apparently the police asked Trista if anyone had been showing unusual interest in the baby. She told them Judith took photos of Harley and bought her a gift.”

  “Judith showed me the photos, but I can’t believe she’s capable of something like this. It doesn’t make any sense.” Kate shook her head; Judith had asked her about the mother and baby only recently, expressed concern about not seeing them. The day she and Kate exchanged phone numbers and made plans to have coffee. Judith, a kidnapper?

  “I remember them both, mom and baby,” Lauren told her. “Trista left Harley alone in the ER waiting room once, and—never mind, it doesn’t matter. But I talked with her, offered to help her with some pamphlets. She’d picked up the new Baby Moses brochure by mistake, so I made sure she knew there was information on baby care, immunization safety, all that. The mother’s a kid herself.”

  “I thought that same thing the time we treated Harley in the ER. Trista looked undone. It wasn’t easy to convince her it was safe to take the baby home, and—”

  “Do you see that, just now?” Lauren interrupted. “That’s the grandfather they’re interviewing.”

  “I see it. Still has a bandage on his arm.” Kate watched as the scowling man wedged in front of his daughter to talk to the reporter. He aimed a finger toward the camera lens. “I didn’t know Trista and the baby lived with him.”

  Kate and Lauren were quiet for a while, listening as he recounted the story.

  “No way,” Lauren said finally. “Judith wouldn’t crawl through a nursery window in broad daylight and snatch that baby out of her crib. But, dear Lord, someone did. Trista looks an inch from catatonic. I can’t imagine anything more horrible than having no idea where your child is.”

  Except ten years of it . . . and knowing I’m to blame.

  “I have this urge to call Judith and check on her. But . . .” Lauren sighed.

  “What do you think is happening with her right now?” Kate slipped the Pilates DVD back into its case. “Would the police just show up at her house?” She grimaced; they’d shown up here. Police, Barrett Lyon . . .

  “I’d think so. Without warning. Search her home. Everything. I hate the thought of it, but they have to check every lead. Harley’s welfare depends on it. Maybe even her life. I don’t want another tragedy with a baby.”

  “No.” Kate fought a wave of dizziness. “It can’t happen again.”

  - + -

  Wes hurled his twenty-four-hour pack into the truck, slid behind the wheel—and made himself stop for a moment. As angry as he was right now, he’d flip this rig over in a ditch before he got to Austin. He bit back a curse, taking a breath instead. Please, Lord, let this end okay. Use me.

  He reached for the ignition and then remembered Kate. She’d been distraught when he’d talked to her earlier; she needed to hear this newest update. He pulled out his cell, tapped her number.

  “What is it?” Her voice was anxious. “You’ve heard something?”

  “We haven’t found the baby,” he reported quickly. Anger whitened his knuckles on the steering wheel. “But don’t worry about Judith. She’s not involved. This isn’t a kidnapping.”

  “Where’s Harley, then?”

  “That mother—” Wes’s teeth ground together—“dumped her baby off somewhere. Abandoned her and drove away.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I don’t either . . . all my life. Wes shoved the anger down. “Apparently the mother’s had some kind of breakdown. Babbling about the Bible and milk shakes—not much that’s helpful or even coherent. She claims she drove around all day, then left the baby ‘somewhere.’ She can’t remember exactly where. Only that she left her in her car seat, with her favorite white blanket. They’re trying to compile a list of possible sites. I’m leaving now for the staging area. There’s not much time before it gets dark and cold.”

  “I want to help,” Kate said in a rush. “Pick me up. Let me—”

  “Can’t.” His heart tugged at her offer. “They aren’t using citizen searchers yet. I’m meeting Jenna. I’ll call you when I know something. Promise. Gotta go.”

  Wes said a quick good-bye, set the truck’s engine to roaring, and took off. There was barely an hour of daylight left and then it would be flashlights and headlamps. He prayed Trista Forrester had dressed her child warmly or at least tucked that blanket around her and hadn’t left the baby at the mercy of the elements in some remote location, and . . .

  No. The memory rushed back, unfolding before Wes could stop it.

  That awful night. Running. Pajamas, bare feet, and inky darkness. Chest heaving, throat raw, his heart threatening to explode. Gulping air, stumbling over tangled roots and ankle-deep in sucking mud. Straining to see—to find her. The sharp scent of the cedar whipping across his face, its laden boughs soaking his skin with icy water. Bringing cruel shivers that trapped his tongue between his teeth and brought the salty taste of blood. Running, trying to find her—lost. Every moment like no nightmare or bogeyman he’d ever dared to imagine.

  But nothing compared to the terrifying confusion of being abandoned. Left without explanation in blackness and cold, silent except for the rush of the storm-swollen river somewhere in the distance. And his own sob-choked shouts, hoarse and foreign to his ears.

  “Mommy! It’s dark. I’m scared. . . . It’s cold, Mommy. Please come back!”

  Wes pressed his boot flat on the gas pedal. He’d fin
d that baby.

  - + -

  “You’re pacing.” Lauren sighed through the phone. “I can feel it.”

  “No, I . . .” Kate stopped the dizzying circuit she’d been making around her living room since the call from Wes. She was still in her workout clothes and her stomach had started to growl with hunger. But there was no way she could eat. “I can’t just wait here for Wes to call back.” She glanced toward the muted TV screen. “Or for something awful to show up on the news. Waiting isn’t something I do well. It’s—”

  “Because we work in a hospital,” Lauren finished, voice full of the understanding only another nurse could offer. “We jump in when there’s a crisis. We act; we fix. We don’t wait. Waiting is like hobbling a racehorse. . . . Which is why I called Judith a few minutes ago.”

  “You did?” Kate sank onto the arm of the couch. “How is she?”

  “In shock, I think. I offered to meet her somewhere to talk, but her daughter was on her way up from San Antonio. She’s a lawyer. Though, thank heaven, it doesn’t sound like Judith needs one.”

  “The police have completely backed off?”

  “Yes. But the media managed to follow the police on the initial call. Judith said it looks like wild pigs were rooting in her dahlia bed. She sort of rambled from one subject to another. But mostly she sounded truly frightened for Harley. And Trista. Upset with herself, too.”

  “Why?”

  “For ‘crossing the line of professionalism.’ She said that at least three times.”

  “Because she gave a gift to the baby.” Kate hated that this volunteer’s kindness had brought her so much trouble.

  “And because she took those photos of Harley.” Lauren clucked her tongue. “The police still have Judith’s camera. She’d uploaded almost everything to her computer. Except for three photos of Harley. And some of the Barton Creek Greenbelt. She was planning to send them to Trista with a link to information on the trails. They spoke about taking the baby there in the spring.”

  “I saw those photos too. They showed the greenbelt near the Zilker Park trailhead.” Kate stood, her heart starting to pound. “They talked about the park?”

  “Yes. Because Judith took her daughter there when she was a baby. And Trista said she wanted to walk somewhere along the water.”

  “Wait.” Kate pressed her hand to her chest, her mind whirling. “Didn’t you tell me that Trista had one of those Safe Haven brochures?”

  “Yes. She didn’t understand what that meant. So I explained the story from—”

  “The Bible.” The words left Kate’s lips with a gasp. “The Bible and milk shakes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Something Wes told me,” Kate said, dashing to where her running shoes sat beside the front door. “When Trista finally told the police she’d abandoned Harley, she was babbling incoherently about the Bible and milk shakes.” Kate slid a foot into her shoe. “I have no idea about the milk shakes. But unless I’ve forgotten everything I learned in Sunday school, Moses was left by his mother—”

  “At the water’s edge,” Lauren finished. “Oh, dear Lord . . .”

  “Call the police.” Kate reached for her other shoe. “Tell them what Judith said about the park.”

  “You really think Trista left her baby there?”

  Kate yanked her jacket from the coat peg. “I’m going to find out.”

  “What? No way. It’s going to be dark soon. It’s flooded out there. It isn’t safe, and—”

  “And I’m minutes from there. I’ll only go as far as the trailhead, take a quick look around; that’s all. I’ll be in and out before dark. The police can take over from there. I’m going, Lauren.”

  KATE WEDGED A HIP between the wooden flood barricades, grimacing as a nail caught her tights and jabbed the skin beneath. She wrestled with the fabric in the deepening dusk; it would have been smarter to have taken the time to pull on her jeans. More protection, warmer, and—

  She gave the barricade a shove, heard it collapse with a clatter, amber caution beacon still flashing. There was no time. Not even minutes to spare. It would be dark far too soon.

  She broke into a trot, anxiety rising. If she was cold, what would happen to a baby left down by the water’s edge? With just a little blanket. She tried to recall Harley’s sweet face, but the only thing that came was the constant loop of Wes’s words in that last phone call. “That mother . . . dumped her baby . . . abandoned her . . .”

  Kate pushed her pace, heading toward the trail and trying to outrun a painful intrusion of images: Baby Doe limp in her hands, her newborn son wrapped in that sweatshirt . . . “dumped her baby . . .”

  She stumbled, lurched forward, fell to her hands and knees in a mix of mud and gravel. She clambered upright, wiping her stinging hands on her tights. Then pulled the mini flashlight from her jacket pocket. Switched it on, focused the beam—and gasped.

  The flat terrain she’d jogged only days ago was now a minefield of mounded mud and water-sluiced ruts. As if the devil himself had delighted in scraping cruel fingers across this family park. Could Trista have actually chosen this place to leave her baby? Kate’s stomach sank, the ugly truth making her shiver. Ava Smith picked a darkened bathroom. I chose . . . Panicky decisions, unforgivable mistakes. Kate started forward again, hustling as best she could as the flashlight beam bounced over the pocked terrain in cadence with her thoughts. Dumped, dumped, dumped . . .

  She tried not to think of her chances of finding the baby. She couldn’t. Kate only knew that she wasn’t going to let this happen again—a baby left alone in the dark. She’d find Harley.

  - + -

  “We’re stopping to listen for a minute,” Wes said, signaling to Jenna in the darkness.

  “Gotcha.” She halted, just yards away, her headlight beam hitting a tree in the distance. Her whisper sounded like it rose straight from her heart. “I’ve never prayed for a baby to fuss. Until now.”

  He nodded, grateful again that he’d been paired with her on the hasty-search team. It was easy to see that even as a rookie, Jenna had the dedication it took for this kind of work. Wes closed his eyes, concentrated. Heard a single whine from a live-search dog. And the thud of boots of the other team members also coming to a halt. A cough. The droning chug of a boat motor out on Lady Bird Lake. Traffic over the Congress Avenue Bridge. But no baby. It was dark now, the temperature dropping. There had been no concrete response to the news coverage. Nothing.

  The searchers were following every convoluted lead they’d gotten from Trista Forrester. Every place she’d remembered being today: Chick-fil-A, a Walmart, and here, by “that big, ugly statue in the park.” Stevie Ray Vaughan. It seemed so long ago that he’d been here with Kate. Her silly air guitar, their first date. He reminded himself to call her as soon as he got a chance. It had to be killing her to sit and wait.

  “Two minutes,” Jenna whispered, checking her watch. “No crying. Do you think . . . ?” She cleared her throat. “Could Harley have cried herself to sleep?”

  Or can’t cry anymore. A baby blanket wasn’t near enough protection from the chill. Wes recalled what he knew of hypothermia symptoms in infants: reddened skin that was cold to the touch, drowsiness, cardiac disturbance. Death. What kind of mother did something like that?

  He swallowed the anger down. Signaled to Jenna. “Let’s go.”

  - + -

  “Stop blaming yourself, Mom. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Judith set her teacup on the table, looked at her daughter. Molly’s eyes were so like her father’s and filled with worry now. “They told us in volunteer training that we should keep an emotional distance. Avoid personal involvement with patients. And with visitors. They warned it could lead to problems, for volunteers and for the hospital as well. And now . . .”

  “Now the mistake has been cleared up—that poor, misguided teenager’s confusion in accusing you.” Molly slid her arm around Judith’s shoulder. “You only did what you always do, Mom. Throw your hear
t into helping other people. There’s no mistake in that.”

  No mistake? Judith shivered against a chill she hadn’t been able to shake since the Austin police burst through her door. She glanced toward the TV, showing a repeat of footage outside the Forresters’ Blue Meadow Way house. The photo of Harley and a mention of the favorite white baby blanket and car seat. Then new clips of a search-and-rescue command trailer and a close-up of a waiting ambulance. Judith’s throat squeezed. “That poor baby. This shouldn’t be happening.”

  Molly sighed. “No. It shouldn’t. But right now all we can do is pray that they find her quickly.”

  Pray? Judith glanced toward the Bible lying on the table near her wingback chair. What would Molly think if she knew that her mother rarely prayed anymore?

  Her daughter slid her arm back and was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been wondering if you should maybe try something else, Mom.”

  “Try . . . ?”

  “With your volunteering. I’m not sure that being around a hospital is a good thing for you. Especially emergency—”

  “No.” Judith sat taller on the couch. “That’s not true, Molly. It’s the best possible thing for me. And for the hospital, our patients.”

  Our. Judith didn’t think she’d ever said that before.

  “They’re fortunate to have you. But I wonder if you’re investing too much of your time. It seems like whenever I call, you’re at one hospital or another. There’s more to life than carrying vases of flowers and filling balloons for kids in waiting rooms.”

  And doing cardiac compressions on the floor . . . What would Molly say about that?

  Judith met her daughter’s gaze. “They need me.”

  “Mom . . .” The concern in Molly’s eyes increased. “I see how this situation with the baby is affecting you. I watch you putting your life on hold to be at those hospitals day in and day out. All times of the day and night now—at Austin Grace.”

  “Yes. Because I’m needed there,” Judith repeated, beginning to feel too much like she was being interrogated again. “There’s no reason for you to be concerned, darling.”