Greg Iles: 24 Hours

“You’re a genius,” Joey said, a crooked grin on his face. “I apologize, okay? She’ll be out for two to four hours. Plenty of time.”

“You’re going to call me, right?” Huey asked.

“Every thirty minutes. Don’t say anything but ‘hello,’ unless I ask you a question. And shut off the cell phone when you get there. Just cut it on for the check-in calls. And remember the backup plan, right?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Now, get going.”

Huey turned away and started to walk, then stopped and turned back.

“What’s wrong now?” Joey asked.

“Can she have one of her dolls?”

Joey leaned back inside the window, snatched up a gowned Barbie off the bed, and handed it out. Huey took it between Abby’s hip and his little finger.

“Don’t crank the truck till you hit the road,” Joey said.

“I know.”

Carrying Abby with maternal care, Huey turned and lumbered toward the playhouse and his concealed pickup truck, the gold-lame gown of the Barbie fluttering behind him like a tiny flag.

Karen stood at the kitchen counter, thumbing through the NEJM in spite of her resentment. Two sweating glasses of iced tea stood on the counter beside her, bright yellow lemon rinds hooked over the rims. Beside the glasses lay a plastic device for pricking Abby’s finger; it looked like a ballpoint pen. Without taking her eyes from the magazine, Karen called: “Abby? You okay, sweetie?”

There was no answer.

She took a sip of tea and kept reading, thankful for a few moments of silence before the maddening last-minute details of the flower show would have to be dealt with.

Beneath the tall, sweet-scented pines behind the playhouse, Huey opened the driver’s door of his pickup and slid Abby’s unconscious body across the bench seat to the passenger side. She lay still as a sleeping angel. Huey watched her for a while. He liked standing on pine needles. They were cushy, like deep carpet. He wished he was barefoot.

Suddenly, an image of his cousin filled his mind. Joey would be really mad if he messed up. He reached into the truck, shifted it into neutral, and pushed it backward around the playhouse like a normal-sized man pushing a motorcycle. After the truck cleared the playhouse, he stopped, shifted his weight forward, and began pushing again, steering the pickup across the yard toward the steep driveway. The yard had a pitch to it, for drainage, and gravity soon began to help him.

When the wheels hit concrete the truck gathered momentum, and Huey tried clumsily to climb inside. He got one foot up on the step, but as he tried to pull himself through the open door, his boot slipped. He stumbled forward, trying to keep his feet under him as the old Chevy raced down the hill. Only the strength in his huge hands kept him and the truck joined as it careened down toward Crooked Mile Road.

Three quarters of the way to the bottom, Huey flexed his wrists with enough power to snap the tendons of a normal man and dragged himself into the cab by main strength. He hit the brakes just before the truck shot into the road, and the vehicle shuddered to a stop. Abby was thrown forward against the dash, but she did not wake up. Huey pulled her back across the bench seat, her head pillowed on his thigh, then put his hand to her mouth to make sure she was breathing.

After his nerves settled a little, he pulled his door shut, cranked the engine, and turned onto Crooked Mile Road, which led to Highway 463, and from there to Interstate 55. He had a long night ahead.

Karen’s ears pricked up at the rumble of a starting engine. It seemed out of place at this time of day. Her neighbors’ houses were too far away for her to hear that sort of thing. She glanced through the kitchen window but saw nothing, as she’d expected. Only one curve of Crooked Mile Road was visible from the house, and the height of their hill hid the intersection of the road and the driveway. Maybe it was a UPS truck running late, making a turn in the drive.

She looked back at the hall door and called, “Abby? Do you need help, honey?”

Still no answer.

A worm of fear turned in Karen’s stomach. She was compulsive about controlling Abby’s diabetes, and though she hated to admit it, panic was always just one layer beneath the surface. She put down the magazine and started toward the hall. Relief surged through her as she heard footsteps on the hardwood. She was laughing at herself when a dark-haired man of about fifty walked through the hall door and held up both hands.

Her right hand flew to her heart, and in some sickening subdivision of a second, her mouth went dry, her throat closed, and sweat broke out from the crown of her head to her toes. Almost as quickly, a desperate hope bloomed in her brain. Hope that the stranger’s presence was merely a mistake, some crazy mixup, that he was a workman to whom Will had given a key.

But he wasn’t. She knew it the way you know about the lump in your breast, an alien thing that shouldn’t be there and isn’t going anywhere soon except by very unpleasant means. Karen had lost a sister that way. And her father-a Korean War veteran-had taught her very young that this was the way fate came at you: out of the blue, without warning, the worst thing in the world appearing with a leer and a ticking clock.

“Stay calm, Mrs. Jennings,” the man said in a reassuring voice. “Abby’s fine. I want you to listen to me. Everything is o-kay.”

At the word “Abby,” tears filled Karen’s eyes. The panic that lived beneath her skin burned through to the surface, paralyzing her where she stood. Her chin began to quiver. She tried to scream, but no sound came from her throat.

As Karen stood gaping, the stranger said, “My name’s Joe, Mrs. Jennings. Joe Hickey. I’m going to help you through this thing. And the first thing to remember is that Abby is absolutely fine.”

The temporary paralysis caused by seeing a strange man where she had expected Abby finally broke, and Karen jerked as though she had taken a physical blow.

“Abby!” she screamed. “Come to Mama!”

“Calm down,” the stranger said softly. “Look at me, not the door. I’m Joe Hickey, okay? I’m telling you my real name because I’m not worried that it’s going to matter later. You’re never going to report this, because Abby’s going to be fine. Everybody’s going to be fine. Abby, you, me, everybody. The kid always makes it through. That’s my rule.”

Absurdly, Karen flashed onto the movie The Jungle Book, which she had watched at least fifty times with Abby. Listening to this man was like listening to Kaa the cobra, who hypnotized you with his voice while he waited for the perfect moment to strike. She shook her head and fixed her mind on Abby’s face, and her fear dissolved in a violent rush, replaced by a fury beyond any she had known. The man before her stood between her and her child. If he wanted to keep them apart, he would have to kill her.

Hickey seemed to sense this. “Abby’s not here, Mrs. Jennings. She’s-”

Karen charged, batting him aside like an old man as she raced into the hallway. She yanked open the bathroom door and, though she found it empty, cried, “Abby! Abby? Where are you?”

She stood blinking for a moment; then she tore through the ground floor, checking every room and closet. With each empty space that greeted her, dread settled deeper into her bones. She raced up the back stairs and began searching the second floor. Every room was empty. She ran into the main upstairs guest room, picked up the nearest phone, and dialed 911. Instead of a dispatcher ’s voice, she heard a man speaking in a deep piney woods drawl: “… Preacher Bob’s Fount of Life Church is a Full Gospel church, with no wishy-washy bending of the Word, no newfangled editions of the King James-”