Deliver Her: A Novel

by Patricia Perry Donovan

  Squatting next to the car, Carl considered the next step. In Carolyn’s fragile condition, it would be foolhardy for him to risk transporting her. And he could never manage the steep climb out of the gulley with her. On the other hand, hypothermia would set in quickly in these extreme conditions.

  He made a snap decision. Although it pained him to leave her, Carolyn’s best chance for survival was to remain here, somewhat sheltered from the elements. He could move faster without her to summon help. From the trunk, he found a stadium blanket and tucked it around her. He then removed his own coat and laid it over the blanket.

  As a final gesture, he retrieved the tarp and tossed it over Carolyn’s side of the damaged car, securing it along the jagged roof. Leaving the girl’s duffel in the trunk, he stuffed Carolyn’s purse into his backpack, only to yank it out again and dig for her driver’s license. On a gas receipt, he scribbled his name and cell number and wrapped it around her license, tucking both into Carolyn’s coat pocket for identification, should help arrive before he returned.

  Checking Carolyn one more time, he switched off the visor light and shut the car door gently. Overhead, a sudden gust bent the tree canopy, lashing his face with sleet.

  Walking away from the car, Carl took stock of his own injuries for the first time. His lips were salty from his own blood. After touching the bump over his eye, his fingers came away sticky. He couldn’t remember the impact, only his futile attempt to right the car after the animal’s initial slam, steering into the skid as he’d been trained to do, brakes useless on the skating rink of a road. Perhaps the rest would come to him later. For now, he had to keep moving, focus on seeking help for Carolyn, hopefully finding Alex in the process, as soon as possible.

  He could only guess at the direction the girl had gone. The storm had dropped a premature curtain of darkness over the White Mountains. He cast the light in a wide circle over the ground. At first he saw only the car’s erratic tracks in the mud, ending in an angry Z. Then, dropping to his heels, he caught the faint suggestion of prints in the tracks—following the wobbly trail for a few hundred feet until it slammed him into a steep hillside, where the footsteps disappeared.

  Puzzled, Carl cast the flare on the face of the incline, pocked with random indentations and scrapings. Then it dawned on him: She had turned and taken the hill backward. The girl had better instincts than the mother gave her credit for.

  Hoisting his backpack, he followed the scrapings, ignoring his head’s pounding. Grabbing overhead limbs for support, he made his way up the hill, berating himself for this turn of events. He had known to watch for moose. How many warning signs with the moose silhouette had he passed?

  And yet it had happened. Today, trying to make up for lost time, for lost work, had he taken the curve too quickly? The decision could cost him dearly: two lives entrusted to him, the business he had so carefully constructed over twenty years.

  At the top of the hill finally, he stepped over the guardrail onto the Kancamagus Highway. The girl’s wits had gotten her this far. Here, however, the flash-frozen landscape obscured any further clue. A choice now: Head north or south? To his right, the road climbed higher and deeper into the White Mountain forest. They must have been farther up that hill when they’d left the road, which would explain the wayward car tracks. He remembered the small store they passed only moments before that had caught Carolyn’s attention.

  Would Alex have remembered? She’d barely grunted when his partner pointed out the pastel gas tanks. But the girl had already proved herself to be resourceful. He hoped she had the sense to seek shelter from the storm. Her light clothing wouldn’t protect her for long.

  He decided to head downhill toward the store. The adrenaline that fueled him was beginning to fade, replaced by a damp chill that amplified his body’s aches. He paused a moment, knowing he needed to remember this spot so he could come back for Carolyn. Sitting on the guardrail, he glanced around for a means of marking the location.

  That’s when he noticed the slash of violet dangling beneath the guardrail, sodden with sleet.

  MEG

  Jack was killing her.

  Carl hadn’t called. Shana hadn’t responded. And downstairs, her son now posed in the doorway, strumming his father’s prized Fender bass.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said. “You know Daddy’s rules.” It was as though the boy were dreaming up stunts to distract her from her worry. She detached him from the cherished instrument.

  “But I want to be in a band like Daddy.”

  “You can, if you keep practicing your clarinet.”

  “Clarinet’s not cool. Name one band with a clarinet player.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  Even at seven, Jack’s grasp of music eclipsed hers. He danced around now, rocking an imaginary guitar, adding the throbbing bass line himself.

  When the time came a few years ago to sign Jack up for music lessons, Jacob had lobbied for guitar or drums. “As I recall, you thought it was pretty hot when I played for you downstairs,” he said, sidling up to Meg at the kitchen sink and strumming an imaginary guitar the way Jack was right now. A witness to the moment, horrified thirteen-year-old Alex made an exaggerated gagging sound and exited.

  “It was the hormones,” Meg had deadpanned.

  Tonight, she called a halt to Jack’s air-guitar concert, threatening to withhold his video games if he touched Jacob’s instruments again.

  “OK. But you better tell Alex, too. She’s in Daddy’s stuff all the time.”

  She squatted down to her son’s level. “She is?”

  “Yup. She has some of his records in her room. She plays the same song every night. Something about rain. It’s really long.” Jack rolled his eyes.

  A long song about rain didn’t ring a bell, but then again, she was more talk radio than Pandora. “OK. I’ll talk to her.”

  Meg carried the guitar down to the basement and set it back in its stand.

  Hormones. She had to smile. Hormones definitely played a part back then, when their entire future was pinned on the secondhand crib and changing table in the freshly painted bedroom upstairs.

  Meg’s mother had thought she was crazy. And she probably had been, a little, when she placed all her faith in the bassist whose lazy grin she succumbed to that night at the Tiki Bar. She’d been dragged there after work by fellow nurses determined to help her move on once and for all from her ex, a med student who decamped to Australia for his studies. Meg lost track of the number of rounds; drinks were sloshed on the crowded dance floor. As they spun near the band, the bass player’s gaze warmed her back. She hung behind to chat while the band packed up. When she went to look for her girlfriends, they had disappeared. She didn’t try very hard to find them.

  The next morning, Meg clung to her side of the bed, appalled at her own behavior. Type A oncology nurses didn’t go around picking up stray musicians. To put the humiliating experience behind her, she threw herself into her work. Which was an excellent coping strategy, until she threw up at work.

  At first, Meg didn’t want Jacob’s help with the baby. She wasn’t even going to tell him. Melissa said she had to. With her sister waiting in the car, Meg tracked him to a dive bar in Mamaroneck, where Jacob did the most surprising thing: he swore to take care of the three of them. After that, Meg couldn’t shake him. He trailed her like a puppy, showing up at the hospital at the end of her shift, at her parents’ house, outside her OB-GYN’s office.

  He even charmed Melissa, no mean feat. To demonstrate his commitment after Alex was born, Jacob dialed down Objects in Mirror to weekend gigs so he could frame houses alongside his father. Walter Carmody kept the contracts coming, and from the father and son’s skilled hands emerged beautiful, affordable, working-class homes that dotted this side of Westchester County—including theirs. The house that Walter and Jacob built, Meg thought, surveying the finished basement.

  Meg and Jacob had built something, too. From that regrettable one-night stand, they c
obbled together a life—a life Jacob claimed no longer suited him. It made no sense to her that a man committed to both business and family could allow both to slip through his fingers.

  But leaning against Meg at the kitchen sink those few years ago, Jacob had been right about one thing: the musician thing was a turn-on. She walked around his old practice area now to make sure Jack hadn’t disturbed anything else. There was fresh sheet music on one of the stands. Was Jacob playing again?

  Maybe that’s where all Jacob’s insanity was coming from, she mused—midlife regret over abandoning his band before it reached its zenith. Objects in Mirror had never been more than a very popular bar band, but a musician could dream. Anyone could. Maybe once Alex was settled, she would encourage him to have the band practice here again. She’d fire up the slow cooker with pulled pork for them like she used to.

  Passing the bar, Meg couldn’t help but swat the offending pillow. What if she hadn’t stopped down here after the house party? What if Alex had come home that night brimming with remorse instead of attitude? What if her daughter had allowed Meg to pick her up from wherever she had been last night instead of ignoring her?

  What if. What if. Over the past few months, her life had become a constant cycle of Monday-morning quarterbacking in which she reexamined her nursing, her partnering, her parenting.

  Especially her parenting. If someone had told her the one thing, the secret sauce that would reconnect her with her daughter, she gladly would’ve done it. Anything to once again have cozy nights on the couch, swirling pretzel rods into Häagen-Dazs. And girl talk at the nail salon, Meg’s staid Winkin’ Pink and Alex’s Black Orchid setting under whirring fans. One day Alex dared Meg to try Phospho-licious, a neon yellow that lit up her fingertips. Meg agreed, thinking her patients would get a kick out of it.

  Alex had been particularly chatty that day, confessing to crushing on a boy on the school bus. Like two schoolgirls, they plotted ways Alex could strike up a conversation. Alex’s victorious thumbs-up coming off the bus a few days later had elated Meg.

  These days, it took more than ice cream or nail polish to woo Alex, especially when fashion dictated that the studiously neglected nail, somber and chipped, was more on-trend.

  And yet, there were those notes.

  Hand on the basement banister, Meg sighed. Alex had looked her straight in the eye the other night when she denied the pills were hers. And Jacob believed her. Meg herself had been very emotional that evening. Once again, she second-guessed herself: Had she jumped the gun with this transport?

  If only answers could magically appear, like the fortunes dispensed by the palm reader at Alex’s party. For now, Meg would settle for any sign the day had unfolded exactly as Carl had promised.

  CARL

  Had the marker on the guardrail been any other color, Carl might have mistaken it for something left by a road crew or group of hikers. But its signature shiny purple left no doubt: it was Alex’s scarf, the flimsy sash she’d insisted on retrieving before they left the Carmody house this morning.

  He stroked the soaked fabric. Whatever her condition following the accident, Alex had the presence of mind—and the compassion—to affix it to the guardrail where they’d veered off the road. Thank you, Alex. Carl unwound the scarf and retied it around a tree at eye level so it would be more visible. Its gauzy tails flapped wildly in the wind. For good measure, he snapped off a pair of branches and leaned them against the tree in an X, pressing their tips into the ground.

  Now he could go for help. As he headed downhill, the open road exposed him to chilling sheets of ice that quickly soaked his woolen shirt. He picked up his pace as much as the slick surface allowed, stepping over more fallen branches, alert for downed lines.

  He dreaded the difficult calls ahead of him, conversations with two mothers whose daughters’ fates were in his hands. He reached for his cell, but put it back after seeing the no-service indicator in the high-altitude dead zone.

  A deafening crack at his left made him jump. Casting his light, Carl saw a thick-waisted oak felled horizontal just beyond the guardrail. A few feet to the right, and it would have crushed him. He sidestepped to the center of the road, waving the light over his head. The fallen tree hadn’t taken any wires with it, but the next one might. He followed the road’s dashed white lines that gleamed sporadically through the sleet for an hour or more, and was beginning to second-guess whether the store actually existed when a faint glow warmed treetops in the distance. The wind’s pitch altered; in the lull between gales, he swore he detected the faint grind of an engine. Heartened, he picked up his pace.

  The grind grew louder. Headlights sliced through the soupy mist and a gleaming rig emerged, its overhead light bar pulsing amber. Carl attempted to run toward the emergency vehicle, flailing his arms.

  The vehicle slowed alongside him.

  “Accident,” Carl managed to gasp to the uniformed driver. “My car off the road. There’s a woman. Badly injured.”

  “Headed there now. Someone reported it.”

  “A teenage girl?”

  “No idea, sir. Came in through dispatch.” He indicated the door behind him. “Hop in. You can show us where the car went off the road.”

  Carl hesitated. He wanted nothing more than medical aid for Carolyn, but he also needed to find Alex. “How far ahead is the store?” he asked.

  “Quarter mile at most.”

  “I’m going to head there. I had another passenger. A girl. I need to find her.”

  The driver eyed Carl’s bump. “You sure, sir?”

  “I’m sure. Keep your eye out for a purple marker on your right. Maybe a mile down.”

  At least Carolyn would get the help she needed, Carl thought, watching the vehicle drive away. With any luck, he’d find Alex up ahead at the store. Before long, the airborne glow that had teased him earlier swelled into a full-fledged spotlight shining down on twin gas tanks, their slick fuchsia flanks glistening—the oddity Murphy pointed out a lifetime ago. Beyond the tanks, a neon “Open” sign on a log cabin blinked at Carl. He paused on the cabin porch to catch his breath before pushing the door open, its chimes startling a woman sorting dishes on a table.

  “Sorry, sir, we’re just about to—” She stopped at the sight of him. “Oh, my goodness. You’re bleeding. Are you all right?”

  He hadn’t given a thought to what he must look like. He felt his head; the bump had swelled to the size of a small egg. Water streamed from his shirt onto the braided rug below.

  She called to a man at a far counter. “Cam, come help.” She took Carl’s elbow and helped him to a bench by the door. “What happened?”

  Carl strained to catch his breath. “I hit something. Up the road. Two people hurt.”

  “Moose, no doubt.”

  He paused, distracted by the taxidermy dotting the store’s walls—white-tailed bucks, deer skulls, the thick-lipped sneer of a moose snout—glass stares accusing. He swallowed. “My partner . . . and there’s a girl missing.” The man was on his other side with a glass of water.

  “Drink some of this, sir. You’re looking pretty pale.”

  “I’m fine.” Carl waved him away. The man’s iron grip on his forearm was the last thing he remembered before everything gave way to darkness.

  MEG

  Jack flung open the basement door. “Mom. Phone. Should I answer?”

  “Leave it, bud. I’m coming.” Even taking the steps two at a time, Meg still missed the call. Relieved to see the New Hampshire area code, she dropped into a kitchen chair to call Carl back.

  “Swiftriver Gorge. Iris speaking.”

  Was the transporter calling from his hotel? Confused, Meg asked for Carl Alden.

  “He’s right here. Just a moment.” The phone changed hands against a jumble of background voices. As the wait dragged on, Meg wondered idly if the driver booked two rooms or one, trying to picture Carl and the mousy woman together. None of her business, she decided. Finally, she heard a man clear his throat.
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  “Mrs. Carmody.” At Carl’s defeated tone, Meg’s instincts soared to high alert.

  “Carl? What’s wrong? Where’s Alex?”

  “I have some bad news.” A pause, followed by a ragged breath. “There’s been an accident.”

  Please no. Not again. Not Alex. Meg gripped the back of the chair. “Is Alex hurt?”

  “We hit a detour. Some bad weather in the mountains. Something I didn’t foresee.”

  Didn’t foresee? In her living room yesterday, he had laid out his meticulous plan. “My daughter, Carl. Tell me what happened to Alex.”

  His breathing grew more labored. “Alex is missing, Mrs. Carmody. She . . . walked away.”

  “What do you mean, ‘walked away’? As in, ‘walked away without a scratch’?” Jumping up from the chair, Meg grabbed a sponge from the sink and swabbed Jack’s place at the table. I will wipe this table exactly the way I do every night, and he will tell me everything is fine. That Alex is fine.

  “Mommy, what happened?” Jack in the doorway.

  “Nothing, bud. Go watch TV. Mommy needs some privacy for a bit.” Dropping the sponge, Meg shut herself into the powder room and took a deep breath. “Carl, just tell me about Alex.”

  “She walked away from the accident scene. Which we’re taking as a good sign.”

  “A good sign?” Meg sat on the toilet lid and doubled over, the bathroom floor’s black-and-white mosaic blurring as Carl described the impact, the skid, the car careening down the hill, his coming to and realizing Alex was gone. My baby is missing. I sent my baby off with strangers, and now she’s gone.