Torn Apart (18 page)

“Why didn’t you try later, after the weather had cleared?”

“Because I forgot,” she said, and then let out a wail. “They’re on your desk. I put everything on your desk.”

J.R. ran down the hall toward his office. As she’d said, there was a stack of mail on one side and a handful of messages in the middle.

His hands were shaking as he leafed through the messages. Finding the one from Bordelaise General Hospital was like a fist to the gut. When he found the two from Hershel Porter, the room started to spin. He dropped into his chair and took out his cell, then stopped, uncertain of who to call first.

That was when he remembered he hadn’t turned his phone back on after they’d landed, or checked that last message. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold the phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but when he went to voice mail and heard Katie’s voice and the desperation in every word, he felt sick.

“Call me,” she’d begged.

“God…oh, God…what isn’t she saying?”

Now that he knew the call was from Katie, he was even more concerned. Where was she? What had happened? Why wasn’t she calling from home?

He started to call her, then stopped, staring down at the number pad until the numbers all ran together. Suddenly he took a deep breath and flipped the phone shut.

Every instinct he had told him the news was going to be bad, and he knew that whatever it was, he needed to hear it from her—face-to-face, not over a phone.

Then he picked up the message from the police department. The least he could do was check in. Let them know he was coming.

He punched in the numbers, then waited as the phone on the other end started to ring.

“Bordelaise Police.”

He recognized Vera’s voice. “Vera. It’s J. R. Earle. I just got the chief’s message. Tell him I’m on my way home.”

“Wait! Wait!” Vera cried, but he’d already disconnected.

He took the car keys from his desk, found his bag just inside the back door and headed for the company parking lot on the run.

Soon he was driving east out of New Orleans. During the drive, he kept reliving the fight that had split them apart. It was like a nightmare that had been hardwired into a loop in his brain. He could see the tears on Katie’s face and the confusion in his little boy’s eyes. He remembered the pain and emptiness of the past few months, and wondered if this was God’s punishment for what he’d done.

Panic finally got to him, and as he was passing a semi, he accelerated. The engine roared as he gunned it, but once he’d passed the truck, he didn’t let up on the gas. Instead, the scenery soon turned into a blur. He drove faster and faster, until the sound of the tires on the pavement was a high-pitched hum. By the time he reached the Bordelaise city limits it was fully dark and a storm was brewing. There were distant flashes of lightning in the east, and if the storm continued in this direction, they would most likely get rain before morning.

It took a while for him to figure out what was wrong. There were blocks and blocks of missing streetlights. He could see signs of wind damage, but in the darkness, it was difficult to see how bad it was. It wasn’t until he started up Main Street that he saw the first major signs of the devastation. Panic resurfaced.

Get home. Get home.
It was all he could think of to do. He needed to see Katie’s face. He needed to be holding her in his arms when she said what she had to say.

But when he drove past Pinky’s Get and Go and saw the boarded-up windows, he suffered his first huge moment of doubt. And the farther he drove toward the street on which they lived, the more certain he was that he was driving through the direct path that the tornado had taken.

When he got to the intersection where he needed to turn, he lost his sense of direction. There were no street signs, no landmarks, no houses of any kind left, only piles and piles of debris.

He knew where their house should have been, but like everything else on both sides of the block, it was missing. Stunned, he hit the brakes and shoved the transmission into Park. As he got out, hot, muggy air hit him in the face like a slap. Not so much as a blade of grass was stirring. It was as if God was holding His breath, waiting to see if there was anything down here worth saving.

“Sweet Mother of God.”

The words came out like a prayer as his knees went weak. Had they been inside when the tornado hit?

“Katie…Katie…where are you, baby?”

Even though he knew she couldn’t answer, just her name on his lips brought tears to his eyes. This was his worst fear come to life: that he would be gone when his family needed him most. And now, with the house destroyed, he didn’t even know where to start looking for them.

His hands were shaking, and he kept blinking back tears as he scanned his cell for her earlier call. Still frowning at the unfamiliar number, he hit Redial, then held his breath, waiting for someone to answer.

Ten

I
t was just after eight. Supper was over, and the lingering scent of the cornbread Penny had baked to go with their brown beans and ham still hung in the air. She was sitting in her favorite recliner with a lap full of knitting, but her hands were idle. She couldn’t focus on the television show for looking at Katie. It was a sad thing to witness a woman coming undone. Even though she sat quietly, Katie’s face was streaked with tears.

The news that Bobby Earle hadn’t been swept away by the storm had been superseded by the growing belief that J.R. had taken him and was on the run. She could only imagine Katie’s despair, fearing she might never see him again.

When the phone rang, the sudden look of hope on Katie’s face was wrenching. Penny picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“This is J. R. Earle. Is Katie there?”

Penny gasped, then nodded quickly at Katie to indicate it was him. Thank you, Lord, she said silently. “Yes…oh, yes!”

“Who is this?” J.R. asked.

“Oh. It’s Penny Bates. Katie is—”

“Tell her I’m coming.”

“Wait. You can tell her—”

The line went dead in her ear.

Katie had scooted to the edge of the couch. Her heart was pounding.

“Was that J.R.? Why wouldn’t he talk to me?”

Penny’s knitting hit the floor as she jumped to her feet.

“All he said was, ‘Tell her I’m coming.’”

Katie started to shake. She didn’t know what that meant or how long it would take him to get here, but her prayers had been answered. If he walked into this house with their son, she would never ask God for another thing as long as she lived.

“Honey, sit down. There’s no telling where he was calling from. It could be tomorrow before—”

“No,” Katie said, and ran to the window. “He’s here…somewhere. He’s looking for me.”

Penny looked over Katie’s shoulder and out into the empty street, then gave her a quick pat on the back.

“I hope you’re right or we’ll never get a minute of sleep tonight,” she said, then picked up her knitting, leaving Katie standing watch at the window.

The streetlights on Penny’s street were still standing, but only one of them was lit. Within seconds, a car drove past, while another approached from the opposite direction. Katie was so focused on watching those two vehicles that she missed seeing a third one turn the corner.

Then she heard a roaring engine and saw the third vehicle coming down the street—coming fast. When it passed beneath the streetlight, her heart leaped. It was him!

“They’re here!” Katie cried, and ran for the door.

J.R. took the turn up Penny Bates’s driveway so fast that the tires squealed. He slammed the pickup into Park and killed the engine just as the front door opened. When he recognized the familiar silhouette of his wife in the doorway, he went weak with relief.

Katie! Thank God!

Seconds later he was running toward the house as Katie flew down the steps, and then she leaped into his arms.

“You didn’t come and—”

“I didn’t know you—”

“They called and called—”

“Trapped on the rig—”

“I thought—”

J.R. groaned, then smothered her lips with his, stifling the words. She was warm and alive, and he couldn’t stop touching her. He kissed her over…and over…and over, running his hands up and down her body, through her hair, tilting her face to his in the moonlight, making sure she was truly okay.

For Katie, the emotion was just the same. She had been dying, and now she was alive again. Resurrected from despair by a simple touch and a kiss. For a few frantic moments she forgot—and then Bobby’s face slid through her mind, and she roughly pushed him away.

What was the matter with her? How could she feel this joy? She needed to know if he had Bobby.

J.R.’s heart sank. Was she angry? Would she ever forgive him?

Katie looked over his shoulder toward the truck just as J.R. looked over her shoulder toward the house. At the same moment, they both asked the same question.

“Where’s Bobby?”

Katie heard the words, spoken in perfect synchronicity to hers, and felt the ground tilt beneath her feet.

“Noooo!” she screamed, and began beating on his chest with her fists. “I thought… I prayed… Oh, God, oh, God!”

J.R. grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. He knew before he asked that it was going to be bad.

“Katie…baby…where’s Bobby? Where’s our son?”

Her cheeks were wet with tears. The words were acid on her lips.

“He’s gone! He’s
gone!
”

J.R. staggered. “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

“Up until this morning, we all thought he’d died in the tornado. There were search parties and…Chief Porter said…” She stopped, then took a deep breath. “They just couldn’t find…couldn’t find him anywhere.”

J.R. was listening, but the words didn’t make sense. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen.

Katie shuddered, then took a deep breath. “This morning the Maxwells showed up at the police department and told Chief Porter that while the tornado siren was blowing, their little girl, Holly, saw a man in a blue pickup snatch Bobby from the churchyard. Chief Porter suspected you. Even while I couldn’t believe you would do that, I kept praying it was you. At least then I would know he was alive. And then, when they called to notify you I was in the hospital, you didn’t call back, and when I left you that message and you still didn’t answer, we didn’t know what to think.”

J.R.’s heart was pounding so hard that he couldn’t hear. He kept seeing his little boy’s laughing face; then suddenly he turned away and vomited.

Katie moaned, then grabbed the back of his shirt and held on. They were together again, bound by misery, and on their way to hell.

Penny was watching their reunion from the window, and when she saw Katie suddenly start hitting J.R.’s chest, and then saw J.R.’s reaction to what he’d been told, she knew the news was bad.

This reunion had become a horrible demonstration of irony. While they’d found each other, they had also confirmed everyone’s worst fears. J.R. did not have his son.

“Lord, can this get any worse?”

Then she clapped her hand over her mouth, sorry that she’d given life to the words and ran for the phone. Hershel Porter needed this information.

Hershel Porter had been home less than an hour when he decided to make himself some supper. Tonight was his wife’s book-club meeting, which meant he cooked. By choice, his cooking usually consisted of a pastrami on rye with a thick coat of cracked mustard and a tall glass of sweet iced tea. He was spreading mustard on the bread when the phone began to ring.

“Dang it all,” he muttered, licking the mustard off his thumb as he answered. “Porter residence.”

It was the night dispatcher from the police department.

“Chief, Penny Bates just called and said J. R. Earle is at her house, and that you’d want to know.”

Hershel waited, remembering that J.R. had called but had never mentioned his son. “Does he have the boy?”

“She said no.”

“Sweet God Almighty, this isn’t good news.” He looked longingly at the makings of his sandwich, but the decision was already made. “If you need me, call my cell. I’ll be at the Bates home.”

“Yes, sir,” the dispatcher said, and disconnected.

Within minutes, Hershel was on his way to Penny’s.

J.R. couldn’t stop shaking. Even when he walked into Penny’s house, his legs felt like rubber.

“Come in…sit here,” Penny said, urging them both inside.

Katie sat down on the sofa, then pulled J.R. down beside her. He couldn’t bear to look at her and see the blame in her eyes.

“It’s my fault. If I’d been here, none of this would have happened,” he said.

Katie gasped, then reached for his hand. “No! No! That’s not true! I’m the one to blame. I should have moved when you wanted me to.”

J.R. shuddered, then looked up. He had his Katie back, but at what cost?

At that point, Penny intervened.

“Neither one of you is to blame for this! Someone abducted your child…in broad daylight!”

J.R.’s eyes suddenly narrowed as memory surfaced. “The monster!”

Katie shivered. “Monster? Did he talk about the monster to you again, too? He only mentioned it to me one other time, and that was last Sunday on the way to church.”

“He’s talked about a monster off and on for months…ever since we…since I bought the new house.”

Katie paled. “What did we miss? Why didn’t we know this was real?”

Before J.R. could answer, there was a knock at the door.

“That will be Chief Porter. I called to let him know you were here,” Penny said, as she went to answer.

J.R. stood as the police chief walked in.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” Penny said, and quietly disappeared.

Hershel gave J.R. a steady look.

“You’ve been a hard man to find,” he said.

Awash with guilt, all J.R. could do was explain.

“I’ve been on an offshore drilling rig for the past week. The chopper that was supposed to evacuate us went down in the gulf, then it was too late to send another, because of the storm. We were stranded. At first, when I couldn’t reach Katie, I just assumed the power lines were down or something. Then I began to worry, but I had no way off the rig until my replacement showed up. I just got back into New Orleans this afternoon and found all the messages that had been left for me, although they were supposed to have been forwarded to my cell.”