Then all of a sudden he was free-falling, flying through the air. He landed hard on his side, knocking the breath from his body. He tried to get up, but he couldn’t move. He tried to cry out, but he had no breath left to voice his panic.
Then he heard two loud pops and someone yelling.
And then all he knew was that when he took his first breath, it was in his daddy’s arms.
J.R. was crying. “You’re okay, little guy. Daddy’s got you. Daddy’s got you. You’re safe, son. You’re safe.”
Bobby took a deep breath, then threw his arms around Daddy. His body was shaking so hard he couldn’t speak, so he hid his face against Daddy’s neck and started to sob.
J.R. turned in a circle with his child in his arms, then started walking toward the chopper. All he could think about was getting back to Katie.
Before he’d gone twenty feet, one of the troopers stopped him.
“Sir. You need to come with us.”
J.R. shook his head. “I need to take him home.”
“Mr. Earle… You are Mr. Earle, right?”
J.R. nodded.
“Your son was the victim of a kidnapping. He was the subject of an Amber Alert. He needs immediate medical attention. There are channels we have to go through to make sure he’s taken care of properly. As much as we might want to, we can’t just let you walk away with him.”
J.R.’s shoulders slumped. He understood what they were saying, but by car, it was such a long way back. He looked down at his son, still wearing the same clothes he’d been snatched in, dirty and beaten, sobbing and shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.
“Don’t make us ride that three hours home in a car…not when there’s a chopper standing by,” he begged.
“There’s a highway patrol chopper on the way. Get in the car with us. When we meet it, we’ll make the transfer. Okay?”
J.R.’s voice broke. “It seems we don’t have an option,” he said. “Just let me tell my pilot so he can return to base.”
The trooper pointed. “Looks like he’s coming to you. And by the way, when you talk to him, tell him that was one fine piece of flying he did today.”
J.R. nodded. “Just give me a minute,” he said, then stopped. “Has somebody notified the Bordelaise police? I want my wife, Katie, to know our son is alive and safe.”
“Already done, sir,” the trooper said, then nodded toward Cody, who was almost on them. “Make it quick. We need to get your boy medical attention as soon as possible.”
J.R. turned around just as Cody Sands arrived. There were tears in his eyes and a big smile on his face.
“This is probably going to be one of the best days of my life,” Cody said, and then clapped J.R. on the shoulder.
“Thank you, Cody. I owe you. Big-time. The troopers think you’re quite a cowboy.”
Cody grinned even wider.
“We’re going to have to go with the police, but when you get back in the air, would you let Brent know we’re okay and thank him for me?” J.R. asked.
“You know it,” Cody said, and then gently brushed the palm of his hand across Bobby’s head. “Really glad to see you again, little guy. Your daddy’s a hero. Don’t you ever forget that.”
There was a lump in Cody’s throat and a smile on his face as he turned and walked away.
J.R. shifted Bobby into a firmer grasp, then patted him gently.
“Come on, son. Let’s go home. Mama’s waiting.”
He felt Bobby flinch, then gasp as he lifted his head. For the first time in days, they were face-to-face, eye to eye. It was all J.R. could do to look and not weep.
Bobby’s voice was still shaking, but his gaze was steady.
“Mama is dead.”
J.R. was shocked. “No, no, son, she’s not. Why would you think that?”
Bobby’s voice began to shake. “The monster told me Mama was dead.”
J.R.’s heart sank; then he cursed silently. “That’s a lie,” he said sharply. “That’s a lie. Mama is not dead. She’s been scared half out of her mind. We both have. We’ve been looking and looking for you.”
“Mama didn’t die in the tornado?”
“No. Your mama is just fine,” J.R. said. “We’ve been so worried, trying every way we knew how to find you.”
Bobby’s chin quivered, but he managed a nod. “I knew it,” he said softly. “I told the monster, but he wouldn’t listen. I told him he needed to call you. To tell you where I was, but he just kept putting bad stuff in my water to make me sleepy and tying me to the bed.”
J.R. cupped the back of his little boy’s head and then closed his eyes. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t think. There was nothing to say that would ever make what this child had endured all right.
“Are you two ready?”
J.R. turned.
The trooper was waiting.
J.R. tightened his hold on his son and started walking toward the car.
Eighteen
“S
uspect is in custody. Child is safe. Father and son being transported to hospital in Baton Rouge. Request Bordelaise Police Department advise the mother.”
Shouts erupted inside the Bordelaise Police Department. Lee and Carter gave each other a high five, then gave the chief a big pat on the back.
Vera threw her hands up in the air and did a little happy dance around her chair, shouting, “Praise the Lord…praise the Lord!” at the top of her voice.
Katie was numb. The relief of knowing both Bobby and J.R. were alive and on their way back to her was overwhelming. She could hear the revelry in the room but couldn’t focus enough to share in it.
Her legs were shaking and her hands were trembling when she backed into a chair and then sat down with a thump.
“Thank you, Jesus,” Katie whispered, then leaned back and took a deep breath.
Before she had time to relax, the phone rang. She looked up, watching as Vera answered, wrote down some information, then handed it to the chief.
When Hershel turned to look for her, she was on her feet in seconds.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, ma’am. This is just information about the hospital where they’re taking your boy.”
“I’ve got to get there. I have to be waiting when they arrive.” Then she turned in a circle, looking around the lobby.
“Has anyone seen my purse?”
Vera picked it up from behind her desk.
“Here it is, honey.”
Katie ran to get it, dug out the keys to the truck and was about to head out the door when Hershel stopped her.
“Wait a minute, Katie girl. You’re in no condition to make that drive on your own. Lee. Carter. One of you drive her truck, the other one take her to the hospital in your cruiser, and don’t dawdle. Run hot all the way to Baton Rouge if you have to.”
Lee held up his hand. “She’s riding with me, Chief. We started this journey together. I’d be honored if she’d let me help her end it.”
Katie turned. “We did?”
Lee nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Baton Rouge. If you need to powder your nose and fuss a bit, go do it now. I’ve been waiting for a reason to use the lights and sirens for something other than a disaster. This is going to be one heck of a ride.”
Katie handed her keys to Carter, then flew off down the hall to the bathroom. When she came back, Lee was waiting for her at the door.
“We have to go by Penny Bates’s house and get Oliver,” Katie said.
“Who’s Oliver?” Lee asked.
“Bobby’s teddy bear. He slept with it every night of his life, and it was one of the few things that made it through the storm. The days when I thought that was all I had left of him were the worst days of my life. Now, I can’t wait to see his face when I put it back in his arms.”
Lee nodded. “That sounds like a plan,” he said.
Within minutes, she was in his cruiser and on her way to Penny’s. After a quick stop to give Penny the good news, and get Bobby’s bear and some clean clothes, they headed out of town.
As promised, Lee turned on the lights and siren as they sped through town, which brought everyone shopping or working on Main Street to the windows to take a look.
It didn’t take long for word to get around.
Not only had Bobby Earle been found, but he had been rescued by his daddy and the Louisiana Highway Patrol.
The drive to Baton Rouge passed in a blur for Katie. After hearing Lee’s story of how he’d found her at her house and then taken her to the hospital, Katie hadn’t been able to shake a growing sense of urgency. She clutched the teddy bear tight against her chest and kept focusing on the facts.
Her son was alive. She wouldn’t think about what had happened to him. That would be for later. Right now, it was enough that J.R. was bringing him home.
Carter had reached the hospital in Baton Rouge first, learned that local news crews had caught wind of the rescue and called Lee to give them a heads-up.
When Lee and Katie pulled into the drive leading up to the emergency entrance, they could see the news vans with their satellite dishes parked nearby and a gaggle of news crews waiting near the entrance.
“Oh, no,” Katie muttered, when she saw the gathering crowd.
“Don’t worry,” Lee said, as he wheeled past them and stopped in front of the entrance. “There’s Carter. He’ll get you inside without a fuss. We’ll put your things in the truck and bring you the keys later. In the meantime, I’ll take care of this crowd, don’t you worry. Heck. You might even see me on the evening news.” Then he grinned.
Katie laid her hand on Lee’s arm.
“I will never be able to thank all of you enough for what you did for us.”
Lee shook his head. “It’s thanks enough knowing your little guy is coming home.”
“Yes,” Katie said, and then tightened her grip on Oliver and her purse.
“Go on!” he urged.
She opened the door and sprinted toward the hospital as the crowd surged toward her. Even as Carter grabbed her arm and ushered her through the entrance, she could hear Lee Tullius’s voice, rising above the crowd.
The first thirty minutes after she’d gotten to the hospital were a whirlwind of identifying herself to the people in charge and then getting a pass to the roof of the hospital so she could accompany the staff who’d meet the chopper.
Lee found her, told her where to find her truck, handed her the keys and then headed out the door with an apology. The chief had given them a call, and they were needed back in town. From what Chief Porter had said, he thought something was about to a break in regard to the missing prisoners.
Katie waited anxiously, glad to have Oliver for company, and when they finally got word that the chopper was inbound, the team headed for the roof with Katie right behind them. At that point she was riding a high, knowing she was only minutes away from seeing her son.
As they exited the building, she glanced up. The late-afternoon sun was moving slowly toward the west. The sky was clear, without a cloud in sight. This high above the city, the air seemed cleaner—even lighter—muffling the noise from the streets below.
Suddenly, she heard one of the nurses shout and point.
“There it comes!”
They’d made the transfer from the patrol car to the police chopper within fifteen minutes.
“We’re heading to a hospital in Baton Rouge,” the pilot told J.R. “Your wife has been notified. She’ll be meeting you there.”
Once J.R. got Bobby inside the chopper, he tried to buckle him into the seat beside him. But the little boy began to shake his head and cry, begging to sit in Daddy’s lap.
The pilot turned to look over the back of his seat and started to argue. “Sir, he needs to be—”
“It’s okay, son,” J.R. said. “You can sit in my lap. We’ll make it work.”
He lifted Bobby into his lap, fastened the seat belt around the both of them, then wrapped his arms around his little boy and pulled him close.
The pilot gave them a thumbs-up, and within minutes they were airborne.
J.R. could feel the tension easing from Bobby’s shoulders. He watched as his son’s eyelids grew heavy, and when he finally fell asleep, he was still clutching the front of J.R.’s shirt.
J.R. knew his son was dreaming. His little body jerked and twitched as he slept, and his eyelids were fluttering, as if he was trying to wake up. J.R. could only imagine the hell he was reliving and wondered if he would ever be okay again. He saw the healing rope burns on Bobby’s wrists, and then the ones on his ankles, and wished Newt Collins to hell again.
Twice Bobby cried out, and both times J.R. kept saying over and over, “You’re okay. You’re okay. Daddy’s got you. Daddy’s got you.”
He watched Bobby’s eyes open just a crack, as if assuring himself he wasn’t dreaming, and then he fell back to sleep.
By the time the pilot announced they were about to land at the helipad behind the hospital, J.R. was stone-faced. He didn’t know for sure how Newton Collins’s fate was going to play out, but he knew that he would do whatever it took to make good on his promise.
If Newton Collins was ever released from prison again, it would be his first and last day of freedom. If the justice system turned him loose after what he’d done to Bobby, J.R. would track him down and kill him, and never lose a minute of sleep over the decision.
A few moments later the chopper began to descend. J.R. glanced out the window. There was a group of people standing on the roof of the hospital near the doorway. Even from several hundred feet up in the air, he saw Katie. The wind from the rotors was beginning to stir the air below. Her long legs were braced against the gusts, and her dark hair was being lifted and whipped in a crazy fashion, but she seemed impervious to the disturbance. Her expression was fixed, her posture steadfast.
Finally his family was once again intact.
Then his vision blurred, and after that everything began happening in rapid-fire sequence.
Katie clutched Oliver with one hand, while shading her eyes against the glare with the other. The familiar whup-whup sound of the chopper’s rotors grew louder as it drew closer.
One moment the chopper was just a blur, and then every detail was clear and perfect. She could even see the pilot’s face, but though she struggled to look past him, the interior was too dark for her to make out any passengers.
The wind from the rotors was fierce, whipping her hair back and forth into her eyes, but she didn’t move, didn’t care. She was too focused on seeing J.R. and Bobby.