But the turn had been too much for the car. She felt the wheels leave the surface of the asphalt, felt the whump as the car slammed to the earth again. The old shocks groaned violently with the bounce, a broken trampoline. The cypress trees were less than thirty feet off the highway. Frantically Denise turned the wheel again, but the car rocketed forward as if she'd done nothing. Her eyes went wide and she drew a harsh breath. It seemed as if everything were moving in slow motion, then at full speed, then slow motion again. The outcome, she suddenly realized, was foregone, though the realization lasted only a split second. At that moment she blasted into the tree; heard the twisting of metal and shattering of glass as the front of the car exploded toward her. Because the seat belt was across her lap and not over her shoulder, her head shot forward, slamming into the steering wheel. A sharp, searing pain in her forehead . . .
Then there was nothing.
Chapter 3
"Hey, lady, are you all right?"
With the sound of the stranger's voice, the world came back slowly, vaguely, as if she were swimming toward the surface in a cloudy pool of water. Denise couldn't feel any pain, but on her tongue was the salty-bitter taste of blood. She still didn't realize what had happened, and her hand traveled absently to her forehead as she struggled to force her eyes open.
"Don't move . . . I'm gonna call an ambulance. . . ."
The words barely registered; they meant nothing to her. Everything was blurry, moving in and out of focus, including sound. Slowly, instinctively, she turned her head toward the shaded figure in the corner of her eyes.
A man . . . dark hair . . . yellow raincoat . . . turning away . . .
The side window had shattered, and she felt the rain blowing in the car. A strange hissing sound was coming from the darkness as steam escaped from the radiator. Her vision was returning slowly, starting with the images closest to her. Shards of glass were in her lap, on her pants . . . blood on the steering wheel in front of her . . .
So much blood . . .
Nothing made sense. Her mind was weaving through unfamiliar images, one right after another. . . .
She closed her eyes and felt pain for the first time . . . opened them. Forced herself to concentrate. Steering wheel . . . the car . . . she was in the car . . . dark outside . . .
"Oh God!"
With a rush, it all came back. The curve . . . the deer . . . swerving out of control. She turned in her seat. Squinting through the blood in her eyes, she focused on the backseat--Kyle wasn't in the car. His safety seat was open, as was the back door on his side of the car.
Kyle?
Through the window she shouted for the figure who'd awakened her . . . if there had been a figure. She wasn't quite sure whether he had been just a hallucination.
But he was there, and he turned. Denise blinked . . . he was making his way toward her. A moan escaped her lips.
Later she'd remember that she wasn't frightened right away, not the way she should have been. She knew Kyle was okay; it didn't even register that he might not be. He'd been strapped in--she was sure of it--and there wasn't any damage in the back. The back door was already open . . . even in her bewildered state, she felt certain that the person--whoever he was--had helped Kyle out of the car. By now the figure was at the window.
"Listen, don't try to talk. You're pretty banged up. My name is Taylor McAden, and I'm with the fire department. I've got a radio in my car. I'm gonna get you help."
She rolled her head, focusing on him with blurry eyes. She did her best to concentrate, to make her words as clear as possible.
"You have my son, don't you?"
She knew what the answer would be, what it should be, but strangely, it didn't come. Instead he seemed to need extra time to translate the words in the same way that Kyle did. His mouth contorted just a little, almost sluggishly, then he shook his head.
"No . . . I just got here. . . . Your son?"
It was then--while looking in his eyes and imagining the worst--that the first jolt of fear shot through her. Like a wave, it started crashing and she felt herself sinking inward, as she had when she'd learned of her mother's death.
Lightning flashed again, and thunder followed almost immediately. The rain poured from the sky, and the man wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"My son was in the back! Have you seen him?" The words came out clearly, forcefully enough to startle the man at the window, to awaken the last of her deadened senses.
"I don't know--" In the sudden downpour, he hadn't understood what she was trying to tell him.
Denise struggled to get out of the car, but the seat belt across her lap held her fast. She unbuckled it quickly, ignoring the pain in her wrist and elbow. The man took an involuntary step backward as Denise forced the door open, using her shoulder because the door had crumpled slightly from the impact. Her knees were swollen from smashing into the console, and she almost lost her balance as she stood.
"I don't think you should be moving--"
Holding on to the car for support, she ignored the man as she moved around the car, toward the opposite side, where Kyle's door stood open.
No, no, no, no . . .
"Kyle!"
In disbelief, she bent inside to look for him. Her eyes scanned the floor, then back to the seat again, as if he might magically reappear. Blood rushed to her head, bringing with it a piercing pain that she ignored.
Where are you? Kyle . . .
"Lady . . ." The man from the fire department followed her around the car, seemingly uncertain of what to do or what was going on or why this lady who was covered in blood was suddenly so agitated.
She cut him off by grabbing his arm, her eyes boring directly into his.
"You haven't seen him? A little boy . . . brown hair?" The words were tinged with genuine panic. "He was in the car with me!"
"No, I--"
"You've got to help me find him! He's only four!"
She whirled around, the rapid movement almost making her lose her balance. She grabbed hold of the car again. The corners of her vision faded to black as she struggled to keep the dizziness at bay. The scream came out despite the spinning in her mind.
"Kyle!"
Pure terror now.
Concentrating . . . closing one eye to help her focus . . . getting clearer again. The storm was in full fury now. Trees not twenty feet away were difficult to see through the rain. It was absolute darkness in that direction . . . only the path to the highway was clear.
Oh God.
The highway . . .
She could feel her feet slipping in the mud-soaked grass, she could hear herself drawing short, rapid gasps as she staggered toward the road. She fell once, got up again, and kept going. Finally understanding, the man ran after her, catching her before she reached the road. His eyes scanned the area around him.
"I don't see him. . . ."
"Kyle!" She screamed it as loud as she could, praying inside as she did it. Despite being nearly drowned out by the storm, the sound prompted Taylor into further action.
They took off in opposite directions, both shouting Kyle's name independently, both stopping occasionally to listen for sound. The rain, however, was deafening. After a couple of minutes Taylor ran back to his car and made a call to the fire station.
The two voices--Denise's and Taylor's--were the only human sounds in the swamp. The rain made it impossible for them to hear each other, let alone a child, but they continued anyway. Denise's voice cut sharply, a mother's scream of despair. Taylor took off at a lope, shouting Kyle's name over and over, running a hundred yards up and down the road, firmly caught up in Denise's fear. Eventually two other firemen arrived, flashlights in hand. At the sight of Denise, her hair matted with clots of blood, her shirt stained red, the older one recoiled for a moment before trying and failing to calm her down.
"You've got to help me find my baby!" Denise sobbed.
More help was requested, more people arrived within minutes. Six people searchin
g now.
Still the storm raged furiously. Lightning, thunder . . . winds gusting strongly, enough to bend the searchers over double.
It was Taylor who found Kyle's blanket, in the swamp about fifty yards from the spot where Denise had crashed, snagged on the underbrush that covered the area.
"Is this his?" he asked.
Denise started to cry as soon as it was handed to her.
But after thirty minutes of searching, Kyle was still nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 4
It made no sense to her. One minute he was sleeping soundly in the backseat of her car, and in the next minute he was gone. Just like that. No warning at all, just a split-second decision to jerk the wheel and nothing would ever be the same again. Was that what life came down to?
Sitting in the back of the ambulance with the doors open while the flashing blue lights from the trooper's car illuminated the highway in regular, circular sweeps, Denise waited, her mind racing with such thoughts. Half a dozen other vehicles were parked haphazardly as a group of men in yellow raincoats discussed what to do. Though it was obvious they'd worked together before, she couldn't tell who was in charge. Nor did she know what they were saying; their words were lost in the muffled roar of the storm. The rain came down in heavy sheets, mimicking the sound of a freight train.
She was cold and still dizzy, unable to focus for more than a few seconds at a time. Her balance was off--she'd fallen three times while searching for Kyle--and her clothes were soaked and muddy, clinging to her skin. Once the ambulance had arrived, they'd forced her to stop. A blanket had been wrapped around her and a cup of coffee placed by her side. She couldn't drink it--she couldn't do much of anything. She was shivering badly, and her vision was blurred. Her frozen limbs seemed to belong to someone else. The ambulance attendant--though no doctor--suspected a concussion and wanted to bring her in immediately. She steadfastly refused. She wouldn't leave until Kyle was found. He could wait another ten minutes, he said, then he had no choice. The gash in her head was deep and still bleeding, despite the bandage. She would lose consciousness, he warned, if they waited any longer than that. I'm not leaving, she repeated.
More people had arrived. An ambulance, a state trooper who'd been monitoring the radio, another three volunteers from the fire department, a trucker who saw the trouble and stopped as well--all within a few minutes of each other. They were standing in a sort of circle, in the middle of the cars and trucks, headlights on. The man who'd found her--Taylor?--had his back to her. She suspected he was filling them in on what he knew, which wasn't much, other than the location of the blanket. A minute later he turned around and glanced at her, his face grim. The state trooper, a heavyset man losing his hair, nodded in her direction. After gesturing to the others to stay where they were, Taylor and the trooper both started toward the ambulance. The uniform--which in the past had always seemed to inspire confidence--now did nothing for her. They were men, only men, nothing more. She stifled the urge to vomit.
She held Kyle's mud-stained blanket in her lap and was running her hands through it, nervously rolling it into a ball and then undoing it. Though the ambulance sheltered her from the rain, the wind was blowing hard and she continued to shiver. She hadn't stopped shivering since they'd put the blanket over her shoulders. It was so cold out here. . . .
And Kyle was out there without even a jacket.
Oh, Kyle.
She lifted Kyle's blanket to her cheek and closed her eyes.
Where are you, honey? Why did you leave the car? Why didn't you stay with Mom?
Taylor and the trooper stepped up into the ambulance and exchanged glances before Taylor gently put his hand on Denise's shoulder.
"I know this is hard, but we have to ask you a few questions before we get started. It won't take long."
She bit her lip before nodding slightly, then took a deep breath. She opened her eyes.
The trooper looked younger up close than he had from a distance, but his eyes were kind. He squatted before her.
"I'm Sergeant Carl Huddle with the state troopers office," he said, his voice rolling with the lullaby of the South. "I know you're worried, and we are, too. Most of us out here are parents, with little ones of our own. We all want to find him as badly as you do, but we need to know some general information--enough to know who we're looking for."
For Denise, the words barely registered.
"Will you be able to find him in this storm . . . I mean, before . . . ?"
Denise's eyes traveled from one man to the other, having trouble focusing on either. When Sergeant Huddle didn't answer right away, Taylor McAden nodded, his determination clear.
"We'll find him--I promise."
Huddle glanced uncertainly at Taylor, before finally nodding as well. He shifted onto one knee, obviously uncomfortable.
Exhaling sharply, Denise sat up a little, trying her best to stay composed. Her face, wiped clean by the attendant in the ambulance, was the color of table linen. The bandage wrapped around her head had a large red spot just over her right eye. Her cheek was swollen and bruised.
When she was ready, they went over the basics for the report: names, address, phone number, and employment, her previous residence, when she'd moved to Edenton, the reason she was driving, how she stopped for gas but stayed ahead of the storm, the deer in the road, how she lost control of the car, the accident itself. Sergeant Huddle noted it all on a flip pad. When it was all on paper, he looked up at her almost expectantly.
"Are you kin to J. B. Anderson?"
John Brian Anderson had been her maternal grandfather, and she nodded.
Sergeant Huddle cleared his throat--like everyone in Edenton, he'd known the Andersons. He glanced at the flip pad again.
"Taylor said that Kyle is four years old?"
Denise nodded. "He'll be five in October."
"Could you give me a general description--something I could put out on the radio?"
"The radio?"
Sergeant Huddle answered patiently. "Yeah, we'll put it on the police emergency network so that other departments can have the information. In case someone finds him, picks him up, and calls the police. Or if, by some chance, he wanders up to someone's house and they call the police. Things like that."
He didn't tell her that area hospitals were also routinely informed--there was no need for that just yet.
Denise turned away, trying to order her thoughts.
"Um . . ." It took a few seconds for her to speak. Who can describe their kids exactly, in terms of numbers and figures? "I don't know . . . three and a half feet tall, forty pounds or so. Brown hair, green eyes . . . just a normal little boy of his age. Not too big or too small."
"Any distinguishing features? A birthmark, things like that?"
She repeated his question to herself, but everything seemed so disjointed, so unreal, so completely unfathomable. Why did they need this? A little boy lost in the swamp . . . how many could there be on a night like this?
They should be searching now, instead of talking to me.
The question . . . what was it? Oh, yes, distinguishing features. . . . She focused as best she could, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"He's got two moles on his left cheek, one larger than the other," she finally offered. "No other birthmarks."
Sergeant Huddle noted this information without looking up from his pad. "And he could get out of his car seat and open the door?"
"Yes. He's been doing that for a few months now."
The state trooper nodded. His five-year-old daughter, Campbell, could do the same thing.
"Do you remember what he was wearing?"
She closed her eyes, thinking.
"A red shirt with a big Mickey Mouse on the front. Mickey's winking and one hand has a thumbs-up sign. And jeans--stretch waist, no belt."
The two men exchanged glances. Dark colors.
"Long sleeves?"
"No."
"Shoes?"
"I t
hink so. I didn't take them off, so I assume they're still on. White shoes, I don't know the brand. Something from Wal-Mart."
"How about a jacket?"
"No. I didn't bring one. It was warm today, at least when we started to drive."
As the questioning went on, lightning, three flashes close together, exploded in the night sky. The rain, if possible, seemed to fall even harder.
Sergeant Huddle raised his voice over the sound of the pounding rain.
"Do you still have family in the area? Parents? Siblings?"
"No. No siblings. My parents are deceased."
"How about your husband?"
Denise shook her head. "I've never been married."
"Has Kyle ever wandered off before?"
Denise rubbed her temple, trying to keep the dizziness at bay.
"A couple of times. At the mall once and near my house once. But he's afraid of lightning. I think that might be the reason he left the car. Whenever there's lightning, he crawls into bed with me."
"How about the swamp? Would he be afraid to go there in the dark? Or do you think he'd stay close to the car?"
A pit yawned in her stomach. Fear made her mind clear just a little.
"Kyle isn't afraid of being outside, even at night. He loves to wander in the woods by our house. I don't know that he knows enough to be afraid."
"So he might have. . . ."
"I don't know . . . maybe," she said desperately.
Sergeant Huddle paused for a moment, trying not to push her too hard. Finally: "Do you know what time it was that you saw the deer?"
Denise shrugged, feeling helpless and weak. "Again, I don't know . . . maybe nine-fifteen. I didn't check the time."
Instinctively both men glanced at their watches. Taylor had found the car at 9:31 P.M. He'd called it in less than five minutes later. It was now 10:22 P.M. More than an hour--at the least--had already passed since the accident. Both Sergeant Huddle and Taylor knew they had to get a coordinated start right away. Despite the relative warmth of the air, a few hours in this rain without proper clothing could lead to hypothermia.