Deborah left them alone, turning away at the door, her jangling bracelets announcing her departure, leaving Diana alone with her mother who was tucked in her bed and seemingly oblivious. Diana stayed near the door for a moment, as though still deciding whether she wanted to actually enter the room or not.
Her mother did look different, Deborah was right about that. She looked even older than she had just a month ago, as though the intervening weeks had sapped even more life out of her, leaving an increasingly withered and fragile husk behind in the hospital bed. At some point, the hospital staff had cut her mom's hair short. The resulting mess told Diana that the hospital staff didn't really care if her mom looked like a woman or not.
Diana approached the bed and gave her mom's arm a gentle squeeze. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady and regular, but Diana spoke anyway.
"Mom?"
Her mother didn't stir.
"Mom? Can you hear me?"
Nothing. This didn't surprise Diana. If they kept her somewhat medicated and dopey down on the first floor, they probably pumped a drugstore into her up here. Diana squeezed onto the edge of the bed so she could sit next to her mom. There was plenty of room given the size of her mom's withering body. Diana took her mom's hand and held it in her own. It felt soft and thin, like well-worn leather.
"Mom? The police are searching right now, somewhere out in the country. They're searching because of another girl who disappeared, but it's possible, it's possible it could tell them something about Rachel as well. I'm trying not to get my hopes up about that, but I want to let you know that I haven't stopped looking for her. And I'm not going to stop looking for her either. I'm doing it for you because I know you'd want me to find her."
Her mother stirred. She turned her head from side to side, and her eyelids fluttered.
"Mom? Can you hear me?"
She stopped moving her head. Her eyes came open and locked on Diana.
"Mom?"
Her mom sat up, her eyes wild. She pulled her hand free and placed it on Diana's shoulder.
"You have to go there. You have to find her. She's drying up there and blowing away in the wind. You have to go. It has to be you."
"Mom? What do you mean?"
"Go. Go. Go!"
She slumped back against the bed, her eyes closed. Just as quickly as she had sat up and spoken, she was gone again, slipped away.
"Mom?" Diana took her hand again. "Mom? What did you mean when you said that?"
Diana waited, but nothing else came.
Then someone touched Diana on the back. She jumped and spun around, dropping her mom's hand.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Jesus."
It was Deborah. Jangly, braceleted Deborah. Diana hadn't heard her approach.
"I didn't mean to startle you. It's okay."
Diana tried to regulate her breathing and calm down. It took a moment for her heart to stop accelerating. "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to tell you that sometimes they say things that really don't mean anything. It's just nonsense. It comes from someplace deep inside of them, or it comes from the medication. It doesn't mean anything."
"How do you know it doesn't?"
"I guess I don't for sure." Deborah came over to the bed and placed her hand on her mom's forehead, checking her temperature. "These things they say could mean something to someone if we wanted them to."
Diana stood up from the bed and took a deep breath. Her legs felt like they were filled with jelly, and she wanted to get out of the confining hospital room and back to town. Visiting her mother at a time like that had been a mistake. She went out into the hallway and heard her cell phone ring in her purse. Dan's name and number appeared on the caller ID display. He was at work.
"What happened?" she said.
"We're back."
He sounded defeated, and Diana sensed something had gone wrong.
"What happened?" she said again.
"We found Jason's truck."
The weakness in her legs spread throughout her body. She thought she might fall to the ground.
"Where?"
"Out in the county, on the way to Lambeau."
"Was he with it?"
"No. It was abandoned. No sign of trouble, just the truck on an empty stretch of road. We looked all over out there, all around the woods where the truck was. Nothing yet, but we'll go back tomorrow."
"No. There had to be something there."
"There wasn't."
Diana moved down the hall to an isolated spot far from her mother's room. She stood in front of a tall casement window covered on the outside by heavy, wrought iron bars that allowed only split and refracted sunlight through the glass.
"Did you talk to anybody who saw anything?" Diana said.
Dan paused. "I shouldn't be telling you this."
"What?"
"We got a tip about a house out there. I got the tip actually. The house belongs to a guy named Roger Donahue. He's harmless, practically retarded. We talked to him and searched the house. We didn't find anything."
"What did the place look like?"
"What do you mean? It's a house and a yard and a lot of trees and woods that went on and on. But he lives several miles from where the truck was found, and he didn't know anything."