Waking Lazarus (26 page)

Soon the press corps would grow, claiming the side street beside the station as their own stomping grounds. Of course this was a big story: a new kidnapping. Hello
Hard Copy
and
National Enquirer
.

This recent kidnapping would raise so many questions.

Odum sat and half listened as the Feds briefed him on the investigation’s progress over the past several hours. They had done interviews, combed the Dumpster scene, and impounded Nicole Whittaker’s car for analysis. Yes, they were covering all the bases, but Odum knew they hadn’t turned up anything interesting. Nor would they.

He leaned back and looked out the window at the golden autumn landscape. Even though his department hadn’t made any big breaks, he also sensed this whole thing was about to detonate. It had reached his town.

Odum sighed again. The end of it all seemed near, very near. He could feel it in his bones.

And his bones hurt.

Behind the steering wheel of her Ford Explorer, Rachel piloted them toward Billings. Ron sat, finally mute, staring out the window. He had spilled everything; like a dam opening its floodgates he had hit her with a rushing torrent of past lives and lies. That familiar knot in her chest tried to tighten again, to take her breath away. After all, she had been standing directly below the dam when Ron decided to open up those floodgates, and getting hit with a million gallons of water from a cold, deep reservoir would take anyone’s breath away. How the Egyptian soldiers must have felt when Moses closed the Red Sea on them.

Still. Something about what he said made an odd sort of sense, put things in perspective. She could see the clarity of it, and in a way that made her see him more clearly as well. She breathed. The knot loosened.

As important as all this was, it wasn’t that important right
now
. Nathan was. And Bradley. And Nicole, of course, dear Nicole, who was probably her only true friend in the world.

As much as she loved Nicole, though, and as much as she wanted to visit her in the hospital, this drive to Billings was a struggle. Like climbing Everest without oxygen. Every mile traveled was a mile farther from Nathan, and each one became exponentially more difficult. She felt as if she were attached to a giant bungee cord, and she was now stretching it to its fullest extent. The cord wanted to whip her back to Red Lodge, but she refused to let go. If she went all the way to Billings, the cord might snap, and she might just snap herself. She’d lose that . . .
connection
with Nathan, who she felt was still in Red Lodge somewhere. Her maternal instinct told her this was so, and she knew better than to dismiss that instinct.

But Ron said they needed to go to Billings, and something told her that was right also. She had been forming silent prayers in her mind all morning, trying to push aside the never-ending screams of terror filling her consciousness.

A new voice had awakened inside her while she prayed.

The voice instantly quieted the screams of horror, and she knew it was a gift from God. Maybe it was even the voice of God himself.
Go with him,
the voice said.

And so she had. She felt the bungee cord tightening as she drove, but she also felt the voice (and that was the way it had happened: she
felt
the voice, rather than heard it) telling her she was doing the right thing.

Rachel finally turned to look at Ron. No, it wasn’t Ron, was it? He had just told her that. It was Jude. Jude Allman.
The
Jude Allman. ‘‘So,’’ she said, ‘‘you think going to see Nicole will help you find out something?’’ The voice inside her answered
yes
, but she waited for Jude.

‘‘Yeah. I think so. I hope so.’’

‘‘Jude Allman. You know, I halfway thought you never really existed. I thought he was just someone the media made up—’’

‘‘In lots of ways, he is.’’

‘‘—And then I end up having a child with him. You. Whatever.’’

She looked out her window, noticed the giant fields of grain stretching away from the road. It was late this year for the grain harvest. Usually it was gone in late August or early September. Here it was the end of September and the stalks of grain still swayed in the autumn breeze. They were close to the hospital now, passing through the farm fields just outside of Billings.

Rachel hoped she wasn’t heading to a bitter harvest of her own.

She moved her lips, softly saying another prayer, and Jude turned to watch. She kept going, ignoring his stare.

He spoke when she had finished. ‘‘Remember that news story about seven years ago—the gunman at a little church in Nebraska? That was Bingham.’’

She
did
remember it. She hadn’t been a Christ follower then, hadn’t even met Jude yet. But the story had still disturbed her. ‘‘I remember,’’ she said. ‘‘The guy busted into the middle of the service and killed five or six people. But you can’t—’’

‘‘Eight people. My mother was one of them.’’

Rachel felt her lungs stop. Where was the voice of God inside her now? What could she say? ‘‘I . . . I’m sorry,’’ she stammered.

‘‘Your God killed my mother after she decided to start going back to church.’’ He turned and looked out the window again.

She sat in silence for a few moments, hoping for another prompting from the voice inside. None came. She didn’t want to talk about this now, not at all. She only wanted to find Nathan, wrap her arms around him, never let him go.

And yet she couldn’t do that, not on the road to Billings. And Jude had just opened a door for her to walk through. How could she just ignore it?

She sighed. ‘‘In the Bible, there’s a story about Joseph. His brothers, out of jealousy, sold him to merchants as a slave. But Joseph eventually became the governor of Egypt. When Joseph saw his brothers again, he said to them: ‘You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.’ It might not make sense now, but I pray someday you’ll see that God can—and does—use evil to accomplish good.’’

After a few minutes of silence, Jude spoke again. The anger seemed to have melted away, because his voice was softer. ‘‘That doesn’t make me feel any better,’’ he said simply.

‘‘I didn’t say it to make you feel better,’’ she said. ‘‘I said it because you needed to hear it.’’

She expected a rebuke, or a complaint, but none came. Instead, he said, ‘‘You sounded a lot like Kristina just there.’’

‘‘Who’s Kristina?’’

‘‘Later,’’ he said. He pointed to a sign ahead of them.

The large directional sign told them the entrance to St. Vincent Hospital was two blocks away.

36

RECONCILING

As they hurried down the hallway toward Nicole’s room, Jude felt the itchy dread of hospitals once again working its way into his stomach.

Part of what bothered him was the way hospitals were built, like large serpents intertwined on themselves: you always lost your sense of direction. Jude had hiked into many wilderness areas and forests, and he could always tell where he was. He’d never been lost, in fact, in the backcountry. Put him in a hospital of any size, though, make him turn a couple of corners, and he’d barely be able to tell up from down, much less north from south. Something about being closed in, surrounded by endless hallways like a rat in a giant maze, made him ill, uncomfortable.

They had stopped and asked for directions at the front desk, if
front desk
was a term that fit. It was somewhat near the main entrance, although hidden around a corner and not immediately visible. They had taken the elevator to the third floor, and now they were walking across the sky bridge to the south wing where they would take another right turn, then a left. Yeah, hospitals were a lot of fun.

(
Dad sitting over my bed
.)

The micro-memory was there again, flashing in the front of his mind. His dad, bent over his bed. He thought, at first, his dad had been talking, telling him something. But that wasn’t right; his dad was listening. He was listening to something the younger version of Jude was saying.

He tried to cull more from the image, but nothing came. It was already gone.

They made the first left after the sky bridge, and Jude could tell they were now passing patient rooms in the ICU. Names of patients zoomed by on the doors as they walked. Scott Franklin. Janine Harrell. David Elkers. They made a right, then continued down the hallway, past more names. Debra Branson. Mike Lambert. William All-man.

William Allman.

Jude stopped and stared at the name on the closed door. Rachel noticed he had stopped, and turned back. ‘‘No, no,’’ she said, pointing to the room next door. ‘‘This is Nicole’s room right here.’’

He nodded, then started to move toward her as she reached out for the room door’s handle.

A nurse in green scrubs busted out of the door to Nicole’s room. ‘‘What?’’ the nurse said, seeming momentarily flustered. ‘‘Oh, I— you’ll have to wait a few minutes,’’ she said. Another nurse was moving down the hallway toward them now. ‘‘We’re having to re-intu-bate.’’ Together the two nurses went back into Nicole’s room, pulling the door shut behind them.

Jude was stopped midway between Nicole’s room and his dad’s room. Rachel turned to look at him, and he read the frustration, the panic, in her eyes.

William Allman. His dad. In the room right next to Nicole. He nodded toward the door just behind him now. ‘‘It’s, uh . . .’’ He swallowed. ‘‘It’s my dad.’’

Her eyes narrowed for a moment before she walked back to look at the name on the door. ‘‘William Allman?’’ she said. ‘‘That’s your dad? Here, in this room?’’

‘‘I think so,’’ he said.

‘‘What are the chances?’’

He let out a deep breath. ‘‘Chance has a habit of following me around lately.’’

Rachel looked at him, and he couldn’t tell whether the feeling behind those eyes was pity, or confusion, or sadness. ‘‘I suppose it does,’’ she said simply.

They stood at the door for a moment. He noticed Rachel was biting her lower lip, probably without realizing it. Jude secretly hoped Rachel would forbid him from going into his father’s room, that she would tell him they couldn’t mess around with unburied ghosts from his past because they needed to save Nathan, the whole reason they were here. He suspected all those thoughts went through her mind, but she didn’t voice any of them.

Instead, she said something that frightened him: ‘‘Go on in.’’

He wanted to. He didn’t want to. And so his feet stayed frozen in place, doing nothing, caught between the gulf of yes and no. And it wasn’t until he looked at Rachel that he thawed.

She drew in a breath, exhaled, closed her eyes for a second before opening them again. ‘‘No, really,’’ she said. ‘‘We can’t get into Nicole’s room right now, anyway.’’

‘‘Do you wanna meet him?’’ he asked. She considered for a moment, then glanced down the hall toward Nicole’s room. Jude understood what she was thinking. She wanted to hurry, to return to Red Lodge, to find Nathan as soon as possible. Of course she wanted all that; he felt the same pressure. Except it somehow seemed too coincidental to have his dad here. He was sure, somehow, he was supposed to talk to his dad before seeing Nicole.

Jude tried to communicate all this to Rachel with his eyes, and he must have succeeded on some level, because while standing there nervously and biting her lip, she slowly nodded her head.

Jude returned the nod, grabbed the handle to his father’s room, and pushed open the door.

Darkness blanketed the room as drawn shades blocked the late afternoon light. Jude heard something filtering softly from the TV, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. ESPN maybe. He moved slowly and quietly—why he didn’t know—and as he did, a thought popped into his head: what if this was a different William Allman? It wasn’t all that uncommon a name. Maybe there was another one—

‘‘Well, I’ll be dipped.’’ It was his father, speaking from the darkness. Jude blinked his eyes rapidly a few times, willing them to adjust to the low light, but his father’s figure remained mostly silhouetted in the shadow.

‘‘How ya doin’?’’ Jude asked.

As if in answer, a deep, rattling cough came from the darkness of the bed.

‘‘Don’t think I’ll be jumping up to box a few rounds anytime soon, but whatever. This?’’

His father was obviously referring to Rachel. ‘‘Oh,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m sorry. Dad, this is . . .’’ What was Rachel? The mother of my child? The woman who’s put up with my paranoid ramblings for six years? He cleared his throat and started again. ‘‘This is my friend, Rachel Sanders. Rachel, this is my father, William.’’ Friend, he had called her a friend. She didn’t wince as he said it, but he did. He’d never really been a friend to her. Never been anything.

She walked to the side of the bed and held out her hand. William took her hand and shook it. ‘‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Gress,’’ she said.

‘‘Allman,’’ William corrected.

‘‘Right, Allman,’’ she said. ‘‘I just found that out about an hour ago.’’

Jude still couldn’t see his father’s features, but he could tell William was looking across the room at him. He pictured the ‘‘What is this person talking about?’’ look on his father’s face. ‘‘Long story,’’ Jude said.

Rachel walked back over to Jude. ‘‘I’ll just pop next door and see if I can get into Nicole’s room,’’ she said. ‘‘Please don’t be long,’’ she said before turning for the door. Then she stopped and turned back around. ‘‘I’m sorry. Just . . . come as soon as—’’ Jude grabbed her hand, nodded, and gave it a tight squeeze.

Rachel left the room, leaving the two Allman men alone. Jude breathed in the antiseptic smell, another thing he’d always hated about hospitals. They smelled like death, pungent and rancid, but the smell was somehow masked behind an astringent. Hospitals presented themselves as places where lives were saved, but Jude knew better. Hospitals were places for dying.

His father turned off the TV. ‘‘Pretty,’’ he said to Jude.

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘Reminds me of your mother.’’

‘‘Really?’’ Actually, now that his dad had said it, it was so obvious. Yes, Rachel Sanders did evoke something of his mother. Not a spitting image, but they shared similar features, similar characteristics.