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I groped over to Damon’s bed, lay down on my side, curled up in a fetal position, and felt the wave hit like a tsunami. I sobbed my way into sleep.
CHAPTER
52
TWO MORE? HOW WAS I going to accomplish that?
The question tormented me as I trudged out of Damon’s dorm at 5:20 Monday morning. It was still dark out. Blustering wind blew cold rain, pelting me with stinging drops as I followed the path to my car.
Two?
Then I realized that this intersection of paths above Damon’s dorm was probably where Karla Mepps had intercepted him on Good Friday morning. Ignoring the fact that I was going to be wet and cold for hours, I stopped and stood there, wondering what she’d said to make him want to abandon his plans and do something as foolhardy as catch a ride with a stranger.
The easy explanation was her sexuality. Damon was seventeen, after all, and like most seventeen-year-olds, he had to be a slave to his raging hormones.
But I knew my son. Hormones or not, he wasn’t someone who did things impulsively. He was methodical, considerate. Mulch’s accomplice had to have given Damon some reason beyond lust to go with her, I was sure of it.
Maybe I was guilty of wanting to think well of my son, of gifting him with noble attributes. But I vowed to press Karla Mepps or whoever she really was until she explained how she’d been able to swing Damon’s decision and why.
The rental was right where I’d left it. Green leaves and dead pine needles were strewn across the windshield when I opened the door and climbed in. I was soaked through to my shoulders and calves, and I shivered as I started the car and turned up the heat.
I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror and saw a man I barely recognized, with sunken eyes and puffy skin and a blank stare that reminded me of other people I’d seen who’d suffered massive personal devastation. For a moment, I sat there, not sure if this man had it in him to go on and wondering whether he should turn fully to mourning. No, I decided. I didn’t care what I looked like or how I felt. As long as there was a chance of saving any of them, I was going to fight.
Putting on the headlights, I prayed for the thousandth time that I would find them and rescue them. But I asked God for more than that. I drove through the rain toward the coffee shop, praying that before this was over, I would be able to confront Mulch, that I’d be given the chance to face him one-on-one and bring him to justice.
But for now, I remained under Mulch’s control.
As soon as I’d woken, I’d looked on Craigslist New Orleans on my phone and seen the new ad. I’d opened it, wanting to believe that a member of my family had been released because of the video. Instead, it said, Two more on camera in forty-eight hours, and you get all survivors. Fail, and you get none. Send reply here.
Mulch was messing with my head and heart again, and I knew it. Had he figured out the video was fake? Or had he recognized Jones? Perhaps seeing the old detective had thrown Mulch, as we’d hoped. Was this change in the original deal because of that? Or was I just being played by the sickest of minds?
Swallowing against the acid that crept up the back of my throat, I drove out through the campus gate, turned right, and slowed to a stop at the blinking red traffic signal. The lights glowed in Millie’s coffee shop across the main road.
Please let this bitch be on the tapes, I prayed as I climbed from the car. Please give me a sign, a break, something to hold on to here. Up on the porch, I rapped at the door. Ward Brower, a young, tired-looking man, came out from behind the counter, drying his hands on an apron.
He opened the door, sending forth the aroma of fresh coffee brewing. I walked in. “How’s your mother?” I asked after introducing myself and shaking hands.
“Better,” Brower said. “Can I get you some coffee? Pastry?”
“I’d appreciate that. Where’s the surveillance disk?”
“Oh,” he said, his face falling. “I checked as soon as I came in. That day and the day after it are already erased. It’s automatic, I’m afraid.”
CHAPTER
53
I THOUGHT I’D PREPARED myself for that possibility, but hearing the words stated so flatly at that hour of the morning on so little sleep, I felt crushed, as if God were purposely ignoring me, as if He’d completely damned me and my family and I wasn’t worth His attention anymore.
“You okay, Dr. Cross?” Brower asked.
I lifted my head and looked at him with eyes blearier than his own. “No, I was hoping … I don’t know.”
“You want to sit down, sir?” Brower said, offering to help me to one of the tables.
“I’m okay,” I said. “And I’ve got a long way to go. Can I get the coffee and pastries take-out?”
“Sure, straightaway,” he said, glancing at me one more time as if he were afraid I might tip over.
