Page 54 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
Clare turned around to see Yíxin Zhào at the great double doors leading out of St. Alban’s, staring at the red-and-green-themed circusand shifting from foot to foot. Clare hurried toward her. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to barge in—I tried calling you, but it went straight to voice mail.”
Clare laughed. “You can’t really barge in here, Yíxin; everyone is welcome.”
“Tiny’s gone.”
“What?” Several of the volunteers stopped and stared at her. She dropped her voice. “Where? How?”
“Did you drive over here?”
“No, of course not. I live next door; it’s faster to walk.”
“Then it looks like she took your car.”
“Oh, for—!” Clare stopped herself before swearing loudly in front of several interested bystanders. She took a breath. “Let me tell a few people I’m heading out early. Come with me, we can save a few steps by leaving through the kitchen.”
It took Clare less than eight minutes to extricate herself, pull on her boots and parka, and grab Ethan’s things; with Russ gone, the baby made a wonderful get-out-of-coffee-hour card. She and Yíxin clattered downstairs and wove through the church’s kitchen, Clare smiling at the congregants washing coffee cups and hoping she didn’t look like she was bolting because of an emergency. Once outside, it was just a few yards to the break in the privet hedge that led to her driveway, where, oh, yes, her car was gone.
“I’m sorry; I was sound asleep. When I woke up, she had already left. We should call the cops.” Yíxin held the baby bag while Clare juggled Ethan and searched her pockets for the house key.
“Not yet. Along with making me lock the damn doors—oh, here it is—Russ installed a home security system and GPS trackers in our cars.” She swung the door open.
The young lawyer looked at her. “He can see where you’re driving?”
Oscar met them at the kitchen door. The room looked the same as when she’d dashed out earlier this morning, except the spare keys that hung near the coatrack were gone. “Don’t worry, he’s not acontrolling spouse. I mean, he does try sometimes, but I just ignore him.”
Yíxin closed the door. “O-kay.”
“Maybe she’s gone to a friend’s. Or to buy some things for the baby.” Clare dropped Ethan in his high chair and tugged off her boots before letting the dog out into the yard. “What did it look like upstairs?” She had given Tiny the guest bedroom, with Ethan’s Pack ’n Play for a temporary crib. Yíxin had gotten the inflatable mattress in the formerly empty fourth bedroom, which Clare had turned into a home office once she realized working in the living room wasn’t going to fly with a husband and baby around.
“She made the bed.”
“Of course she did.” Upstairs, she peeked into the guest room. If the portable playpen hadn’t been there, it would have looked as if it had never been occupied. It was different in the nursery, though. An entire package of diapers was gone, along with a new red-and-white snowsuit her parents had bought Ethan. Clare bet that if she took inventory, she’d be missing some clothing and wipes as well. “That shoots that theory. She shopped for Rose right here.”
“What about money?”
Clare grimaced. “My purse is in the kitchen.” Sure enough, when she opened her wallet downstairs, the cash was gone. “Okay, she has a little over sixty bucks.”
“She’s not going to get far with that.”
Clare turned on her phone and opened the app. A circle blinked on and off and on and off until Clare was tempted to shake the phone to see if that made it work any faster. Then a map popped up, with a dot that didn’t seem to be moving. She zoomed out to get a sense of where the vehicle was.
“Clare…” Yíxin pointed to the screen. “It’s not that far from Newcomb. Which the militia’s been using as a base.”
Clare tried to pinpoint the road details, but lost the greater context of the area. “Hold this. I’m going to get Russ’s park atlas.”
“Real paper maps, huh?” The young attorney sounded as if Clare was proposing shooting the sun with a sextant for directions.
“Once you’re in the mountains, paper is all you can rely on. Cell phone service is spotty to nonexistent.” She grabbed a pencil. “Let’s see the tracker.”
Yíxin laid it on the kitchen table next to the map. “It’s, uh, County Road twenty-five.”
Clare put an X on the corresponding spot and straightened. “Okay, here’s Newcomb.” She added another X. “Here’s where I flew out of Long Lake, and this, roughly, is the area where we spotted the encampment.” She circled a generous portion of the High Peaks Wilderness.
“It makes a triangle.” Yíxin looked at her. “Tiny might have led us to their back door.” She shook her head. “I actually believed her when she said she didn’t know what her husband was up to.”
“She might not.” Clare tapped the mark on County Road 25. “There’s no development here, but a lot of this land is privately owned. Cal March might have bought a few acres as a hunting camp. Or inherited it.”
