Evidence of Life. Barbara Sissel Taylor

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      “Yes. I’ll take the interstate to San Antonio where Lindsey said they spent Friday night, and if they aren’t there, I’ll drive to Boerne.”

      “And if they aren’t in Boerne?”

      “I don’t know. I’ll go on to Kate’s, I guess.”

      Her mother didn’t comment on her plan, that they both knew was pure folly. “Have you spoken to Jake?” she asked.

      Abby said she hadn’t, that she didn’t want to worry him “I’ll call you, Mama, and Jake, too, if—when I find them.”

      * * *

      It was pouring by the time Abby left the house, but she didn’t encounter torrential rain until she was fifty miles east of San Antonio. That’s when she began to see more cars and trucks and even semis take the exit ramps or pull onto the interstate’s shoulders. But Abby did not pull over. She continued driving west on the main highway, the same way she was certain Nick would have gone. He would never take the scenic route; he was too impatient, and he certainly wouldn’t fool around in weather like this. Lindsey had to have said something else.

      Safer route? Easier route?

      Why had they spent Friday night in San Antonio? Why would Nick pack the camping gear if he had no intention of camping? The questions shot like bullets through Abby’s brain.

      It’s about Daddy....

      Had Nick gotten sick? Abby’s breath caught. Why hadn’t she thought to call the hospitals? But she was fairly certain she’d heard properly when Lindsey said they were at a gas station. A Shell gas station. They could have had a flat tire or engine trouble. An accident? They could be marooned somewhere and unable to call. They could be almost anywhere. Abby searched the roadsides praying to be led to them, to see them, until her eyes burned with the effort. Until the rain grew so heavy the edges of the pavement were lost in road fog.

      The lane markings disappeared. Her world was foreshortened to the few feet that were visible beyond the BMW’s hood. How foolish she was to be out here. She thought of her mother, left behind to worry. Of Jake and his utter disbelief if he could see her. She thought how the joke would be on her if Nick and Lindsey were home now and she was the one lost.

      By the time she reached Boerne, she was bent over the steering wheel, holding it in her white-knuckled grip. There were no other cars. She wanted to stop but couldn’t think how. How would she navigate off a highway she wasn’t sure existed? Every frame of reference was lost to the fog, the endless sheets of rain. Nothing stood out, not a building or a tree or the road’s weed-choked verge. She might have been airborne for all she knew. She had to go on, to reach Kate, the ranch, higher ground. Abby thought maybe Nick had done that. In fact she began to believe it, that when she arrived there, she would find him and Lindsey safe, but when Kate’s house finally came into view, her heart-soaring wave of anticipation fell almost immediately into confusion.

      There were so many vehicles parked along the roadsides and in Kate’s driveway, mostly pickup trucks with boats attached and SUVs. There were a few sheriffs’ patrol cars, too, and a couple of ambulances. And incongruously, a helicopter sitting in the north pasture. Abby couldn’t take her eyes off it or the dozens of people who were crowded onto Kate’s porch. Exhausted-looking official types dressed in all kinds of rain gear with their hoods pushed off their heads, drinking coffee, talking into cell phones. The sense of urgency was palpable even at a distance. The scene was surreal, like something from a disaster movie. Abby felt heavy now with dread. She slowed, hunting for her Cherokee, praying to catch sight of it.

      The BMW had barely come to a stop before Kate had the door open. “What are you doing here?” She hauled Abby from the driver’s seat and searched her face, both of them heedless of the falling rain.

      Abby shook her head, starting to cry from fear and exhaustion. She stammered that her family was missing. “You haven’t seen them?”

      “No. Oh, Abby.” Getting the sense of it, Kate folded Abby into her arms, held her tightly and released her. “Come on,” she said. “We’re getting soaked.”

      They went up the front walkway and onto the porch. Kate made introductions as they worked their way through the throng. Abby met neighbors, a lot of them in uniforms, and quickly learned that because the ranch was high and dry, and maintained near-full electrical power from a built-in generator system, it made an ideal base for rescue operations. She was reassured that evacuations and search efforts were ongoing, but then someone mentioned the dozens of people who were missing.

      Abby turned to the porch rail and braced herself.

      “But not Nick,” Kate said. “I’m sure he’s found shelter somewhere.” Kate brought Abby around, walked with her toward the kitchen door, keeping up a reassuring stream of chatter, and then George spotted them.

      It was almost comical the way his astonished glance bounced from Abby to Kate, and once she explained what Abby was doing there, he said, “She needs to talk to Dennis.”

      “Dennis Henderson is the Bandera County sheriff and a good friend of ours,” Kate told Abby.

      And then Dennis was there, and once Kate introduced them, he took charge, putting his hand under Abby’s elbow, guiding her into Kate’s kitchen where it was warm and quiet. He sat Abby down and assured her he would do all he could to help her locate her family. By then, she was shivering, and he brought her a towel and a cup of hot coffee that Kate had generously laced with brandy.

      Kate brought Abby a pair of dry tennis shoes and socks, and while she changed into them, the sheriff sat across from her and began asking a series of questions: Why did she think Nick and Lindsey had come this way? Did she know what route they’d taken? What was the reason for their trip? Could Abby describe what they were wearing when they left home?

      She managed to give him the physical descriptions, but when it came to the rest, her eyes teared. She didn’t know the answers. “I thought they were going to camp out, but they didn’t. They spent Friday night in San Antonio. I don’t know why.” She clamped her lips together, chin trembling. She was horrified. How could she not know?

      “Do you know what campground they were headed to?”

      Abby shook her head, miserably. “There are several that we’ve gone to before, but I don’t know where Nick made reservations. I didn’t ask. How could I not ask?”

      “It’s all right,” the sheriff said. He found a tissue and handed it to her.

      She blew her nose and described Lindsey’s phone call, saying she was almost positive Lindsey had said they were at a gas station. “A Shell gas station,” Abby said, “in Boerne.”

      Sheriff Henderson seemed pleased with that; he said it gave him a place to start, and he did go there a few days later, once the water receded, and he spoke to the gas station attendant, a high school kid who remembered Lindsey. She was really cute, the kid said. She asked for the restroom key, but he’d gotten busy and couldn’t recall whether she’d been the one to bring it back. But it was there, on its hook behind the cash register, so he guessed someone must have returned it. He told the sheriff he thought he saw the Jeep leave the station and head east on Highway 46. And like everyone else, he spoke of the rain. But then no one who was in the Hill Country would ever talk about that April weekend again and not mention the rain.

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