Free Water from Stone - a Novel by Katherine Mariaca-Sullivan

stairs.  “Listen, kid,” she says when they reach the second floor, “you’re going to have to work with me on this. I’m not that great at guessing what you want and if you don’t start to eat, they’re going to take you away from me.” She lowers the baby into the crib. Lizzie, looking wide awake, stares back at her.  “I’ll tell you what,” Mar says, reaching again for her, “how’s about you climb into bed with me for a little bit and we’ll watch some TV? Would you like that? Uh-huh. OK, let’s go.”
    Eight
    Sy.
    Sy adjusts the car’s air conditioner to high. Even on that setting, it doesn’t come close to cutting through the humidity that hangs like a wet towel over South Florida. He loosens his shirt one more button and twists his neck to each side until he hears a satisfying crack, “ Aaaah .” For the tenth time that hour he wonders why people retire to Florida. Just one traffic jam on the turnpike south convinced him that he’ll stay in New York when his time comes to give it all up.
    The car in front of him moves and Sy edges up to the toll booth and rolls down his window. “How far to Homestead?”
    “About another fifteen miles,” the booth operator takes his money. “You here on vacation?”
    “Nah, just lookin’ someone up.”
    “New York, huh? I got me a friend in New York sounds just like you. Says it’s really hot up there now. You enjoy some of our fresh air, ya hear?”
    Miserable in the heat, Sy slides the window up before mumbling, “Bite me.”
    Forty-five minutes later, he pulls off onto the Homestead exit. Fifteen miles, my ass, he thinks, glancing at the odometer. Double that, more like it.
    Homestead is a desolate place. There are still signs of the hurricane that roared through almost two decades before. At least, he imagines it was the hurricane. It could just be lousy county maintenance and no one caring enough to keep it up. Ten minutes later, he decides no one cares. Maybe it’s the heat.
    The house he is looking for isn’t really a house. It is a double-wide trailer that is located in one of the few trailer communities that withstood Hurricane Andrew. He drives through a light just as it changes from yellow to red and turns into Sunshine Streams Mobile Estates. A guardhouse at the entrance causes him to slow down until he notices it is abandoned. He drives on.
    The community is laid out in meandering lanes where lazy curves lull the mind into thinking the place is almost nice. Pretty little flower gardens pay testament to the fact that in retirement you have time to mess around in the dirt. He thinks the lawn police should do something about all the crappy little lawn thingies, though. Funky little gnomes probably coming alive at night, getting into all sorts of trouble, little woodland animals peeing on tires, making bunny love, sprouting a whole new generation of yard junk. As he looks for her number, he wonders what makes trailer people so obsessed with the shit. You never see this kind of crap in front of mansions.  But at least they keep the neighborhood clean. Not like some he’s seen in New York.
    Sy has spent the past four months looking for the baby, tracking down every possible lead. He’s pulled strings, has even met up with Shaheen from the Bureau. Nothing. Then, two days ago, a woman who once worked at the hospital where Lindsey died and Mia was kidnapped, returned to work. “I got a divorce,” she told Sy. “I was lucky to get my old job back.” Arlene Thomas, who worked as a cashier in the hospital’s cafeteria, had been the one to tell Sy that the kidnapper had often met another girl for lunch. It took Sy another forty-eight hours to track Elie Burrows to her mother’s home in Florida.
    Sy finally spots the trailer he is looking for at the end of a cul-de-sac. He can see between the houses that it backs up to a little pond or a lake. Something wet. Probably primo property around here. He pulls the car over to where the grass meets the