Fran’s clear caramel eyes gazed through him, right to his core. “It’s probably better that I stay out of your way, Zach. If being around me was going to help you figure things out, it would have happened during these past weeks.”
He didn’t like it, but how could he argue?
The phone jerked Fran into motion. She felt stiff, awkward. She had no idea how long she’d stood in the same spot in the middle of the kitchen after Zach went upstairs to pack.
“Fran?” Annette’s voice was strained. “Have you or Zach seen Nell this morning?”
“This morning? No, but Pansy’s here on my porch.”
“Pansy…? Oh. I… Oh, Fran.”
“Annette? What’s wrong?”
“The school called. Nell’s not there.”
Fran looked at the clock. It was almost an hour after Nell should have arrived at school.
“Maybe she’s at Corbett House.”
“I’ll call there next. But…this is so unlike her. And the rain—oh, Fran…”
“You call Corbett House and Steve. I’ll be right there. And Zach. We’ll be right there.”
Before she had the receiver in place, she was already shouting, “Zach! Zach!”
The rain didn’t so much fall as drop on them, as if they stood beneath a drainpipe as large as the sky. Just the dash from the back porch to Steve and Annette’s house soaked them.
Fran and Zach ducked inside the open garage door and into the kitchen from there. Annette acknowledged them with the smallest nod and continued talking on the phone.
“No, Steve. No one has seen her…. The school, Fran and Zach, Miss Trudi, your mother…. Yes…. Yes, as soon as you can— No, wait, Steve. Someone should talk to her friend, Laura Ellen. Laura Ellen’s in school, but if this is something Nell’s been thinking about… Yes, I’ll stay here. Call me if you… Yes, yes. You, too. And, Steve—drive carefully.”
Her hands shook as she replaced the receiver. She pressed them against the edge of the counter. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course we came.” Fran placed her hand on top of Annette’s. “We’ll do whatever we can.”
Zach turned from the calendar boards posted on the wall. “Was there something today she didn’t want to do, that would’ve made her skip school? Could she have gotten confused—gone to some event the wrong day?”
Annette shook her head throughout the questions. “We talked about what she was doing today—she knew what she was doing and was looking forward to it.”
He grunted acceptance. “Use your cell phone from now on, in case she calls.”
“Of course, you’re right.”
“Have you called the police?”
“No. Do you think—?”
“Call them. What was she wearing?”
“Jeans and a light blue top. A dark green slicker with a hood, her black backpack. Oh, and yellow rain boots.”
“Good. What’s her path to school?”
She told him, but added, “I drove it twice after the school called. There’s something else—she was going to walk to school, but her bike’s gone.”
“Is Steve stopping to talk to her friend on his way home?”
She nodded. “I’m going to call Laura Ellen’s mother, too.”
“Good idea. But call the police first—don’t worry about it being a false alarm, we’ll apologize later.” Zach wiped the board marked Next Month clean, grabbed a blue marker and made a rough outline of Lake Tobias and the town. With the red marker he added crossed dotted lines, creating quadrants. “I’m starting here.” He added a red Z in the area they were in. “Any volunteers who want to look, you put them in a new quadrant. Once you have people in each quadrant, start halving them. If you have more than eight volunteers, start halving the halves. Understand?”
“Yes, but…”
“Zach works in search and rescue, Annette,” Fran said. “He knows what to do.”
Zach checked his cell phone’s battery. He grabbed a notepad and wrote his name and cell number. “Keep a roster of everybody’s phone numbers. Start a list on another sheet of everything you’ve done and everyone you’ve talked to, plus what they said.”
He looked at Fran for the first time. Pain pressed at her throat. His eyes looked as if the blue had shattered, leaving only glints amid a murky dullness.
“Stay here with Annette, Fran. Call if you hear anything.”
He walked out without another word. For half a second, Fran remained still. Then she squeezed Annette’s hands and said, “I’ll be right back.”
“Zach!”
He was halfway down the driveway, but turned back to her. Kay’s car pulled up to the curb, and Fran saw Miss Trudi in the passenger seat.
“Zach, the thing with Pansy being on the porch… If Nell was on the porch, if she left Pansy, she might have heard you say you were leaving.”
“I know.” His voice was raw. “Tell Annette and Steve about it, and the police when they come. I should’ve… I’ve gotta go look for her, Fran.”
He spun away.
He was blaming himself. And she could do nothing to help him.
Rain dripped from her hair and down her cheeks like tears as she watched Zach back his car out of her driveway and pull away.
Rescues didn’t happen because you wanted them to. They happened because you knew your job, did your work and cooperated with everyone around you. And because you had some damned good luck.
So, crawling up one street and down another, methodical and focused, Zach prayed.
He prayed he wouldn’t need his skills. He prayed his skills would be up to whatever was needed. He prayed for damned good luck.
He prayed this would be different.
He hadn’t saved Elliott. He hadn’t saved Miguel. Please, God, let him save Nell.
His cell phone rang. His heart jammed against his ribs in hope and fear.
“Corbett here.”
“Zach.” It was Steve, and Zach knew immediately it was neither the worst nor the best of news. “Fran said to give you a message.”
Fran’s clear eyes had gazed right through him, right to his core. If being around me was going to help you figure things out, it would have happened during these past weeks.
“Fran’s not there?”
Rain hit the windshield like fingernails tapping to get in.
“No. She left half an hour ago. We’ve been trying to get you, but couldn’t get a signal to your phone. She said to tell you she was going to look for Nell over where we used to go for raspberries. I told her Nell’s never been there, so I don’t know why. But Fran insisted and said to call you.”
“Okay. Thanks. No other word?”
“No. Just a lot of… We’ve eliminated a lot of places. The police are looking, too.”
“Good. We’ll find her, Steve. We’ll find your daughter.”
He clicked off; there wasn’t anything else to say. He turned the car around and headed for the old bridge over the Tobias River, where he and Rob and Steve had gone picking raspberries as kids.
Steve didn’t know why Nell might go there, but Zach did.
Because he’d told her about the place where he and Steve had been the best of brothers.
He followed the path they used to take as kids, bouncing over clumps of vegetation and mounds of earth until the car wouldn’t fit between the tree trunks.
Wishing to hell he had even half the equipment he kept in his car at home, he tucked what he did have into the pockets of his jacket. The flashlight, first-aid kit, bottled water, Swiss Army knife and expandable insulated blanket were among the supplies he’d bought from the discount store and stashed in the car when he’d first arrived in Tobias. He pulled on an extra pair of gardening gloves.
He needed them immediately. The wild raspberry bushes were bare to their arching, iridescent purple canes. They grabbed at him, clinging even more than the ones at Bliss House. These canes were lithe, twisting back to catch him in a new place whenever he freed himself.
Don’t be so impatient, Zach.
It was Steve’s voice. A boy’s voice.
A flash of heat enveloped him. It was summer. The smell of sun-warmed raspberries, the sting of pricks into his sweat-encrusted skin. Steve was reaching carefully into the thicket, plucking berries one by one until he had a handful, then drawing his hand out.
Next time don’t go plunging in and you won’t get stuck so bad. Take your time.
Not now. There wasn’t time to take. He had to find Nell. And Fran. Plunging in was the only way.
Yellow. He could swear he saw a flash of yellow.
Pushing and crashing through wet canes, he clambered to a slick spit of bank beside the river. The rush of water chewed away at the shoreline with the frenzied bites of a starved man handed a steak.
And there, on a small island that extended from the central stone upright of the old bridge, stood Nell and Fran. Fran was bent over, protecting Nell from the rain with her body. Water gushed around either side of the upright, making constant inroads on the island.
“Fran!”
She lifted her head, but didn’t see him.
“Fran! Over here.”
She spotted him, waved acknowledgement. Through the slanting rain he now saw the pale oval of Nell’s face under the hood of her slicker.
Fran shouted something. It sounded like “We’re okay.”
“I’m coming to get you!”
Even as he shouted the promise, he punched in 9-1-1 on his cell phone. He told the dispatcher the situation and the location.
“We’ll send someone right away,” she said. “Stay on the line with me. Don’t try to do anything until the experts arrive.”
He hung up. He was the expert. And there wasn’t time to wait for equipment.
On this side of the river the embankment beside the old road had eroded away to a sheer drop. He’d have to backtrack and circle wide to get to a point where he could climb up to the road. And even then, he’d be above them, with no way to reach them.
He had to go across.
He went as far upriver as the bank would take him, but he’d still be swimming at an angle against the current.
Closer now, he could see Fran and Nell more clearly. Fran shouted something, but he couldn’t hear because the sound of the water pounding the bridge supports made too much noise.
He stripped off his jacket, put his supplies in it and tied it into as tight a bundle as he could, then threaded his belt through it and put the belt back around his waist.
He tightened the knots in his shoelaces—he needed the shoes to protect him from debris tumbling through the river—then looked once more at Fran and Nell on the small island, and plunged in.
Cold, roaring water slammed into him. He swam in short, choppy strokes, his arms close to his head, but still the flotsam battered him.
His lungs burned, his arms felt weighted, but he pushed through the rushing water, stumbling onto the island, to Fran’s steadying hands.
“Any injuries?” He got out the question between gulps of air.
“No. We’re okay.” Fran helped him unhook the bundle and gave Nell a drink of water, then him. “She was trying to cross the river—to the raspberries.”
He nodded. The “whys” could wait.
“We’re going to get you guys off this island paradise.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Thank God for Fran’s calm.
He looked up, judging the distance to the bridge’s concrete railing overhead.
“It’s too high,” Fran said into his ear. “I tried boosting her to my shoulders, but it was way too far.”
He nodded. “Help’s coming, but we’re not waiting. I’ll swim Nell across, and you—”
“I’m not a good swimmer, Zach. I…I wouldn’t make…”
“Okay. I’ll come back for you then.”
“Zach, you’re exhausted….”
Their eyes met, and he saw her recognize the fact that there was no other way. There was barely room for the three of them to stand on this fast-disappearing island, and once it went, there would be nothing to hold on to.
“I’ll take the shorter route this time,” he said with a flicker of a grin. He crouched to the girl’s level.
“Okay, Nell. I’m going to swim you across the river. You’re going to hold on to me tight, and stay as close as possible. Understand?”
She glared at him.
He saw the fear in her expression, the awareness of danger. But she didn’t panic, this girl he’d helped create. And she was ticked.
“You don’t want me. I heard you. You’re going away because you don’t want me.”
“No—”
“I heard you! I heard you. You’re going away. You said so.”
“Nell—that’s not because of you. Do you hear me? I don’t live here anymore. I live somewhere else. That’s where my job is—that’s why I’m going away.”
“But…” Her chin wobbled and tears tracked down through the rain on her cheeks. “You and Daddy are mad at each other. You aren’t like real brothers, like when you used to come here. And it’s ’cause of me.”
“It can take grown-ups longer to get over things than kids. It’s going to take us a while to be okay. But when we do, I think we’ll be better brothers than before. Now listen to me.” He brought his face close to hers, looking into a reflection of his own eyes. “I know this has been confusing for you. But you’re a smart kid, and you know the right way for all this to sort out. Your daddy’s your true father. And your mommy is Annette. You’re a family. If you didn’t have them, I would never let you go, never in this lifetime. But you do.”
“Wh-what about you?”
“Me? I’m your uncle. Your Uncle Zach, who loves you, too. Always will.” He straightened. “And now we’re going to swim, and you’re going to do everything I tell you. Understand?”
She nodded, tears still in her eyes, but the chin solid once more.
He left the bundle with Fran, wrapping her in the insulated blanket and kissing her once before she helped him hook his belt through the loops of Nell’s jeans to hold her close to his downriver side. He’d use his body to protect her from the debris. He instructed Nell to float, to hold on tight and not to fight him. She stepped out of the yellow boots he’d first spotted and they waded in.
She gasped when the water struck her. When he glanced down, though, she had her lip between her teeth and not another sound came out.
He wished to hell he was the swimmer Steve was.
It was shorter to this bank, but the trip was harder. He was tired. He was trying to protect Nell, and he was basically swimming for two, though he felt her kicking her legs beside him.
Halfway across, something whacked his arm and he faltered, dipping Nell’s face under the water. She came up sputtering, but her legs never quit kicking.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
Neither had breath for more than that.
He felt ground under his feet at last, but the river had risen over the grassy bank so it was slippery as ice. He clambered up using one hand, while the other arm encircled Nell’s slight form and pushed her higher above the water. At last they scrambled to solid ground, both gulping in air.
He allowed himself ten deep breaths, then unhooked the belt with hands that weren’t functioning properly. He felt as if his fingers had swollen to four times their size. Finally, Nell was free.
“Nell, you get up to the old road, and you wait there. Help is coming.”
“But—”
“Do what you’re told.”
“Okay…Uncle Zach.”
“Good.” He gave her a boost and watched for two seconds as she pulled herself up the steep incline, gripping the sturdy saplings and bushes. She was a tough kid, his…niece.
He turned around and started back into the water. This time he heard Fran’s clear shout of “No!”
The debris was so thick now he cou
ld barely find water to stroke through. Branches slapped at him, leaves plastered his face.
There’d be no crossing this river another time. Fran would be pummeled.
A log slammed into him, swinging his arm out of the way like it was nothing, then scraped across the back of his head and rolled down his body. He went under. All the way under.
He heard a voice. Elliott. You’ve done good work, boy. Yes, it was Elliott. Zach saw his face. The sun-weathered wrinkles, the pallor of illness, and those eyes that gave no quarter. Then another face. Miguel. Pain twisting his features, words flowing from him as peace seemed to flow into him.
But then Zach saw other faces. A few faces he’d helped pull from rubble that would have been a grave otherwise. But mostly faces far more familiar. Guys on the task force. Doc, Taz and Waco. Rob and Kay. Max and Suz. Miss Trudi. His mother. Steve and Annette. Nell. And Fran…Fran.
He stroked through the water, pulling, reaching up. Again and again. He surfaced, gulping in air, taking in water with it, coughing, pulling in more air.
And he kept stroking, reaching. He didn’t even know where he was heading anymore. He had to keep going.
He felt something at his shoulder. More debris?
“Oh, God, Zach. Zach!”
It was Fran.
Hands pulled at him. He dug his feet in and staggered upright, held half by her, half by the bridge support.
“Zach, you should have stayed there. Why did you do this?”
His chest heaved with the effort to form words. “Because you’re here.”
She gasped. He thought it might have been a sob. “That log… I thought— I thought—oh, God, Zach.”
She wrapped her arms around him and they held each other. He wanted to stay there forever, or for at least the half of forever it would take for his lungs and muscles to recover.
But he felt the water lapping over his shoes and knew there was no time left.
“Climb up on my shoulders, Fran. The two of us might be tall enough for you to reach the railing.”
Baby Blues and Wedding Bells Page 21