Below Zero (32 page)

“It’s just so unfair,” Lucy said. “To make us believe like that.”

Joe said, “There has to be a reason, but we don’t know what it is. Maybe your mom will find out something.”

“I hope so. If anyone can, it’s Mom.”

 

 

 

WHEN MARYBETH AND LUCY had arrived in Marybeth’s van, he’d had a few moments alone with his wife without Sheridan or Lucy. Marybeth’s first thought, that they’d simply located the wrong girl, was dispelled when Joe explained what had happened. How he’d called out the new cell phone number to Coon, how Coon had been able to get his people in Cheyenne to contact the phone company and track it under the original judicial authorization. “For once,” Joe had told Marybeth, “she didn’t turn her phone off right away after she sent the text. The FBI was able to pinpoint a tower. Luckily, there was only one road in the area and we were able to get there fast. Fifteen more minutes and . . .” he left the sentence to hang there with meaning.

Coon and Portenson had loaded the girl on their chopper and taken off en route to the nearest large medical facility: Rapid City. According to Coon, Janie Doe had lost consciousness in the air. The Crook County Sheriff’s Department arrested Corey Talich and sent for a state helicopter to airlift Chase’s body to town. Joe had climbed back up the mountainside, dreading Sheridan’s reaction when he told her.

“What about Nate?” Marybeth asked him. “Where is he?”

Joe said, “As soon as the chopper came over, Nate vanished. He didn’t want Portenson to see him and grab him. He knew we had to get April—or whoever she is—out of there fast.”

“Where is he now?”

Joe shrugged. “You know Nate. He’s probably hiding out with some falconer buddy of his. Those guys take care of each other.”

 

 

 

WHILE THEY WAITED
for Marybeth to return, Joe looked up at the silent wall-mounted television and was surprised to see a visual of Leo Dyekman’s ranch house. He didn’t need to turn up the volume to follow the story. A local correspondent did a stand-up on the front lawn of the ranch house and theatrically gestured behind him. The camera zoomed in on the front door and panned across the crime scene tape. The initial on-the-scene report was followed by a clip of Portenson, flanked by local law enforcement, speaking behind a podium. Coon was at his left, avoiding the camera lens and looking uncomfortable. There was a photo of a handsome older man in a tuxedo identified as David Stenson, aka “Stenko,” who looked remarkably like Ernest Hemingway, Joe thought. Then came a grainy, poor-resolution photo of Robert standing in what looked like a rain forest. Joe guessed the image had been taken from the ClimateSavior .net website. A graphic read ARMIED AND DANGEROUS. Joe guessed “armied” instead of “armed” was a result of the news staff’s hastily assembling the report.

The reporter on Dyekman’s lawn threw it back to the anchor, an attractive brunette who looked all of twenty-five years old and was obviously reading from a teleprompter by the way her eyes tracked across the screen. The face of Leo Dyekman filled the screen, followed by a Chicago Police Department booking photo of Nathanial Talich.

There was a long-distance helicopter shot of the mountains that zoomed in on the overturned vehicle on the floor of the canyon. Under the graphic IN CUSTODY was an old booking photo of Corey Talich.

Joe waited, hoping there would be news of the arrest of Stenko and Robert. Instead, the local news switched to an interview with a rancher complaining about his fences being knocked down by buffalo from Custer State Park.

 

 

 

MARYBETH FINALLY
came back shaking her head, her face ashen.

Joe and Lucy looked up expectantly.

“She could almost be April,” Marybeth said. “She’s fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, it’s hard to tell. But she’s blond, tall, and attractive. I tried to convince myself that it might be her, that her looks had just changed as she got older. But no, it’s not her. Not at all.”

Joe said, “Is she awake?”

Marybeth was stoic. “No. She’s just out of surgery for her leg injury so she’s still under. But it isn’t the bullet wound that’s the problem. It’s the loss of blood. The doctor said blood loss was severe.”

Joe waited for a beat, said, “Is she going to be okay, then?”

Marybeth’s face twitched and her eyes filled with tears. “Maybe. Doubtful. They don’t know for sure. The emergency doctors said the blood loss could create something called hypovolemic shock. That’s when not enough blood flows through the organs. It made her heart beat too quickly and made her blood pressure drop. It could have long-term effects on her brain. When someone loses that much blood . . . they just don’t know what kind of internal damage was caused. It could be days before she wakes up, if she wakes up at all. And if she does, well, they just don’t know.”

Sheridan stirred and sat up rubbing sleep from her eyes. She said, “Who is she?”

“We don’t know,” Marybeth said. “She had no identification on her of any kind.”

Said Sheridan, “Why did she chose me? Why did she even start sending me texts?”

There was no answer to that.

“I mean, she knew all about us. Our pets, Lucy, everything. How could she know all that if she isn’t April?”

Joe and Marybeth exchanged looks. Joe hoped Marybeth had an answer.

Marybeth said, “I’ve been thinking about it. April wasn’t the only child in the Sovereign Camp that day. Maybe this girl knew April. Maybe they were friends and April told her all about us.”

Sheridan hugged herself, unconvinced. “Okay, but why would she text me? Doesn’t this girl have family of her own? Why me? Why us? And why would she wait so long after April told her about us to contact me?”

“There’s only one way we’re going to find out,” Joe said. “She’ll have to tell us.”

Lucy had listened to everything but said nothing. Finally, she declared, “April is still alive. This girl knows where she is.”

Marybeth sat on the couch next to Joe and Lucy and ran her fingers through Lucy’s hair. “If only it were so,” Marybeth said sadly.

 

 

 

JOE AND MARYBETH
sent Sheridan and Lucy to the cafeteria so they could get dinner before it closed. It also gave them a chance to talk without the girls around.

Marybeth said, “One thing I do know is this girl, whoever she is, is all alone. Maybe someone somewhere has reported her missing, but we don’t know that. I have a feeling she’s been on her own for quite some time, though. I can’t ascribe her contacting Sheridan as some kind of malice on her part. I never even considered the possibility. She needs our help, Joe. Maybe this was her very strange way of asking.”

Joe said, “I was wondering how long it would take for you to say that.” He still couldn’t get over the shock of finally finding April, only to find out she was someone else.

Marybeth took both of Joe’s hands in hers and looked deeply into his eyes. “We’ve got to help her, Joe. Even if she’s not conscious, she needs to know we’re here and we care about her. Can you imagine waking up in a hospital and having no one—I mean no one—there to hold you?”

He shook his head. It
was
unimaginable.

She said softly, “Maybe it was supposed to happen this way. Maybe we’re being given a second chance to make up for what happened to April.”

Joe didn’t know what to say. The implications of Marybeth’s statement made it suddenly hard to breathe.

“Are you here for Janie Doe?” someone asked.

Joe and Marybeth looked over to find an overweight woman in an ill-fitting business suit carrying a clipboard. Her face was a facsimile of sympathy and understanding. Joe didn’t resent her for her show of false concern and expression of faux familiarity. He thought it must be tough to be her.

“Yes,” Marybeth said. “We’re here for her.”

“So you’re the parents?”

“We’re not her parents,” Marybeth said, shaking her head. “We’re here as, well, what are we, Joe?”

Joe shrugged. “We thought she was someone else,” he said to the hospital staffer.

The staffer, whose hospital ID read SARA MCDOUGAL, waited for more explanation with her eyebrows arched.

“I’m sorry,” McDougal said, finally, “so you’re not related or friends with Janie Doe in any way?”

Joe and Marybeth shook their heads, but Marybeth said, “We want to be here for her, though.”

“Even though you say you don’t know her?” McDougal said gently, trying to tamp down the doubt and suspicion that lurked beneath her question.

“That’s correct,” Marybeth said.

“Well, that’s interesting.”

Joe said, “Yup.”

McDougal made a point of reading the document on her clipboard studiously, although it was apparent she was really trying to figure out which way she wanted to go with the discussion. She said, “I hate to ask you at a time like this, especially given your, um, lack of a relationship with Janie Doe, but do you know who is responsible for paying for her medical care? Does she have insurance?”

“We have no idea,” Marybeth said flatly.

“Is she a resident of the county?”

Marybeth said, “I doubt it. We heard a rumor she might be from Chicago, but we’ve got no proof of that.”

“Does she qualify for Medicare? Medicaid? Does the State of Illinois have some kind of insurance for its residents?”

“I don’t know,”
Marybeth said, steel in her voice.

“How are we going to resolve this?” McDougal asked. “Someone’s got to be responsible.”

“I’m losing my patience with you,” Marybeth said to her. “I know you have a form to fill out, but this is a very difficult situation without easy answers. We’ll work something out, I’m sure.”

After McDougal walked away, her heels clicking down the hallway, Joe asked Marybeth, “Work it out how? This is going to cost thousands of dollars. And if she requires long-term care . . . how can we help her?”

He was surprised when Marybeth responded with a slight conspiratorial smile. “I’ve got an idea,” she said.

Before she could explain, Coon stormed down the hallway. “Joe, there you are. Stenko and Robert’s trail has gone cold and we need to talk. Do you have a minute?”

“Slow down,” Joe said to Coon. “Let me introduce my wife, Marybeth. Marybeth, this is Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI.”

Coon took a breath and said to her, “I’m sorry I was rude. I have better manners than that.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Thank you for what you did to rescue the . . . girl in here.”

Joe could tell she struggled through the last few words.

Coon was confused and looked to Joe for an explanation.

“It’s not April Keeley,” Joe said. “We don’t know who she is and we won’t know unless she comes out of her coma.”

“What?”
Coon cried, and bent forward at the waist with his palms out, as if someone had delivered a blow to the back of his neck. “I was hoping she could help us find Stenko. She’s the only one who knows what they’re up to or what they might do next.”

“She can’t talk,” Joe said.

“She may never talk,” Marybeth added softly. “She has very little brain activity. They don’t know if they can bring her back.”

He turned and walked away, cupping the top of his head with his hand, saying, “Jesus, help us.”

Joe said to Marybeth, “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Take your time,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

 

 

JOE FOLLOWED COON down the stairs and out through a heavy door marked EMERGENCY EXIT—DO NOT OPEN into a side parking lot of the hospital. The night was crisp and cool, the stars beaming through light cloud cover.

Coon fished a pack of cigarettes out of his sport coat and tapped one out.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Joe said.

“Officially, I don’t,” Coon said, lighting up. “I haven’t for the past year. Want one?”

“No thanks.”

“So did she say anything at all before she went under?” Coon asked. “Anything at all?”

Joe shook his head.

“Man, this is terrible. Portenson sent me here to question her. We need to know what she knows.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Like I said, Stenko’s trail has gone cold. Portenson’s pulled out all the stops to find him as fast as we can. His name and photo is out nationwide, and he’s doing press conferences and interviews one after the other. We’ve got the national cable news networks interested, and they’re lining up.”

Joe said, “I saw it on the news. I was surprised you guys went so high-profile so fast.”

Coon nodded and sucked on his cigarette. “Yeah, me too. We’ve really got our necks out there this time. With all the stuff that’s been happening with the Bureau in general and our incident this morning in particular, we can’t afford to screw this up worse than it’s already been screwed up. And my boss is nearly crazed. He knows if he doesn’t deliver Stenko within twenty-four hours and make that incident this morning peripheral to the big arrest, he’ll look like an idiot. We’ll all look like idiots.”

“But if you find him,” Joe said, “it may turn out to be Portenson’s ticket out of here.”

“That’s what he’s thinking,” Coon said. “You know how the bureaucracy works. He doesn’t even want to consider any other outcome at this point. Which brings us back to the situation at hand. Is there anything we can do to get that girl to talk?”

Joe said, “You’re starting to piss me off, Chuck. There’s an unknown teenage girl in there fighting for her life. As far as we know she’s completely innocent—maybe even a kidnap victim. My family’s been turned upside down. Show a little compassion, will you?”

Coon stopped pacing and looked Joe over. He said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. But I’m not sure what to do. Every minute Stenko is getting farther away and we don’t even know what direction.”