Part 13 (1/2)

”Not by the looks of the flowers she brought,” he broke in, hating to disappoint her.

”She just didn't want anyone to know she'd been here,” Holly said.

”Then a spray like the one already on the grave would have been less conspicuous, don't you think? Or none at all.”

He watched Holly's breath come out in frosty white puffs. Tiny specks of snow floated down to land in her dark hair, to catch on her lashes. She frowned, fighting what he was saying.

”Another thing,” he said, motioning to the footprints in the snow. ”Look at what she was wearing. An old pair of sneakers, the tread nearly gone on the heels. The snow is deep on the way in from the road. Her feet had to be cold. Why didn't she wear s...o...b..ots? Unless she didn't have any.”

”Maybe she was in too much of a hurry,” Holly said. ”Or was too upset.”

He shrugged, giving her that.

Holly pulled her hand free of his, but didn't move away from him. He watched her blink, the tears making all that blue seem endless. ”If she doesn't have our baby, then she has to know who does, right?”

He couldn't take that away, too. ”I would think she'd have to know at least one of the players.” He didn't want to tell her that the woman might have just been paid to give up her baby. Especially if she'd known just before the birth that the baby would be stillborn. But that would mean that some local doctor was in on the switch. How else could the people behind this have found her-and made some deal for her baby?

”She knows where her baby is buried,” Holly said. ”She has to know about me.”

Maybe. If she really was the mother. The county was small. Dry Creek even smaller. All the woman had to do was check the obits in the paper to find her baby. He didn't believe this woman would know much. Just as he didn't believe she had their baby.

He took Holly's arm and turned her away from the grave, away from the towering Wellington monuments to the dead and back toward his pickup, managing to step squarely on Allan Wellington's grave in the process. It was a childish show of disrespect. He didn't like Allan Wellington. Nor could he entirely justify his animosity towards a dead man. But he planned to be able to soon. He fervently believed Allan was somehow involved in all this-even though the man had been dead for months. Slade felt it as surely as the winter cold around him.

”How do we find her?” Holly asked when they'd reached the pickup.

He'd already been thinking about that. The other mother, if that's really who she'd been, could be added proof that the babies had been switched. Plus that mother would have given birth at the same place Holly had. She might be able to help them with that as well.

”I'm not sure,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel. He didn't have a clue how to find her. She wouldn't have gone for medical help even if she'd needed it. Too many questions would have been asked.

”You know, something's been bothering me,” he said. ”If these...monsters who delivered your baby, if they were doctors, why didn't they do an episiotomy? Why were you suffering from hypothermia when you arrived at the hospital?”

”Maybe they wanted it to look as if I'd given birth alone, without any help,” she suggested as he started the truck.

”Maybe.” He thought about her memory of the three ghouls appearing frantic, the feeling that something was wrong. ”That seems a little too cruel, even for monsters. Maybe they didn't know what they were doing because they lacked the medical expertise. Maybe they weren't doctors at all.” He didn't like that theory because it opened up too many possibilities. ”Have you remembered anything more about the room? It wasn't just a bedroom in some house?”

She shook her head as she squinted out at the gloomy day. ”The bed made me think it was a hospital because of the rails.”

Hospital-type beds could be rented. Or purchased.

”I don't know,” she said with a sigh. ”I can't be positive it wasn't just a bedroom but- Wait a minute. The ceiling.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

He looked over at her.

Her eyes were closed. ”The ceiling seemed too high for a regular house. And...there was something on it.”

He waited, afraid to speak for fear of making the memory-if that's what it was-slip away.

”A mark.” She opened her eyes and frowned.

”You mean like the roof leaked?” he asked when she didn't continue. ”Or the plaster cracked?”

She nodded. ”It was in the shape of something large and scaly.”

He stared at her for a moment, then looked back to his driving. ”Like a dragon?”

”Or some kind of monster,” she said with a sigh. ”Obviously, I saw monsters everywhere I looked,” she added, her tone dismissing the ceiling design and the memory as useless.

He wanted to a.s.sure her that every possible memory was important. But three monsters at the end of the bed and another on the ceiling?

He s.h.i.+fted down at the edge of town, the pills he'd taken from her rattling softly in his coat pocket. Who knew what those pills could have made her see? he thought as he pulled into the drugstore parking lot, anxious to find out.

”Do you mind if I wait here?” she asked.

He would much rather have had her with him, but the pharmacy was near the front of the store and he knew he would be able to keep her in sight. ”I'll get you something for your headache.”

”How did you know I had a headache?” she asked in obvious surprise.

He shrugged. ”You get this little ridge between your brows when your head hurts,” he said, feeling strangely shy about revealing the things he knew about her.

She studied him openly for a moment. ”You do know me, don't you?”

He nodded, his gaze brus.h.i.+ng hers, sparking like flint on granite. He opened his door, breaking the connection, telling himself to let her take the time she needed, hoping she had the time to take.

Last night, unable to sleep, he'd stayed up going through old photo alb.u.ms from when he and Sh.e.l.ley were kids. This morning he'd put in a call to her, just wanting to hear her voice. But she hadn't been in her room. He'd left a message asking her about the twin-angel Christmas ornament, asking her to call him. The moment he hung up, he wished he hadn't said anything about the ornament. He hadn't meant to.

He felt disconnected, dreading what he might find out, knowing somewhere deep inside himself that the news on neither case would be good, and wondering how he would be able to tell Holly. And Sh.e.l.ley.

”Slade Rawlins?” Jerry Dunn said when he saw him. ”I haven't seen you in a month of Sundays.”

Jerry and Slade had gone to school together. They were two of a handful of cla.s.smates who still lived in Dry Creek. The difference was, Jerry had left long enough to become a pharmacist. Slade felt anch.o.r.ed here by the past.

He reached across the counter to shake Jerry's out-stretched hand. For a pharmacist, Jerry had a h.e.l.l of a grip. He'd played fullback on the football team and looked as if he still worked out. Jerry had married his high-school sweetheart and started a family. Slade knew why Jerry had stayed in Dry Creek. Jerry had inherited his father's drugstore and pharmacy when his father'd retired.

”So how's business?” Slade asked, although the drugstore was empty except for a young clerk at the front.

”Crazy before Christmas. Fortunately it's slowed down, but hey, flu season is coming.” Jerry grinned. ”It will pick up.”

Slade pulled the container of pills from his pocket. ”I need to know what these are.”

”Sure.” The former fullback took the bottle, checked the prescription, then shook a couple of the pills out into a small plastic tray. ”Looks like a generic of Xanax. A common anxiety medication,” he added when he saw that the name rang no bells for Slade.

”Strong?”

”Not really.”

Slade glanced toward the truck and Holly. She'd leaned back against the seat, her eyes closed. He'd hoped Jerry was going to tell him that the pills were something strong enough to cause memory loss. But Slade knew it had been a long shot. What pill was strong enough to cause a woman to forget months out of her life?

”Is there any way to test these pills?” he asked. ”A lab, somewhere I can take them?”