Exposure

by Therese Fowler

  He stopped when he got outside the doorway, then, drawing himself up, walked away from Amelia’s room. He would not allow himself to look back.

  Out in the lobby, the deputy was still there, still talking with the clerk about the weather and eating something that smelled of tuna from a plastic Tupperware square. Anthony checked his phone for the time: 10:30.

  Walking past them, he paused at the counter to grab a hospital information brochure, then went to the far opposite side of the room and stood facing the tall windows. Drafty as it was there near the windows, he wasn’t going back to Amelia’s room for his jacket. In the cones of light cast from each parking lot light post he saw sleet and snow mixed in with the rain—it was beautiful and mesmerizing.

  He heard the deputy laugh loudly and say, “Yeah, but you can’t blame a fool for what he doesn’t know.”

  “Tell that to Gibson Liles,” Anthony said to himself. He sat down and leaned over, elbows on knees, phone in his hands. 10:31. It was time.

  30

  NTHONY LISTENED TO THE LINE RING, AND RING AGAIN, FIVE times, and thought he was going to have to leave his mother a message (which he really didn’t want to do), when she picked up with a tentative “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She gasped. “Oh, God. Anthony! It is you. I saw the number but … Honey! Are you—Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “It’s okay, I’m okay. Calm down,” he said. “Sois calme. Right?”

  “Right,” she sputtered, laughing. “Honey, oh, I’m so glad to hear from you. Everyone has been frantic. Cameron said you were in touch earlier, but she didn’t know from where. Are you in Mexico? Can you tell me anything?”

  He swallowed the stone that had lodged in his throat and said, “We aren’t in Mexico, no. We never meant to go there. We went to New York. How are you? I saw the news—that they arrested you.”

  “Yes, well—wait, New York?” she said.

  “On our way to Canada. Which brings me to now, and why I’m calling. It’s Amelia. We’re in a hospital in Vermont. It looks like she’s going to need her appendix out. They just took her for a CT scan, but the doctor seems pretty convinced already.”

  “Oh no! Where in Vermont? What hospital? Has she told her parents? I assume the hospital needs their consent to treat her.”

  “Actually, no she hasn’t, and no they don’t. Mom … we screwed up,” he said, pushing his hand through his hair. “She tried using a fake name, but we weren’t really prepared and they caught on. I mean … I don’t know, probably I would’ve come clean anyway if she ends up needing surgery. Her mom deserves to know. Anyway, they’re going to report us to the authorities. It’s only a matter of time.”

  His mother was quiet—so quiet that he checked his phone to make sure they were still connected.

  “So …” she said slowly, “so to begin with, I should get in touch with Mariana Davis—”

  “What I need you to do is call Sheri Wilkes and tell her Amelia is here in Newport, Vermont, at the North Country Hospital. I did tell the nurse her right name, but they might still have her under the name Marie Wilkes.” He read his mother the hospital’s telephone number from the brochure, then said, “Tell her to get on the next flight to, I don’t know, Montreal, I guess—I assume she’s got a passport. She can drive from there. It’s only about a hundred miles. I’m not sure where the next closest major airport would be.”

  “Burlington’s probably closer,” she said, then read the number back to him. “So okay, I’ll do that, I’ll call right away. How is Amelia? What happened?”

  He checked the time again. 10:35. “We were going to look for an unpatrolled border crossing, but she got sick. She wanted to keep going, but she was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “That was … that must have been hard. Honey, don’t you think I should get Ms. Davis working on this?”

  “Not just yet, okay? I think maybe I’ve found a way to get Liles to drop all the charges—but I can’t get into it right now.”

  “Anthony—”

  “Mom, really. You’ll have to trust me.”

  He could almost hear her struggling with her need to know more, and her difficulty finding the willingness to trust a kid who’d abused what he’d been given—or so he imagined it. Finally she said, “All right … okay, well, isn’t there something I can be doing? I hate to feel so helpless.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Christ, I’m sorry.…” He squeezed his eyes closed briefly, then opened them and blinked and cleared his throat. “Call Amelia’s mom, like I said. That’ll be a big help. And I’m sure there’ll be other things later. Listen,” he said, standing and facing the windows once more, “I … I really have to go now. I just wanted … I wanted to talk for a minute, to say thanks for everything you’ve done for me, and to apologize.”

  “Oh, honey. I only wish I could do more.”

  “Me too. I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, sweetheart.”

  He pressed END before she could say anything else, and then he pocketed his phone and went out into the cold, wet night.

  In the hours to come, he would get in touch with Cameron again. She would contact Jodi about the video and then begin updating their friends, and the thousands who’d begun following their story on Facebook, with news of Amelia’s condition. He would trudge through the weather, icy water streaming from his hair and nose and chin, and find a garage, then a shed, then a barn from which to make calls to the hospital posing as an FBI agent in order to get information on Amelia’s condition—which was surprisingly easy to pull off. People believed what made sense to them. They would think, Of course the FBI would be calling, and how exciting that they’d be able to help out!

  He would be told, sometime around two A.M., that Amelia was in surgery, and in recovery, woozy, at four. He’d learn that her parents had resorted to chartering a plane—no flights from Raleigh so late at night—and that they’d be there waiting when she was brought back to her room. He’d hear that other FBI agents would be arriving in the morning to help the Newport police and the Vermont troopers in their search for the missing boy—oh, but then he probably knew that already.

  Approximately three hours before sunrise, he would call Raleigh’s directory assistance to get the number for Gibson Liles at the DA’s office, then he’d call that number, knowing he’d reach voice mail, and tell the DA what all of this had come to. He’d text Cameron to say he’d done exactly that, and ask her to get the word out. The snow would be coming down hard by then, accompanied by a light wind. In the impossible darkness of the Vermont night, the snow would reflect almost no light. He would leave the barn, soaked through and shivering, and set out in no particular direction.

  He’d thought this plan over from every angle—what people would say, how they would rally around Amelia—and knew that all he had to do now was keep walking, and the one thing he needed to accomplish before he was found would, before too long and without unbearable discomfort, take care of itself.

  31

  ARLAN WILKES AND HIS WIFE WAITED FOR AMELIA TO BE returned to her room, both of them doing their best to accept, or more likely ignore, the police presence in the corridor. The smug bastards, he thought. He knew how they saw it. They had her now. Now all they had to do was hang around for a day or so until she was deemed fit for travel, and then it was back to Raleigh and a small cell on one of the upper floors of the Wake County jail for little Miss Wilkes, thirty minutes’ visitation allowed each week, see what happens next.

  Harlan could not remember a longer night than the one he’d just spent. Beginning with Sheri finding him in the game room (where, after a turkey-sandwich supper, he had been distracting himself by lying on one of Amelia’s pillows and watching rebroadcasts of NFL games from the ’70s) and hearing her say Kim Winter was on the phone, to his mobilizing the people who could find them a pilot and a plane, to conversations with the FBI and the Vermont State Police—who would be ensuring Amelia’s safety (a euphemi
sm if he ever heard one), and then the long, anxious flight into this Nowheresville’s tiny airport, where a local police officer met them and drove them through insanely heavy snow to “our little hospital by the lake.”

  “Lucky Jim stayed on to keep the runway plowed,” the officer told them, as friendly as if they’d come to town for a ski vacation or some such. “Usually, they leave at five, but we knew weather was comin’. Good you got here safe. Not every pilot would be willing, nope. Much worse than this and they’d shut things down, but it’s your good luck this storm’s just a warm-up for wintertime. This here’s hardly a storm at all, bet we won’t see ten inches when it’s all through.…” Sheri had sat stiffly in her warmest coat, gloves on, scarf on, hat on, gripping the door handle and blinking against the whiteness swirling in the headlights. Harlan had nothing to say either, except that yes, of course, they were very glad to be getting here to see their daughter, very glad to know she was safe and in good hands.

  Now noise in the corridor let him know that Amelia was on her way from the recovery room. He stood and Sheri did too, a bright, ridiculous smile on her face. Who could be happy now? Relieved, yes. Winter hadn’t managed to get Amelia out of the country, and she’d found medical care, thank God, before it was too late. But happy?

  “Hey, baby,” Sheri said, going straight to the wheelchair as it came through the doorway.

  Amelia, sallow-skinned, dark circles under her eyes, hardly looked at either of them before she said, “Where’s Anthony?”

  God almighty, Harlan thought, unsure whether he was more upset by her appearance in that gown, lank-haired, an IV line stuck in her, or by her greeting—if you could call it that. Sheri moved back as the aide turned the chair and positioned it close to the bed. “He … we don’t know. Didn’t he say where he was going, before he left you?”

  Amelia shook her head. “I already told them he didn’t. Hand me his jacket, would you?”

  Sheri turned to see where Amelia was looking, and took a black fleece jacket from the chair. “Well, nobody knows anything more,” she said, handing it to Amelia. “How are you feeling?”

  Amelia answered with a frown while the aide helped her into bed.

  Harlan, displeased that Sheri would just hand the jacket over, displeased that Amelia would ask for it, came to the bedside. “Don’t be ugly with your momma. We’ve been up all night—up for the last week, in fact, worried to death and praying that you were okay. Show a little consideration.”

  Looking at Sheri, she said tightly, “I’m feeling okay.”

  When Amelia was settled in her bed and the aide and nurse were done fussing with the IV and blankets and pillows and bed height, the three of them sat together like strangers at a funeral, no one saying a word.

  The sense of unreality was so strong that Harlan felt disoriented, dizzy almost. How could they, the Wilkes family, be at the top of Vermont during a blizzard, in a hospital so small and so empty that it seemed like a stage set, with cops hanging around outside talking nothing but snow and what a damn crazy fool that Winter kid must be to have left there without his car—without even his coat! Harlan didn’t like the admiration he’d heard in their tone. The kid was a renegade and a coward, leaving Amelia there, helpless and alone, so that he could escape. No doubt he was in Canada already—probably had an accomplice there, probably was sitting someplace warm knocking back a few drinks and laughing about his success. Too bad about the girl, he’d be saying, but there’ll be others. Wink, nod, nudge.

  Harlan decided to try again with Amelia. He’d got off on the wrong foot—understandable, but obviously not the tack to take. She was in a bad way, too. He said, “We’re so grateful you’re all right.”

  She said nothing.

  “Mr. Hubbard will be doing everything possible to get you released, maybe even keep you from going to jail.”

  Nothing.

  “If you’ll testify that you went against your will—”

  “Don’t start, Daddy,” she said, her words like three gunshots in the quiet room.

  Sheri said, “Harlan, there’ll be plenty of time for all that.”

  “How ’bout I go see if I can find me a Co-cola,” he said. “Guess up here it’s just Coke, though, right? Sheri, you want something?” She shook her head. “Nurse said there’s vending machines in the ER—think they’ll have pork skins?” He smiled, but neither his wife nor his daughter appreciated his efforts. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Hold on,” Sheri told him, standing. To Amelia she said, “I’ll be right back. I need to talk to Daddy.”

  He waited in the corridor as Sheri came out and closed the door behind her. “Harlan, I have to ask you, why do you persist? Surely you can see it’s not helping.”

  “I’m frustrated. It’s … it’s like she’s out in the water about to drown, and the raft is right there next to her but she won’t climb on. Makes no sense.”

  “I’ve decided, I’m going to tell her—about what happened with me and Whit Johnson.”

  Harlan frowned at her. “That is not a good idea.”

  “I’m not real concerned with your opinion right now. You’ve felt free to disregard everyone else’s, after all.”

  “You weren’t arguing too loudly, if I recall.”

  “You’re right, and that was my mistake. None of this had to happen, Harlan. I tried to support you the way a wife should … but it’s led us here—not Vermont here, but to having a miserable daughter who’s under house arrest in a hospital, a boy gone missing in a snowstorm, his mother sick with worry.… Here is an awful place to be.”

  Harlan shoved his hands in his coat pockets and leaned against the wall, bracing one foot against it. This wasn’t sitting well with him. He said, “You really want to encourage her with all that lovelorn business?”

  “I want her to know that I understand a little bit about what she’s been going through. Not the law mess, but a father’s resistance to a man based on—well, based on nothing but prejudice and a mistaken idea of what his little girl deserves.”

  “Oh, so you wish your daddy would’ve let up so you and Half-breed Johnson could’ve stayed together, is that it? Wish I’d never crossed your path? Fine. But you told me yourself he was happy just running a diner. If you’d stuck with him you wouldn’t have anything like the life you have now—and you wouldn’t have Amelia.”

  “True, I wouldn’t, but that’s not the point. I’m not sorry for where I am. I got over the heartbreak—maybe because he wasn’t really the one for me. I do love you, Harlan, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him back then.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Have your little chat—”

  “I’m not asking your permission.”

  “But when her love goes wrong and she can’t ever let go and she ends up miserable and drunk and sick, don’t you all blame me.”

  “She is not your mother. In fact, if anything, she’s an awful lot like you.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but before his thought made it to his mouth, he thought again. She was right, he could see it—Amelia was strong-willed and hardworking and she had a dream she wasn’t willing to let go of, same as he’d been. The different part, though, was that Amelia was a girl, and girls didn’t see things like guys did.

  He said, “In some ways, okay, sure. But that doesn’t change anything about her and Winter.”

  Sheri looked at him with pity. “I wish I’d never gone along with your idea that she could be talked out of it, counseled, restricted out of it—that she should ever feel like she couldn’t bring any boy home to begin with. I knew better. It’s love, all right? There’s nothing to be done about it.” She pulled open the door and went back into the room, leaving him there with no chance to reply. Not that he knew what he’d have said anyway.

  He found his way to the ER, Sheri’s words, her attitude, her certainty all running back and forth inside his brain, making contradictory and chaotic thoughts that he was none too happy to have. Usually there’d be a hook in the
re to catch these thoughts, a hook made of doubt, say, or outright rejection, his own certainty that he had a grasp of what was right and true in the world. Not this morning.

  There were the vending machines. No pork skins, but he bought a soda. Outside, the day was a wash of gray light and blowing snow that seemed to be tapering off. He shivered, looking at it. Who lived in such godforsaken places as this? He wanted to ask this of the white-haired woman he saw behind the counter, who appeared to be otherwise sensible—and he would have if she hadn’t already been talking to a man whose badge identified him as a Vermont State Police officer. There were two others near the door, with a deputy who looked a little like Hitler.

  The officer at the desk—a trooper, Harlan thought, based on the chevron on his sleeve—was stirring a tall steaming cup of coffee with a wooden stick and saying, “… south of town about four miles. You know, Josiah Howell’s place. Old Josiah went out to his woodpile for a few logs to stoke the fire and actually walked over part of him in the snowdrift, you know. Felt funny under his boots, he said, not s’posed to be a ridge there. Dug some, and there he was.”

  The woman said, “That’s a shame is what it is. Betty told me at shift-change that he’d seemed like a nice, caring fella. What he could’ve been thinking …”

  “Why he didn’t drive, that’s what we’re wondering.”

  Harlan walked over to them. “So he’d have a better chance of avoiding the law—you’re talking about Anthony Winter, right?”

  “You with the news?” the trooper asked, eyeing him.

  “No, it’s my daughter he kidnapped.”

  The woman cocked her head. “You might want to think that one again.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Cindy, she was on shift last night, she said they were no-question devoted. She’s the one that had to report them, but she said she wished she didn’t have to. She didn’t know what the trouble was then, and when she found out, she was so sad for them. I got here at eleven and your girl was asking after him the whole time till they took her to surgery, and again after. Kidnapping, no sir, that won’t wash.”