Spore Page 25

  He remained in the hall outside her exam room, pacing and terrified, until they let him back in. Mare lay on the table in a hospital gown, her knees up under a thin blanket, a soaking pad beneath her, and she reached for him, both hands grasping until she clenched his shirt, his skin. Her pale, sweat-tacky face gleamed blotchy in the bright fluorescents, and, despite the heavy stink of antiseptic, he smelled death lingering in the air.

  “She asked me if I was afraid of you,” she muttered, glaring at the nurse who readied a tray of instruments and swabs. “If you’d ever hurt me.”

  He stroked her hair, one arm cradling her against his belly as if drawing her into him could erase their fear. “It’s okay. It’s just their job.”

  “I’m lying here bleeding and they ask insulting questions like that. I know it’s their job, but, dammit!”

  “It’s okay, babe. Everything’s okay.” He leaned over to kiss her and tell her he loved her. They can accuse me of anything they want, as long as you’ll be all right.

  The nurse continued to lay out instruments without any sign she cared about Mare’s rant. Another nurse bustled in with a clipboard and more questions about Mare’s accident—she’d been impaled falling through a tree when she was eight—and the subsequent hysterectomy, about her family’s history of cervical cancer, and about their sex life, complete with blunt questions about force, coercion, and violence which only served to further aggravate Mare.

  Mare was still giving the nurse her opinion of those questions when a middle-aged woman entered, yawning. She introduced herself as Dr. Ledders, then skimmed the nurses’ notes before looking into Mare’s eyes and taking one of her hands. “Okay, Rosemary, we’re going to figure out what we have going on, all right? Gonna start with a quick pelvic and have a look see. Just hang with me a little longer.”

  Mare nodded and clenched Sean’s hand tighter. He took a breath and tried not to let his terror show.

  Instruments in and poking around, Mare buried her face into Sean’s belly as Dr. Ledders glanced up, frowning. “How complete was your hysterectomy?”

  “They saved my left ovary and vagina,” she said, voice muffled against his shirt. “Nothing else. Was just too damaged.”

  “Well, you have a cervix now. Going to take some samples.” Ledders inserted a skinny probe-looking thing and it came out bloody. She handed it to a waiting nurse, then inserted yet another instrument, then a long swab. A few more probes, then she removed the last of the bloody instruments and reached into Mare with a gloved hand.

  “Oh God.” Mare scrunched her eyes closed and shook her head. “It can’t be there. My mom and grandmother died from cervical cancer.”

  “I feel a mass,” Ledders said, palpating Mare’s belly. “Beside your left ovary.”

  No no no no no. Sean thought his knees would buckle, but he managed to remain standing even as Mare began to quietly weep.

  Ledders poked and palpated then removed her hand and gloves. She stood and came to the side of the exam table and, once again, took Mare’s hand. “We’re going to get you prepped for an ultrasound. Get a good look at what’s happening in there. All right?”

  “Is it cancer?” Mare asked, her voice small and quavering.

  “I don’t know. We need to take a look, okay? If it is cancer, with luck, you came in quick enough we can give you another hysterectomy and clear it up. We’ve had a few patients we’ve managed to save. But we have to take it all out before it has a chance to metastasize. But ultrasound first. Then surgery right after, if needed. Okay?”

  Mare nodded. “Okay. Can Sean stay with me?”

  Ledders squeezed her hand. “Until you’re being prepped for surgery. Just let me talk to him for a moment, all right?”

  Mare nodded and Sean kissed her before following Ledders out the door on the far side of the exam room. Medical personnel rushed past, their faces drawn with fatigue.

  Ledders regarded Sean with a cool stare. “I know who you are,” she said. “We all do. You’re that friendly guy on TV who keeps telling us this is a miracle. Does it look like a miracle now?”

  An orderly pushed a gurney with two bodies piled upon it. One an old woman, the other a man in his twenties.

  “No,” Sean said, his belly twisting in shame and fear. “This isn’t. I only meant—“

  “Yeah, the people who’ve come back. They’re the miracle. But their fungus is a plague. Thousands have died. Millions will before it’s over. Your girlfriend will quite possibly become one of them.” Ledders paused to watch him. “Still excited about this blessing?”

  He swallowed the bitter taste of bile. “Mare’s going to die?”

  “I told her the truth, it all depends on what we find. With her history and the strange things we’ve seen lately, it could be anything. But if it is cervical or uterine cancer that’s reached the bleeding point, the chances of her not already metastasizing are essentially nil. If it’s that advanced, there’s nothing we can do for her. But right now, we just don’t know.”

  Sean felt his knees weaken and he stumbled backwards to lean against the wall. He let out a shuddering sob. Oh, Mare. Oh, babe.

  Ledders took a step toward him, trapping him, forcing him to hear. “Not everything hits the news. This fungus you’ve been lauding has infiltrated rivers and ground water throughout the entire Mississippi river basin. Iowa is lost. Missouri. Most of Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee… There are frantic reports coming in from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Kentucky. They expect to start seeing mass deaths in Mississippi and Louisiana by the middle of next week. We’ve been carting bodies away in trucks for three days now. They die so quickly, we can’t keep up.”

  “I didn’t know,” Sean choked out.

  “Now you do. The CDC is warning Ohio for next weekend. The Dakotas. Kansas. Essentially every community, every state between the Appalachians and Rockies will be infected. We will lose perhaps a third of the Midwest’s population. Millions will die, most didn’t have to. They had treatment options before your little blessing arrived. We are helpless to stop it, to treat it. And no one knows what’ll happen once it reaches the gulf. If sea water doesn’t kill this fungus, it’ll infect the entire planet in a matter of weeks. Nowhere will be safe.”

  She poked him in the chest with a single finger. “You’ve been celebrating a potential global epidemic. The unwarranted deaths of perhaps billions of people. Why don’t you think about that the next time you have a little press conference. Show a little respect, okay? A little gravitas.”

  She gave him one more withering look then stomped away to confer with a nurse before continuing to the next exam room, the next doomed patient.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Todd held the phone away from his head to lessen the pain of screams pounding against his ear. “Mom. Calm down. What’s wrong?”

  “She’s gone! Oh, Todd! I was right there and she’s gone!”

  Hailey?! He took a staggering step, then another, then fell, hard, to his knees. “What do you mean, gone?”

  His mother sobbed her answers in staggering bursts. “We were doing lawn work. There in the front yard. I was raking up grass clippings. The mail came and she wanted to fetch it from the mailbox. She scampered off to it. I had my back to the road and when I turned to see what mail had come, she was gone. Just gone.”

  Mindy stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching him while terror and confusion struggled to control her face. She clutched a dishtowel and raised it to her mouth, when Todd barked, “Hailey can’t be GONE!!”

  “I was right there! I swear!” his mother wailed. “Not ten feet away! I thought it was all right to let her fetch the mail. Oh, God, what have I done?”

  He tottered to his feet, his head reeling. “And you didn’t hear anything? See anything?”

  “Just the mailman pulling up. When I turned around, he was opening a mailbox just two doors down the street. I
t had only been a few moments.”

  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” Todd balled his hands at his temples. My gun’s upstairs. My badge. He ran for the stairs, shaking the house as he thundered up. “Did you call the office? Local PD?”

  “Yes. They’re on their way.”

  He burst into his bedroom and yanked his badge and gun off the bedside table. “I’m on my way, too. Who’s the mailman?”

  “Evan something. Our regular Saturday guy. He was just really late today.”

  “I’ll get someone to stop him.” How can I find her before he hurts her? Fuck!

  “I don’t know how it happened. I was right there!”

  It only takes a second. Fuck! Hailey! Daddy’s coming! Todd thundered back down the stairs. “I’m on my way, Mom. Answer whatever questions they have. Maybe we can save her. Maybe there’s still time.”

  Mindy stood near the door, lower lip quivering as he rushed down the stairs. “What can I do to help?”

  Can’t leave her unguarded, can’t not look for Hailey. Fuck me and my fucking job!

  “Get in the car.” He shoved past her and out the door.

  She followed without comment and was in the passenger seat, reaching for the seatbelt, as he shot the SUV out of the driveway and screamed it down the road, sirens blaring.

  Mindy pressed herself against the door not because of fear, but because she wanted to remain out of his way. Todd drove like a crazed beast, whipping past cars while yelling into his radio mic. She bit her lip when he told the dispatcher she could fuck herself, it was his daughter who was missing, all while taking a corner at more than forty miles per hour one handed.

  They reached the opposite side of Boone in what felt like moments, not minutes, barreling into a neighborhood of two-story craftsman homes with compact, well maintained yards. Five police and sheriff vehicles blocked the road and two cops frisked a terrified mailman against his delivery truck.

  Todd flipped the SUV into park and was out the door and across the yard before Mindy finished unbuckling her seatbelt.

  She exited the SUV to see him push both local cops aside and flip the mailman around to face him. She heard him growl, saw him expand his already considerable bulk into a raging tower of fury.

  “What the fuck did you see?” he snarled, bending to be nose to nose with the mailman. “Did you see her come for the mail? Did you speak to her at all?”

  Mindy was stopped by a young deputy with his arms out to halt her. She stretched and craned her neck to see past him, unable to imagine what horror Todd was going through.

  The poor mailman shook his head and she heard him blubber, “No. I didn’t talk to her. The little girl waved as I pulled up, and she ran to talk to Mrs. Anderson,” he said, pointing at Todd’s mother bawling on the stoop. “I put the mail in the box and moved on to the next house, then the next. I didn’t see anything else. We’re timed. There’s a schedule, and the mail was really late from Des Moines. I don’t have time to even look behind when I’m—“

  “I do not give a flying fuck about your schedule or late mail,” Todd growled, shaking off the two cops who tried to drag him away. “Did you see any other vehicles? Any pedestrians who aren’t normal for this neighborhood?”

  “Um. A couple of cars, but there’s always some different car somewhere. And folks walk dogs, push kids in strollers…” He ran a shaky hand over his head. “Crap. I don’t pay much attention.”

  “I want full, complete descriptions of them. Now. Any people? Delivery trucks? Workmen?”

  The mailman blinked, eyes widening. “There was a truck! Yes. Plumber, I think. Parked right there,” he said, pointing toward Todd’s SUV, sitting half on the road, half on the sidewalk in front of the neighbor’s house. “I had to drive around it and nearly got creamed by some kids in a Nissan with a blown muffler.”

  Todd turned and barked at the deputy who blocked Mindy’s approach. “Gunders! Find out which neighbor called a plumber today. Now. Ask, too, about some kid with a loud Nissan.” He glanced at the mailman. “What color was the Nissan?”

  “Black. Dented on the passenger side.”

  “Get that, Gunders?”

  The deputy nodded. “Yessir. I’m on it, sir.”

  The deputy rushed to the neighbor’s house and Mindy approached Todd’s mother. Deb slumped on the front steps, bawling. Mindy sat beside her and whispered, “It’ll be all right. He’ll find her.”

  “It’s my fault,” Deb whimpered, leaning against Mindy’s shoulder. “I should have gone with her, should have watched instead of raking.”

  Mindy drew her arm around Deb’s plump shoulders and soothed her as best she could. The rake and leaf bag lay mid yard, a step or so to the right of the walkway leading from the public sidewalk to the house. They were, at most, fifteen feet from the mailbox. A few steps. A scant few moments. So quick. So close. Whoever grabbed Hailey was waiting. Waiting for her.

  Todd walked up to them, fury on his face but fear in his eyes. “Talk to me, Mom,” he whispered, kneeling before them.

  Deb explained that she’d decided to mow because it finally was a sunny day, and how she made Hailey stay on the porch while she mowed. Hailey had held the bags while Deb filled them with clippings, like she always did. Then the mail came.

  “I looked up when I heard that awful muffler. The Snyder kid, from a couple blocks down,” she said. “And I saw the mailman nearly hit him. Hailey did, too. He was coming to deliver our mail and she asked if she could go get it. I held her hand, just like you told me to, and even though it was just Evan like every Saturday, I waited for him to finish with our mail and pull away, then I let her go get it. I raked, just a couple of strokes. That’s all. Moments. And she was just gone.”

  “Check the mailbox,” he said to the nearest deputy. The young man turned without comment. “Did you see a plumbing truck?” he asked his mother.

  “No. No plumber. But there was a mechanic’s van. It had been there most of the day.”

  “Mechanic?”

  Deb nodded, sniffling, and pointed across the street. “Yeah. Two guys. I think. They were doing something at the Decker’s garage. Back and forth since this morning.”

  “I’ll check,” a city cop said then jogged across the street.

  Mindy met Todd’s terrified gaze. She’d seen no work van of any kind.

  “Mail’s still here,” the deputy called out. He wore a glove on his right hand and closed the mailbox door again before taking a wide berth around the area.

  Todd grasped his mother’s hands. “Mom, look at me.”

  Deb took a shaky breath then complied, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” He moistened his lips then asked, “Was the van there when you turned around and saw Hailey was gone?”

  Deb’s eyes drifted closed and her lower lip turned in. She bit it and shook her head. “No. They’d pulled into the Rothburg’s driveway and were backing up to turn around.”

  Todd stood and squinted at the road and driveway. Nodding, he pulled out his cell phone and punched a couple of numbers. “Brad? My daughter’s been snatched. Might be tire tracks in the neighbor’s driveway. Maybe trace near the mailbox. And track her cell. She knows to keep it in her pocket.”

  Todd pulled away from the phone to tell everyone to cordon off the Rothburg’s driveway, all of the Decker’s yard, and everything in a wedge-shaped area between the leaf sack and the road. All unoccupied officers rushed to help.

  Mindy marveled at his ability to command the men and to control his own certain rage and panic. I’d be a whimpering basket case. Useless.

  Another siren approached as Todd finished up with Brad. He pocketed the phone took a breath as he turned to his mother and Mindy. “Our best investigator is on the way. Just sit tight.”

  He began pacing, hands clenching and unclenching. Mindy wished she could of
fer some comfort, but instead she cradled his bawling mother and watched as another sheriff’s car pulled up.

  A middle-aged man got out and walked to them, his face stern. “Anderson!”

  While the other deputies made themselves scarce, Todd watched the official approach. The worry on his face turned into harsh rigidity and defiance. “Yes, sir?”

  “You are not on this case.”

  “Sir, it’s my daughter. I’m not leaving.”

  “You’ve been assigned to protective detail. I suggest you return to it, immediately, or face disciplinary action.”

  “I haven’t left my detail. Sir.” Todd said, holding his ground. “And I will not desert my daughter. She’s all I have.”

  “We’ll find her,” the older man said, grasping Todd’s upper arm. “I’ll take over until Jorst gets here, but you need to leave. Now. Your mind’s in the wrong place and we all know you can’t be impartial.”

  Todd took a breath and began to speak, but the other man cut him off. “It’s not a suggestion. Back down, or hand over your badge and spend your evening sitting in a cell charged with interfering in an investigation.”

  “We’ll find her,” one of the younger deputies said, his blue eyes earnest and sure.

  Todd muttered a curse then stomped up the steps beside Mindy and thundered into the house. She turned, watching his furious retreat, and wished she could help.

  “Go,” his mother said. “Help him.”

  She pushed away from Mindy’s consoling embrace then faced the man who peered down at her. “Ask me whatever you need to, Sheriff. Put me on a lie detector. Get me hypnotized, torture me, I don’t care. I want my granddaughter back.”

  “Take her to the police station for an official statement,” the sheriff said to the nearest deputy who helped Deb stand and walk to a cruiser. The sheriff turned to the other men and barked orders. Mindy, otherwise ignored, retreated into the house to find Todd.