When they called her name this time, she took her place on the examining table. A picture of the mountains hung on the wall and, ridiculously, she repeated Scripture: “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help.” A red-and-white striped canister waited at the foot of the table and she thought, It’s decorated like a child’s peppermint stick.
Even to this day, she did not remember a doctor’s face. She only remembered the mountain photo on the wall and the red stripes and the incorrigible tugging inside her stomach that went on forever. Not until loneliness gripped her did she realize that, as long as she’d been pregnant, she’d felt as if there had been another person with her; for those three weeks, she hadn’t noticed it until it was gone, she’d felt like two people instead of one.
Nora had none of the symptoms everyone talked about. She had bled for a while and then it was finished. She didn’t freak out when she saw the shape of Tess’s little body on an ultrasound. She didn’t cry when she heard Tess’s heartbeat for the first time. Indeed, she had watched carefully for those things, and they hadn’t bothered her at all.
“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. “Help me.” And at long last, tears of remorse and grief began to spill over. I don’t completely understand my heart. Help me see this through Your eyes so that I might be broken in spirit before You. She cried now because she had lost a child so many years ago. She had never known this baby and it was the first time she had wept for it in three decades. Show me the truth in Your name.
“What is it, Nora? Why are you crying? You look awful. Honey, what is this?”
I can’t go back, can I, Lord? But I can go forward.
And so she said it to him very quietly.
“I had an abortion, Ben.”
He stared at her.
She held her ground and stared back.
“What? I’m sorry. I—”
“You heard me. You heard what I said.”
That was the moment that Ben’s eyes turned to ice. He dropped his arms and stared at her. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“Yes,” she told him. “You did.”
As if his expression could become any icier than it had already been.
“When?”
She didn’t answer that.
“When did it happen, Nora? Tell me.”
“Is there a right way to regret something, Ben?”
And he asked, his voice like stone, “Was the baby mine?”
She nodded, wordless.
“Before Tess?”
But she couldn’t speak anymore. She had said all that she could say. Even so, he kept asking.
“Were we dating? Was it while we were in college?
“Would it have been a boy?”
“Didn’t you think I had a right to know?”
Nora stood with her eyes closed in front of him. He’d followed her. He’d asked. She’d given everything to him that she could give.
She knew it when he turned away from her and headed back to the house. And she felt like a part of Ben stayed attached to her, as slender as a thread, when he walked away, unraveling her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Merrill Horn sat at his desk, the digital photographs squared off in a pile in his hand. Ever so often he still reached for his morning coffee, that brewed-in-the-back-room, been-sitting-since-yesterday, clear-as-mud, would- probably-dissolve-a-spoon-if-you-tried-to-stir-it-with-one elixir.
Every time he reached and found it not there, he chewed himself out. He kept forgetting he’d finished the cup thirty minutes ago.
Ben Crabtree threw open the door and rushed in, his wife behind him. “What did you find? Why did you call us here?”
Merrill reached for the coffee cup that wasn’t there again. Donnie Crider said, “We don’t have good news, I’m afraid.” Merrill handed over the photographs without saying another word.
“What is this?”
“That”—A low-key nod—“is where your daughter’s been living, Mr. Crabtree.”
Ben sat down hard. “I don’t understand.”
Relations were strained between husband and wife. Merrill could tell by watching the two of them, how they sat in the folding chairs, their legs crossed against each other, their spines stiff, their shoulders as square as kitchen cupboards. Yes, this could take a toll on a marriage, Merrill knew it. He watched as Ben handed the photograph to Nora and saw Ben make certain that their fingers didn’t touch. Merrill watched Nora’s red-rimmed eyes as she cast them at her lap, as if she didn’t feel worthy of looking at her husband. Instead, she took in the buckling sidewalk in the picture, the chain-length fence that ballooned and gaped like a torn net, the bullet-ridden front wall.
“As far as we can tell, this house was hit because of a gang rivalry. It’s all about body count, Ben, when two groups decide to have it out. If you’ve been watching the news, they’ve covered this extensively on the Dallas channels.”
Well, yes. Ben and Nora had been monitoring the news, of course. They’d kept the sound turned low so it wouldn’t disturb the visitors who came and went, who spoke in murmuring sympathetic voices. As long as the pictures on screen were about Iraq or the economy or gang wars or traffic problems, they didn’t pay attention. If a story had appeared about a missing child, Ben would have turned it up and made everybody listen.
The most appalling detail in the photo, or so Merrill thought, was the geographic pattern of the bullet holes as they swept across the house. Bullets had cut and curled the skin of a black Ford like a tin can. Glass jutted like fingers from a shattered window and, inside, Merrill could see a freshly painted white wall.
In spite of the desperate neighborhood, someone had been struggling to make this place a home.
When Merrill had interviewed the Dallas authorities late last night, they’d told him that a young woman of Tess’s description had been around for years. She’d been quiet, as far as Merrill could tell. No one had known much about her. No one seemed to care.
“There’s a gang rivalry in that part of South Dallas. They found coke and a stash of firearms when they searched the house. They also found bodies, Ben.”
“What are you trying to tell us, Merrill?” Ben asked.
“I’m giving you background. This is what we know.”
“But the bodies—”
“Tess didn’t show up in jail. She didn’t show up in any hospital. Neither did Tansy.”
“Did they show up in the morgue, Merrill?” Nora asked. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
They waited for the worst. Merrill plowed in. “Both of them are still at large.”
“I want to go there,” Ben insisted, rising up out of his chair. “I want to talk to the neighbors.”
“I’d save yourselves the despair if I were you. Everything the neighbors had to say is in those Dallas police reports. I brought copies of everything for you.”
“There might be something else, though. Something no one else has thought of.”
Merrill picked up the coffee cup again and, finding it empty, shifted it from one hand to the other. “They’ve gone through everything with a fine-toothed comb. I made sure of that.”
“Any sign of a little girl? Could someone in the house have been hiding her?”
Another slight frown. “Oh, no. No sign of her. You see—”
“No, we don’t see,” Ben interrupted.
“—this happened a few hours before Tansy went missing.” After a long pause, Merrill Horn made certain they both understood what he was trying to tell them. With a careful nod he leveled his eyes on them. “This may have something to do with your granddaughter’s disappearance, though. This happened in the morning. Two days ago.”
WHEN THE AG-CAT BIPLANE buzzed overhead, upsetting the dachshund collector’s plate at Dolores Kay Jones’s house and flinging the plastic communion cups to the floor at the church, everyone knew that Creede Franklin had come home. He was stationed at Barksdale, in Louisiana, these days and his last assignment
had been flying F-16 fighter planes into Baghdad.
When Creede had first started flying, he’d been exhilarated and frustrated by the biplane when other pilots discussed their newer models. But he’d done a stint in a C-5, too, and after flying a plane large enough to transport a football team and their entire turf, too, the Ag-Cat felt buoyant and responsive. He flew at home now and felt like he lilted over the earth without any strings attached.
Without any strings attached.
That went a long way toward describing his life these days. Candice’s decision had been tough enough to handle when he’d gotten home to Travis after a few weeks. But he’d always had another assignment, another rush of adrenaline, another mission to fly supplies to the boys in the field.
But this week, spending a few quiet weeks of leave with his parents, the truth was beginning to sink in.
Candice didn’t want a military husband. When she’d taken a vow to love and cherish him “until death do us part,” she must not have factored in Baghdad. When it had ended a year-and-a-half ago, they didn’t even have children to show for their time together.
Then, when Creede had landed the Ag-Cat in Buxton Lance’s field, Claude Simms happened to be out scoping mockingbirds and had told him about Tansy Crabtree being missing. A long time ago, he thought when Claude told him, I knew Tess better than anyone else. There was a time in my life when I might have been able to figure out where she’d taken her daughter.
As he helped his father clean out the garage and drove to the gas station to fill up his dad’s car, something hit him. He stood staring at the logo on the gas pump. People think you’re a hero, Franklin, he lectured himself. But you know you’ve never been a hero to Tess.
Creede made a call to Barksdale Air Force Base on his cell phone as the gasoline gurgled into the tank, and that clenched it. He found his father still working in the garage when he arrived home.
Pete was hanging the fertilizer spreader on the wall.
“Dad?”
Pete lowered his arms and winked at his son. “You got here just in time to help carry Mom’s boxes upstairs.”
“I’ll carry the boxes, Dad. But I need to talk to you first.”
The relationship between father and son had changed since Creede joined the Air Force. Creede knew that although his father still saw him as a son, he saw him as a man as well. There they stood with their shoulders squared, their dusty sneakers toe to toe. “I want to talk to you about Tess.”
“Tess?” Pete’s chin lifted. “Why do you want to talk about her?”
“Claude Simms told me that the police have found where she’s been. Since the house is cordoned off and she’s hiding, I think I know where she might be.”
“You going to tell anybody about it down at the sheriff’s office?”
“No. I owe Tess something. I want to do this myself.”
“What?”
“You think that old crop duster can clear Reunion Tower?”
For only a slight beat their equal stature broke. The father asked, “You’re taking the Grumman over the city?”
And the son answered, with a devilish little salute, “Won’t require more duress there than she was under in these fields in Gilford County. Sir.”
“Oh, really?”
“I phoned my superiors at Barksdale and they have conversed with our Texas congressmen. I’ve been approved to fuel at Addison Airport.”
Pete stared at his son.
“When the Dallas officials are notified, I believe they’ll bend their protocol. I believe they’ll give clearance for a full flight. We’ll find out.”
They looked with admiration at each other. As Creede moved to go, Pete said, “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, Creede.”
Creede was already far off, mentally preparing for a flight, examining the sky when Pete said, “I know about that tattoo, son.”
Creede stopped short.
“I knew about it the week you did it, back when it was puffy and red.”
Creede glanced back over his shoulder. Their eyes met again. “Were you mad?”
Pete thought about that, shook his head. “Not mad. Not ever mad. But worried. She wasn’t the sort of girl I wanted you to end up with.”
“Yes, Dad,” Creede said, knowing life was always waiting to throw kinks into plans and that the heavenly Father was bigger than all of it. “And Candice was.”
“Sometimes God’s plan is different than we imagine.”
“I listened to you.”
“I know. You took my guidance often. It meant a lot to me.”
“Thank you for acknowledging that.”
“Maybe sometimes that guidance was wrong.”
“You did it because you loved me.”
Pete narrowed his eyes. “Yes, and I still do.”
“I’ve cared about Tess ever since I can remember, Dad. We were kids. We ran all over these farm fields together. That doesn’t go away.”
“No,” Pete agreed. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
With that, Creede’s cell phone rang.
He glanced and saw the number was from his base. He answered, “Captain Franklin here,” and flashed a thumbs-up sign to his father.
WHEN CREEDE TOOK off from his grandfather’s cattle field and banked his plane toward the southwest, he wondered how soon he might be able to see the glow of the object he was seeking. Flying over Plano, following familiar highways and buildings, he marveled at how vibrant and different these Texas colors seemed compared to the shades of brown in Iraq. Below him, cars strung along the length of Central Expressway like rosary beads. His radio crackled and the control tower at Addison gave him an altitude change.
As Creede pulled up, the Dallas skyline came into view. He banked and enjoyed the sensation of the entire world tipping beneath him. The Trinity River arced to the west like a moat, its flat water glinting like gunmetal. The tall buildings, as clustered as they were, canted beneath him like turrets and keeps and spires of a castle.
Other landmarks in the skyline dwarfed the old building. From Creede’s view, everything around it stood streamlined and sharp and tall. The Magnolia Building looked like an old squatter in the middle of the towers around it.
Lord, thank You for giving me this hunch. Thank You that she talked to me when she was home.
At the corner of Commerce and Ervay, he dropped three hundred feet. He’d have to fly a tightrope act to get a decent view. But Creede had flown tightrope acts before, including one this past month over Karbala.
With a confidence born of experience, he banked the Grumman again, his circle smooth and broad. He had only one shot, two minutes at the most, before he would have to pull up again.
The roof appeared below him. Looking down on the attic, he saw hipped rows of green Spanish tile. And there, on its top, stood the forty-foot red Pegasus that had marked the heart of Dallas since midway through the Great Depression, its legs in full gallop, its wings outspread.
The red neon figure was larger than Creede had imagined. Even in the dusky light it seemed to singe the sky. One leg crooked as if it might be pawing the ground. Its wings, hundreds of feet of gleaming red glass, rose from its neon withers.
But maybe he was wrong. He couldn’t see anything there.
He’d missed his chance. Creede pulled the stick and gained altitude. That was all the time he had, making the pass this fast.
He ached with frustration. Once he’d cleared the taller buildings, he radioed Addison again. As the control tower cleared another pass, Creede’s words in answer sounded calm, but his skin felt clammy and the knot in his abdomen grew tighter. As he made a broad sweeping circle over the city, he replayed what he’d seen on the roof of the Magnolia Building. If they were hiding up there, where would he look to find a clue of them? A late-afternoon shadow. A corner, maybe. Or beneath the steel fretwork that crisscrossed and sheltered the center.
When he made the next pass, he had to remind himself to breathe deeply. He descende
d and trimmed his airspeed, hoping to give himself a few more precious seconds in which to search. He flew by instinct now, by feeling the drag on the wings, knowing if he let too much speed go, the plane would stall. And here, in downtown, it wouldn’t be as easy to get out of a fix as it had been in the fields near Butlers Bend.
He aimed the Ag-Cat directly at the monstrous red horse, coming in lower this time. If he was going to see anything, he’d have to skim the top of the building. As he neared the green tile, he relied on his instincts.
One second. Two seconds. And Creede caught a glimpse of motion. In one corner beneath a large limestone embellishment, something moved in the shadows. He saw a cardboard box set up as a table. There might have been a sleeping bag, but he couldn’t be sure. One thing, above all others, let him know that he could be certain. A stuffed bunny lay in tangles on the roof.
That was all the time he had again. He pulled up within yards of another skyscraper. He radioed Addison and let them know he would be returning north.
BEN UNFOLDED A CHAIR in the police station and sat down. He leaned across Bill Mott’s desk and tried to recall any names he might have heard Tess mention during those months she had stayed with them. But seven years gone by can make for a fuzzy memory. The list was brutally short. Going over it made Ben realize how little of herself Tess had shared with them during the short period she’d been back again.
Finally, Ben gave up trying to think of more names or information. He picked up his jacket and started for the door when he noticed a picture of Bill’s daughter propped in a gold frame atop the officer’s desk. The girl was dressed in a red satin gown, dangling earrings, and a wrist corsage. Beside her stood a boy looking like he’d be more comfortable wearing a paper bag than the black tuxedo jacket.
Ben swallowed, made a gesture. “Nice picture of Jess. Cute.”
“Ah, yes. Before the prom last spring, all dressed up for her fancy evening.”
If I Had You Page 21