Your Chariot Awaits (31 page)

“Good. How's the mother doing?”

“There's a lot of blood . . .”

“The doctor says having babies is a messy business. Don't panic.”

Joella gave a muffled groan as she shifted on the limo seat. “Next time, I am going to camp out at the hospital. No more of this do-it-yourself stuff.”

“The mother is grumpy but doing fine,” I said to the 911 woman.

“The doctor says congratulations. To both of you.”

The ambulance wailed to a stop beside the limo. The 911 woman and I ended our conversation, and I thanked God for her too.

The guys in white got Joella and the baby on a stretcher. She touched my hand as I followed the stretcher to the ambulance.

“Thanks, Andi,” she whispered. She sounded weaker now than she had in the midst of the birth. “I think I made a mess of your nice limousine.”

“Limousine, shmimozine. Who cares? Think what a story you'll have to tell your baby when she's older! How many people can say they were born in a limousine?”

And then I realized maybe Joella might not know this baby when it was older, never have a chance to tell her the story of a zero-to-sixty-in-thirty-seconds-type birth in a limousine alongside the road.

This was no time to talk, and yet I asked anyway. “Can you do it, Jo? Can you really give her up?”

But the paramedics were already scooting her into the ambulance, and there was no answer. I wasn't sure she'd heard me anyway.

Perhaps just as well. If she'd already made up her mind . . . The ambulance pulled away, siren wailing again. I leaned against the limousine for a few minutes, catching my breath, my legs feeling prickly as they returned to normal after kneeling so long. The rocky beach at the edge of Hood Canal was only a few feet below the road, and I scrambled down to wash my hands.

Then I just stood there looking at the forested hills on the far side, the glimmer of stars above gently reflected in the deep water.

Thank You, God.
And then that didn't seem enough, so even though I figured God knew my thoughts, I said it aloud. “Thank You, God. Thank You for bringing Joella's baby safely into the world.”

No reply, and yet I had the funny feeling that somewhere out there, God was smiling. Probably He didn't care what I thought, but I couldn't help saying it anyway. “Good work, God.”

What came now with Joella and the baby?
It's in Your hands,
God.

Yet even as I felt so very sure not only of God's existence but His very presence in those moments, as if He had reached out and touched me, I also felt very small, very ignorant.

So much I didn't know.

There'd been another baby, far back in time. Jesus. The Son of God. The Jesus Joella spoke of as if He were a friend and confidant.

Who was this Jesus, beyond a baby in a manger, celebrated at Christmas? How did He fit into my newfound awareness of God? Was tonight the shove Joella said I might get?

34

I
was walking into the ER before I realized I was covered with blood and probably should have gone home to change. Then I decided not to worry about it. Blood was a hospital's stock in trade.

I asked about Joella, but she'd arrived only twenty minutes or so before I did, and they didn't have anything to report yet. I headed off the “Are you family?” question by announcing I was Joella's sister. A stretch of truth, but fortunately the woman was too busy to question it. And after what we'd been through together in the limo, I felt as if I really was kind of an older sister. I was also only now realizing how tired I was.

A couple of hours later, when they could tell me something, it was only that she was sleeping now. So I went on home, showered, and fell into bed, too tired even to check on the sliding glass door.

In the morning, I called the bakery to tell Neil what had happened. The F&N office wasn't open yet, so I called Letty at home to let her know I'd be late getting in, then drove up to the hospital. Vigland General had a generous policy on visitors, and I was allowed to go right up to Joella's room.

She was sitting up, eating breakfast with what looked like a logger's appetite.

“Congratulations.” I said it a little awkwardly, because I didn't know how things stood here. I'd heard new babies usually stayed in the same room as the mothers these days, but there was no baby here. Maybe Joella had decided making the break from the very beginning would be best. “Are you okay?”

“Not ready to run a marathon, but pretty good. How about you?”

“I just thought I'd stop in for a minute before I go to work. How long will you be here?”

“They shove new mothers out pretty quick. Tomorrow, I think. But the baby will be here longer. She was early—”

“Don't I know!” A month and a good thirty miles early.

“They want to monitor her for a few days.”

Another moment of awkwardness. “I'll get your car brought back to the house and come see you again this evening.”

“Don't you want to know what I named her?”

I felt a little catch in my throat. “You named her?”

“Tricia A. Picault.”

“That's very nice. What's the
A
for?”

“What do you think it's for? Andalusia!”

“You can't do that to a helpless little baby!”

“She'll be proud of it when I tell her why she has the name.”

“Tell her?” I got this big, funny feeling inside, as if I'd swallowed a balloon that was about to burst. “Does that mean—?”

“I'm going to keep her, Andi. I know it's going to be tough, and I have a lot of things to work out, but I could never let her go. I'm amazed now that I ever even considered it. God sent her to me—”

“He did, didn't He?”

“By limousine express!”

I gave her a hug. “Can I see her?”

“Not until later. She's in a special place for preemies, and they have her hooked up to some monitors.”

“Is something wrong?” I suddenly felt very proprietary toward this little one. After all, mine had been the first hands in this world to hold her.

“No. She's barely five pounds, so they're just being careful. But I've already nursed her once.”

My mind was spinning. A baby in the house! “We're going to need all kinds of things. Diapers, clothes . . . a crib!”

“I've got a stash of stuff that I've picked up now and then,” Joella admitted, and I knew then that even though her conscious mind may have been considering letting the baby go, her subconscious had another agenda. “And I was looking at a crib at Goodwill just a couple days ago.”

“If it isn't already gone, I'll grab it!”

I started to leave then, but Joella called me back.

“Hey, Andi?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. Thanks for being there. Thanks for . . . well, everything.”

“The 911 lady also deserves some credit. And God was right in there too, you know.”

“I know. I was talking to Him all the time. And now I'm thanking Him, big-time.”

“I was praying every minute too.”

“You were?”

“I had quite a little conversation with God. I've decided I should . . . you know, go a little deeper into this. I feel as if . . .” I paused, trying to figure out what I really felt. “As if a door has just opened up on a whole new world for me.”

“More than a world,” she said. “An eternity.”

She gave me big smile and a snappy thumbs-up signal, and after a moment, I returned it.

I WAS EVEN later getting to work, because I went by Goodwill and bought the crib. Then to Wal-Mart for a new mattress and blankets. And then the sweetest little pink sleepers that I just couldn't resist. Okay, they were a little big, but Tricia A. would grow into them.

I finally got to the office about ten thirty. Letty was astonished to hear all that had happened since I'd left work yesterday. She said Mr. Findley had stopped by to see me, and I hadn't been at my desk more than fifteen minutes when he showed up again. I started to explain my lateness, but he brushed the explanation aside.

“You remember my telling you about the meeting with the new execs at the ‘cabin' out in the woods? You said you could take me there in the limousine?”

“Yes.”

“It's set for tomorrow night. Seven thirty. I've never been there, but I have directions. It's supposed to be about a half-hour drive, but I think we'd better allow forty-five minutes in case we have trouble finding it. Can you do it? I'll pay whatever the going rate is.”

“You want me to drop you off and leave you there?”

“No, you'll have to wait. But I'll pay for that time too, of course.”

He was obviously nervous about the meeting. I might have thought it served him right, because he'd made enough people at F&N nervous when they got an ominous summons to his office. But mostly I felt sorry for him. He apparently wasn't going to be nearly as big a VIP in the newly merged company as he'd been in the old. And maybe, without Jerry to lean on, he realized he could be in for big problems.

THE PHONE WAS ringing when I got home from work. The
Miss Nora
had just gotten into the marina. Fitz didn't know I was back at F&N, so that was a surprise to him, but I skipped over details of the temporary job to tell him the more exciting news about Joella and Tricia A. Picault. He picked me up later, and we drove to the hospital together. He, too, was jubilant that Joella had decided to keep her baby.

This time we did get to see the baby for a minute. Tiny, inside a kind of glass-enclosed container, with wires and tubes hooked here and there and a monitor above with ragged green lines of information. But possessor of a crown of wild, dark hair, a pink face, and wiggly toes.

Joella was positively radiant as we looked through the glass at the baby together. She was supposed to be released as a patient about midmorning the next day, but she would be staying on in a sleeping room so she could be near the baby. Afterward we drove over to the bakery and took Joella's car home.

We were just sitting down to coffee and cookies when the phone rang again. I mouthed the name to Fitz when I found out who it was.
Elena.

To Elena I asked, “Is everything okay?”

“I've been off work for a couple days. I wasn't feeling too good. And now something's . . . come up.”

“Did your husband get that job down in Portland?”

“He's under consideration for it, but he doesn't know for sure yet. Right now he's still working the security guard job. Andi, I need to talk to you. Not on the phone.”

“Talk about what?” I asked warily.

“I . . . found something. Something I think may be important.”

“About the murder?”

I heard a little gasp at my mention of the
M
word. Was she still afraid Donny might somehow be recording or listening to her phone calls? I scribbled on a scratch pad and shoved it at Fitz.
Elena wants to meet. Says she's found something.

“Tell her she should go to the police,” Fitz whispered.

I repeated that to Elena.

“I need to talk to you and see what you think first.”

That intrigued me, I had to admit. “What did you have in mind?”

“I can come to your house tomorrow evening.” Regretfully I told her I already had something scheduled. I wished now that I hadn't agreed to help Mr. Findley out. Whatever Elena had found or knew could be the break we needed. I didn't like asking her to postpone a meeting; it gave her too much time to change her mind. But I'd promised Mr. Findley, and I didn't want to back out now, when I knew how jittery he already was about the meeting.

“How about the next evening?” I suggested. I was just about to set a time when Fitz started waving his hands frantically in front of my face.

“Could you hold on a minute?” I asked Elena. I covered the phone.

“She wants to come here to talk to you?”

“Yes—”

“Think about it,” he said, his tone low but urgent. “She's told you she's suspicious of her husband. I'm not counting Big Daddy Sutherland out yet, but from everything this Elena has said, husband Donny sounds as if he could be our guy.”

“Right. She's scared of him. She's filing for divorce.”

“But women in love do strange things. Maybe she's changed her mind. Maybe she's sorry now for telling you anything. Maybe she and her husband have gotten together and decided you know too much. Maybe this meeting she's so eager to set up is to set
you
up.”

“Are you still there?” Elena asked.

A new thought rocketed into my head. Was she alone? Or was husband Donny there, orchestrating this call?

Yet if that wasn't true, and she really did have something important to tell me . . .

“How about somewhere other than here?” I suggested to Elena. “Maybe a restaurant over there in Olympia. There's that good Chinese buffet.” That busy, crowded, you-couldn't-possibly- murder-anyone-in-here Chinese buffet.

“No. I can't expose myself like that.” She paused. “Look, let's just forget the whole thing. Maybe it's nothing anyway.”

“Wait! Don't hang up.” I hesitated too. This could be like one of those frantic-salesmen pitches:
You have to act now! This
offer is only good for the next fifteen minutes!
Blatant attempt at manipulation. Yet there was that edge of panic in her voice. . .

“Okay. Here. Eight o'clock Friday.”

Elena hesitated, but finally she said, “That's too early. Make it nine.”

“Okay. Nine o'clock on Friday.”

She clicked off without saying good-bye.

“I don't think this is a good idea,” Fitz muttered. “It feels too much like seeing a black widow, and instead of stomping it, you're saying, ‘Here spider, spider. Come right in, little spider.'”

Could be. I juggled possibilities and grabbed the only one that sounded workable. “You have a gun, don't you?”