24 Hours

Karen started to pull up Abby’s jumper to inject the insulin into her stomach, but with Huey standing so near, she decided to inject it right through the material. She pinched up a fold of fat and shot the insulin into it. Abby whimpered softly and locked her arms around Karen’s neck. Karen threw the used syringe into the woods and lifted Abby into her arms. There, on her knees in the dirt, she rocked her daughter back and forth like an infant, singing softly Abby’s favorite childhood rhyme.

The eensy-weensy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,

And the eensy-weensy spider climbed up the spout again.

“I love you, punkin,” she murmured. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

She felt Hickey brush past her as he walked forward to speak to Huey.

“Keep singing, Mama,” Abby said.

Karen started the song again, but as she sang, she tuned her ears to the male voices drifting back to her on the night air.

“You doing okay?” Hickey asked.

“Uh-huh,” said a much deeper voice. Deeper but more tentative. “She’s nice.”

Hickey took out a cigarette and lit it. The match flared like a bonfire in the blackness.

“I thought you quit, Joey.”

“Give me a freakin’ break.”

The orange eye of the cigarette waxed and waned like a little moon. Karen knew Hickey was watching her, transfixed in the headlight beams with her child, as vulnerable as a deer under the hunter’s gun. She put her mouth to Abby’s ear.

“Do you remember what I taught you about calling the police? What numbers to call?”

“Nine?” Abby thought aloud. “Nine-nine-one?”

“Nine-one-one.”

“Oh. I know. When I’m nervous I forget. I know our phone number.”

“Good, honey. Don’t be nervous, now. Mr. Huey has a cell phone. If he goes to the bathroom, he might forget it. If he does, you use it to call nine-one-one. Run and hide outside with it, tell them you’re in trouble, and then hide the phone. Don’t hang it up. If you can do all that, people will come and bring you home to Mommy and Daddy early. Do you understand?”

Abby’s eyes were wide. “Will the policeman hurt Huey?”

“No, baby. But don’t even try it unless you can call without him knowing. Okay? It’s like a game.”

Tears shone in Abby’s eyes. “I’m scared, Mom. I want to go home with you.”

“Listen to me, honey. If you have to do number two, you wipe yourself. Don’t ask Mr. Huey for help. Even if he’s nice. You don’t know him well enough.”

Hickey dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his foot. “Old home week’s over,” he called. “Let’s mount up.”

Abby screamed and grabbed Karen’s neck.

“Let’s go,” said Hickey, walking toward her. “Tell princess bye-bye.”

“Nooo!” Abby wailed. “Noooooooo!”

Karen looked over her shoulder at Hickey, her eyes pleading. “I’m begging you. Let me stay here with her until morning. What can it possibly matter?”

“I told you about this crap.” He held out his arms. “Hand her over.”

Karen backed away, clutching Abby in her arms. She knew it would do no good, but the decision was not hers to make. Two million years of evolution would not let her voluntarily give up her child. Hickey lunged forward and grabbed Abby under the arms, then yanked at her as if pulling on a sack of feed. Abby shrieked like she was being flayed alive.

“Stop!” Karen yelled at Hickey. “Stop it! You’re hurting her!”

“Then let go, goddamn it!”

With a cry of desolation, Karen let go.

A heart-wrenching scream burst from Abby’s lips.

Karen snatched up the ice chest, then ran to Huey and hooked the handle of the Igloo around his huge fingers. There were more syringes inside, and five vials of insulin, including one of Humalog. “Please keep this! If Abby gets sick or passes out, call me and I’ll tell you what to do!”

The giant’s face was a mask of bewildered fear. “Yes, ma’am. I-”

“Shut up!” Hickey shouted. “Get the kid back inside, retard!”

Karen laid both hands against Huey’s chest. “I know you’re a good Christian man. Please don’t hurt my baby!”

Huey’s mouth fell open, exposing his yellow teeth. “Hurt your baby?”

Hickey thrust Abby into Huey’s arms, then grabbed Karen by the elbow and dragged her toward the Expedition.

“I’ll be back in the morning, Abby!” Karen promised. “I’ll be the first thing you see tomorrow!”

Abby continued to shriek with air-raid intensity, so loudly that Karen finally put her hands over her ears to blunt the agony of hearing her child’s terror. But even that didn’t work. Ten yards from the Expedition, she slammed her right elbow into Hickey’s head and charged back toward the other pair of headlights.

She was halfway there when Hickey cracked her on the back of the head with what felt like a hammer, sending her sprawling onto the hard dirt. She heard a door slam, then the squeal of a loose fan belt as Huey’s truck backed slowly down the road.

High in the Beau Rivage Hotel in Biloxi, the phone rang in suite 28021. Will grabbed it before Cheryl could.

“Joe?” he said. “Is this Joe?”

“Will?” said an uncertain voice.

“Karen!”