“No.” She looked at the house, then back at him, then at the house again. “Come on,” he said. “Grab your backpack and I’ll introduce you.”
They went to the door together. Celeste showed up seconds later.
“Hey, who’s this?” she asked, bending at the waist to get face-to-face with the unexpected visitor.
“This is Crystal,” Cal said.
“How are you, Crystal?” Celeste asked, extending a hand.
Crystal said, “My mom’s dead.”
“Can we come in?” Cal asked while his sister struggled for something to say.
“Um, yes, yes, come in,” Celeste said. “Crystal, would you like something to eat or drink?”
“I just had French toast with syrup.” She paused. “And milk.”
“Why don’t you watch TV or draw while I talk to Celeste?” Cal said. Crystal walked into the living room, grabbed a remote, and plopped down on the couch as Cal and Celeste excused themselves to the kitchen.
Cal filled her in.
“Oh God, that’s horrible,” Celeste said.
“I haven’t heard anything back from her dad yet. And even if I do, he’s in San Francisco and it’s probably going to be a day or two before he gets here.”
“What are you asking?”
“I can’t have her stay with me at the hotel. It just doesn’t look right. Strange man who’s not her father.”
“She can stay here,” Celeste said without hesitation.
“Dwayne won’t mind?”
Celeste sighed. “He minds just about everything these days.”
“Where is he?”
“Out in the garage doing God knows what.” Celeste’s eyes moistened.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s just . . . more of the same. The more worried he gets about losing work, the more withdrawn he gets. He goes out without telling me, is gone for hours. When he comes back, I ask him where he’s been and all he says is ‘out.’ I don’t know what to do. I try to boost his spirits, tell him things are going to turn around, but nothing much seems to work. And now, God, given what’s happened today, I don’t know what the future holds for this town.”
“Me, neither,” Cal said.
“They said on the radio that there might be more than a hundred dead. Just for starters. And there may be lots of people sick or dead they don’t even know about yet.”
Like Lucy, Cal thought.
“How does a town get over something like this?” she asked.
“I can’t worry about the whole town,” Cal said. “Right now all I’m worried about is Crystal.”
“She seems kind of . . . forgive me, but she seems kind of weird. And I don’t mean just because of her mom being dead. There’s something—”
“I know. Just be patient with her.”
“Of course. But is there anything I should know—”
The door that led from the kitchen to the backyard opened and Dwayne came in. “Hey,” he said. “Cal.”
“Dwayne.”
“Thanks for the heads-up about the bad water, but we already knew,” he said.
Celeste added, “Dwayne knew before anybody.”
Dwayne stepped in quickly. “I was out for a walk before Celeste even woke up. Ran into someone on the street who told me. Came home, made sure Celeste knew before she was even out of bed.”
“Lucky thing,” Cal said.
Dwayne nodded. “Yeah.” He heard the television going and peered around the corner into the living room. “Who’s the kid?”
Celeste brought him up to speed.
“She’s gonna stay with us?” Dwayne asked.
Cal said, “Not for long, I hope. I’m trying to get in touch with her father. Once he gets here . . .”
Dwayne shook his head. It was clear he didn’t like the idea, but he said, “I guess. As long as it’s just her.”
Cal went back into the living room. Crystal had tuned the TV in to, of all things, the Weather Channel.
“Why are you watching this?” Cal asked.
“I like weather,” she said.
Cal told her she would be staying with Celeste and Dwayne until her father could get to Promise Falls.
Crystal asked, “Both of us?”
“No,” Cal explained. “I’ll stay in my hotel.”
Cal noticed the child’s face starting to look brittle. “No,” she said. “I can’t stay here without you.”
“Celeste and Dwayne are very nice. You’ ll—”
“No!”
Cal had never heard the child raise her voice before. He’d never really seen her emotional on any level.
She stayed sitting perfectly rigid on the couch, hands clasped together on her lap atop the clipboard, and screamed: “No! No! No! No! No! No!”
Celeste and Dwayne rushed into the room, Dwayne saying, “What the hell?”
Cal slowly sat down beside Crystal, put his arm around her, and pulled her close. “Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”
As Crystal stopped screaming, Cal glanced over at his sister.
“Sure,” she said, nodding encouragingly, a broad smile on her face. “We’ve got lots of room! Cal can stay here, too.”
“On the couch,” he said. “I’ll be fine right here.”
Dwayne turned and went back into the kitchen, where, seconds later, they could hear the pop of a beer can opening, then the back door opening and closing.
SEVENTEEN
HILLARY and Josh Lydecker were among the throngs of people crowding the Promise Falls General Hospital ER and adjoining hallways. Doctors were now looking at their daughter, Cassandra, whose symptoms were pretty much the same as everyone else’s.
The Lydeckers had made a trip to the hospital chapel and prayed quietly for their daughter to pull through.
But they prayed for their missing son, George, too.
They were heading back to the ER from the chapel when Hillary spotted the detective who had been to their house after they’d reported George missing.
“Detective!” Hillary called out. “Detective Carlson!” She started running down the hall, her husband right behind her.
Angus Carlson had been talking to one of the doctors when he heard his name called out. He turned, saw the Lydeckers, and said to the doctor, “Thanks, we can talk later.”
He waited for the Lydeckers to close the distance between them, then said, “Hello. Why are you here? Who’s sick? Is it George? Has George turned up?”
Hillary, nearly out of breath, said, “Cassie.”
“Your daughter,” Carlson said, remembering.
“Yes. She’s very sick.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s hit so many people.”
“Is there any news about George?” Josh Lydecker asked.
Carlson’s lips pressed tightly together before parting. “I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
“Cassie told us,” the father said. “About what George has been doing.”
Carlson waited. “You mean—”
“Breaking into garages,” Hillary said. “She said he does it all the time. That he breaks in, that he steals things. I can’t believe he would do that. Is it true?”
“According to your daughter, yes. I’ve asked to be notified of any garage break-ins, see if they might be connected at all to your son’s disappearance, but there haven’t actually been any such occurrences in the last week, at least none that have been reported to the Promise Falls police.”
“So what else are you doing to find him?” the woman asked.
Carlson said, “Well, right now, as you can see—”
“But before all this happened,” the father said. “What have you been doing?”
“We’ve put out a description to all officers, I’ve spoken to George’s friends, I’ve looked for any activity on his cell phone, and—”
“Have you searched?” Hillary Lydecker asked. “Have you gone door-to-door? Have you—I don’t know—searched people’s basements and . . . and a
bandoned buildings, someplace where he might have fallen and gotten hurt, or—”
Carlson reached out a comforting hand to the woman’s arm. “We can’t just search random houses, ma’am, without cause. We’re doing what we can, believe me.”
“How can this be happening to us?” she asked. “One child missing, now the other sick? What did we do? Why would God do this to us?”
Carlson said, “That’s out of my area, I’m afraid. But if I hear anything about your son, believe me, I will be in touch. I hope your daughter’s going to be okay.”
He made his way outside the hospital so he could use his cell phone. He’d learned a few things since Duckworth had left, and felt it was time to update him. He made the call.
“Duckworth.”
“Carlson, sir.”
“Where’ve you been? Finderman was trying to reach you earlier.”
“Why?”
“She was going to send you out to Thackeray, but I got pulled off and had to take the call.”
“You know there’s no cell coverage in the ER. What happened at Thackeray?”
“Homicide.”
“What? Who?”
“Student named Lorraine Plummer. She was one of the ones—”
“I interviewed her,” Carlson said. “I remember. What happened?”
“Later. Why are you calling?”
“I’m still at the hospital. Story’s not really changing. Same symptoms with everyone. Number of people coming in has slowed. Guess the word’s getting out. Local and state health officials already all over it, taking samples, looking for E. coli, like maybe there’s sewage or animal waste in the water, but it’s not like they can tell you immediately whether that’s the cause or not. It takes several hours to do the tests on the water to confirm what it is.”
“Is that their best guess?” Duckworth asked.
“They’re kind of hedging. The symptoms they’re seeing are not totally consistent with E. coli. So they’re not issuing a boil-water advisory. Like, if they were pretty sure it was E. coli, they’d say if you boil the water, that’ll kill the bacteria, and then it’s safe to drink. But lots of people, they had boiled the water, and they still got sick.”
“The overnight guy at the water plant—shit!”
“What?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Duckworth said. “Maybe he’s one of the ones who got sick.”
“Say again?”
“Find out if someone named Tate Whitehead has been admitted.”
“I’m going back in. I’ll get back to you.”
Carlson ended the call and reentered the hospital. A paramedic told him a list of patients’ names was being kept at the admitting desk, on paper and on computer. Carlson saw a nurse behind the desk. Early twenties, fair-skinned, black hair that would have fallen to her shoulders if she didn’t have it pulled back into a ponytail.
Carlson gave her the name.
“Whitehead,” she said. “Whitehead.” She looked up, shook her head. “Nothing. Maybe he’s sitting out there and hasn’t checked in with us.”
“Thank you,” Carlson said.
He was about to step away when the young woman looked at him, her eyes filled with fear, and said, “Eighty-two.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eighty-two people have died. And the number just keeps going up. I feel . . . I feel—”
“Scared,” he offered, and she nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Sonja.”
“Sonja what?”
“Sonja Roper.”
“Sonja, everyone’s scared. I know I am. We’re scared for ourselves and our loved ones.” Amid the chaos, he smiled. “Do you have children?”
“No,” she said. “Soon, I hope. My boyfriend—his name is Stan and we’re going to get married in the fall—and I really want to have kids. He’s missed all this, lucky him. He’s a pilot for Delta and won’t be back till Monday.”
“When you see what’s going on here, does it make you rethink that? That the world is too dangerous and unpredictable a place?”
Her eyes moved down to the desk as she thought about that. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Sonja!” someone shouted. “We need you!”
“I have to go,” she said, and flew away from her desk.
Carlson took a position in the middle of the ER waiting room and shouted loud enough to be heard over the chatter: “Is there a Tate Whitehead here?”
The noise dropped slightly for several seconds, people glancing at one another, waiting to see if someone would step forward.
One man raised a weak hand.
“Mr. Whitehead?” Carlson said.
“No. But I know him, and he ain’t here. Haven’t seen him.”
Carlson went back outside to give Duckworth the news.
EIGHTEEN
THE convoy of ten Finley Springs Water trucks lined up on the shoulder of the road that ran past the park at the foot of the waterfall in downtown Promise Falls. Randall Finley had trailed behind in his Lincoln, figuring he would give his employees a few minutes to get things set up before he made his appearance.
Sitting in the passenger seat, David Harwood had been making some calls along the way, getting in touch with the same news outlets he’d alerted to Finley’s campaign announcement a few days earlier. He’d made that announcement in this very same spot, there at the park. Even if that news conference hadn’t gone as well as Finley had hoped—inevitably, reporters had brought up his involvement years before with that underage prostitute who’d later died—he liked this park for events. The falls always made a great backdrop, and the park was centrally located.
David was still on the phone, but this call didn’t sound like it was to one of the news organizations.
“Sam,” he said, lowering his voice. “Please call. I went by your place, to warn you about this whole water thing. Where’d you go? How could you leave without telling me? Please, please get in touch. I love you. I—”
“David, we’re here,” Finley said.
“I have to go,” David said. “I’ll try again later.” He tucked the phone into his jacket.
“What the hell was that?”
“Nothing,” David said.
“Come on. You got a problem, you can tell ol’ Randy.”
David shot him a look. “You’re not someone I’d go to with my personal problems.”
Finley shrugged. “Have it your way. But I’ve got a big shoulder to cry on if you need it.”
David opened the door as the Lincoln came to a stop.
“First thing we gotta do is get the signs up,” Finley said. Before leaving the plant, he’d had posters made up that read FREE BOTTLED WATER to be plastered on the side of the trucks. “Just make sure they don’t put them over the logo.” By that he meant the Finley Springs Water markings on the sides of each of the panel vans.
“Sure,” David said, closing the door.
Finley muttered, “It’s so hard to get good help these days.”
He got out of his Lincoln and strolled up the street past his trucks. They’d been parked with half a car’s length between them so the back doors could be opened up and flats of water handed out from there.
As he was walking by the third truck, he saw Trevor swinging open the back doors.
“Not yet,” Finley told him.
“But I’m all set to—”
“Not yet,” he repeated. There were no news crews here yet. How much death and mayhem could they film at the hospital? There was another important part of the story happening right here.
“David!”
Harwood had been helping to put a sign on one of the trucks and taking questions from drivers of passing cars who were already slowing, powering down windows to ask if free water was really being handed out. He stopped what he was doing and ran over to Finley.
“How long’s it going to take for the press to show?” he asked.
“They’ll get here when they get here,” David sa
id.
“Oh!” Finley shouted, pointing. “Look!”
A news van with an NBC logo emblazoned on the side was working its way up the street. “This is good, this is good,” Finley said. “National coverage.”
But the van didn’t slow, and went right past the convoy of trucks.
“What the fuck?” Finley said, turning on David. “Run after them!”
“They’re heading for the hospital,” he said. “Did you not hear anything I said to you before?”
Finley ignored him. A car had stopped and a woman who looked to be in her eighties was slowly getting out from behind the wheel.
“You have drinking water?” she asked.
“That’s right,” David said.
“Oh, please, could I get some?”
“Not yet!” Finley whispered. “There’s no one here!”
David got out his phone. “You do it. Get a case out of the back and give it to her. I’ll get pics.”
Finley gave that a second’s thought. “Okay, fine, that’ll have to do for now. But tweet it or Facebook it or whatever it is you do soon as you get the shot.” He put on a smile and strode toward the woman. “You bet we have water for you,” he said, opening the closest van’s rear door.
“This is wonderful,” she said.
“It’s pretty heavy,” he said, grabbing a case and lugging it toward her car. “You have someone to help you when you get home?”
“I can take them in a few bottles at a time,” she said.
David put the smartphone up to his eye, grabbed some pictures.
“You look familiar to me,” the elderly woman said.
“I’m Randall Finley,” he said.
“Oh, you,” she said. “I remember you.”
“You want to open the back door and I’ll just put this on the seat there?”
“You used to be the mayor,” she said.
“Hope to be once again, too,” he said. “But that’s not what this is about today. This is about helping people like you.”
“Do you still use prostitutes?” the woman asked.
“Okay, there you go!” he said once he’d put the water in the backseat. He held the front door open for her.
As she slipped back in, she said, “I’m sure it was you.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else,” he said. “You’re thinking of the former attorney general. That was quite the scandal.”
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