Evidence of Life

Chapter 2



The first time Abby had visited the Texas Hill Country was during the summer after third grade when she went to camp, the year she turned nine. Her mother got the idea from a magazine article that said a summer camp experience could boost a child’s self-confidence and help them feel more independent. But the psychology behind it wasn’t how she convinced Abby to go. No. What Abby’s mother did was to invite Kate Connelly, Abby’s best friend, to join her. The girls didn’t know it—Kate still didn’t—but Abby’s mother paid Kate’s way.

Camp Many Waters—Many Manures, the girls had dubbed it that first year screaming with laughter—was on the Guadalupe River, near Kerrville. Kate loved it from the first day. Abby struggled with homesickness but not after their first year. Camp was where they learned to swim and ride horses and do the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Camp was where they napped together in a salt-sweat tangle of limbs in a hammock strung between a couple of ancient live oaks.

The rest of the year they lived a block apart in the same Houston neighborhood and shared almost the same birthday. Kate was older and never minded saying so until they hit thirty. They’d been in most of each other’s classes through school and went on to start college together. Mr. Tuttle at Tuttle’s Rexall Drugs two streets over from theirs, where they’d bought Jujubes and Superwoman comic books and then their first lipsticks together, had labeled them the Stardust Twins. But where Abby’s childhood had been predictable and sure, Kate’s had been uneasy; it had wounded her in an unreachable way, like a too-deeply buried splinter. Camp in the Hill Country had been her escape, the one place where every hour was wholly welcome.

So it didn’t surprise Abby that when they were grown and married, Kate went there to live. She said there was just something about that part of Texas. She could never define it. Neither could Abby. But then people had been flocking to the Hill Country since pioneer days, and most came away at a loss to describe what set it apart, what made it so special.

But there was one thing everyone did agree on, one thing for sure: It was dry.

Unlike Houston, where Kate and Abby had grown up, where the land began a flattened, flood-prone slide into Galveston Bay, the Hill Country region, near the center of the state, encompassed miles and miles of rumpled, rough-dried terrain. It had been submerged once, eons ago, beneath a shallow, urchin-filled, inland sea, but then the sea leaked out and left behind the skeletal remains of countless marine animals in layers like cake.

That’s when the soil became stony and dry.

So dry you could scarcely scratch it with your fingernails.

There were the rare exceptions, the record-making torrential downpours, like the one Nick was driving Lindsey straight into at that very moment. Of course he wouldn’t know that for a while yet. He was still in the vicinity of home, having just cleared the outskirts of Hardys Walk, where he and Abby had lived since Jake was a toddler. He was a shade over an hour’s drive north of Houston, and the clouds drifting here in this piece of Texas sky were small and as white and innocent as dandelion fluff. Abby noticed them, but only subliminally, as she made her way into the barn to freshen the stalls.

Her mind was still on Nick, her sense of his unhappiness. She was thinking how he used to help care for the horses. He used to ride nearly every day after work, too. Often he and Lindsey had ridden together. Now Abby couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything with the horses other than complain about the feed and vet bills—which were enormous, Abby had to admit. He was always ranting about expenses, though. The way they lived wasn’t extravagant, but it wasn’t cheap either, what with taxes and upkeep on the house and property, never mind the kids and cars and college. Abby leaned on her rake. It had been her idea to move out here, to the Land of Nod, as her mother called it, and she’d never regretted it. But maybe Nick had. More than she realized. The commute alone was a nightmare, and traffic got heavier every year. On the occasions when she made the drive herself, she always wondered how he stood it.

Abby led Miss Havisham and their other mare Delilah back into their stalls, filled their feed and water troughs and walked back to the house. At the foot of the porch stairs, she slipped out of her wellies, grabbing the porch rail to balance herself. She’d forgotten it was loose and sat down hard when it gave underneath her. Sat looking at nothing, thinking how Nick had once tended to every little chore on the place, but now his mind was elsewhere. She pushed herself up off the ground. Where was elsewhere?

Later on, she switched on the television to the Weather Channel, but there was only a string of commercials and she cut the set off. She wouldn’t go near the TV again until Saturday when the flooding in the Hill Country would be approaching near-epic proportions. It would seem unbelievable to her that she hadn’t paid the slightest attention. She would wonder what she’d been thinking, doing...with her delightful alone time. She was sitting at the kitchen table poring over a seed catalogue when Lindsey called Saturday evening on her cell phone to say they were in Boerne.

“Boerne?” Abby repeated. She went out the front door onto the wide porch and sat on the swing, nudging it into motion with her toe. Boerne was northwest of San Antonio. The campground, on the Guadalupe River, where they ordinarily went when they didn’t stay with Kate and George, was farther west.

“What are you doing in Boerne?” Abby asked. “Is the weather bad?”

“We spent last night in San Antonio. Dad says we’re taking the scenic route.”

“The scenic route? What does that mean?” There was a pause, one so long that Abby had time to think: How weird. To think: Nick never takes the scenic route.

“Mommy? I have to tell you—” Now Lindsey’s voice broke with tears or static. In all the awful months that followed, Abby would never be able to decide.

“It’s about Daddy—” something-something— “I’m in the restroom—” something— “Shell station and—”

“Lindsey, honey, you’re breaking up. Can you go outside? Is Daddy with you?”

Her voice came again, but now it was as if she were talking through soap bubbles or sobbing.

Abby’s heart stalled. “Lindsey! What’s wrong?” But there was no answer. Only static. Abby redialed Lindsey’s cell number and got her voice mail. She punched in the number again with the same result. She tried Nick’s cell phone and listened to his recorded voice suggest she leave her name and number and he’d get back to her. When? Where was he? Where was Lindsey?

A Shell gas station. Was that what Lindsey had said? I have something to tell you...it’s about Daddy. Abby frowned at the cordless receiver, unsure now of what she’d heard. She put her hand to her stomach. It was too early to panic. Lindsey would call back or Nick would. As soon as they could get a signal.

But the phone didn’t ring, not that whole long evening. She finally sat down at her computer and typed out an email in the hope that Nick would switch on his laptop. She kept the television tuned to the Weather Channel. At first tornadoes in Iowa took precedence, but once those played out, the rain in the Texas Hill Country rose to center stage. Warnings were issued for the increasingly hazardous driving conditions and the growing threat of a major flood in the area. The waters in the Guadalupe River and in countless other smaller but no less vulnerable rivers were reported to be flowing over their banks.

Abby thought of calling Jake, but there was no point in worrying him needlessly, and surely it would be needless. She would hear something any minute. But she didn’t, and by ten-thirty, when she tried first Lindsey’s phone and then Nick’s, a canned voice informed her that the mailboxes were full. Of her messages, she thought, each one increasingly distraught. Who knew how many she’d left?

She sent several more emails for all the good it did.

Then at midnight when she called, she got nothing. Not even the recordings. She pressed the receiver hard to her ear and heard no sound. Dead air. It was as if she had dialed into a black hole. She would never be able to describe the sense of desolation that swept through her then. Even the canned voices had kept alive some sense of a connection, but that was gone now, and without it, Abby had no antidote for the panic that came, fiendishly, merrily, as if it had only been waiting its chance. It was a struggle to breathe. She couldn’t think.

From rote, she dialed Kate’s number, her landline, got a busy signal. Not the usual, steady rhythm of sound, but the rapid-fire drill that meant the phone lines were down. Abby dropped the cordless onto the sofa, dropped her head into her hands.

God...what should I do?

She desperately wanted to call her mother in Houston, but Julia went to bed with the chickens and Abby couldn’t bear to waken her. Or Jake. For nothing. It had to be nothing. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Why do you always think something’s wrong, Abby? Nick’s admonition crept through her mind. She felt his palms on her cheeks, the trueness of his kiss when he’d pulled her close. I don’t want you to worry, he had said, and his tone had been so heartfelt and tender. He’d wanted to make up for before, when he’d been short with her. He hadn’t wanted to leave her mad. They’d promised early in their marriage they wouldn’t, and they’d tried to stick by it. Sometimes it had been hard, but every marriage, even one as good as hers and Nick’s, had hard times.

Abby left the great room and went into the kitchen; she made toast and poured a glass of milk, but then both ended up in the sink. At some point she dozed on the sofa in the den and woke at dawn to the sound of rain pattering lightly on the windows. She sat up, licking her dry lips. For one blessed moment, as she loosened the pins from her chignon and ran her fingers through her hair, she didn’t remember, and then she did and the panic returned. It rushed out of her stomach and rose, burning, into her throat. She jerked up the cordless, dialed Lindsey’s and then Nick’s number. There wasn’t even a ring now. She listened, but there was only the rain scratching at the window as if it meant to come in. How she would come to hate it, the sound of rain.

* * *

Her mother answered on the second ring. “Abby? Honey, is everything all right?”

“No, Mama.” Abby sucked in her breath, almost undone by her mother’s loving concern, and when she explained the situation her voice shook. “I’m going out there,” she said.

“Abby, no!” Her mother’s protest was sharp to the point of vehemence, but then she paused, gathered herself—Abby could see her making the effort—and went on in her more customary moderate fashion. “I don’t imagine they’re letting people through. It might be best to wait until the weather clears, hmm?”

“I can’t just sit here, Mama.”

“You’ll have your cell phone?”

“Yes. I’ll take the interstate to San Antonio where Lindsey said they spent Friday night, and if they aren’t there, I’ll drive to Boerne.”

“And if they aren’t in Boerne?”

“I don’t know. I’ll go on to Kate’s, I guess.”

Her mother didn’t comment on her plan, that they both knew was pure folly. “Have you spoken to Jake?” she asked.

Abby said she hadn’t, that she didn’t want to worry him “I’ll call you, Mama, and Jake, too, if—when I find them.”

* * *

It was pouring by the time Abby left the house, but she didn’t encounter torrential rain until she was fifty miles east of San Antonio. That’s when she began to see more cars and trucks and even semis take the exit ramps or pull onto the interstate’s shoulders. But Abby did not pull over. She continued driving west on the main highway, the same way she was certain Nick would have gone. He would never take the scenic route; he was too impatient, and he certainly wouldn’t fool around in weather like this. Lindsey had to have said something else.

Safer route? Easier route?

Why had they spent Friday night in San Antonio? Why would Nick pack the camping gear if he had no intention of camping? The questions shot like bullets through Abby’s brain.

It’s about Daddy....

Had Nick gotten sick? Abby’s breath caught. Why hadn’t she thought to call the hospitals? But she was fairly certain she’d heard properly when Lindsey said they were at a gas station. A Shell gas station. They could have had a flat tire or engine trouble. An accident? They could be marooned somewhere and unable to call. They could be almost anywhere. Abby searched the roadsides praying to be led to them, to see them, until her eyes burned with the effort. Until the rain grew so heavy the edges of the pavement were lost in road fog.

The lane markings disappeared. Her world was foreshortened to the few feet that were visible beyond the BMW’s hood. How foolish she was to be out here. She thought of her mother, left behind to worry. Of Jake and his utter disbelief if he could see her. She thought how the joke would be on her if Nick and Lindsey were home now and she was the one lost.

By the time she reached Boerne, she was bent over the steering wheel, holding it in her white-knuckled grip. There were no other cars. She wanted to stop but couldn’t think how. How would she navigate off a highway she wasn’t sure existed? Every frame of reference was lost to the fog, the endless sheets of rain. Nothing stood out, not a building or a tree or the road’s weed-choked verge. She might have been airborne for all she knew. She had to go on, to reach Kate, the ranch, higher ground. Abby thought maybe Nick had done that. In fact she began to believe it, that when she arrived there, she would find him and Lindsey safe, but when Kate’s house finally came into view, her heart-soaring wave of anticipation fell almost immediately into confusion.

There were so many vehicles parked along the roadsides and in Kate’s driveway, mostly pickup trucks with boats attached and SUVs. There were a few sheriffs’ patrol cars, too, and a couple of ambulances. And incongruously, a helicopter sitting in the north pasture. Abby couldn’t take her eyes off it or the dozens of people who were crowded onto Kate’s porch. Exhausted-looking official types dressed in all kinds of rain gear with their hoods pushed off their heads, drinking coffee, talking into cell phones. The sense of urgency was palpable even at a distance. The scene was surreal, like something from a disaster movie. Abby felt heavy now with dread. She slowed, hunting for her Cherokee, praying to catch sight of it.

The BMW had barely come to a stop before Kate had the door open. “What are you doing here?” She hauled Abby from the driver’s seat and searched her face, both of them heedless of the falling rain.

Abby shook her head, starting to cry from fear and exhaustion. She stammered that her family was missing. “You haven’t seen them?”

“No. Oh, Abby.” Getting the sense of it, Kate folded Abby into her arms, held her tightly and released her. “Come on,” she said. “We’re getting soaked.”

They went up the front walkway and onto the porch. Kate made introductions as they worked their way through the throng. Abby met neighbors, a lot of them in uniforms, and quickly learned that because the ranch was high and dry, and maintained near-full electrical power from a built-in generator system, it made an ideal base for rescue operations. She was reassured that evacuations and search efforts were ongoing, but then someone mentioned the dozens of people who were missing.

Abby turned to the porch rail and braced herself.

“But not Nick,” Kate said. “I’m sure he’s found shelter somewhere.” Kate brought Abby around, walked with her toward the kitchen door, keeping up a reassuring stream of chatter, and then George spotted them.

It was almost comical the way his astonished glance bounced from Abby to Kate, and once she explained what Abby was doing there, he said, “She needs to talk to Dennis.”

“Dennis Henderson is the Bandera County sheriff and a good friend of ours,” Kate told Abby.

And then Dennis was there, and once Kate introduced them, he took charge, putting his hand under Abby’s elbow, guiding her into Kate’s kitchen where it was warm and quiet. He sat Abby down and assured her he would do all he could to help her locate her family. By then, she was shivering, and he brought her a towel and a cup of hot coffee that Kate had generously laced with brandy.

Kate brought Abby a pair of dry tennis shoes and socks, and while she changed into them, the sheriff sat across from her and began asking a series of questions: Why did she think Nick and Lindsey had come this way? Did she know what route they’d taken? What was the reason for their trip? Could Abby describe what they were wearing when they left home?

She managed to give him the physical descriptions, but when it came to the rest, her eyes teared. She didn’t know the answers. “I thought they were going to camp out, but they didn’t. They spent Friday night in San Antonio. I don’t know why.” She clamped her lips together, chin trembling. She was horrified. How could she not know?

“Do you know what campground they were headed to?”

Abby shook her head, miserably. “There are several that we’ve gone to before, but I don’t know where Nick made reservations. I didn’t ask. How could I not ask?”

“It’s all right,” the sheriff said. He found a tissue and handed it to her.

She blew her nose and described Lindsey’s phone call, saying she was almost positive Lindsey had said they were at a gas station. “A Shell gas station,” Abby said, “in Boerne.”

Sheriff Henderson seemed pleased with that; he said it gave him a place to start, and he did go there a few days later, once the water receded, and he spoke to the gas station attendant, a high school kid who remembered Lindsey. She was really cute, the kid said. She asked for the restroom key, but he’d gotten busy and couldn’t recall whether she’d been the one to bring it back. But it was there, on its hook behind the cash register, so he guessed someone must have returned it. He told the sheriff he thought he saw the Jeep leave the station and head east on Highway 46. And like everyone else, he spoke of the rain. But then no one who was in the Hill Country would ever talk about that April weekend again and not mention the rain.

In the end twenty-six people would lose their lives, many of them drowned, but many others were rescued. There was one story about a woman, a tourist, who folks heard had been taken out of the water near Bandera alive. Rescuers who treated her said it was a miracle she survived, that her injuries weren’t more severe, then somehow, they lost track of her. No one seemed to know what became of her. Some began to wonder if she was real or the stuff of legend, one of those urban myths, but many continued to tell the story and to believe in it for the hope it brought them.

* * *

When Abby finally reached Jake, she had to grope for the words to explain, and once she found them, his reaction struck her as odd. Something in the way he said, “Oh, God,” made her think for just a moment that he would say he’d known something awful was going to happen. But he didn’t. “When did you last hear from them?” he asked.

Abby told him about Lindsey’s call and what she thought Lindsey had said and her doubts about it, and her voice cracked.

“It’s okay, Mom, I’m on my way. We’ll find them.”

Abby said, “No, Jake,” and paused. Her eyes welled with tears at how calm he was, how he took such care to reassure her—as if he were the parent. “You can’t get through,” she said when she recovered her voice. “All the roads are washed out. Anyway, you have finals.”

“I’m coming, Mom.”

The line went dead in her hand. Phone service was still unreliable. She looked at Kate.

“What?”

“He says he’s coming. What if he gets lost, too?” The tears Abby had so far contained spilled over now. “Oh, God, Katie. Where are they?”

* * *

It was after nine o’clock on the night of Abby’s arrival at the ranch, and she was on the porch alone when a woman wearing a yellow rain slicker approached her. The woman’s blond hair was wet and plastered to her forehead and cheeks; she looked exhausted. She looked to Abby like one of the rescue workers, and when she asked if Abby was Mrs. Bennett, the wife of Nicholas Bennett, the attorney from Houston who was missing, Abby nodded and braced herself to hear the worst.

The woman gave her name, Nadine Betts, and said she was a reporter. She gave the call letters of a local television station, too, but Abby didn’t catch them. She was terrified of what the reporter would say next.

“Your husband and daughter weren’t out here camping, were they?”

Abby could only stare.

The woman inclined her head in a conspiratorial manner. “Look, it’s just you and me here, okay? You can talk to me. You’re meeting them later, right? Then at some point, your son will join you.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Come on. You must realize how it looks, Mrs. Bennett,” the reporter insisted. “Your husband goes missing within days of Adam Sandoval jumping bail?”

Abby frowned, nonplussed.

“The attorney for Helix Belle? The one they arrested for embezzling—”

“I know who he is,” Abby said. Two years ago, Adam Sandoval had been on the legal team for Helix Belle Pharmaceutical when Nick’s law firm had brought suit against them for distributing pediatric flu vaccine that had been tainted and caused the death of one child and irreparably damaged the hearts of a number of other children.

“Your husband worked with Sandoval,” the reporter said.

“They were on opposite sides. Nick defended those children. He’s the one who secured the settlement funds for them. He would have no reason to steal—”

“Oh, there are plenty of reasons, Mrs. Bennett. A half million of them. Surely you aren’t going to tell me it’s a coincidence that the cash, along with Sandoval and your husband, is missing.”

“That’s enough, Nadine.”

Abby looked around and saw Dennis Henderson, and she was grateful for his support when he slipped his hand under her elbow.

He ordered the reporter off the porch, but she kept pace. “Sheriff, you know who Nick Bennett is. Will you keep looking for him and his daughter under the circumstances?”

“No comment.” The sheriff ushered Abby through the door.

The reporter wedged her foot into the gap. “Come on, Dennis, I won’t keep her long.”

“Back off, Nadine,” he said and managed to close the door.

“My husband had nothing to do with that money,” Abby said. “He was cleared months ago. I can’t imagine why that reporter is asking about that now.”

“The San Antonio D.A. is concerned your husband’s disappearance and Adam Sandoval’s could be related.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

The sheriff said, “Maybe.” He set his hat on a nearby table and said, “We had a local boy, Tommy Carr, who got a dose of that bad vaccine. It put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Folks in this part of the state are still pretty riled.”

“We knew someone, too, who was injured,” Abby said. “That’s how Nick ended up representing the families of the victims, but I still don’t see—”

“This is a small community. Everybody around here knows Tommy and his parents; they kept a close eye on the case. They celebrated when your husband got Helix to take responsibility. Nick Bennett got to be kind of a household name locally. What happened to Tommy was a tragedy, but it would have been a lot worse if your husband hadn’t gone to bat for those kids. The money they were awarded is the only way their families could afford to care for them properly. Now all that is in jeopardy again.”

“Not because of Nick. He didn’t take that money. Call his law firm, if you don’t believe me. Call the Houston police detectives who investigated. He hated what Adam—”

“But they were friends, weren’t they? Outside the courtroom, I mean.”

“Acquaintances. They knew each other in college. Adam called sometimes when he came to Houston, and he and Nick would go out for a beer. But Nick had no idea Adam was embezzling that money. I remember when he was arrested, Nick said he had financial problems. He and his wife were divorcing. He was going to have to pay a lot of alimony. He was desperate.”

“Did you know Sandoval’s wife? Did you socialize as couples?”

“Why are you giving me the third degree? My family’s out there somewhere, they could be injured, they need your help!”

“There are a lot of folks missing, ma’am, and we need to be certain that we’re using the resources we have to assist those whose need is genuine.”

“What about my daughter? Do you suspect her, too?” Panic thinned Abby’s voice.

The sheriff kept her gaze.

“You know something, don’t you?” Abby’s heart stumbled. “What is it? What have you found out?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out what direction they might have gone in.”

“Abby? What’s going on?” Kate came to Abby’s side.

“He’s asking me about Helix Belle.”

“Why?” Kate asked the sheriff.

“I had a call from the San Antonio DA’s office. Obviously the local media got wind of it, since Nadine was here asking questions.”

“Nadine Betts?” Kate rolled her eyes. “She’s an idiot.”

“A call about what? What does any of this have to do with Nick and my daughter?” Abby demanded.

“Sandoval, or a man resembling him, was caught on some surveillance tape on Tuesday outside a bank in San Antonio. He was with another man matching Nick’s description,” Dennis said.

“No,” Abby said, shaking her head emphatically. “There’s no way it could be Nick. He was in Houston, working. He was home for dinner that evening.”

“You were with him at his office?” the sheriff asked.

“No, but I—”

“I think the drive between Houston and San Antonio is, what? Three, three and a half hours?”

“Dennis, you do realize this is ridiculous.” Kate wasn’t asking.

He rubbed a line between his eyebrows.

“This is just another ploy,” Abby said. “Another way the Helix Belle legal team is trying to get the spotlight off themselves. It’s what they did before. They tried to implicate Nick.” She spoke strongly over the sound of Lindsey’s voice that vied for her attention: We spent last night in San Antonio, Lindsey had said. Dad says we’re taking the scenic route. But the two things, the possibility that Nick had been in San Antonio on Tuesday and again with Lindsey on Saturday, weren’t related, Abby told herself. They couldn’t be.

“I’m sorry to have to question you this way,” the sheriff said, “but it’s part of my job to look at all the angles.”

Kate slipped her arm around Abby’s shoulders. “I’m telling you, I’ve known the Bennetts a long time, Dennis. Nick may not be perfect, but he wouldn’t take money from sick kids and run away with it, trust me.”

“He wouldn’t run away, period.” Abby pulled free of Kate’s grasp. “Not with my daughter. You can’t stop looking for them. Please—” Her voice broke.

The sheriff stepped toward her; he kept her gaze and reassured her the search would continue. Abby had the sense that he was moved by her plea, that he meant to touch her. He was close enough that she could feel his warmth and smell the starch rising out of the damp creases of his uniform shirt. It was an odd moment, out of time, but Abby was comforted by it. And then it was over. He stepped back, recovering in an instant the aura of his authority, his natural suspicion. He was paid for that, Abby thought. He was a cop, after all, conducting a cop’s business. Nevertheless she wanted to believe him, to believe it was kindness she saw in the gravity of his expression.

The sheriff apologized again. “It’s procedure,” he said. “Routine in these cases,” he added.

“Routine?” Abby said. What about any of this was routine?

* * *

It was after midnight when Kate led Abby into her guest room and made her lie down.

“I won’t sleep,” Abby said.

“At least close your eyes.” Kate pulled off Abby’s borrowed tennis shoes and lifted her sock-clad feet onto the bed.

“I should call Mama and Louise.”

“It’s late. Why don’t you just rest now?”

Abby looked at Kate. “I don’t care what the sheriff thinks or that reporter. They’re way off base.”

Kate took Abby’s hand. “But it would be so much more interesting if they weren’t. Nadine especially would love it. The biggest thing she ever gets to report is when someone’s cow gets loose. Now a celebrity is missing.”

“Nick isn’t a celebrity. Why do you say things about him like that? Why did you say that before, that he wasn’t perfect? Why would you put it that way?”

Kate groaned softly. “I knew you were mad.”

“I’m surprised you don’t believe he robbed the settlement fund, too.”

“Oh, Abby.” Kate sounded hurt and half annoyed, and she had a right to be, but Abby wouldn’t yield. She rose on one elbow to peer hotly at Kate. “Maybe you know something about where Nick was going. Is that it? Do you?”

“I wish I did, but he’d never confide in me.”

Abby fell back, crooking her elbows over her eyes. She felt sick with rage and the effort of steeling her nerves to take the next blow. She wondered if she would survive, if she was strong enough. “What if no one finds them, Katie?”

“Oh, Abby, don’t. Don’t go there.”

How could she not go there? Not conjecture? What if Lindsey had been chattering a blue streak or complaining? What if Nick’s attention had been drawn from the road? Abby started to see images and plastered her hands over her eyes, but the curtain in her mind rose in spite of her. She saw Nick, distracted, looking at Lindsey. A wider shot of the car picking up speed, sliding into a black, rain-slickened curve. Now, before Abby’s horrified gaze, her Jeep slammed through a guardrail and flew for what seemed like forever before it plummeted, bounced end over end between canyon walls until finally it struck the bottom, where it sat with Nick and Lindsey dead inside it. By the time the SUV came to rest, it would have taken on the same contouring as the boulders it had fallen among. Boulders the color of iced champagne. The color of limestone baking in the sun. The same color as Abby’s Jeep. It would blend in so beautifully with the rock that no one would ever see it, much less the treasure it contained.

Abby turned on her side, jerking on the sheet, cramming a corner of it into her mouth, and when the cry broke from her ribs, it wasn’t louder than a whimper.

* * *

She woke later in a panic, unable to believe she’d slept, uncertain of where she was, and then the sound of the rain reminded her. It peppered the window in wind-driven gusts. Abby pressed her fingertips to her ears, and still she could hear it; its rattling insistence...the never-ending drops forming rivulets, the rivulets making streams, the streams combining into rivers. Rivers rising over their banks. Endless flooding and drowning and dripping and wet. Water sloshing everywhere. She lay staring at the ceiling. Why was she here safe and warm and dry, while her family was out there shivering and alone in the cold and the dark and—

But she couldn’t do this, couldn’t lie here with her mind spinning through the endless and terrifying loop of her own thoughts. Flinging aside the bedcovers, she got up. There was light coming from the great room, and she went toward it. A man was there, one of the paramedics she’d met earlier. Abby thought his name was Billy. Billy Clyde Coleman. He was sitting on the floor, eating a bowl of chili Kate had made earlier, and watching television. Abby imagined most everyone else was bedded down in the campers she’d seen parked everywhere or else in the bunkhouse. They’d get what rest they could before resuming the search effort at daybreak. But Billy was like her, Abby thought. He couldn’t sleep. She started to speak, to make him aware of her presence, but then she heard her name, Bennett, and her eyes jerked to the TV screen.

Catching sight of her, the paramedic raised the remote, saying he would turn it off.

“No!” Abby said. “Please. She’s talking about my family.”

“—attorney from Houston along with his daughter are among the missing, and at this point they are presumed drowned.”

“Oh!” The syllable popped from Abby’s mouth, a near shriek. She clapped her hands there. The commentator went on. Abby’s ears were ringing, but still she heard it. Heard the woman say the search effort for her family and the others had been downgraded. Now, rather than a rescue, what they hoped for was a recovery.

Of bodies, Abby thought. The commentator meant they hoped to recover the water-bloated remains of her husband and daughter. They would then return them to her for burial. And there was even more to be hoped for, according to the commentator. Closure, the woman said. Recovery of the bodies would give a measure of peace to the families and to the community that had suffered such a devastating loss.

Abby shook her head, no. She said, “No!” and repeated it, “Nonono.”

Billy came and led her to the sofa. He settled her there and reminded her that the story was unverified. He tried to reassure her. He gave her one of his soda crackers; he brought her a glass of water. She looked straight at him now, at the smooth curve of his cheeks, his relatively unlined brow, and she thought how young he was, not much older than Jake, and she would always believe that was what kept her from weeping. The idea of Jake being put into this position where he would be called on to comfort some hysterical woman.

She drank a little of the water, set the glass down and wedged her trembling hands between her knees, resisting an urge to lay her head there, too. “I’m okay,” she told Billy. “You should get some rest,” she added.

He nodded and sat on the opposite end of the sofa, and he was still there an hour or so later when morning sunlight burst roughshod into the room, making Abby blink. Billy turned to her, looking astonished. “Am I dreaming?” he asked.

“Do you know who Adam Sandoval is?” she asked.

“The jerk who stole the money from those kids who got the bad vaccine? Yeah, who doesn’t?”

“Did you know he was missing? Did they say anything about him when you were watching the news?”

Billy said no. He said he’d heard Adam jumped bail, that he might be somewhere in the area. Billy said, “If that’s true, I hope he drowned.”

Abby looked into her lap. She would not go there; she would not examine the connection her mind was trying to make between Adam’s disappearance and Nick’s. There was nothing there. Nothing. Nick wouldn’t endanger Lindsey in that way. He couldn’t.

“It should get easier now,” Billy said.

“Easier?”

“The rescue effort, you know, the work should go faster now that the worst is over.” He reddened. “I meant the rain, that it’s stopped.”

Abby knew what he meant, and she managed a smile. She wouldn’t tell him what she thought, that the worst wouldn’t be over until her family was found.