Chapter 18

She shivered nonstop.

Both shock and cold had weakened her, until she could only lie in the dark.

And her contractions came on top of each other now. She'd barely recovered from one when the next hit. There was no preparing for that pain.

Earlier, with more time in between them, she'd still tried to force the door or break open the roof. The windows were a lost cause, none of them big enough to let her through.

But escape by any route had become impossible now. She no longer possessed the strength. It took all her willpower just to stay conscious in the intervals between contractions.

This one seemed to seize her harder than all the previous ones, spreading down her abdomen and into her groin, a malignant iron fist that would burst the baby prematurely from her womb. Her scream began as an involuntary screech, then built to a howl of rage, her fury at the unnaturalness of what assaulted her and the infant exceeding even the pain. These weren't normal uterine constrictions- the gradual crescendo of compressions, the incremental forcing of the fetus against the birth canal to progressively dilate the cervix and ultimately expel a live newborn. These were violent convulsions that could crush the fragile head and limbs, compress the still vital umbilical flow of blood and oxygen, tear the life-giving membranes and sacs that surrounded him, and rupture her uterus, explode it from within, killing her and the child.

She continued to writhe, one second defiant that she would hold on, beat this, and save them both, the next overcome by despair. Yet even then she shrieked every curse she knew rather than yield to sobs.

The ripping forces inside her increased. "How dare this happen!" she roared. She'd be damned if she'd break. After all, Dr. Janet Graceton, who'd brought the benefits of modern childbirth to thousands of women, would not end up in mud and darkness dying with her infant.

At the pinnacle of her agony she remembered.

They'd been driving at a crawl along the expressway where it skirted the campus of Buffalo University, a section that cut through parklands with occasional clumps of large trees. The two of them were straining to see through the wash of an ever harder rain. Where he'd driven too fast going in, now he drove as slowly as possible, almost unnecessarily so. But she'd said nothing about it and the whole way had been explaining why Earl thought Stewart had been murdered and how she could use the cluster study to find whomever J.S. might be protecting. But when they'd come to the ravine where a shallow creek meandered through the grounds, the car had lurched forward.

"What are you doing?" she'd screamed. His foot must have jammed the accelerator, she recalled thinking.

But their speed couldn't have been more than forty when they hit the tree. The impact threw her forward, yet didn't knock her unconscious. No air bags inflated on the passenger side, not in a car of a decade ago, but the frame crumpled as it should, protecting them, and the shatterproof glass fractured into a silver mosaic before her eyes at the instant the front lights went out.

She'd sat there, stunned, hearing Thomas unclick his own seat belt.

"What happened?" she'd asked.

No answer.

She'd felt a pair of hands reach for her.

His, to help her, she'd presumed.

Until they'd grabbed her head and smashed it, repeatedly, against the side window.

Thursday, July 17, 12:20 a.m.

Earl had tried to keep his speed down- he'd driven through car washes with more visibility- but a slower pace gave him too much time to imagine the worst. His stomach churned, and the sense of foreboding in his chest grew as big as a bowling ball for fear of what he'd find in one of the many darkened ditches or around the next slick curve. As long as he kept moving, giving himself one dark roadside pocket after another to peer into, he could keep visions of her broken body out of his head.

At the same time he couldn't stop from thinking, This is useless, useless, useless!

He'd made the trip toward St. Paul's in record time despite the storm, scanning the darkness across the divide for any sign of Janet's car. As that proved futile, he tried to postpone the acknowledgment that he could miss her altogether even if she was there, telling himself he'd have a proper look into the green space once he crossed over and headed back in the other direction. Bent grasses and bushes where the car went through ought to be pretty visible.

Now, already three-quarters through the return trip, he'd been forced to admit the truth that had initially overwhelmed him when he first drove onto the expressway.

If she'd skidded or been rear-ended and rolled down an embankment in the built-up districts, somebody would have already spotted her car, even with a blackout, because it would have landed in a backyard. But where gullies, tall grasses, brush, and trees lined the dark route, anyone, himself included, could easily miss such a small vehicle. And forget bent grasses and bushes showing him where the car had gone. They drooped every which way, sodden with rain.

Worse, if foul play was involved and someone had hidden her, his odds of finding her were nil. He fought desperately not to think of that possibility at all, otherwise the things he'd seen creeps do to women swarmed through his head.

And the more he dissected his moment of insight about Jimmy, the more the whole notion fissured, one flaw cracking through it after another. Everything fell apart over motive. Why, for instance, would the priest set up Stewart and kill to do it? And sheer instinct rejected the idea that man would ever hurt Janet.

Several times Earl left his van and slid down an embankment to probe into the foliage of overgrown areas, but the rain severely cut visibility, and everything- wet leaves, stems, trunks, blades of grass- glistened like polished steel in the beam of his flashlight.

He continued to drive, soaked to the skin, sick with dread, and swallowing to keep his stomach from heaving. Up ahead he saw a pulsing glow the color of flame and soon arrived at an array of orange flashers where several hydro trucks had congregated. The white beams from a half dozen spotlights captured a group of men in hard hats who hung off a hydro pole amid a coil of wires. Wearing tangerine jumpsuits, they looked like an act out of Cirque du Soleil.

Earl pulled to a stop and got out. "Any of you guys seen an accident along here involving a green Mazda convertible?" He yelled through cupped hands to make himself heard above the rain and a loud stream of static-laced dispatches over the vehicles' radios.

"Nobody's stupid enough to be out here except you," one of the workers suspended in the air yelled back.

Nice.

A few of his mates laughed.

Clenching his fists, Earl walked up to the man who seemed to be doing the least, figuring he'd be the one in charge. "Listen, asshole, I'm looking for my wife. She's hours overdue, and right about now I'm not in the mood for jerks." He'd spoken loud enough that a few others on the ground would hear. Reaching inside his breast pocket, he retrieved a hospital card and shoved it at their boss. "That's got my cellular and the number for ER at St. Paul's, where I work. Ask for the chief. I want news if you hear of anyone who saw a green Mazda convertible, understand?"

The guy immediately frowned. In the illumination of the orange flashers, the veins on his beefy cheeks were a purple scribble, drawn by years of drink and exposure to cold. "You're chief of ER at the Saint?"

His crew also looked concerned.

Earl nodded. He'd known these bozos would respond to his pulling rank. They weren't about to piss off the person who'd be staring down at them the next time a jolt of electricity fried their hides.