by Ruth Reid
“What does asphalt and horse manure have to do with Adriana?” Brandon pressed.
“Right now I don’t know.” The agent didn’t, or wouldn’t, make eye contact.
Numbness deadened Roslyn’s senses. As Agent Sanderson said something about investigating all leads, his words muddled together. Roslyn’s vision blurred with fuzzy white dots, and the high-pitched squeal in her ears distorted any comprehension. She leaned against Brandon’s sturdy form as her knees buckled. Slumped over in his arms, she felt her weight lifted.
“Don’t take me away.” Her whimper was practically drowned out by the squawk of the radio static.
Brandon ignored her plea and crossed the room with Roslyn draped in his arms. On the opposite side of the office, he lowered her onto the cold leather couch. She attempted to sit up, but he gently placed his hand on her shoulder and eased her back down.
The scent of rubbing alcohol followed by a dab of cool wetness over her uncovered arm jolted her senses. Her eyes shot open. “I don’t—”
The needle penetrated her skin prior to Leon’s “little sting” comment. He Band-Aided the injection site, then stepped aside.
Brandon sat next to her. He stroked her hair, then kissed her forehead. For a moment, she drifted somewhere else, to a better time.
“The FBI is doing everything they can.” Brandon’s words jerked her back to reality.
She wanted to ask how much “everything” was, but overcome with both emotional and physical heaviness, her muscles relaxed. Her heart slowed its pace to a steady thump. Her eyelids closed as if paralyzed. In her dreamlike state, she heard Leon explain to Brandon how the sedative would help her sleep several hours. For Roslyn, the chemically induced sleep—a warped sense of abandonment of the body—felt like she’d been buried alive. An image of steam rising off asphalt flashed over her mind as her eyelids fluttered closed.
The phone rang . . . then rang again . . . and again.
She was dreaming, wasn’t she?
“Hello . . . Yes, it is,” Brandon said, his voice tense. “Where’s Adriana?” His words partially registered with Roslyn in a slur of sounds barely distinguishable. “How do you expect me to raise that much so quickly?” Silence. “Yes, I understand. Unmarked. Small bills.” The tunnel sound of his voice grew faint.
“Not enough time to trace,” a male announced.
“Will you be able to secure that much money?” Sanderson asked.
“My banker will have to pull strings at the corporate level. He didn’t give us much time.”
Her husband’s voice faded again as Roslyn fought succumbing to sleep. Her eyelids closed and refused to open. That must mean an exchange. Adriana for the money . . .
Roslyn opened her eyes to a squawk of unfamiliar voices. She eased into a seated position on the leather sofa, waves of dizziness preventing her from standing. She licked her dry lips and blinked a few times to adjust her focus. Blinding light bled through the opened window next to her as Brandon peered between the wooden slats. She craned into a better position in order to glimpse around her husband’s torso. Her gaze met a barrage of flashing strobes. More news vans. Reporters had gathered in a semicircle, microphones raised in the air. She squinted. A uniformed man stood at a podium.
Feeling weak, Roslyn fell back against the pillow. She should force herself to get up, to do something, but sinking into the couch, her muscles turned to mush. Just a few minutes more . . . Closing her eyes, she saw a familiar-looking man with red hair hold up the front page of the newspaper. The headline read: “Long Wait Over: Colepepper’s Abducted Daughter Home Safe.” Roslyn smiled. All was well.
“The Coast Guard is in position,” a voice said over the radio static.
Roslyn pushed upright and stood, pausing long enough to adjust her balance. She located Brandon seated in the armchair in front of the desk. His elbows steadied on his knees and his face was buried in his hands. He didn’t look up until she placed her hand on his shoulder.
Based on his downturned lips and fatigued expression, their daughter hadn’t been found.
Brandon stood. “You should lie down.” He turned her gently toward the door.
“What’s happening?” The way everyone in the room hovered near the desk in silence, she suspected he was keeping pertinent information from her. “I heard you talking to the kidnappers.”
His face paled. “That was five hours ago.”
“When are they going to give us Adriana?”
He looked down at the floor. It was so unlike him not to have a solution to a problem.
A wave of nausea caused the room to spin. Roslyn covered her mouth as bile rose to the back of her throat. Five hours. Something went wrong. Did he not get the money? “Brandon,” her voice squeaked.
He looked up, but his glossy eyes couldn’t maintain contact with hers. He gathered her into his arms, his grip emptying her lungs of air. Something was terribly wrong. “Tell me what’s happening. I heard something about the Coast Guard.”
When he pulled back to arm’s length, his face was wet with tears.
Roslyn’s throat tightened.
“They shut down Mackinac Bridge.” He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “The helicopters were—”
“What?”
He waved at Leon seated near the bookcase-lined wall.
“Brandon, tell me.” She glanced at Agent Sanderson perched next to the computer with the phone to his ear. Roslyn glared at her brother who was readying another syringe. “I’m not taking that,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I want you to go upstairs and lie down,” Brandon said, his voice strengthening. “When I hear something official—”
“No!” She jerked away from her husband and approached the agents. “I want to know about my daughter,” she demanded.
Sanderson brought the phone down from his ear. “I’m on hold with the Coast Guard. The search-and-rescue dive team is still underwater.”
Dive team? She shook her head. “No!” Her husband’s image distorted as her vision clouded with images of her precious daughter underwater. Roslyn’s entire body trembled uncontrollably. “Tell me what happened.”
“The car went over the bridge,” Brandon said slowly.
Chapter 10
Posen, Michigan
Present day
Faith dodged two hospital workers pushing a man on a gurney as she sped down the hall to reach Olivia and the man dressed in a white coat and green scrubs. Gideon kept pace, muttering something under his breath that sounded like a short prayer.
As Faith neared the two, the doctor turned and disappeared behind a door, leaving Olivia standing in the hallway alone. Lord . . . Your will be done, Father. She braced for the news. “What did the doktah say?”
Olivia dried her wet cheeks with the back of her hands. “Daed is going into surgery. His leg is broken in multiple places. The doktah said something about him needing a pin or rod or something.”
“And Mamm?”
“She’s badly bruised, internally too. The doktah wants to admit her for observation and keep an eye on her organs.” Olivia covered her face with her hands and cried.
A lump pressed against Faith’s voice box and prevented her from speaking above a whisper. “Is the doktah aware of Mamm’s kidney disease?”
Olivia nodded.
Faith glanced at Gideon, his expression pinched.
With a silence looming between them, Beverly came out of the restroom from across the hall, her gaze floating between Olivia, Faith, and Gideon. “What have you heard?”
Olivia updated their Englisch friend.
“Did the doktah say when we can see Mamm?” Faith asked.
“Nett until . . .” Olivia touched her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes a half second. “Nett until she’s out of X-ray.”
“How long will your daed be in surgery?” Gideon asked.
Olivia shrugged. “The ER doktah wasn’t sure.”
Faith looked up at the ceiling tiles,
blinking tears off her lashes as quickly as they formed.
Gideon nudged her shoulder. “Should we go back to the lobby and wait?”
“Gideon is probably right,” Beverly said. “I’m sure the hospital staff doesn’t want us crowding the hallway.”
Faith nodded, but as she turned toward the lobby, a woman behind them called Olivia’s name.
“Admitting has just informed me that your mother’s room number is 2218. Once she’s finished in radiology, a patient transporter will take her directly to the second floor. If you would prefer to wait upstairs, you can. Otherwise, I’ll ask Monica, the floor nurse, to call down when your mother is in her room.”
“We’ll be upstairs,” Faith said, not waiting for anyone else to decide. She wanted to see her mother as quickly as possible.
“Very well.” The nurse smiled and pointed to the right. “The visitor elevator is located in the main lobby.”
Beverly led them down the hall, turning in the opposite direction as the cafeteria, according to the sign, and ending up in the main lobby where she stopped at the bank of elevators and pressed the Up button.
Faith scanned the seating area. People occupied several groupings of couches and chairs while two workers, a man wearing a security uniform and a woman dressed in a beige jacket, sat behind a round desk marked Information Center.
The elevator door opened and people exited. Gideon held the door from closing as Faith and Beverly stepped inside.
“Olivia?” Faith said when her sister hesitated.
“I, ah . . . I’ll meet you there.” Olivia waved them off.
Faith expected Gideon to stay with Olivia, but he released the door instead.
“What do you think she’s doing?” Faith spoke softly in Pennsylvania Deitsch.
“I noticed her eyeing the courtesy phone,” he said.
“Who would she be calling nau?” Faith clamped her mouth, noticing his doleful expression. She hadn’t meant to salt his unhealed wound. “I suppose it’s . . . important.” She tried to sound positive, even though it was obvious. If Olivia had stayed behind to make a phone call, she was calling an Englischer.
Gideon lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Doesn’t matter.”
Faith understood. He might say it didn’t matter, but it did. He was speaking from a place of pain.
A short time later, Faith sat in Mamm’s hospital room as a nurse attached wires to small round patches on Mamm’s skin, which were supposed to record her heart rhythm, then the nurse touched a button on the machine and it printed a long paper strip.
“If your mother wakes up and needs something, you can contact me by pressing the Call button on the remote,” the nurse said. “Are you familiar with how to use the remote?”
Faith nodded. “Another nurse showed me earlier.” She settled back in the chair beside her mother’s bed. Mamm’s bruised body looked as though someone had pulverized her with a meat mallet. Shades of plum and blue covered her swollen face, shoulders, and arms, and the way she held her stomach, her abdomen was probably just as colorful. No wonder her liver, kidneys, and spleen were involved.
Minutes after the nurse left the room, Mamm moaned.
Faith leaped up from the chair. “Mamm, it’s Faith. How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty,” Mamm rasped.
Faith filled a small Styrofoam cup with ice water from the bedside pitcher, then positioned the straw next to Mamm’s mouth and held it as she took a sip. “Better?”
Mamm nodded, but winced. She touched the side of her head, palpating an egg-sized knot just above her right eye. Closing her eyes, tears slid down her face.
“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” Faith grabbed the remote attached to the bed rail and, not waiting for her mother to respond, pressed the nurse Call button. Her mother wasn’t one to complain. The time Mamm had accidentally sliced the tip of her finger off, she wrapped her bleeding hand in a dishrag and matter-of-factly told Daed, who was reading the newspaper in the sitting room at the time, that she needed him to drive her into town.
A voice came over the speaker system. “May I help you?”
“Jah.” Faith leaned closer and spoke into the remote. “Mei mother is in a lot of pain. Can someone bring her some medicine, please?”
“I’ll send her nurse in,” the woman responded.
A short time later, the nurse entered the room. “I hear you’re not feeling too good, Mrs. Pinkham? Can you tell me where it hurts?”
“All over,” Mamm said weakly.
“On a scale of one to ten, with one being mild and ten being the worst pain possible, what number would you say your pain is?”
“Eight.” She answered immediately, which meant her eight would equate to another person’s fifteen.
“I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling so badly, Mrs. Pinkham. Your doctor ordered morphine for pain control, so if you’ll give me a minute to get your dose ready, you should be feeling better soon.”
The nurse left the room and returned a few minutes later with a syringe. After verifying Mamm’s name, birth date, and scanning a barcode on her hospital bracelet, the nurse injected the medicine into the IV tubing. “You should start feeling better shortly. Can I get you anything else while I’m here?”
Mamm shook her head.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a little while to check on you.”
The medication made Mamm’s eyelids droopy within minutes. Shortly after Mamm dozed off, the door eased open and Olivia entered. She took one look at Mamm and gasped. “How is she?”
Faith wanted to ask Olivia where she had been, but held her tongue. “I think she’s doing better nau. The nurse was in a few minutes ago and gave her something for pain.”
Mamm’s eyes fluttered open. “Your father . . . how . . . ?”
“He’s in surgery,” Faith said, then turned to Olivia. “Are Gideon and Beverly still in the surgical waiting room?”
Olivia shrugged. “I wasn’t with them so I wouldn’t know.”
Faith reached for Mamm’s hand. “Try to rest. We’ll let you know as soon as—” Her mother’s eyes closed. Faith settled back into the chair at the bedside while Olivia stood teary-eyed at the foot of the bed.
“She looks like someone whose been dragged behind a plow team.” Olivia moved toward the head of the bed and examined the IV bag hanging on the pole. “They’re giving her dextrose and potassium,” she said, reading the bag of fluids. Without missing a beat, she explained, “Dextrose is for low sugar and potassium replacement is important for your heart to function correctly.”
Faith crinkled her brows. “How do you know all that?”
“I read a lot.”
Faith didn’t have much time to read anything but the Bible in preparation for joining the church. Even then, she was usually so tired she would fall asleep in the process. “Do you think she has something wrong with her heart? The nurse hooked her up to that monitor on the wall.”
“Maybe. Did the doktah say anything?”
“Nothing about her heart, but she was dehydrated, and they’re watching her kidney function closely through blood work.”
“That’s interesting,” Olivia mumbled, her attention on checking out the different pieces of equipment.
“What are you doing?”
“Just looking. Aren’t you curious what any of this does?”
“Nett really.” To Faith, the gauges, nozzles, and hoses embedded into the wall seemed complex.
The door opened and the nurse poked her head inside. “Are either of you Faith?”
“Jah, I am.”
“There’s a young man in the hall who is asking to speak with you.”
Faith caught a glimpse of Gideon and bounded up from the chair. He wouldn’t have left the surgical waiting room unless he had news. She rushed out of the room.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” He scratched the back of his neck. “How’s your mother doing?”
“She’s sleeping. The nurse gave her pain medicine.”
“That’s gut.”
She eyed him shuffling his feet. “What did you hear?”
A hospital worker pushing a supply cart maneuvered around an empty bed parked against the wall. Faith waited for the man to pass, then grabbed Gideon’s shirt sleeve. “Let’s talk down the hall where it isn’t so crowded.”
She led him down the corridor and stopped near the elevators, though the area was just as congested with people coming and going. “Did you hear something about mei father?”
“Take a breath, Faith.” Until Gideon placed his hand over hers, she hadn’t realized she’d been squeezing his arm.
“I’m sorry.” She slowed her thoughts and with it her racing pulse. “Is he out of surgery?”
He shook his head. “An OR nurse came into the waiting room and asked for the family of Mordecai Pinkham. When I stood up, she told me your father’s surgery was taking longer than they had originally anticipated.”
“What does that mean?” A whoosh of light-headedness caught her off guard and she staggered a step.
Gideon brought his arm around her waist. His gaze grew intense. “Are you okay?”
She waited for the dizziness to pass, but then realizing how close he was standing, holding her tight, concern filling his dark-blue eyes, another wave of sensations washed over her. “I, ah . . .” She shook free from under his arm. “I will be once you tell me what the nurse said.”
“Nothing really. The surgery is taking longer than expected, and the nurse didn’t want the family worried.” He took a step back, increasing the distance between them. “I shouldn’t have interrupted you. I’m sorry.”
“Nay, don’t be. Please.”
An awkward second passed between them, Faith wishing she hadn’t been so obvious about not wanting his arm around her. His gesture was a simple act of kindness. Of comfort. It was she who let her mind go in the wrong direction.
“Are you hungry?” he stammered. “Could I get you something from the cafeteria? Or maybe a coffee?”