Deliver Her: A Novel (15 page)

CARL

Had the marker on the guardrail been any other color, Carl might have mistaken it for something left by a road crew or group of hikers. But its signature shiny purple left no doubt: it was Alex’s scarf, the flimsy sash she’d insisted on retrieving before they left the Carmody house this morning.

He stroked the soaked fabric. Whatever her condition following the accident, Alex had the presence of mind—and the compassion—to affix it to the guardrail where they’d veered off the road.
Thank you, Alex.
Carl unwound the scarf and retied it around a tree at eye level so it would be more visible. Its gauzy tails flapped wildly in the wind. For good measure, he snapped off a pair of branches and leaned them against the tree in an
X
, pressing their tips into the ground.

Now he could go for help. As he headed downhill, the open road exposed him to chilling sheets of ice that quickly soaked his woolen shirt. He picked up his pace as much as the slick surface allowed, stepping over more fallen branches, alert for downed lines.

He dreaded the difficult calls ahead of him, conversations with two mothers whose daughters’ fates were in his hands. He reached for his cell, but put it back after seeing the no-service indicator in the high-altitude dead zone.

A deafening crack at his left made him jump. Casting his light, Carl saw a thick-waisted oak felled horizontal just beyond the guardrail. A few feet to the right, and it would have crushed him. He sidestepped to the center of the road, waving the light over his head. The fallen tree hadn’t taken any wires with it, but the next one might. He followed the road’s dashed white lines that gleamed sporadically through the sleet for an hour or more, and was beginning to second-guess whether the store actually existed when a faint glow warmed treetops in the distance. The wind’s pitch altered; in the lull between gales, he swore he detected the faint grind of an engine. Heartened, he picked up his pace.

The grind grew louder. Headlights sliced through the soupy mist and a gleaming rig emerged, its overhead light bar pulsing amber. Carl attempted to run toward the emergency vehicle, flailing his arms.

The vehicle slowed alongside him.

“Accident,” Carl managed to gasp to the uniformed driver. “My car off the road. There’s a woman. Badly injured.”

“Headed there now. Someone reported it.”

“A teenage girl?”

“No idea, sir. Came in through dispatch.” He indicated the door behind him. “Hop in. You can show us where the car went off the road.”

Carl hesitated. He wanted nothing more than medical aid for Carolyn, but he also needed to find Alex. “How far ahead is the store?” he asked.

“Quarter mile at most.”

“I’m going to head there. I had another passenger. A girl. I need to find her.”

The driver eyed Carl’s bump. “You sure, sir?”

“I’m sure. Keep your eye out for a purple marker on your right. Maybe a mile down.”

At least Carolyn would get the help she needed
, Carl thought, watching the vehicle drive away. With any luck, he’d find Alex up ahead at the store. Before long, the airborne glow that had teased him earlier swelled into a full-fledged spotlight shining down on twin gas tanks, their slick fuchsia flanks glistening—the oddity Murphy pointed out a lifetime ago. Beyond the tanks, a neon “Open” sign on a log cabin blinked at Carl. He paused on the cabin porch to catch his breath before pushing the door open, its chimes startling a woman sorting dishes on a table.

“Sorry, sir, we’re just about to—” She stopped at the sight of him. “Oh, my goodness. You’re bleeding. Are you all right?”

He hadn’t given a thought to what he must look like. He felt his head; the bump had swelled to the size of a small egg. Water streamed from his shirt onto the braided rug below.

She called to a man at a far counter. “Cam, come help.” She took Carl’s elbow and helped him to a bench by the door. “What happened?”

Carl strained to catch his breath. “I hit something. Up the road. Two people hurt.”

“Moose, no doubt.”

He paused, distracted by the taxidermy dotting the store’s walls—white-tailed bucks, deer skulls, the thick-lipped sneer of a moose snout—glass stares accusing. He swallowed. “My partner . . . and there’s a girl missing.” The man was on his other side with a glass of water.

“Drink some of this, sir. You’re looking pretty pale.”

“I’m fine.” Carl waved him away. The man’s iron grip on his forearm was the last thing he remembered before everything gave way to darkness.

MEG

Jack flung open the basement door. “Mom. Phone. Should I answer?”

“Leave it, bud. I’m coming.” Even taking the steps two at a time, Meg still missed the call. Relieved to see the New Hampshire area code, she dropped into a kitchen chair to call Carl back.

“Swiftriver Gorge. Iris speaking.”

Was the transporter calling from his hotel? Confused, Meg asked for Carl Alden.

“He’s right here. Just a moment.” The phone changed hands against a jumble of background voices. As the wait dragged on, Meg wondered idly if the driver booked two rooms or one, trying to picture Carl and the mousy woman together. None of her business, she decided. Finally, she heard a man clear his throat.

“Mrs. Carmody.” At Carl’s defeated tone, Meg’s instincts soared to high alert.

“Carl? What’s wrong? Where’s Alex?”

“I have some bad news.” A pause, followed by a ragged breath. “There’s been an accident.”

Please no. Not again. Not Alex.
Meg gripped the back of the chair. “Is Alex hurt?”

“We hit a detour. Some bad weather in the mountains. Something I didn’t foresee.”

Didn’t foresee?
In her living room yesterday, he had laid out his meticulous plan. “My daughter, Carl. Tell me what happened to Alex.”

His breathing grew more labored. “Alex is missing, Mrs. Carmody. She . . . walked away.”

“What do you mean, ‘walked away’? As in, ‘walked away without a scratch’?” Jumping up from the chair, Meg grabbed a sponge from the sink and swabbed Jack’s place at the table.
I will wipe this table exactly the way I do every night, and he will tell me everything is fine. That Alex is fine.

“Mommy, what happened?” Jack in the doorway.

“Nothing, bud. Go watch TV. Mommy needs some privacy for a bit.” Dropping the sponge, Meg shut herself into the powder room and took a deep breath. “Carl, just tell me about Alex.”

“She walked away from the accident scene. Which we’re taking as a good sign.”

“A good sign?” Meg sat on the toilet lid and doubled over, the bathroom floor’s black-and-white mosaic blurring as Carl described the impact, the skid, the car careening down the hill, his coming to and realizing Alex was gone.
My baby is missing. I sent my baby off with strangers, and now she’s gone.

Jack banged on the door. “Mommy, you’re scaring me. Is Alex OK?” She couldn’t hear Carl over Jack’s cries.

“Hold on. It’s my son.” She got up and stuck her head out the door, forcing her mouth into a smile. “Honey, Alex is fine. Mommy just really,
really
needs you to go watch TV. I’ll get you in a sec, OK?”

“Why are you yelling? I want Daddy.” Jack rubbed his eyes.

“He’ll be home soon. Go, Jack.” Shutting the door again, she asked Carl what time they crashed.

“Around four.”

She checked her phone screen. It was now six twenty. Alex had been wandering alone in the mountains for more than two hours—not in the warm outfit Meg set out for her but in clothes of her own choosing. Shuddering, Meg envisioned her daughter crawling along the icy road in flimsy leggings and a T-shirt, sleet seeping through thin soles.

Fourth grade: Meg racing to pick up Alex after a soccer match, a downpour snarling traffic.

“Why aren’t you out looking for her?” she asked Carl.

“I will be as soon as I hang up.”

Arriving ten minutes after the bus, Alex waiting for her outside, blue-lipped and soaked, soccer shorts clinging to her legs like a second skin.

“Your partner then? Couldn’t she search?”

Carl’s voice was hoarse. “Carolyn was in back, next to Alex. Her side took the brunt. She’s . . . it’s . . . bad.”

The powder room felt claustrophobic, the leftover Christmas potpourri cloying as Meg recalled the woman she brushed by in Alex’s bedroom this morning.

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry, Carl. I hope she pulls through. But you have to understand. My daughter. You have to find her.”

I thought you forgot me, Mommy.

Would Alex’s wounded gaze in her bedroom that morning be Meg’s final memory of her daughter?

I would never, ever forget you, lovey.

She made herself focus on Carl’s words—something about state troopers and a missing persons alert.

“An Amber Alert?” That’s what they did when a child went missing.

“Those alerts are for when there is a suspicion of abduction. We don’t know that.”

“Not
yet
, we don’t. Can’t they put one of those alerts out, too?”

He promised to ask the troopers, who would set up at Swiftriver Gorge—not a hotel as Meg imagined but a general store Carl had managed to hike to. He had hoped Alex had done the same, but no one had seen her.

Crash. Troopers. Missing person.
The straightforward transport he promised her had become a nightmare. “Carl. Tell me the truth. Do you . . . do the troopers think . . . she’s alive?”

“She had her wits about her. We know for sure she made it up to the road.”

When Carl described the marker Alex tied to the guardrail, Meg lost it. “She never lets that scarf out of her sight. It was her best friend’s.”

Her heart cracked open. First the lunch notes, now this selfless act by her daughter. It was too much. She had sent Alex straight into this horror.

“We’ll find her, Mrs. Carmody. You have my word. I know that doesn’t mean much right now . . .” Carl coughed. “If Alex stuck to the highway, someone’s bound to see her very soon, whenever this weather breaks.”

Meg hugged herself as Carl described the ice storm coating the region. “She . . . she could die out there, Carl. Alex doesn’t know what to do on her own.” This was a girl who refused to wear a coat to school. Meg bartered with God:
If you bring her back, I’ll never nag her about that again.

“She did take the coat you sent.”

The ski coat. The one Alex swore she hated.

Carl’s voice was soft. “Alex is tougher than you think.”

Numb, she jotted down his location:
Swiftriver Gorge General Store. Kancamagus Highway. Route 112.

The store would stay open as long as necessary; there was a generator and plenty of wood, in case they lost power, he said. That happened during these ice storms.

“I can’t just sit here, Carl. I have to do something. Tell me what to do,” she begged.

“Do about what?” Jack asked from outside the door.

“Check with Alex’s friends. Facebook, social media. She may have gotten through to somebody by now. It’s a long shot, but worth looking into.”

Meg thought of her unanswered text to Shana. “Call me the second you hear anything. Anything at all. And Carl . . .”

Jack knocked again. The rain intensified, great gusts of wind scraping branches of an overgrown oak against the powder room window—the same force whipping her daughter along an icy highway hundreds of miles north. “Find her, Carl,” Meg choked. “You have to find my little girl.”

No longer able to bear the tom-tom of Jack’s knocking, she blew her nose with toilet paper and wiped her streaming eyes in the mirror. “I’m coming, bud.”

CARL

Handing the phone back to the man, Carl felt drained from the two calls he had just made. Carolyn’s mother took the news stoically. He tried not to think about her inevitable conversation with Jamie.

Carl didn’t see the girl often. Not long ago, a transport initiated near Carolyn’s home, and it made more sense to pick her up there. Jamie half hid behind her grandmother’s back when he said hello and blinked back tears as her mother said good-bye. Carolyn had brushed bangs out of her daughter’s eyes. “I’ll be home Friday to watch TV with you. You help Grandma make the popcorn, OK?” Jamie clutched her grandmother’s hand as they’d left.

Then the call to Alex’s mother, to say he had quite literally lost her daughter. Her anguished voice stayed with him, beseeching him to find her. He had never in his life felt so powerless.

The woman slid a mug of coffee toward him, her eyes warm with sympathy. “Such terrible news for a parent.”

“I’m responsible.”

She pushed the sugar bowl forward. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I give these families my word when they hire me to transport their children. My guarantee.”

“You’re not God, you know,” she said softly. “Accidents happen.” She extended a hand. “By the way, I’m Iris. Iris Bailey. My husband is Cam.” Her hand warmed his chilled one.

“Carl. Alden. Thank you for the coffee. For everything. I’m sure you’d much rather close up shop and get home.”

“Actually, Swiftriver
is
home.” Iris indicated a set of stairs at the back of the store. “We live over this place.”

Pulling the borrowed blanket around himself, Carl stood to get a better look around. Could Alex be hiding somewhere? In a basement or storeroom? He strode toward the stairs, and Iris followed. “Mr. Alden, we told you. Cam and I have been here all day. If your young girl came in, we would have seen her.”

“It’s true,” Cam said, descending the stairs with an armload of clothes that he offered to Carl. “You should get out of those wet things. Bathroom’s over there. Troopers will probably be here anytime.”

Carl took the clothes into the closetlike toilet and dressed quickly. He peered into the garbage and the vanity under the sink; he attempted to raise the window, which refused to budge. Probably painted shut years ago. Nothing in the small bathroom offered any clues about the missing girl. Discouraged, he stared at the bloodshot eyes facing him over the sink. No wonder Iris had been alarmed: dried blood encrusted one cheek, and an angry bump swelled over one eyebrow. He wet a paper towel and wiped the blood off, baring an angry split in his forehead. What injuries had Alex suffered in the backseat? he wondered.

Back outside, he refused more coffee. Skittish as a caged animal, he skimmed a hand over his head. If Alex hadn’t come here, she must have headed in the other direction. When the troopers arrived, he’d make sure the search covered the Kancamagus end to end.

“You from New York, too, like the girl?” Iris was at his elbow.

“Yes.”

“I love the city,” she said, her voice laced with longing. “Which part?”

He had never felt less like engaging in small talk but felt obliged to answer the kind woman.

“Lower Manhattan. Area’s changed a lot.”

“I’m sure. I’ve been up here
waaaay
too long.” She wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “After I graduated from NYU, I came here, hunting capital of the world.” She fingered the hem of a lacy dress hanging rather incongruously from the twelve-point buck above her head. “My little antiques business keeps me sane.”

This portion of the store was appropriated for dishes, glassware, other knickknacks.
Cam must be a hunter
, he thought, turning his head to take in the herd of taxidermy. The movement shot needles of pain down the back of his neck.

Iris caught him wincing. “Whiplash, probably. You’re going to feel that in a day or two.”

He appreciated her concern, but the hot drink and dry clothes had gotten Carl’s blood going again, and he could focus only on Alex. What would a sixteen-year-old do? He was about to ask if he could take a look upstairs when a pair of troopers stomped into the store, accompanied by a sleety cold draft, pausing to scrape regulation boots on the bristled rack by the door.

Iris hurried to greet them. “Jordan, is that you?”

“Mrs. Bailey. Good to see you again. Got a report of a missing hiker?”

Already the story was wrong, Carl thought, his forehead throbbing. “There’s no hiker. It was a car accident,” he said, stepping up to the troopers. “A teenage girl walked away. Two hours ago already.”

“I’m aware of the accident, sir. We sent a crew that way. But Mr. Bailey just now told us about the girl. My men are on it.” He held out his hand. “Trooper Mendham. And Trooper Lopez.” The officer behind him raised a hand in greeting. Neither looked more than twenty-five, Carl thought; Mendham’s baby face was ruddy next to the olive uniform. These two were in charge?

“That’s a nasty bump you’ve got there, Mr. Alden. We can get another rig here to take you to have it looked at.”

“I’m fine.”

“You should never mess around with a head injury.”

“I
said
, I’m staying.”

The trooper crossed his arms. “So you’re refusing medical attention?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, then, I’m going to need that in writing.” Mendham directed the other trooper to dig out a medical release, then proceeded to make Carl recount the events of the afternoon in agonizing detail. Chafing under the interrogation, Carl stood and buttoned his borrowed wool jacket. “Don’t you have enough now? Let’s get out there.”

The officer raised a hand. “I understand you’ve had a tough afternoon, sir, but first I need to take you back to the scene. Protocol. Identify the car and all.” He gestured to Lopez. “My partner will stay here. He’ll monitor the crews for any news about the girl and communicate with us if anything breaks.”

The door opened again, and more troopers entered, laden with equipment.

“Hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Bailey,” Mendham said apologetically. “With Swiftriver smack in the middle of the Kanc, we thought it’d be easier to manage things from here. Roads are pretty slick. Want to keep the crews safe.” Carl caught Cam raising his eyebrows before the shopkeeper retreated to the kitchen.

“Of course, Jordan. You can set up over here.” Iris cleared a table in her nook for their equipment. Within minutes, they transformed the Swiftriver store into a temporary command post, stringing wires between transmitters to create a portable radio system similar to the one Carl had used in the military. Radios began to chirp updates from emergency crews dispatched along the Kanc.

Mendham asked Carl for a photo of Alex to circulate to search teams and media. Carl detached the girl’s photo from the Carmodys’ transport form; the trooper photographed it with his phone and sent it to headquarters. “Whenever you’re ready, sir. Jeep’s outside.”

Accepting the parka Iris offered, Carl joined Mendham in the state vehicle. As they pulled out onto the Kanc, a pickup truck pulled in behind them. Two men hopped out—a short driver and a much taller passenger wearing a hunter’s cap, its flaps tied up top and under the chin—and shuffled into the store.

“Where did you say the accident call came from?” Carl asked.

“A pay phone in Lincoln. Man wouldn’t leave a name.”

“And they said nothing about the girl?”

“Not a thing. Described the approximate spot of the crash, then hung up.”

Maybe Alex befriended a young man, convincing him to report the accident without giving her away. There were many possible scenarios, but for the moment, he had to focus on Carolyn. In silence, they backtracked several miles to where the violet scarf billowed like a flag. Emergency strobes illuminated this stretch of the Kancamagus; they swirled red and yellow, a surreal light show for the recovery operation. Mendham pulled close, instructing Carl to stay in the Jeep while he conferred with an EMT. Their conversation was brief. Mendham climbed back in the truck, rubbing his hands.

They were getting ready to go down to the wrecked car, Mendham said. “Bit of a challenge to move that equipment down the hill.”

“What about the girl? Can’t you and I start looking around here?”

“Sorry, sir. I have my orders. Roads are just about impassable. The crews have the girl’s description. They’re very experienced. A lot of hikers go missing in this forest.”

“She wasn’t hiking. How many times do I have to tell you?” Carl wiped the fogged-up windshield. He could see nothing from the car. Frustrated, he leaped out of the Jeep, ignoring the sting of sleet on his bruised face, and approached the clutch of emergency vehicles. Beyond, the doors to an ambulance were open, ready to receive Carolyn. He checked his watch; almost ninety minutes had passed since he’d thrown the tarp over the car.
Please, Carolyn, hang in there.

A rigged torch shone down the hill, where workers maneuvered bulky equipment down the incline, the beams of headlamps ricocheting off the wall of evergreen. Jaws of Life equipment; he’d used it himself in the field. He wanted to yell they wouldn’t need its menacing blades to tear at the car; he had already freed Carolyn’s body. Carl swallowed at the recollection of Carolyn slumped in the backseat.

The EMTs shouted to each other as they pitched down the hill. Carl longed to leap over the guardrail and guide the extrication himself. The lights of the recovery party dimmed as they moved farther into the wood. Despite Mendham’s pleas, Carl refused to return to the Jeep, pacing along the road until, finally, watery lights at the bottom of the ravine signaled the returning rescue procession. The first pair lumbered under the weight of the Jaws of Life. Behind them, two more bore a shrouded form on a canvas stretcher.

Carl held a hand out as if to steady Carolyn’s passage over the guardrail and her transfer onto the ambulance’s waiting stretcher. An attendant knelt and adjusted the oxygen mask over her pale, drawn face.

“How is she?” Carl asked.

“Very weak. Respiration’s shallow. From the state of things down there, we can’t rule out internal bleeding. We’ve got to move fast.”

Carl followed the stretcher to the ambulance, where the siren
whoop-whooped
sporadically. Bending over, he fumbled for her hand under the blanket and squeezed it. “Fight, Carolyn,” he whispered. “Like Jimbo did. Jamie needs you.”

He stepped back to allow the attendants to slide her into the ambulance. The doors clanged shut, and its boxy white shape melted into the night. Behind him, Mendham shouted instructions to the remaining crew. One by one, the remaining vehicles glided out onto the ice-glazed Kanc, lights winking.

Carolyn
had
to make it, he willed, staring after the departing column of cars. Nothing had ever torn at Carl like this. There was no protocol for this scenario, no survival manual to consult. This pain felt achingly personal, knocking down every boundary he’d ever set for himself, sabotaging his excruciatingly precise plan.

He felt unsteady, unmoored, loathing the craving it stirred, the long-suppressed itch needling his skin. He needed to hold himself together to find the girl.

Mendham was waiting for him back at the truck. “Very sorry, sir. I know that was difficult to watch.” They’d be getting updates from the hospital, he said. A crew could retrieve the car once the weather cleared.

The car. Maybe he had missed something, a clue that might lead him to Alex. He had been so focused on helping Carolyn that he had paid scant attention to it. “I’ll be right back.” Before Mendham could object, he grabbed the trooper’s flashlight from the front seat and scaled the guardrail, retracing the rescuers’ slushy trail to the car. As he slid down the hill, he could hear the trooper yelling right behind him
.
And rightly so: If anyone had tried a stunt like this back in the day when he was on duty, Carl would have collared the idiot, he thought.

By the time he made it to the car, he was out of breath. Opening the back door, Carl shined the light on Alex’s seat, illuminating Carolyn’s blood, the shattered glass, the sprinkling of discarded gum wrappers.

Mendham had caught up with him. “I’m going to need you to follow instructions, sir. Otherwise I’ll start wondering if that head injury is more than just a bump and find a judge who’ll make you go to the hospital.” He threw an arm over the driver’s door. “This your car then?”

“It is.” Carl slid into Alex’s spot, trying to imagine the girl’s state of mind in those horrifying final seconds: the animal’s sickening thump overhead, the ripping open of the roof, the car’s descent, the grievously injured Carolyn alongside her.

She would have been terrified—in shock, perhaps. Of course Alex would have run.

Carl sat back, discouraged. It was time to go back and devote full energy to the search. He’d already stretched the limited amount of latitude Mendham had allowed. Leaning his head back, Carl caught sight of the rearview mirror, knocked cockeyed in the crash.

The mirror.
Pulling himself up by the headrest, Carl aimed the flashlight at it. His good luck piece that rode along on all his transports, the miniature Rainmaker golden tree frog that captured Alex’s interest, was gone.