Exposure (46 page)

“True, I wouldn’t, but that’s not the point. I’m not sorry for where I am. I got over the heartbreak—maybe because he wasn’t really the one for me. I do love you, Harlan, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him back then.”

“Fine,” he said. “Have your little chat—”

“I’m not asking your permission.”

“But when her
love
goes wrong and she can’t ever let go and she ends up miserable and drunk and sick, don’t you all blame me.”

“She is
not
your mother. In fact, if anything, she’s an awful lot like
you.
”

He opened his mouth to argue, but before his thought made it to his mouth, he thought again. She was right, he could see it—Amelia was strong-willed and hardworking and she had a dream she wasn’t willing to let go of, same as he’d been. The different part, though, was that Amelia was a girl, and girls didn’t see things like guys did.

He said, “In some ways, okay, sure. But that doesn’t change anything about her and Winter.”

Sheri looked at him with pity. “I wish I’d never gone along with your idea that she could be talked out of it, counseled, restricted out of it—that she should ever feel like she couldn’t bring
any
boy home to begin with. I knew better. It’s
love
, all right? There’s nothing to be done about it.” She pulled open the door and went back into the room, leaving him there with no chance to reply. Not that he knew what he’d have said anyway.

He found his way to the ER, Sheri’s words, her attitude, her
certainty
all running back and forth inside his brain, making contradictory and chaotic thoughts that he was none too happy to have. Usually there’d be a hook in there to catch these thoughts, a hook made of doubt, say, or outright rejection, his own certainty that he had a grasp of what was right and true in the world. Not this morning.

There were the vending machines. No pork skins, but he bought a soda. Outside, the day was a wash of gray light and blowing snow that seemed to be tapering off. He shivered, looking at it. Who lived in such godforsaken places as this? He wanted to ask this of the white-haired woman he saw behind the counter, who appeared to be otherwise sensible—and he would have if she hadn’t already been talking to a man whose badge identified him as a Vermont State Police officer. There were two others near the door, with a deputy who looked a little like Hitler.

The officer at the desk—a trooper, Harlan thought, based on the chevron on his sleeve—was stirring a tall steaming cup of coffee with a wooden stick and saying, “… south of town about four miles. You know, Josiah Howell’s place. Old Josiah went out to his woodpile for a few logs to stoke the fire and actually walked over part of him in the snowdrift, you know. Felt funny under his boots, he said, not s’posed to be a ridge there. Dug some, and there he was.”

The woman said, “That’s a shame is what it is. Betty told me at shift-change that he’d seemed like a nice, caring fella. What he could’ve been thinking …”

“Why he didn’t drive, that’s what we’re wondering.”

Harlan walked over to them. “So he’d have a better chance of avoiding the law—you’re talking about Anthony Winter, right?”

“You with the news?” the trooper asked, eyeing him.

“No, it’s my daughter he kidnapped.”

The woman cocked her head. “You might want to think that one again.”

“Pardon?”

“Cindy, she was on shift last night, she said they were no-question devoted. She’s the one that had to report them, but she said she wished she didn’t have to. She didn’t know what the trouble was then, and when she found out, she was so sad for them. I got here at eleven and your girl was asking after him the whole time till they took her to surgery, and again after. Kidnapping, no sir, that won’t wash.”

Harlan tried to muster the conviction that had come so readily before. “Amelia only
thinks
she’s in love. The Winter kid’s a convincing actor, take my word for it. Or … I guess I should be saying ‘was’?”

“Hypothermia—” the trooper began.

“So convincing,” the woman interrupted, challenging Harlan, “that Cindy caught them out using fake names after only a few minutes?”

The trooper said, “Her statement—that is, your daughter’s statement—was that their leaving North Carolina was her idea.”

“She’s afraid to say otherwise,” Harlan insisted, feeling as if he was trying to push a boulder through a wall using only brain waves. These people didn’t know the whole story. They needed to know the particulars, and then they’d agree with him. “He left a note saying he was taking her out of the country.
Taking
. That pretty well proves he kidnapped her.”

“Then why would he leave a note?” the woman said.

“Right,” the trooper said. “If he really was taking her against her will, wouldn’t he try to just disappear without a trace?”

“Well …” Harlan began, but he had no ready answer for this.

“Mister,” the woman said, “they were throwing you off the trail is all. I tell you, it might be time for you to stop looking at this from inside your own head. We have a saying here, ‘too much for the pump,’ and that’s what your attitude about that boy is. Those two were in love.”

“You didn’t even see them,” Harlan said, wanting to prevail and yet feeling his own certainty slipping, no traction in these conditions.

The woman’s mouth turned down in pity for him, the poor man who was too thickheaded to understand what was plain to everyone else. She said, “I didn’t even have to.”

The rumble of a diesel engine got their attention. Outside the ER’s entrance was a big pickup truck with a topper on the back. The trooper said, “That’ll be Josiah,” as a four-person team of medical personnel pushing a gurney between them went out to meet the truck. At Harlan’s questioning look he added, “Calling for an ambulance didn’t make sense.”

As Harlan watched, the group stood at the back of the truck while someone who was crouched inside held the ends of a blanket that, Harlan assumed, was curled around Winter. They slid him onto the stretcher and what Harlan saw when they came past him again struck him as cold as the figure before him.

He put his fist to his lips. Jesus, help him, this was
real
. The half-naked blue-white body curled into a fetal position and covered, still, with a good bit of snow, was no anecdote, no subject for debate. This was
Anthony
, an actual person, a hypothermia victim, Kim Winter’s son. This was the boy that Amelia had been saying all along was a good and decent person. This was who she’d asked for all night, even right out of surgery, and again when she saw Sheri and him. This boy was the one these strangers, who weren’t prejudiced by wishes or fear or political agenda or stubbornness, were convinced was in love with Amelia.

But if that was so … why had he left there, if not to escape?

But, in leaving, why had he gone south instead of north, to the border? Could be he’d gotten his directions mixed up—that was the logical conclusion. Logical, though, would’ve been to put his coat on. Hell, Harlan thought, logical would’ve been to drop Amelia here at the door and drive himself away from civilization immediately, while he had plenty of time to do it.

The woman called to one of the team as the gurney hurried past, “Get me his ID.” To Harlan and the officer, she said, “I’m gonna reach his parents myself if I can.”

“Just his mother,” Harlan corrected her. “No dad.” If he expected the woman’s expression to change based on this, he was wrong.

“
We’ve
got the info,” the trooper told her.

Harlan wondered at the rush, and pointed toward the wide doors that were now closing. “What do they think they can do for him?”

The trooper said, “Maybe nothing. He looks pretty far gone. With hypothermia, though, there’s a saying: you’re not dead until you’re warm and dead.”

“Meaning what? They … they thaw him out and then they can pronounce him dead?”

“That’s usually how it goes. Once in a while they can get ’em back. I’ve heard of it. Not here, but you see it in the national news now and again.”

“Do you think …” Harlan began, unsure of why he was about to say what he was about to say—except that he might like to be able to ask Anthony about his motives, which weren’t adding up. And he might ought to give Amelia more credit than he had been. And he’d like it if Sheri didn’t look at him the way she’d done. Maybe what he was about to say was motivated by his being here at the top of Vermont, so far away from the Robeson County dirt road, where he’d grown up skinny and hungry and angry and determined, that the gravity of those memories was weakened by the distance or the setting or the blizzard. He didn’t know. He only knew he had to say it.

“Do you think you can get a doctor out here to talk to me, like, right now?”

32

IM WAS AWAKE, BUT SHE WAS NOT SHOWERED OR DRESSED OR
even caffeinated to help overcome the exhaustion that came from her sleepless night—several in a row, in fact. The FBI phone call telling her that Anthony had gone missing—that he had essentially dumped Amelia at the hospital and taken off to save his own skin—had come at eleven forty-five last night. It had caught her up short, giddy as she’d been after hearing from Anthony, thinking her Thanksgiving prayer had been answered. It hadn’t made sense.
This
was his plan, to run away alone? She couldn’t fathom it. From that time until now, 8:20
A.M.
, she had waited for her phone to ring again.

The FBI agent who’d made the eleven forty-five call had wanted to know if she’d heard from him. The agent who arrived a few minutes later asked the same thing. She’d told them both that yes, he’d called, and he’d said he thought he had things figured out, and no, she’d had no indication that “figured out” meant going off in a blizzard, alone, on foot, at night, with no provisions that anyone knew of—not even his coat, they kept telling her, driving the knife farther into her heart—so that he might yet evade the net the FBI was casting.

Kim, baffled and afraid, had asked the people whose presence might ease her mind to come over. Late as it was, her mother, Rose Ellen, and William had come right away, braving the incursion of news reporters lining the street in front of her house. They’d come, though there was little to do besides speculate and wait. The three of them were in the kitchen now, brewing coffee and cooking bacon and eggs—as if she, or they, were interested in eating. What else did you do, though, when there was nothing you could do? When you were confined to nineteen hundred square feet and the police would not allow you to go, by any means of transportation you might be able to arrange, to Vermont to look for your own child—who you were sure you could find, you, with your heart a beacon for his—what in the name of God were you supposed to do?

William left the kitchen and sat down next to Kim on the couch. He took her hand and held it, saying nothing. She was glad he was there. His willingness to come when she called, his presence, these meant something to her, they did, though she couldn’t access that color in her emotional spectrum right now. When this was over, maybe … Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe this was never going to be over.

After a minute, William gave her hand a squeeze, then let go and went to the desk where he’d set up his laptop. He had to leave soon, she knew; he had family in from out of town, expecting him back. It had been good of him to stay this long. It had been good of him to come at all.

William said, “This is nice: only twenty-four new emails this morning. And here’s one from a parent reminding me what a fabulous teacher you are.… Absolutely correct.” He looked at her over his glasses and nodded. Then, reading further, he said, “Another wrote in support of the kids.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, trying to make her tone match her words.

From the kitchen Rose Ellen said, “Coffee’s on.” Kim got up. She didn’t want coffee, or anything other than answers, please God, but it would give her something to do while she waited.

“How about
that
,” William said, not in reference to the coffee. Kim turned. He said, “That group, the Facebook page supporting the kids? Listen to this. There’s a lot of chatter about Amelia’s appendicitis … and—hold on, what’s this?”

Kim walked over and stood next to him. The computer’s screen was crowded with posts and comments and he was scrolling through them too quickly for Kim to follow. But then he stopped and said, “Here.” He pointed at the screen. “Cameron McGuiness posts this last night around midnight: ‘
Don’t believe what you hear, peeps. He did NOT kidnap her and the rest is bullshit too. The DA has a message from Anthony waiting in his voice mail and then we’ll all see.
’ ”

“The DA?” Kim said.

“Was Anthony in touch with Cameron last night?”

“Maybe after I talked to him? I’m calling Mariana.” Kim got her phone from the coffee table and was about to place the call when William said, “Hold on. Hold on,” he said again. “There’s a video.”

Kim went to see what he was talking about. On the screen, in dim lighting but with color and with sound, was Anthony, close up and smiling.