Aftermath

IN THE HOURS THAT FOLLOWED, things moved slower, evened out, tried to make sense.

Medics arrived. Pronounced Danicic dead. Found Dougie still alive, slowly warming back to consciousness within his cotton cocoon. They took the boy to the hospital. Tried to take Rainie, too. She refused to go. Just sat in the back of Quincy’s car. She had his coat around her shoulders, four blankets on her lap, and a steaming cup of coffee in her hands.

She wanted to feel the warmth seeping back into her bones. She wanted to inhale the scent of Quincy’s cologne in the collar of his coat. She wanted to realize herself, inch by inch, as she ventured back to the land of the living.

Quincy sat in the car with her as more investigators arrived and started to work the scene. The house, Rainie learned, belonged to Stanley Carpenter, his grandfather’s old home that he kept for periodic rental income. He had been pleasantly surprised to receive an inquiry in August to rent the property for the entire winter. The renter claimed to be a writer from out of town, looking for someplace quiet to work on his next novel. Stanley had received a cashier’s check for the entire winter’s rent up front and hadn’t thought about the house much since.

The house sat on a heavily wooded property, just a mile from the ocean. The nearest neighbor was five miles away to the west. Rainie and Dougie could’ve run all night and still never found a single person to help them.

A Sergeant Detective Kincaid appeared. He stared at Rainie so hard and so somberly, Rainie didn’t know what to say. Then he nodded once to Quincy and walked away.

Next came a gorgeous Hispanic officer named Candi. She had been one of the first officers at the scene, arriving with Quincy. Now she took a seat on the gravel drive beside the open door on Rainie’s side of the car and, with a surprising gentleness, drew out Rainie’s account of the past few days. How Rainie had pulled her car over in the middle of the night. Been surprised by a blinding white light. Woken later to discover herself drugged and bound in the back of a vehicle. She’d done the best she could, working hard to protect herself and Dougie.

She had no idea who had taken her. When Candi used the name Danicic, Rainie was genuinely startled. “Isn’t he a reporter for the Sun ?”

No one had that answer for her. Candi disappeared and Lieutenant Mosley took her place. He wanted to personally make sure she was okay. Then he was off to make a statement to the press.

“It’s about time we had some good news today,” the officer said, which left Rainie, in the back of the car, staring at Quincy.

Alone at last, he started to speak. He told her of the ransom notes, of the task force team. He told her of Mac and Kimberly flying immediately from Atlanta to help.

And he told her, expressionlessly, for that was the tone he used for things that mattered most, how a detective, Alane Grove, had been murdered while working the case. Best they could tell, a local had spotted her with the ransom money and, unable to resist the temptation, had snatched her into the back of his truck and strangled her for the cash.

Then had come the disastrous ransom drop. Danicic had rigged the scene with explosives, resulting in serious injuries to the Bakersville sheriff, Shelly Atkins, as well as to Kimberly. Kimberly was now listed in stable condition, but would probably be in the hospital for days while they monitored her lungs and treated her burns. For Sheriff Atkins, the prognosis did not look so good.

“We should go to the hospital,” Rainie said immediately.

“No.”

Rainie frowned at him. “But Kimberly…”

“Is finally getting to see her fiancé. If we interrupt them now, they both will kill us.”

“They’re engaged?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“Why didn’t you say so in the beginning? Men!”

Quincy took her hand. “Yes, men. We like time alone with our women. Mac has his. Now I have mine. And you’re not going anywhere.”

Which made her both smile and cry, but also proved not to be entirely true. She went to get out of the car, passed out cold, and Quincy got to yell once more for the paramedics.

She woke up hours later, screaming hoarsely in the dark. The room was pitch black, the water closing over her head. She banged her hand against the metal bars of the hospital bed, searching desperately for leverage. Monitors screamed. The IV wires became tangled. Then Quincy was there, grabbing her hand, telling her she would be all right.

She drifted back off, only to wake up screaming once again.

“I don’t think I’m quite sane,” she told him.

“None of us are,” he said, and climbed into the bed beside her.

In the morning, Rainie was discharged with orders to rest, eat, and drink. Her cracked ribs were tightly wrapped. Her left knee, with a torn ACL, was secured in a metal brace. She would need surgery to repair the injury, but not until she got her strength back. With Quincy by her side, she limped gamely to Kimberly’s room.

The young agent had been moved from the intensive care unit to the general-population ward. She was on oxygen, fluids, and antibiotics to protect her damaged throat from infection; the doctors did not expect to release her for many more days.

But she seemed in good spirits, giving Rainie a fierce hug, flashing her engagement ring. She couldn’t speak a word, and Mac was already saying that he preferred her this way.

He speculated out loud about a huge, four-hundred-person wedding, held out at his parents’ orchard. They’d roast a pig, hire a country-western band, have a hoedown. Kimberly mimed strangling him with her bare hands. He expanded his vision to include a barefoot bride wearing petticoats and carrying a bouquet of peach blossoms.

Kimberly stopped trying to kill him and started nodding instead. That scared him back into silence, and Quincy and Rainie left the two lovebirds holding hands.

Dougie’s room next. The boy was still asleep, Stanley and Laura Carpenter standing next to his bed. Stanley looked terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in a month. Laura Carpenter looked just like Rainie remembered-as if she’d been trampled on all her life and didn’t expect things to get any better soon.

“He’s going to be okay,” Stanley said hoarsely the minute Rainie walked into the room. “Doctors say he’s in surprisingly good shape. Just needs to rest.”

“Has he woken up?”

“A few times. He asked for you. We told him you were doing all right; he could see you soon. I mean, that is, if you don’t mind. I would understand…”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“A policewoman came,” Laura volunteered. “That Rodriguez woman. Asked Dougie a few questions. He did okay. Didn’t get too upset.”

“He knew Danicic, didn’t he?” Quincy asked gently. “He thought the man was his friend.”

“Our fault,” Stanley said immediately. “He approached us soon after we became foster parents for Dougie. Said he was doing an article on kids in the system. Wanted to profile Dougie as a happily-ever-after piece. You know, the kid who’s been around but finally has a good home. He stopped by regularly for a bit. We didn’t think much of it. We never saw the story appear, of course, but every time we asked, Mr. Danicic said his editor had held it back-it wasn’t timely, just a general-interest piece, that kind of thing. He used to be a foster kid, too, you know.”

“Danicic?”

“That’s what he said. Parents died young, something like that.” Stanley shrugged, looking abashed. “I kind of liked that he’d taken such an interest in Dougie. Thought he might be a good role model. He seemed… Well, guess you can’t see ’em all coming. God knows we honestly believed him.”

“Danicic used Dougie, didn’t he?” Quincy prodded. “Found out information on you, on Rainie? Is that when you started paying him money?”

Stanley looked at Quincy in confusion. “I never paid anyone any money.”

“Not even two thousand dollars a year?”

“Oh, that.” Stanley flushed, darted a look at his wife, who scowled back at him. “When Dougie was born… Look, I didn’t know how to handle the situation that well. But I was proud of Dougie. I wanted to do something for him. So I started a college fund.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “A boy needs more than college, Stanley. A boy needs a father, someone who will take responsibility for him.”

“I am.”

“We are,” she corrected him. Stanley flushed again, and in that moment, Rainie could see how a young high school girl would seem so attractive to him. Someone who looked up to the big, strong football coach. Hung on every word he said.

“Has he ever talked to you about the night his mother died?” she asked Stanley.

The man shook his head.

“He needs to talk about that more. On his own terms, in his own time. But he believes it’s his fault that she’s dead. And that guilt fuels a great deal of his rage. Toward himself and you.”

“Why would he think it’s his fault his mom got hit by a car?” Laura asked with a frown.

“Because apparently he left the apartment that night. He went looking for her, and in his own mind, she was killed chasing after him.”

Stanley’s eyes widened. “Was she?”

“Of course not,” Rainie said impatiently. “She was killed by a drunk driver before Dougie ever left the apartment. Just check the police report.”

“Poor kid,” Stanley murmured, and for a change, his wife didn’t argue.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Laura said at last. “Why’d the reporter do all this? Befriend Dougie. Kidnap you, kidnap him. I mean, what was the point?”

“Fame, fortune, and a finely baked apple pie,” Quincy murmured, then he and Rainie left the room.

Quincy waited until they had checked out of the hospital, had gotten into his car. “How would a police report include the detail that Dougie’s mother was killed before he left the apartment? From what you’re saying, no one even knew that the boy had left the room.”

Rainie shrugged. “You know that and I know that. But they don’t know that.”

He reached across the front seat, squeezed her hand. “You’re a very nice woman, Rainie Conner.”

“For a liar?” she asked lightly.

But he heard the catch in her voice as she turned away from him and started to cry.

Home was harder than Rainie thought it would be. She took her medication, roamed rooms that were supposed to make her feel comfortable, and waited to magically get on with her life. While she cycled back to a refrigerator that had been cleared of all booze. While she woke up in the middle of the night, sweat soaked and bursting with fear. While Quincy stared at her and told her he loved her, and she remembered again what it was like to be so loved and still feel all alone.