24 Hours (21 page)

Hickey listened to whatever Will said, then laid the phone near the middle of the bed, a confident smile on his face. Karen picked it up.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“While Hickey was telling his story, I called CellStar and tried to find out if Ferris is even in town. I told them it was a medical emergency. Their security department said he should be at home.”

“But you’re still getting the machine?”

“Yes, but I’m going to keep ringing it. Somebody’s bound to wake up eventually. I want to talk to Abby right now. I need to hear her voice. Can you hold the phones together?”

Karen raised the gun to Hickey’s face. “Sit on the floor by the wall.”

“Why?

“Sit!”

He backed to the wall and slid down it, keeping both hands pressed to his lacerated thigh. Karen laid the .38 on the comforter, then inverted one of the phones and held them together.

“Punkin?” Will said, sounding like a transistor radio. “This is Daddy. Are you all right?”

Karen heard Abby sobbing. It made her want to pick up the gun and blow a hole in Hickey’s heart.

“I’m coming to get you, baby,” Will said, his voice cracking with emotion. “But what I need now is for you to stay hidden. It’s just like the Indian Princess camp-out. Just another game. It may take a little while, but Daddy’s going to be there. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” The voice sounded tiny and alone.

“I want to ask you a question. Has there ever been a time when you really needed me and I didn’t come?”

“No.”

“That’s right. And there never will be. I swear that on the Bible.”

“You’re not supposed to swear on the Bible.”

“If it’s real important, you can. I’m coming to get you, baby. If you get scared, you just remember that. Daddy’s coming.”

“Okay.”

“I need to talk to Mom again. I love you, baby.”

“Please hurry, Daddy.”

Karen separated the phones. “Will?”

“It would be good if we could get Abby to shut off that phone for a while,” he said, “to conserve the batteries. But I don’t think she could handle it. Just keep her calm and quiet. I’m doing everything I can.”

“Hurry, Will.”

Huey Cotton paused in the rutted road leading to the cabin and looked up at the sky. His heart was full of sadness, and his eyes felt fuzzy from staring into the dark trees. Huey experienced much of the world as colors. A doctor had questioned him about it once. Like the woods. The woods had a green smell. Even at night, when you couldn’t see the green, you could smell and taste it. The clean green of the oak leaves overhead. The thick jungly green of the vines tugging at his pant legs.

Joey was two colors. Sometimes he was white like an angel, a guardian who floated at Huey’s shoulder or walked in his shadow, ready to reveal himself when needed. But there was red in Joey, too, a hard little seed filled with dark ink, and sometimes it burst and bled out into the white, covering it completely. When Joey turned red, bad things happened, or had already happened, or were coming down the road. When Joey turned red, Huey had to do things he didn’t like to do. But by doing them, he helped the red fade away, like blood on a shirt in a wash bucket.

Sometimes he couldn’t see color at all. There was a shade between brown and black (“no-color,” he called it) that hovered at the edges of everything, like a fog waiting to blot out the world. He saw it when he stood in line to order a hamburger and heard people whispering behind him because he couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted. The order-taker seemed to float in a tiny, faraway circle at the center of his vision, and all he could keep in his head was what the people behind him were saying, not whether he wanted pickles or onions. He knew they said mean things because they couldn’t see inside him, past how big he was, but whenever he tried to explain that, he scared people. And the more afraid they got, the more the no-color seeped in from the edges.

School was the worst. He had tried with all his might to forget the things children had said to him at the school in Missouri. But he couldn’t. They lived inside his head, like termites in the support beams of a house. Even when he got so big that teenage boys wouldn’t stand toe-to-toe with him, they teased him. Teased him and ran before he could make them pay for it. Girls teased him, too.
Retard, retard, retard.
In his dreams they still ran from him, and he never caught them. In real life, though, he caught one once. A teenage boy. That was one reason he’d had to come to Mississippi to live. His mother never told his aunt about it. She was afraid her sister wouldn’t take him. But Huey had told Joey. And Joey had understood.

Huey lowered his head and breathed deep. He could smell people sometimes, the way he smelled animals. Some smelled bad, others nothing special. Abby smelled like a towel fresh out of the clothes dryer. Cleaner than anything he’d ever smelled. And she sparkled. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t find her in the dark, because she was silver and gold, and should be reflecting the moonlight.

Maybe the no-color was hiding her. It had been seeping into his eyes since the moment he realized she’d run away. He had tried hard not to be scary, but he’d seen the fear in her eyes. Maybe she couldn’t help it. She was so tiny. Joey said she was six years old, but her head was smaller than Huey’s hand.

“Abby?” he called halfheartedly.

Nothing.

He walked back toward the cabin, sniffing and listening, but nothing registered. Cutting around the cabin, he looked into the tractor shed. The clean towel smell hovered around the tractor. He leaned down and sniffed the seat.

Abby had sat there.

He crept out of the shed and looked into the dark mosaic of foliage, straining his eyes. Some greens looked gray at night. The tree trunks looked silver-black. Moonlight dripped down the black leaves and hanging branches. He relaxed his eyes, which was a trick he had learned while hunting with Joey. Sometimes, if you let your eyes relax, they picked up things they never would if you were
trying
to see. As he looked into the shadows, something yellowy and far dimmer than a lightning bug winked in the darkness.

His heartbeat quickened. He focused on the spot, but the yellowy light was gone. He relaxed his eyes again.

The light winked and disappeared.

He was close. The light was important, but something else had stirred the blood in his slow veins. The green smell had changed.

Twenty yards from the tractor shed, Abby crouched in the sweltering darkness, clenching the cell phone as hard as she could. The thick branches of the oak above blocked the moonlight. She couldn’t see anything beyond the bushes that shielded her. She wished she was still up on the tractor seat. It was dry and safe there, not itchy like the briars clawing at her now. She had no idea where Mr. Huey was. There were too many noises around her to tell anything. Only the reassuring glow of the phone’s readout panel kept her from bolting toward the lights of the cabin. It was like looking at the kitchen window of her house when she was playing outside after supper.

A soft squawk from the phone startled her, and she put it to her ear.

“Abby?” said her mother.

“What?” she whispered back.

“Are you okay?”

“I guess so.”

“Where’s Mr. Huey?”

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t heard him?”

“He stopped yelling a while ago. Maybe he’s gone.”

“Maybe. But we don’t know that for sure. You have to stay down.”

“I’m sitting on my knees.”

“That’s good. Daddy’s calling a man right now who’s going to help us find you. Do you know how he’s going to do that?”

“No.”

“The phone in your hand is like a radio. As long as it stays on, the police can find you. It’s the same as if you were standing there yelling, ‘Mama, Mama.’”

“Do you want me to stand up and yell? I can yell loud.”

“No! No, honey. The phone is yelling for you, okay? People can’t hear it, but computers can.”

“Like a dog hearing a whistle?”

“Exactly like that. Now—Hang on, Daddy’s talking to me.”

“Okay.”

Abby held the phone against her ear so hard it hurt. She wanted to hear her father’s voice again.

Hickey was still sitting against the bedroom wall. Despite his wounded leg, he watched Karen like a hyena waiting for its chance to strike.

“You going to sew me up or what?” he asked, holding up his bloody palms.

“I haven’t decided.”

“I’m getting exactly nowhere,” Will said in her ear, his voice tight with frustration. “Goddamn answering machine. I can’t believe the president of a cellular phone company doesn’t have a service.”

“Maybe we should call the police. Or the FBI.”

“I don’t think we can risk that. If Huey—”

“Mama?” Abby said in her other ear.

“What is it, baby?”

“I think I heard something.”

Karen’s heart fluttered. “Whisper, honey. What did you hear?”

“I don’t know.” Abby’s voice was a thin filament stretched over a vast chasm of fear. “How long till you get here?”

“Not long. Has the noise stopped?”

“I don’t hear it right now. I’m scared it’s a possum.”

Karen felt a hysterical relief. “It’s okay if it’s a possum. They won’t hurt you.”

“They won’t bite me?”

“No. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“One bit Kate’s cat last week.”

“That’s different.”

“What if it’s a snake?”

“It’s not a snake,” Karen assured her, even as she panicked at the thought. “Snakes are sleeping right now.”

“Uh-uh. Snakes hunt at night. I saw it on
Animal Planet.
”

Jesus.
“That’s just in other countries, like India. And Sri Lanka. Cobras and things. We don’t have cobras here.”

“Oh.”

“Our snakes sleep at night.”

“Mom, I heard it again.” Her whisper was barely audible now. “Like somebody sneaking up.”

Karen fought a surge of panic. “You have to be
quiet.
I want you to stop talking.”

“I feel better when we talk.”

“I know, sweetie, but—”

“Mama—”

In two nearly silent syllables, utter terror traveled from child to mother. Karen squeezed the phone tight enough to bruise her hand. “Abby? Say something!”

There was only silence. Then she heard breathing, and she understood what was happening. Abby was sitting motionless in the dark, scared out of her mind. Huey was close. Praying that Abby still had the phone to her ear, Karen whispered, “I’m with you, honey. I’m here. Sit very still. You’re going to be fine. Remember what Daddy said.”

She listened with every fiber of her nervous system.

Out of the breathing, she heard a whimper, so soft that Abby had to be fighting a heroic battle to suppress it. Karen was about to reassure her again when a crash like breaking branches came down the line and Abby screamed.

“I found you, didn’t I?” Huey said loudly.

Karen’s heart turned to ice. “
Abby?
”

“I saw the light,” Huey said, his voice exultant. “Why did you run, Abby?”

“ABBY!”

“What is it?” Will shouted in her ear.

“Joey?” said Huey.

“Put Abby back on!” Karen demanded. “Please!”

“Where’s Joey?”

“Well, well,” said Hickey. He pressed his bloody palms against the carpet and stood. “The worm has turned.”

Karen grabbed the .38 and pointed it at his chest. “MAKE HIM PUT ABBY BACK ON!”

Hickey walked fearlessly around the bed. “If you shoot me now, she’s as dead as a hammer. Give me the phone.”

“Get back!”

He brushed the gun aside and slapped her face, then stripped the phone from her hand.

“Huey? This is Joey. If you hear a shot, strangle that brat. Don’t even wait to ask me a question, because I’ll be dead. This bitch already stabbed me. She tried to kill me.”

Hickey’s face hardened as he listened to his cousin’s reply. “You goddamn retard. I give the orders and you follow them. Period.” He grabbed Karen’s wrist and squeezed until her hand opened of its own accord and she dropped the .38. He bent and picked it up. “Tie the kid and gag her, Huey. I’ll call you back.”

Without warning, Karen snapped. She flew at Hickey’s face, meaning to claw out his eyes, but before she reached them, he slammed his fist into her sternum. The blow drove the wind from her lungs and dropped her to the floor. As she lay there gasping, he picked up the phone that had connected her to Will and spoke in a savage voice.

“Huey just found your kid, Doc. I hope you haven’t talked to anybody yet, because if you have, Abby won’t ever see second grade...Calm down. I don’t want you to stroke out on me. I just hope this wildcat you’re married to has learned her lesson.”

“Please,” Karen pleaded, struggling to her knees. “Don’t let him tie her. Don’t let him hurt her. She—”

“Shut your mouth.” Hickey hung up. “And stitch up this goddamn leg already.”

She stared up at him, panting like a winded runner. Tiny points of light danced at the centers of his eyes.

“I own you,” he said in a quiet voice. “You know that now, don’t you?”

“I just want my little girl safe. Whatever that takes.”

“That’s a good answer. But first things first.” He pointed at his lacerated leg. “Get to work.”

Karen tried to put Abby out of her mind. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to function. Bracing her hand on the bed, she got to her feet, then picked up the forceps she’d dropped earlier and opened Will’s black bag.

“No needles,” Hickey said, as she removed a vial of lidocaine and a syringe. “I don’t trust you far as I can throw you.”

“Fine with me. Forty stitches without anesthetic will burn like the hinges of hell.”

Hickey laughed. “You should enjoy it, then. But don’t worry, babe. I’m gonna pay you back for every stitch.”

ELEVEN

Huey stumbled through the dark with Abby in his arms and fear bubbling from his heart. The no-color was all around, flooding in from the edges of his sight, leaving only the glowing cabin windows swirling in the dark. Abby shrieked endlessly, so long and so loudly that he didn’t know how she was breathing. He wished to God he could put his hands over his ears, but he needed them to carry her.