still leaving the sheriff a voice mail. She hung up and sat down outside. Her ribs like a toothache in the cold.
She didn’t know what to do. So, instinctively, she just started calling friends. Anyone she thought might be able to help. Special Ed’s mother and father. Mike and Matt’s mothers. She got nothing. No voice mails. All texts were returned. No emails would go through.
She was completely alone.
Christopher’s mother looked down at the phone in her hand. The time snapped her out of anything resembling self-pity. She had fifteen minutes until she could see her son. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to think of what to do next. Was there another person to call? Someone she hadn’t thought of? She looked back through the emergency room. She saw two men fighting each other for a chair. On the TV, the blond newswoman said that traffic accidents had already tripled the record high for December, and it was only the twenty-third.
“And now on to happier news. Christmas is only two days away. And what was the number one present kids asked for this year? Bad Cat dolls,” she said with a smile.
“That’s right, Brittany. The number one present adults asked for? Guns.”
Someone turned the channel back to CNN.
“And now on to international news and the growing unrest in the Middle East…”
“I’m sick of this shit,” a voice called out. “I don’t care about the Middle East.”
“My family is from there, asshole!”
“Then, go back to where you came from and help.”
“The refugees are desperate, Anderson. The talk on the ground is that more bloodshed is imminent.”
Christopher’s mother closed her eyes. She didn’t realize she was praying until she had finished.
“Please, God. Help us.”
Suddenly, she sensed something. It wasn’t a feeling so much as a smell. It smelled like baseball gloves.
Ambrose.
The name came to her from out of nowhere.
Ambrose Olson.
When you’re in a war, ask a soldier. Who said that? Jerry of all people. Drunk and watching grainy footage of the Allies saving the world from ruin.
Ambrose could help us.
Christopher’s mother dialed Shady Pines. As she waited for the phone to ring, the EMTs carried in the rest of the deputies, all of them gravely wounded. For a second, she had a chilling thought.
There are no police left. There is no law anymore.
“Shady Pines?” the voice said on the other line.
“Sheila…it’s Kate. I need to speak to Mr. Olson.”
“He ain’t here.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I gotta go. Natives are restless with this God damn flu.”
Click.
It took Christopher’s mother all of five minutes with the ER admission nurse to find out that Ambrose Olson had been rushed to the hospital from Shady Pines after he had gone blind. Thanks to being a favorite among the hospital staff, he received a bed about thirty-nine hours ahead of schedule. He had been placed exactly three doors down from her son’s room in the ICU. Kate Reese knew it could be fate. It could be coincidence. Or it could be help from the nice man. Whatever it was, she did not question it anymore. She needed whatever friends she could get.
Even imaginary ones.
She found Ambrose in his room. His eyes bandaged. Clutching his brother’s old diary. She knocked on the door.
“Mr. Olson?” she said.
“Mrs. Reese? Thank God. I’ve been asking around for you.”
“Me?” she said, surprised but somehow not at all surprised. “What for?”
“I need you to finish reading my brother’s diary,” he whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” she asked.
“You promise not to laugh?” he asked.
“Nothing is funny right now,” she said. “Try me.”
When Ambrose got done explaining about David’s experience with tree houses and hissing ladies, it didn’t take long for Kate Reese to realize it was happening again. But this time to her son. She sat down and took the diary.
*
Ambrose could not see Kate Reese as she read aloud to him like a mother to a child. But after everything she told him about Christopher’s car accident and the sheriff being shot, he imagined this beautiful 110-pound woman looking a little like the last candle flickering in the eye of a hurricane.
Please protect her, God.
The prayer came out of nowhere. And it surprised him. But once he confirmed that it was indeed his own voice, he doubled down on it. Because somewhere deep in his soul, he believed that if something happened to Kate Reese, the world would come to an end.
Chapter 71
What a fucking year.
That’s what Jerry thought as he lay awake in bed. He looked outside the