Sky Zone: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)

by Creston Mapes

  “Four?” Jack said. “Seven to ten is normal. Is there something wrong? Did they say he’s … he’s … are there serious problems? Talk to me, Lucy.”

  He felt as if he were on a merry-go-round spinning out of control.

  “Jack, they have him in progressive care. They are watching him very closely.” She took his elbow and led him to a bench in the hallway. “Sit down. You’re pale.”

  They sat. Lucy still had his elbow. He just stared at her, seeing little white dots float in and out of his vision.

  “The second low Apgar does not mean he’s going to have serious long-term health issues. It can’t predict the baby’s future health—”

  “Cerebral palsy,” Jack blurted. “I saw it online.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “Those are rare conditions. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Don’t do that. This hospital has one of the best progressive-care units in the region. We’re in good hands—”

  “Pam just told me she fell. Did you know that? A few months ago. Off a curb. I read that a low Apgar could indicate that the infant’s brain was hurt during pregnancy.”

  She ignored his words, dug in her purse, and handed him an apple. “Eat this and stop doing this to yourself. I just came from progressive care, and they assured me the baby’s heart is going good, he’s breathing okay—”

  “With oxygen, you said …”

  “I don’t know the details!” Lucy said, losing her composure for the first time. “They wouldn’t let me in to see him. We need to be calm and wait, and you need to be strong for Pam.”

  “All I know is that a lack of oxygen during birth is one of the causes of cerebral palsy. Also, if the baby’s brain was hurt during the fall, that could affect his muscle coordination. From what I heard, he wasn’t moving much when he came out, was he? Tell me what he was like when he came out.”

  “No, Jack.” She stood and slung her purse over her shoulder. “You need to eat that apple and find Pam’s mom. That’s all you need to do right now. One step at a time. We are not going to fret about things that haven’t happened yet. I’ll see you back at the room.” She started to go, then turned back. “And when you get there, I hope you’re in a better mind-set for Pam.” She looked at her watch. “I’m not sure how much longer I can stay.” She began to leave.

  Jack took a deep breath and bit into the apple, feeling like a jerk. “Thanks for the apple,” he called. Lucy waved but didn’t look back. He needed to take her advice, pull it together.

  He got up and headed for the elevator, figuring he would retrace his steps—go back down to the emergency room and even back to the parking lot, where he’d left Margaret, if he had to.

  His baby boy was in progressive care. He felt as if he were dreaming, as if he hadn’t slept in days. What is this going to mean? The poor kid could be in a wheelchair or in those metal walking braces his entire life. Jack imagined Rebecca and Faye dressing him, feeding him. Pam wouldn’t be able to work; she’d need to be home with him. But that was impossible because they needed her insurance. She would have to keep working. He would need to be home with the boy.

  He was so blasted mad. Why hadn’t he landed a decent job by now? God saw what was happening. And here he was a part-time usher, of all things. He felt like a failure. How would they ever pay for this hospital stay? And the costs that lay beyond? It would require tens of thousands of dollars.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he got on the elevator, ignoring two nurses in light-blue scrubs who were also going down. He and Pam would never be able to retire. They would always be caregivers—the rest of their lives. He immediately felt selfish for thinking such a thing, but he was human. Didn’t all couples look forward to rekindling the romance as empty nesters?

  The elevator doors opened. He motioned for the nurses to go first, and he followed them into the bustling lobby. He walked around the circular information area, scanning the long, windowed room for Margaret. She’d been wearing a navy jacket and beige pants. People of all ages and ethnicities stood and sat and paced.

  He walked over to a crowded seating area to check the faces and make sure he hadn’t missed her. A large TV mounted high in the corner broadcast Fox News and its live coverage outside the arena, where flashing lights lit up hundreds of people standing along a yellow line of tape, with law-enforcement personnel running to and fro. Jack read the text scrolling across the bottom of the screen:

  … Ohio Sen. Martin Sterling and recording artist Everett Lester were abducted by terrorists and taken to the rooftop of Columbus Festival Arena … Lester was able to elude his captors, but Sen. Sterling was taken away via helicopter …

  Derrick and Daniel were likely right in the thick of things, covering the unfolding story for the Columbus Gazette. Jack couldn’t believe Sterling had been snatched, and he could only imagine what they might do to him.

  If they did kill him, there would be no job for Jack at the Gazette. Another sickeningly selfish thought, Jack knew, but this was his reality—he needed a decent job.

  He was about to leave when the words BREAKING NEWS appeared on the screen. He crossed to the TV until he was standing beneath it, so he could hear the anchorperson. “Fox reporters are working on some extraordinary breaking news in the terrorist attack at Columbus Festival Arena. Details in six minutes …”

  Jack didn’t have six minutes. He had to find Margaret and get back upstairs. He knew the direction of the emergency room and headed toward it, down a long, windowed hallway with a polished green tile floor.

  He examined each person in the blue plastic chairs that lined the hall leading to the nurses’ station. No Margaret. He got to the desk. The same skinny, gum-chewing receptionist was there. Great.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for my mother-in-law, Margaret—”

  “She’s over there.” The woman nodded toward the far windows. “She keeps asking to see her husband. She thinks he’s a patient.”

  Jack’s countenance fell.

  Margaret stood slightly hunched over, jacket over her shoulders, arms crossed as she stared into the night.

  “I told her your wife was having a C-section.” The receptionist shook her head. “It didn’t seem to register with her. She insists we’re keeping something from her about her husband’s condition. She says he had a heart attack, and she wants to see him …”

  43

  Derrick flew over the hilly Ohio countryside, well above the speed limit. His heart pounded in his skull from the rush of being ahead of the other news agencies that were surely not far behind. He was being pushed forward by an adrenaline high, like a surfer who’d caught a monster wave and left the others bobbing in the wake.

  Daniel rattled around in the backseat of the FJ Cruiser, his cameras and lenses spread out everywhere as he prepared for the biggest story of their lives—the biggest story in the world at the moment.

  For the fifth or sixth time, as he concentrated on the country road unfurling before him in the night, Derrick replayed the call he’d received twenty minutes earlier from Senator Sterling’s personal assistant.

  “Derrick … Jenny King. Don’t ask questions, I don’t have time.” She was distraught yet concise. “The senator is alive. I don’t have details, but somehow he escaped.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Seneca Falls. He flagged down a driver on I-24 right by Indian Lake. He called nine-one-one from the man’s cell. He’s wounded. I’m on my way.”

  “How bad is he hurt?”

  “No idea. I’ve told you all I know. I wanted you to have it first.”

  That was it. She was gone.

  Derrick pushed the gas pedal harder, hoping they would make it before police or paramedics whisked Sterling away.

  “Are you ready?” He shot a glance back at Daniel, who was hunched over his equipment.

  “Almost. How close are we?”
/>
  The blue glow of Indian Lake appeared on the GPS.

  “Almost there. This is gonna be the shoot of your lifetime.”

  “And the story of yours.”

  Derrick squinted at the road ahead, thinking any minute he would see flashing lights and the car Sterling had flagged down.

  He’d called Jack earlier and was troubled to hear of the baby’s complications. That would add even more stress to the trials they were already facing. But Jack always had a way of taking things in stride. He’d even managed to laugh when he told how Pam’s mom had wandered off in the hospital.

  Jack’s faith was special. He was the only person Derrick knew who actually lived as if this life was temporary, as if the real and important life was yet to come. Derrick had always assumed that someday in the future he would take his faith as seriously as Jack.

  “There!” Daniel shouted from the back.

  Derrick braked. A black-and-white squad car was parked sideways in the road up ahead, with its blue lights flashing. One officer was setting flares in the road while another had a flashlight out and was examining a dark pickup truck stopped just beyond the police car.

  “There’re more flashing lights through those trees,” Daniel said. “Turn around—we’ll find another way in.”

  Seeing no cars behind or ahead, Derrick did a U-turn into the grass and back onto the road.

  “Just watch for any opening.” Daniel leaned over the front seat.

  They rode along slowly, and Derrick kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure the cops weren’t coming after them.

  “There.” Daniel pointed. “Pull over.”

  Derrick pulled off into the weeds. They both looked to the right, where a patch of spindly trees and branches were backlit by flashing red and blue lights out in a clearing. There were no sirens.

  “There are weeds matted down … keep going.”

  They bumped along off the side of the road.

  “Ho!” Daniel said. “There.”

  Derrick’s headlights lit up a path the width of a vehicle. He turned the SUV onto the path, and they rolled and rocked slowly through the spooky, sparsely wooded area. It was eerily silent except for the faint chirp of a police radio every few seconds. Up a slight hill the trees cleared, and they came to an open space the size of a football field.

  “Turn off your lights, or they’ll be all over us,” Daniel said.

  Derrick doused the lights, turned right, and rolled over the bumpy meadow off to the side of all the commotion.

  “We got one fire truck … an ambulance … and only two cop cars,” Daniel said. “Dang, we’re early, dude. This is unreal.”

  Derrick’s heart skipped a beat. “And a helicopter.” He nodded toward the edge of the woods where a mammoth black chopper sat like a sleeping mechanical monster, blending in with the backdrop of thick woods behind it. Four other plain cars were parked at various angles nearby.

  “Holy cow! Stop right here. I gotta shoot as much as I can before they throw us out. More law’ll be here soon.”

  Derrick stopped and turned the car off.

  Several people stood in a loose huddle about ten yards from the ambulance, whose lights were flashing and doors were closed. A spotlight popped on at one of the unmarked cars, and its beam of light zigzagged and finally fixed on the helicopter.

  “I’m going,” Daniel said. “I’ll start shooting from here and work my way in.”

  “Hopefully Sterling’s in the ambulance.” Derrick opened his door, grabbed his pad, pen, and recorder, and got out. The pain from his side took his breath away.

  “You okay?” Daniel said.

  Derrick nodded. “I’ll try to find Jenny. Good luck, dude.”

  “Good luck.” Daniel scampered across the meadow with one mammoth camera hanging around his neck and his heavy bag of equipment over his shoulder.

  Derrick tripped on the thick, knotty grass but caught his balance.

  Police officers and firefighters hustled every whichway, shining powerful flashlights throughout the grassy area, around the chopper, and toward what Derrick guessed was another way out.

  Two officers were unwinding yellow crime-scene tape and yelling back and forth about which area to cordon off first. Derrick heard a siren in the distance and moved at a faster clip through the thick grass.

  “Hold it!” An officer he hadn’t noticed broke toward him from the left, drawing his gun as he ran over the uneven pasture. “Stop right there! Hands high. Hands high!”

  Derrick’s heart lurched, and he jabbed his hands into the air, not dropping his things. “It’s okay, I’m—”

  “Hands stay high.” The officer’s gun was locked in front of him with both hands as he took long strides toward Derrick.

  “I’m with the Gazette,” Derrick blurted.

  “Down on your face, now. Drop that stuff. Hands behind your back.”

  Derrick dropped to his knees and glanced back for Daniel but didn’t see him.

  “I cover Sterling for the Gazette. Is he still here?”

  “Do what I said. Facedown. Hands behind your back. Now!”

  44

  Lucy and the nurses kept telling Pamela to get some sleep, but there was no way. She was worried about the baby and about her missing mom, and she still couldn’t stop shivering, even though they’d brought her warm blankets.

  “Eat more of this banana,” Lucy said from the chair next to her bed. “You’ve got to keep your strength up.”

  Pamela took a piece.

  Lucy gave her a napkin, then leaned her forward and puffed up her pillow.

  “I can’t believe we still haven’t named him,” Pamela said.

  “Well, it hasn’t exactly been your typical delivery,” Lucy replied.

  “We wanted to wait and see what the baby was like.” Pamela drifted off for a second as she recalled how sluggish the baby had been, how bluish his little body was. Weeks ago she and Jack had narrowed boy names to Lukas, which meant light, and Andrew, which meant brave. She was sure one of the names would make sense soon enough.

  There was a light knock, and the door to the room opened. It startled Lucy, who stood quickly.

  “Hello, hello.” Jack quietly led Margaret into the room. “Look who’s here.”

  Margaret came toward Pamela’s bed, shaking her head shyly, her eyes watering. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, sweetie. It was my fault.”

  “What happened to you?” Pamela said. “Did you get lost?”

  Margaret started to answer, but Jack cut in. “She was down in the emergency room,” he said. “It was confusing. You were in ER, then surgery, then you got moved up here …”

  “Mom, I’m sorry,” Pamela said. “Sit down. You must be hungry.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Margaret said. “I guess I should’ve stayed with Jack in the first place. I’ve got to learn I can’t do what I used to.”

  “Well, sit down now and relax.”

  Jack pulled a chair over for her, but she walked to the sink, poured herself a cup of ice water from the tan plastic pitcher, and just stood there, staring at the sink.

  When her back was to them, Jack shot Pamela a wide-eyed wince, as if Margaret had done something embarrassing or even dangerous while they were apart.

  Pamela let her head drop back onto the pillow and again tried to assure herself that they would get through this ordeal.

  “Has the doctor been here?” Jack said.

  She shook her head no.

  “Have you had the news on at all?” he said.

  She shook her head again. “I just wanted quiet.”

  He nodded. “It was on downstairs, and they said there was some kind of breaking news coming.”

  “Turn it on if you want,” she said, but she wished he wouldn’t.

  Just then the door
opened slightly, and Dr. Shapiro stuck his balding head in. “May I come in?”

  Lucy stood suddenly.

  “Yes.” Jack shot to attention and went for the door. “Come in.”

  Dr. Shapiro entered quietly, examining each person. He carried a medical chart on a clipboard. Jack introduced him to Margaret, and they shook hands.

  “We are all kidding around down there that the Crittendon baby doesn’t have a name yet.” Dr. Shapiro smiled. “Some of the nurses have started calling him Baby Critt.”

  That was supposed to be an icebreaker. Pamela gave a cordial chuckle. “Well, how is he, Doctor? What’s going on?”

  He folded his arms with the clipboard against his chest. “Well, I’m glad to tell you he’s breathing fine on his own now, with a good strong heartbeat.” He went up and down on his toes.

  Pamela and Jack looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “His color is good, and his lungs are clear.”

  Dr. Shapiro had brown eyes that opened wide when he spoke, and he wore old-fashioned gold metal glasses.

  “Why haven’t they brought him to us yet?” Jack said.

  The doctor opened his mouth, scratched a thick brown eyebrow with two fingers, and paused for several seconds. “He’s still a bit sluggish …”

  Sluggish. There was that word again.

  “Is he still in progressive care?” Pamela’s whole body was rigid.

  The doctor took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, he is.”

  “What’s the problem, Doctor? Please, just say,” Jack said.

  “If you will … let me explain.”

  Jack’s shoulders slumped, and Pamela felt the wind go out of her sails. Margaret’s forehead scrunched up with fret.

  “We’re still concerned with his muscle tone, his movement, his reaction when stimulated …”

  No.

  All Pamela could envision was her pale, lifeless baby—not moving, not crying, just lying there. She felt she might throw up again.

  The color had drained from Jack’s face.

  “Right now we’re doing tests that will tell us more about what’s going on with his nervous system, if there’s anything unusual. We’re stimulating him a little bit and studying his responses—”