Courage Tree (12 page)

She lived for the weekends, when she could fly. There was little danger in her reserve duty, and plenty of excitement. But then, the unexpected happened: she was called into active duty in the Persian Gulf. No one, not even Janine herself, had expected she’d be involved in warfare when she joined the reserves. She was prepared, though, proud of her training and excited by the challenge. Her skills as a helicopter pilot would be sorely needed.

She received no support from her parents. The only words they spoke to her during those few days before she was deployed were of the “we told you all along you had no business being in the reserves,” and “you made your bed, now you lie in it” variety. They turned their backs on her, both figuratively and literally, refusing even to see her off at the airport.

Joe was only slightly kinder. He said only once that he wished she were not in the reserves, and after that he simply avoided saying anything at all. Although he certainly gave her no overt encouragement, she was grateful to him for keeping his negative thoughts to himself. She knew that was a true challenge for him.

The four months in the Persian Gulf were a growing-up time for her. She flew supplies in and the injured out. Her days were filled with chemicals, explosions, the god-awful smoke and the boredom. She did not see death, but she heard of it, and she was shaken to the point of nightmares by the helicopter accident that took the life of another female pilot.

Returning from Desert Storm, she was a more somber young woman, more keenly aware of the brevity of life, and finally ready to settle down.
Anxious
to settle down. She agreed with Joe that it was time to start a family, and within a couple of weeks after stopping the Pill, she became pregnant. She quit her Omega-Flight job in her fifth month.

To everyone’s relief, Janine delivered a full-term, beautiful baby girl, and she and Joe settled into a comfortable family life, interrupted only by Janine’s continued monthly duty in the reserves. Her mother, thrilled to be a grandmother at last, began talking to her again. Janine planned to return to work when Sophie started school. She would be out of the reserves by then, and she hoped to take some sort of aviation-related job that would keep her on the ground. Having a child who needed her had done something to her yearning for risk.

The symptoms began shortly after Sophie’s third birthday.
A little blood in her urine, occasional puffiness around her eyes. She was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease. Her kidneys were still functioning then, but it would only be a matter of time before she needed a transplant or dialysis.

At that time, the news was full of stories of Desert Storm soldiers who were also getting sick with mysterious symptoms, and some of them had produced children with severe deformities and other illnesses. Janine herself felt perfectly healthy, but reading the stories of men and women whose children had been damaged in some way, possibly by the time their parents spent in the Gulf, tapped at her guilt. Was she responsible for Sophie’s illness? Was her child paying for Janine’s need for adventure and excitement?

Her parents certainly thought so. Janine had overheard her mother telling a neighbor that Sophie was one of those babies who had gotten sick because her mother served in the Gulf War. Janine didn’t need them to lay any more guilt on her. She was producing enough of her own.

Joe never directly blamed her for Sophie’s illness, but she knew how he felt about her serving in the reserves, and every time he read about a sick child of a Desert Storm soldier, he passed the article to her in silence. That’s when she and Joe slipped into the quiet, end stage of their marriage. They related only with regard to Sophie’s needs. Her illness consumed them. Joe had an affair, and Janine, in a fit of rage and pain, told him she wanted a divorce. She and Sophie moved into the cottage at Ayr Creek. It had been an unwelcomed move, but they could live there for free, and her parents could help care for Sophie.

“Have I been a good father?” Joe’s voice, coming from the passenger seat of the car, startled Janine out of her memories.

She glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead, but she doubted he could see the road for the tears in his eyes. He had been a poor husband, who’d offered her little support in
pursuing her dreams, who’d manipulated her with guilt about Sophie’s illness, and who’d ultimately betrayed her in the most painful way one partner could betray another. But he had always loved Sophie. He would give his life for his daughter.

“Yes, Joe,” she said. “You have been an excellent dad.”

L
ucas told the other two gardeners to work in the perennial beds near the woods, while he elected to prune the hedges close to the mansion. The men had looked at him with surprise, since he usually would have delegated the pruning task to them, and he said nothing to explain the change in his instructions. He needed mindless work today, and he also wanted to be close to the mansion. What was going on? Had they heard anything? He’d even worn his cell phone, hoping that Janine would call him with the news that Sophie had been found. He needed that news. He needed it more than anyone could imagine.

Janine had called him very early that morning, while she waited for Joe to pick her up so that they could once again trace the route from the camp. He knew by the gravelly sound of her voice that she had not slept. Neither had he. How did two girls and one adult simply disappear? His best guess was that the leader had taken off with them, for whatever strange and scary purpose. Maybe she just took them someplace for some fun. A pizza dinner and a night in a motel watching
television. It didn’t seem like a realistic option, but neither did anything else he could think of.

He turned off the electric clippers for a moment to rest his hands. His wrist throbbed beneath the splint, and he hoped he was not doing himself permanent damage. Standing next to the boxwood, he looked toward Janine’s cottage. He could picture Sophie running out the front door, laughing, with the energy and joy that had been new to her since she’d been in the study.
Damn
, this wasn’t fair. That little girl was just starting to live.

Sophie would have known she needed to get her IV today, but although she acted brave when it came time for that miserable two-hour treatment, she was not above wanting to miss it. He knew that Janine had not told her what would happen to her if she did miss it, not in specific terms, anyway. Sophie would probably delight in the opportunity to skip a session with Herbalina.

He could imagine the conversation in the leader’s car.

“Tomorrow I have to get Herbalina,” she would have said.

“Who on earth is Herbalina?” the leader would have responded.

“It’s not a
who
.” Sophie would giggle, her freckled nose wrinkling. “It’s medicine. The doctor calls it Herbalina, ’cause it’s made out of herbs and plants and things.”

“What does it taste like?” Perhaps it would be the other little girl asking that question.

“I’ve never tasted it.” It would be like Sophie to give a little wiseass answer to that question. “I get it in my arm. In a vein.”

“That must hurt,” the leader might say.

“It does,” Sophie would reply. “And I have to sit there for a whole two hours with that needle in my arm.” She might show the leader the small mark on her wrist, the site of her last infusion.

“Well,” the leader would say slyly. “Why don’t you skip
seeing ol’ Herbalina tomorrow. How about that?” She’d look at the other little girl. “What do you say we kidnap Sophie and take her to King’s Dominion for a couple of days instead of—”

Lucas sighed. He turned on the clippers again and ran them along the side of the boxwood. The fantasy wasn’t working. No Scout leader could be
that
irresponsible.

He looked up at the sound of the side door falling shut and saw Donna Snyder walk across the driveway to the three-car garage. Turning off the clippers again, he set them on the ground and walked quickly toward her.

“Mrs. Snyder?” he called.

She stopped to look at him. She was a handsome woman in her late fifties, her blond hair pulled back in a clasp at the nape of her neck. He could easily picture her at the front of a high school history class. She’d probably been an impatient teacher, though; she certainly was impatient with Janine. Even now, her expression was one of irritation at his interruption.

“Is there any news about Sophie?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Janine and her husband are out looking for her.”

Her ex-husband, he wanted to correct her. Janine had told him her parents had never truly accepted her divorce from Joe.

“Do they have any idea…any new theories on what might have—”

“No. No one seems to have a clue.” She pressed a button on the remote in her hand, and one of the garage doors began to rise. The sunlight caught her eyes as she watched the door’s progress. They were rimmed in crimson, and Lucas felt a pulse of sympathy for her.

“This must be very frightening for you,” he said.

For a moment, his empathy seemed to alter her demeanor, and the guard she usually held in place when she was around him slipped from her shoulders.

“I wish the police would do more,” she said. “They aren’t
doing much of—” She shook her head. “I guess they just don’t know what to do, either. What do you do when a child falls off the face of the earth?” She moved toward the open garage. “And now I have to run to the store because there’s nothing in the house. I hate to be away from the phone.”

“Let me go for you,” he volunteered, and he knew by the expression on her face that she found his offer very strange. “Really,” he said. “I’d like to help in some way.”

“Why?” she asked. “This isn’t your family or your problem.”

He thought of telling her he cared about Sophie, but knew that would only feed her paranoia about him. “I’d just like to help,” he said again.

“No, that’s not necessary.” She reached into her purse for her car keys, her guard raised again. “Will you make sure to do the boxwood by the front entrance?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And I hope they find her very soon.”

He was raking up the boxwood clippings when Joe and Janine pulled into the driveway. It was six o’clock, and he could feel the burn on his face and the back of his neck. He didn’t usually work in the full sun for this long and knew he would pay later for having done so.

Janine got out of the driver’s side of the car, and even from where he stood, he could see the exhaustion in her face. He hoped she’d been able to focus on her driving better than he had on his gardening. Joe got out of the car and started walking across the driveway toward the mansion, looking straight through Lucas as if he were not there, but Janine waved. She hesitated halfway across the driveway, and he knew she wanted to walk over to him, but Joe turned to her and took her arm, guiding her toward the house.

“Any news?” Lucas called out.

Janine shook her head as she allowed herself to be led inside.

It had been over twenty-four hours, Lucas thought. That
milestone seemed significant somehow, and he knew it could mean nothing good.

After he’d finished bagging the clippings, he packed up his tools and drove back to his own house. In the kitchen of the fourroom rambler, he took an apple from the fruit bowl and a cooked chicken breast from the refrigerator, then headed out into the woods behind his house.

From his desk chair in the tree house study, he stared out at the woods, laced now with shadow. He had worked far too hard today; the skin on his face was tender to the touch from too much sun. Nausea teased him, and his hand trembled as he bit into the apple. He wanted to call Janine, but thought he’d better wait for her to call him.

Turning on his computer, he tried to focus on his e-mail, but it was impossible. Memories he didn’t want bubbled to the surface of his mind. Why fight them? he thought. The present was beginning to feel just as disturbing as the past.

Would the cop show up again or were they through with him? He prayed that was the case. Did Joe and the Snyders still think he might be involved in this whole mess somehow? He wished they would ask him outright. He could honestly tell them that he had nothing to do with Sophie’s disappearance.

But that would be the only honest thing about him.

T
he inside of the mansion was sticky with heat. In the interest of historical accuracy, air-conditioning had never been installed, and the June humidity was back with a vengeance. Janine, who did not share her parents’ passion for all that was historical, especially considering that most rooms in the mansion were never open to the public, felt as though she were being smothered by the air in the parlor. Or maybe it was the atmosphere of discouragement and blame that was sucking the breath from her.

Her mother sat on one of the upholstered chairs, staring out the window. Every so often, she spoke out loud, although in barely more than a whisper. “Where’s my
baby
?” It was as though she had been the one who’d given birth to Sophie, the one to sit by her hospital bed when she lay so ill and the one to read to her at night in the little cottage when she was sick and scared. It made Janine feel even guiltier for her role in Sophie’s disappearance, as though she’d stolen something from her mother as well as from herself.

Her father played the awkward host, setting out a platter of tortilla chips and salsa for her and Joe, as if they were guests
in the house. He was a nice man, her father. A good man who, over the years, often found himself caught in the middle between his rebellious daughter and his cool and angry wife.

“I thought both of you did well at the press conference,” he said now, sitting down on the Chippendale sofa.

“What time did you say the police were coming?” Her mother looked at Joe. She hadn’t said a word directly to Janine since their arrival, but that was no surprise to any of them.

Joe looked at his watch. “Any minute,” he said.

Sergeant Loomis had told them he’d be stopping by tonight to meet the Snyders and catch everyone up on police activity.

“Here comes a car up the driveway,” her mother said. “That must be him now.” She got to her feet and smoothed the legs of her plaid slacks.

A moment later, Janine opened the door for the sergeant.

“Hello, Mrs. Donohue,” the big man said to Janine, as he walked into the parlor. Quickly, he took in the details of the room, and Janine saw the appraisal in his eyes.
These folks have money,
he was thinking. She doubted he knew that her parents were merely the caretakers here, the poor relations of the Campbell clan. They’d had nothing to do with the purchase of the enormous oriental carpet lying on the cherry-and-beech parquet floor or the selection of the veritable gallery of nineteenth-century art on the parlor walls.

Janine introduced him to her parents, then sat on the sofa near her father. “Is there any news?” she asked, knowing very well there was no news and tired of asking the question. If the search had borne fruit, surely the police would have called them.

“No, I’m afraid not.” Loomis sat down on the Queen Anne chair, gently, as though afraid he might damage something in this elegant, handsomely aged parlor. “I didn’t get a chance to talk with you and Mr. Donohue much after the press conference, and I wanted the chance to meet your…uh, extended family. I just came from the Krafts’ house.”

“How many people do you have out looking for Sophie?” Janine’s mother asked from her seat near the window. Her father offered him the tray of chips and salsa, which he declined with a wave of one big hand.

“Everyone in the department is working on it,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his uniform pocket and mopping his brow. He probably thought their air-conditioning was broken. “And so are the other police departments between here and the camp.”

“I still think you need to do more,” Joe said. “Janine and I drove all over last night and today, asking people if they’d seen Sophie and checking the side roads. And frankly, we didn’t see a lot of cops out. She and I can’t cover every possible route they might have taken.”

“We’re doing everything we can, Mr. Donohue,” the sergeant assured him.

“Maybe you should be up in a plane,” Janine’s father said to Loomis.

“It doesn’t make any sense to do an air search at this point,” Sergeant Loomis informed him. “To begin with, we don’t have any clear idea where to look.”

Joe glanced at Janine, and she spoke up. “I’m going up in a helicopter tomorrow,” she said, directing the information more to the air than to her parents or the officer.

“Why?” her mother asked, apparently forgetting that she was not speaking to her.

“I need to be able to look down on the area myself,” she said. “I have to satisfy myself that I’ve looked everywhere—and in every way—that I can.”

There was silence in the room for a moment. “Are you licensed to fly a helicopter?” Sergeant Loomis asked.

She nodded. “Yes. And I’ve already made the arrangements.” She’d called Omega-Flight from the police station before the press conference, and they’d offered her the use of one of their helicopters. “I’m going up as soon as it’s daylight. If Sophie hasn’t turned up by then, that is.”

“That’s ridiculous,” her mother said. “If the police say they can’t find anything from the air, how do you expect to?”

“I have to try,” she said.

“Will you go with her, Joe?” her father asked.

“No, I want to go alone,” Janine said quickly, saving Joe from the embarrassment of having to admit he still feared flying.

“I really don’t understand you,” her mother said.

“Mrs. Donohue,” Sergeant Loomis said to Janine. “I think it may be a wasted effort on your part. And are you really up to flying right now? This has been a very stressful—”

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted, and the tone of her voice put an end to his comments. She didn’t dare glance at her mother.

Her father had once told her that, in her youth, her mother had been very much like Janine. She’d had a wild streak, he’d said, and that had cost her the respect—and the money—of her family. Now, she was intolerant of any behavior that reminded her of the girl she used to be.

“I know we talked about the possibility that this might be a kidnap case.” Sergeant Loomis looked around at the room once more. “A ransom case. Now that I’m here…I know Joe and Janine don’t have a lot of wealth someone might be after, but I’m wondering if someone might know that you—” he nodded at Janine’s father “—and your wife are well-off. Can you think of anyone who would know that about you and might have taken your granddaughter with the hope of collecting a ransom for her? You haven’t received any calls along that line, have you?” He looked at Joe, then Janine, and they shook their heads. “The kidnappers would most likely tell you not to involve us, but trust me, that would be a mistake.”

“No, no calls,” said Janine’s father. “And we’re not actually well-off.”

Her mother literally winced at his admission.

“My wife is the last in a long line of Campbells,” her father continued, “and we’re allowed to live here, but we don’t own any of the estate. We don’t have any of the Campbell fortune.”

“But someone might not realize that,” Loomis said. “They might know you live in the Ayr Creek mansion and think you have the money to rescue your granddaughter.”

Janine had not considered that. People often thought her parents were wealthy. In reality, they lived on the reduced pensions of two teachers who had taken an early retirement.

“But no one’s called,” Joe said. “Wouldn’t they have called by now?”

“Not if they wanted to get far away before they do.”

“Could they be after money from the other girl’s family?” Janine’s father asked.

“Not likely,” Loomis said. “He’s a grocery clerk with a slew of kids.”

“It sounds like you think Alison might have taken them,” Joe said. “The Scout leader.”

“Well, on the one hand, that would fit, since everyone knows she drove off with them.” Loomis stretched out his long legs, wincing when the chair made a barely perceptible cracking sound. “But we checked her background, and even though people say she’s a little…
nutty
, I guess the right word would be…she has no record of doing anything outside the law. She was a straight-A student in college. And the
really
interesting thing is that she’s getting married next Saturday.”

“What?” Janine said.

“Yeah, not a lot of people knew, apparently. But I’ve spoken with her roommate, Charlotte, and her fiancé, Garret, and they said it’s supposed to be a quiet little ceremony at Meadowlark Gardens. Just a few friends and Garret’s family. Alison’s mother is in Ohio, and she has a back injury and can’t make it. The wedding’s been planned for six months or so, and Alison was excited about it. Seems like a funny time to kidnap a couple of kids, doesn’t it?”

“I’m so confused,” Janine said. “None of this makes any sense.”

“I know.” Sergeant Loomis had genuine sympathy in his
voice. “But it will in time. These things don’t stay mysteries forever.”

“We don’t
have
time, though,” Janine said quietly. “Like I told you…like I said at the press conference…Sophie needs…” She felt the eyes of her family on her. Her mother seemed to hate her, her father was disappointed in her, and although Joe certainly shared her frustration, he did not give a hoot if Sophie ever received another IV of Herbalina. “She was supposed to get a medical treatment today,” Janine finished.

Her mother scoffed. “She needs treatment, all right, but not that one.”

“We know, Mrs. Donohue,” Loomis said to Janine. “We’re all very aware that Sophie has a life-threatening illness.” He turned to her mother. “I know that Joe, here, doesn’t agree with the treatment Sophie’s getting,” he said. “It sounds like you don’t either, am I hearing that right?”

“None of us do,” Janine’s father said. “We think putting Sophie in that study was a mistake. But—”

“You would have rather seen her suffer some more?” Janine said, her voice rising.

“Of course not,” her mother said. “But we wanted to give her a chance to
live
. All her doctors, every one of them, said that herbal…stuff…would just give her temporary relief. You gave up on Sophie ever getting better. All you cared about was that she died with a smile on her face.”

“Mom,” Joe said. “Now’s the wrong time for this.”

“It’s the perfect time,” Donna said. “Sophie was always—”

Loomis suddenly stood up, silencing her with the sheer mass of his presence. “Joe’s right,” he said. “We need unity here, not a lot of tearing each other apart.” He spoke in a neutral, peace-keeping tone, and Janine wondered if he’d been trained to do that when family tempers flared. “And we know this is an urgent situation, Janine. What you said at the press conference today will help spread the word. That way, if it’s a kidnap situation and the kidnapper gets that informa
tion, he or she might decide it’s not worth the risk they’re taking and get the girl back to safety.” He started walking to the door, and everyone else got to their feet.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, as Joe opened the door for him. “Meantime, I want you all to be good to each other.”

Joe walked with him out the front door, and Janine quickly followed. She didn’t dare stay behind with her parents.

Dusk was settling over Ayr Creek as they stood under the portico and watched Loomis walk down the path to the driveway, where his car was parked. The broad front lawn was dotted with fireflies.

Janine brushed a mosquito away from her face. “I’m going to the cottage,” she said, once the police car had pulled out of the driveway.

“Would you like me to come with you?” There was hope in Joe’s voice.

“No,” she said. “I should try to get some sleep if I’m going to fly tomorrow.”

“Maybe I’ll search from the ground again,” he said. “Although—” he shrugged “—I don’t know where to begin or where to end anymore.”

She leaned forward to hug him, something she hadn’t done in years. “We have to keep trying,” she said.

He seemed reluctant to let go of her, and she was first to draw away, remembering what he’d said in the car about wishing they could get back together. She didn’t want to give him false hope.

“Maybe Paula could go with you tomorrow,” she suggested.

He nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. She’d have to take time off from work, but I know she’d want to.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry you’ve had this misperception of her all these years.”

“I’m glad to know I was wrong.” She turned away from the
mansion and headed for the driveway. “Good night,” she called over her shoulder. She would leave her parents to Joe.

Once inside her cottage, she immediately sat down on the sofa and reached for the phone.

“Any news?” Lucas asked, when he picked up on his end. He’d obviously been waiting for her call.

“Nothing.” She heard the remarkable flatness in her voice. How could she sound so calm, so stoic, when her insides were in turmoil?

“You must be going crazy, Jan.”

“I’m leasing a helicopter tomorrow,” she told him. “I wanted to know if you’d go up with me.”

There was silence on his end of the line. “Won’t your parents or Joe know something’s up between us if I did that?”

“I don’t care if anyone knows, Lucas. I’m tired of this, and I’m sorry I insisted on keeping our relationship secret for this long. It’s ridiculous. I’ve been afraid of what my parents and Joe would say for my entire adult life.
You’re
the person I need at my side right now, and I don’t care who knows it.”