Chapter 19: You Stay on the Ground

We ran.

Elias drove with one hand and called the motel's night clerk with the other.

I watched the empty road and the dark campus come up, and Bell Hall sitting black at the end of it.

"She doesn't drive at night," Elias said.

"She might have tonight."

At the foot of the fire stair we found the rental car with its door open and the dome light on.

The motel clerk's pickup was parked behind it.

Mr. Newcomb stood at the bottom step, leaning on his cane, with his eyes on the iron landings above us.

"She took the keys out of my coat," he said. "I followed in the clerk's truck."

"Where is she?"

"She walked right past me. She was on the phone. She said, Corinna's calling."

Elias went up the stair three steps at a time.

I went after him.

The night guard's booth was dark again, and the iron rang under our feet.

On the third landing a small figure in a green coat stood holding the rail with both hands.

She wore her nightgown under it and her husband's slippers.

"Mom," Elias said, very softly. "Mom. Look at me."

Mrs. Newcomb didn't turn her head.

Her phone was against her ear, and her eyes were open and wet, and she was awake.

I could see it in her face.

"It's all right," she said into the phone. "I'm here, baby. I won't come up if you don't want me to."

I held my breath.

The line was quiet.

Then Mrs. Newcomb nodded once, as if she had been told something plainly.

She lowered the phone and looked at her son.

"She rang me," she said. "It said Corinna. I haven't had a call from her since February."

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