Rick Mofina - Whirlwind

Gromov leaned down, kept his voice soft and took her hand. “Are you Remy Toxton?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

The sirens got closer.

“Now is not the time to lie.” He squeezed. “Are you Remy Toxton?”

“Yes.”

“Did you become pregnant at a Moscow clinic?”

Remy nodded.

“Where’s the baby from that pregnancy?”

“Louisiana.”

“Shreveport?”

Her chest heaved as she let out a sob. “Yes, that’s where he died.”

The sirens were getting louder.

Gromov stood. His face was creased.

He turned to Yanna and then he looked thoughtfully at the Coopers before he stood next to Jenna and studied Caleb.

“This is your son who was missing?” Gromov said.

“Yes,” Jenna answered.

“He’s a beautiful baby.”

“Thank you.”

“I see the resemblance to his father.”

Jenna smiled.

Gromov’s eyes filled with sadness as he accepted that his dream had turned to dust, then he and Yanna left the store and got in their rented car. Driving carefully around debris, they left Afton.

As the paramedics and Dickens County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, two other men pulled alongside them in a farm truck and rushed into the store.

“The Dixon place is gone. We found a dead man in the rubble,” one said. “Must’ve been out there hunting.”

“Looks like he tried to tie himself down. He was all tangled up in the debris,” the other added, breathless.

The deputies called for assistance to get a car out to the Dixon ranch as the paramedics began assessing Remy Toxton. Her injuries were not life threatening.

When the deputies obtained the preliminary details of what had transpired from Jenna, Blake and Kate, they requested the paramedics hold off taking Remy to a hospital.

After a quick series of calls to their dispatcher and computer checks, confirming details through NCIC, Remy Toxton was charged and read her rights.

She remained silent throughout the process, never once asking about Mason, or for an attorney. She stared at the ceiling as the deputies handcuffed her to the gurney, then cleared the paramedics to take her to hospital with a deputy as her escort.

FBI case agents Phil Grogan and Nicole Quinn were alerted and on their way from Lubbock. Kate called her friend Heather in Ohio to let her know what had happened then joined Jenna and Blake on the bench at the front of the store, where they waited for the FBI agents.

As word spread, local residents approached them with praise and congratulations.

“Something positive has come out of the storm,” L.T., the store’s manager, said as he took their picture.

Jenna Cooper couldn’t take her eyes off Caleb, but when she finally did, she turned to Kate.

“We would have lost him forever without you. I know that in my heart. You’re a good person, Kate, and a pretty good reporter, too. You never gave up…you never let go.”

Kate nodded, but her smile faded as she looked into the distance and deeper into the clearing sky. She reflected on all that the Coopers had suffered, and all that she’d endured up to that moment in her hard life. The outcome had restored Kate’s faith to never ever give up, whatever the odds. For in Jenna and Blake’s miracle, Kate had found reason to hope that maybe, just maybe, her little sister had somehow survived that night in the river all those years ago.

Kate almost laughed for she was suddenly haunted by an unresolved aching, yet comforted by an irony.

It was her sister’s tragedy that led to her becoming a reporter.

And here I am, an unemployed one, sitting on a huge story.

But it doesn’t matter right now. It’s not what I need right now.

She cupped her hands over her face and let the tears flow.

What Kate needed more than anything was to get back home to Ohio and hold her daughter.

It was late that night when Kate got back to Newslead’s Dallas bureau.

Expecting that her ID and swipe card had been invalidated, she’d intended to give it to the security guard then have him escort her to clean out her desk and leave a note.

“No, miss,” he said after taking her ID and checking his screen. “It’s still good for Kate Page. Want me to go with you? No one’s up there-they all went home long ago.”

“Yes, thanks. I want to do this right.”

“Sure, I don’t mind stretching my legs.”

As the elevator rose, Kate looked back on her day. After telling the FBI everything that had happened in Afton, Blake and Jenna had driven her to Lubbock, where they did network interviews…but without Kate.

She’d slipped away for a flight to Dallas.

Before she’d left Lubbock, Grogan and Quinn said the evidence team had finished processing her car after the murders in Fate. She could pick it up at the FBI’s office in the morning. That was good, because she wanted to start driving home to Ohio the next day.

In the cab from the airport to the Dallas bureau, her phone showed messages from Dorothea Pick, Chuck Laneer and about a dozen news organizations wanting to interview her for her part in the story.

She ignored them all, but one name caught her eye: David Yardley with USA TODAY wanted to interview her for a story. Kate’s heart warmed with memories. He was the reporter at the Chicago Tribune who’d helped get her started in journalism.

I owe him. I’ll call him when I get to my hotel room. Maybe he can mention that I’m looking for a job in the business? She laughed to herself. Funny how things have gone full circle.

The elevator doors opened to the dimmed lights of the bureau.

“I won’t be long,” she said.

The guard sat at the empty desk next to hers. Kate’s computer account had not been closed. She’d received nineteen emails from news organizations wanting interviews. Ignoring them, she typed a short note thanking Dorothea and Chuck for considering her for the internship and the job. After sending it, she wondered for a moment what had happened for Dorothea to replace Chuck.

She sent a goodbye note to Tommy Koop, thanking him for being her friend and helping her. Then she cleaned out her desk, putting her coffee mug and dictionary, along with a few personal items, into a small garbage bag, thinking it a metaphor for her career as she left with the guard.

The next morning, Kate checked out of the hotel, took a cab to the FBI to get her car. Before starting for Ohio she checked her phone. More messages for interview requests from NBC and ABC.

She ignored them.

When she got her third message from Chuck, she decided to return his call. Somewhere on the I-30 East near Union Valley she pulled over. He answered on the second ring.

“Kate, I’m sorry things ended the way they did.”

“Me, too.”

“Managementwise, our bureau was in disarray when you arrived. As you’ve probably heard, my wife is ill. I tried to keep that private, but it got out in the bureau. I was distracted during your internship and for that I apologize.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s okay, I understand. I’m so sorry to hear about your wife.”

“We just learned that it’s very serious. Cancer.”

“Oh my God, Chuck-that’s terrible.”

“That’s why Dorothea took over. There’s no question she had an agenda. I’ve since learned that you had two strikes against you, as far as she was concerned.”

“What were they? I don’t understand.”

“Mandy Lee’s father worked at the Dallas Morning News and had given Dorothea her first job. Guess she’s quietly guaranteed him that she would return the favor and hire Mandy Lee, not counting on you being so good.”