Suddenly, brake lights flashed, and the car slowed nearly to a stop. It drifted toward the shoulder, and the back door behind the driver jerked open. From the back seat, a figure tumbled onto the road. I fought the urge to slam on my brakes—I couldn’t risk losing control of the truck. Instead, I pumped the pedal, turning away from the sudden obstacle on the asphalt.
Audrey.
Having dumped half of his cargo, the driver of the white sedan pulled back onto the road. He drove with less urgency now. Without saying a word, he had given me another choice: I could pursue him, or I could save Audrey.
The other driver’s leisurely retreat telegraphed how certain he was of my decision.
I pulled my daughter from the road, my heart breaking as I watched the white sedan carrying my son disappear.
40
Audrey’s arm had abraded where it had scraped against the road, angry slashes embedded with asphalt bits. Her bones appeared unbroken, and her head free of injury, but I worried nonetheless. The same immunosuppressant drugs that kept my daughter from rejecting her transplanted liver also made her more vulnerable to infection.
That was when I noticed the note, tucked in Audrey’s pants pocket: Talk to the police and Leo dies.
The letters were hastily written, the scrawl just legible. Probably written while I had been in pursuit.
I transferred the note to my own pocket. I secured Audrey in the back seat, taking care not to brush the raw flesh, and headed for my clinic a few blocks away. With Leo’s captor headed south and me headed north, each turn of the wheels closer to help for my daughter felt like a betrayal of my son. I drove a little faster than was safe.
First, Audrey. Then Leo.
Audrey awoke with a whimper, which, upon reaching full consciousness, became a wail.
“Mommy, my arm hurts.”
I kept my speed steady but chanced a quick glance to see if Audrey appeared disoriented. Though infection was my greater fear, even without a bump on her head, I couldn’t rule out concussion. “How’s your head feeling?”
“It’s my arm, not my head.”
I pulled in front of the veterinary clinic and turned off the truck. “Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you?”
“I can walk, but my arm hurts.” I scooped her up anyway, her body hot and impossibly small against my chest.
“I’m not a baby,” she protested.
“You’re a big girl,” I agreed. “But your arm hurts, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Fresh tears spilled. “It hurts, Mommy.”
“I know.”
At the door, I lowered Audrey to the ground.
“Damn it.”
“Mommy!”
“Sorry.”
The door was locked, and my keys were with my cell phone in the car I’d abandoned back at Daryl’s.
Dusk was descending with alarming speed, a reminder that there weren’t many hours left in the day. Desperate, I looked around. A thousand rocks surrounded me in the landscaping, but all were rounded, none bigger than a half-dollar. Useless.
Then on one of the pillars, I spotted a piece of stone that wasn’t aligned with the others. I went to it, tested it, and my heart soared to find it loose. I worked the rock free. Though small, it had a sharp edge. It would do.
I positioned myself in front of the window closest to the door of my clinic, wrapped my hand in my sweatshirt, and swung the rock toward the window’s edge, the weakest part of the glass. A second swing, and the glass shattered. I knocked the biggest shards clear of the frame before reaching inside to unlock the door.
Audrey stared at me, her eyes nearly as large as the moon.
Once inside, I switched on the lights and glanced at the clock on the wall. How many miles had Leo’s abductor traveled in the past couple of minutes?
I forced my eyes away from the clock and my attention back to my daughter. I gave her an ibuprofen.
First, Audrey. Then Leo.
As if she could sense my thinking, Audrey asked, “Where’s Leo?”
I lowered her to the ground in one of the exam rooms and moved quickly to gather what I needed.
“I’ll get Leo as soon as we take care of that arm.” Audrey, distracted by her own pain, didn’t seem to notice the catch in my voice, but I hoped she did notice the resolve.
The epidermis on a patch of Audrey’s forearm had been scraped away, but the dermis underneath remained intact, and there were no lacerations that would require stitches.
Still, though there wasn’t much blood, the suddenly exposed nerve endings made Audrey flinch at every touch. With patients, I easily distanced myself, knowing any short-term pain I was causing was in pursuit of long-term healing. But this was Audrey.
Cradling my daughter’s arm over the sink, I irrigated the wound with a syringe until it was free of dirt and the bits of asphalt. Every time she winced or cried out, her pain may as well have been mine. I gritted my teeth and applied an antiseptic wash to my daughter’s forearm, careful not to damage the skin further.
“Almost done?” Audrey asked, biting her lip.
My brave girl. “Almost done,” I confirmed. I slathered the wound with an antibiotic ointment and used adhesive tape to secure a dry dressing to Audrey’s arm.
I looked up at the clock. The distance between me and Leo had grown another six minutes. In the heat of the chase, if I hadn’t left my phone behind, I would’ve called 911. But that was before the note planted on my daughter: Talk to the police and Leo dies.
The text, too, had warned me against calling the police. Would the person who pushed Audrey from that car even know if I made that call? Was there surveillance here that Perla had missed? The texts I’d received the day before had mentioned my interaction with Officer Torres, and I’d assumed my phone had been compromised. But what if I’d blamed technology for what had been human treachery?
Who could I trust with Leo’s life?
I returned my attention to my daughter. There wasn’t time for questions, but I asked the one that mattered, “What happened?”
“I think I fell.”
“No, not your arm. Back at Daryl’s,” I said. It hit me then: I had no idea what had happened to Daryl, or to my father. The last I had seen of Daryl, he had been unconscious in the texted picture. And my father . . .
“I played with Lester,” Audrey said.
“When I saw you in that car, I couldn’t see who was with you.”
“Was it Daryl?”
“I don’t know. Was it?”
Audrey thought about it. “I don’t think so. He took a nap.”
“Did you take a nap too?” When Audrey nodded, I asked, “Were you tired?”
Audrey shrugged. My mind raced through the options. A paralytic would incapacitate Daryl and the kids, but it would also prevent them from breathing. And how would the assailant get it anyway?
A sedative like flunitrazepam was easier to come by, but Audrey didn’t seem to have any withdrawal symptoms. Headache. Disorientation. Seizures. She likely would have experienced some of this had she been given a dose large enough to knock her out.
Then there was the matter of time. If hidden in food or drink, a sedative could take hours to work to full effect.
An injection? It certainly would act more quickly, but again, there was the question of access.