Ten Plagues

He veered across two lanes of traffic and swerved onto a side street. He wasn’t dodging reporters now, so he was just driving like a lunatic for the fun of it. Keren vowed to take her keys back as soon as he stopped.

“The orders are mostly connected to schools or medical labs.” Paul took a corner so fast the tires whined. “We won’t track down any of these large purchases unless we have to. Let’s hope we find an order that matches what we need.”

“What do we stake out for beasts? Is it possible he’ll go back to the park? Or back to someone’s apartment that he wants to torment?” Keren grabbed the armrest on the door beside her to keep from tipping over toward Paul. “We found LaToya because we anticipated his hunt for frogs.”

“We found LaToya because we got lucky.” Paul straightened the car out and floored it. “Caldwell brought his own frogs, and we just happened to be close at hand.”

“We found LaToya,” Keren said, “because God wanted her found.”

Paul glanced sharply at her and seemed to lose his focus on their conversation for a minute. He looked back at the street and tightened his hands on the steering wheel and slowed down a bit.

“So beasts, does that mean sheep, cattle?” Keren didn’t know whether to pursue the conversation about God or not. They were almost to their destination.

“In the Bible it says plague of beasts or livestock or animals, depending on which version you read.” Paul seemed to shift mental gears as he spoke of the Bible. Keren hoped it lasted. “If Caldwell wanted to be true to the meaning of the Bible, he’d go to the nearest cattle ranch or stockyards and leave Wilma there.”

Keren’s stomach twisted to think of what might be coming. “But he wants to stay close to the mission. That’s been the only thing he hasn’t deviated from. Even my apartment isn’t that far.”

“So where do you find animals?” Paul pulled up to the lab supply store.

“There is a petting zoo at that same park. But he hasn’t been back there since LaToya.” Keren was relieved to have arrived alive.

“We can stake it out.”

They got out and got to the front door just as it was closing for the day. Keren used her badge and Paul let them assume he had one, too. He did a lot of bullying to get the manager to stay around and let them check the recent orders. Keren called the last lab supply store, but there was no answer. “We’ll have to try that one tomorrow.”

They left the building. Paul went to the driver’s side as if it were his right. “Let’s track down the name of the guy who runs that last store and get him to let us in.”

“It’s too late, Paul. We took forever in that last place, and I thought the manager was going to wring our necks. It’s almost sundown. We’re going to have to wait until tomorrow.”

Keren would have wrestled him for the keys but decided he needed to bolster his spirits, so she let him drive like a lunatic for a while longer. He seemed to enjoy that. “We’re closing in on him. We’ll find him through the place we check tomorrow, or we’ll find him in the lists we already have.”

“Maybe, unless he went out of town for this stuff.” Paul’s foot tapped, and he stared unseeing into the lowering sun but he remained in the parking space.

“Let’s go see how LaToya’s doing.” Keren waited.

Finally Paul started the car. “If there was any change I’d have heard,” he said, as if going to see her was unnecessary. With a shrug of his shoulders he added, “We might as well go there and sleep on the couches. We’re both as good as homeless.”

As he drove, Keren wondered if she shouldn’t give him a pep talk about not being such a cynical jerk. She remembered very vividly now why she’d been left with such a bad impression of Detective Paul Morris.

They drove through a fast-food joint and ate in the car on the way to the hospital. Paul wondered if he could call this a date. He nearly smiled at the thought.

Since Keren paid for both of them … since Paul had no money … it was a real modern kind of date.

The cop was in full control of him after the day he’d spent, and he decided he liked it, at least for now. He even toyed with the idea of giving the press a few words next time they rushed him. He could work it to raise money for the mission. They might be able to help with the search for Caldwell. He hesitated when he remembered how casually he was dressed. He needed to get a haircut. Maybe buy a suit.

His thoughts seemed to shove the pastor out of the forefront of his thoughts. How had he survived in the Lighthouse Mission? He hadn’t done anything for himself in years. He never ate anywhere else, had no friends outside the mission. He’d lost all perspective.

The doctor was with LaToya when they got to the hospital and a nurse said he’d be awhile so they should settle in. She also told them LaToya hadn’t shown any signs of regaining consciousness.

“We’re wasting our time sleeping here.” Paul looked around the pretty waiting room. The hospital did its best to make it a nice place to wait through a bad time.

But it was still a hospital waiting room.