Courage Tree (19 page)

“The water’s probably warm enough for you now,” Zoe said. “I’ll get you a washcloth, and then you can give yourself a little bath, okay?”

Sophie looked at the door to the shanty. “Can we call my mom first?” she asked.

“Oh, honey,” Zoe said, realizing that Sophie had no idea how much of a predicament she was in. “I don’t have a phone.”

A flicker of fear passed through Sophie’s eyes. “Should we go to a neighbor’s house and use their phone?”

Zoe shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t have any neighbors either, I live very far from anyone.”

“Do you have a car?”

Zoe shook her head again, and tears welled up in Sophie’s eyes once more.

“How can I get home?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Zoe said. “I’ll think of something. But listen, honey.” She put her hands on Sophie’s shoulders. “For now you’re safe, and that’s what’s most important. You’ll have a good sponge bath, and then you can sleep for a while. I can tell you’re very tired.”

Sophie bit her lip, looking toward the shanty door again as if she thought Zoe might have a phone in there and just not know it. “Okay,” she said finally.

This was a child accustomed to duress, Zoe thought. Accustomed to things not going her way.

She helped Sophie with her bath, then gave her a bite of rabbit and some canned peas before putting her down for a nap on the air mattress she’d prepared for Marti. The little girl was asleep before Zoe had even left the room.

In the clearing, she washed Sophie’s T-shirt and shorts, hanging them over the porch railing to dry. Then she carried the soiled underwear deep into the woods, where she dug a whole and buried them.

Walking back to the shanty, she hoped she would discover that Sophie was gone. Maybe she’d dreamed the little girl’s arrival, or maybe the people looking for her had found her and spirited her away. She walked into the shanty, through the living room to the bedroom, hoping, praying.

But Sophie was still there, a fragile little waif in Marti’s bed, sleeping free of nightmares for the first time in days.

A
t six-twenty, after an hour or two of fitful sleep, Janine and Lucas waited in the motel parking lot, leaning against Joe’s car. They had no car with them, since they’d arrived in the area by helicopter, so they would have to ride with Joe and Paula to the command post.

After Joe’s visit the night before, Janine had gone to the second floor of the motel to the Krafts’ room. The door to the room had been open, and the sheriff was still there, quietly talking with Steve, while Rebecca sat on edge of one of the beds, her head buried in her hands.

Janine had sat down next to her, putting her arm around her.

“I’m so sorry, Rebecca,” she said.

Rebecca lifted her head slowly, her face red and damp. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I just can’t…”

“I know,” Janine hugged her gently, as a strange sensation came over her. She knew she was sitting on the bed with Rebecca, but she felt as though she were merely an observer of the scene. She was detached from this woman and her tragedy. There was no longer any possibility of Sophie being
the child in that body bag. Somehow, she could not let Rebecca’s pain get inside her, and when she spoke, it was by rote, without feeling. “It’s completely unfair,” she said.

Rebecca leaned away to look at her squarely. “Sophie’s probably dead, too,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? I mean, I really hope she’s not, but you’d better get yourself ready to hear that news. Prepare yourself. I wasn’t ready for it…for this.”

What could she say to that? Janine wanted to respond to Rebecca’s cruel remark with one equally as hurtful, but she knew the grief-stricken woman was only speaking out of pain. So she said nothing, just leaned her head against Rebecca’s, rocking her gently while she cried, and hating her just a little for suggesting that Sophie had met the same fate as her daughter.

Upstairs, she’d found Lucas in his room, sitting in the dark by the window. “How are they doing?” he asked when she walked in.

“I’m angry that they don’t have people out looking for Sophie during the night,” she said instead of answering his question. She sat down on his bed, but was up again instantly. “This will be her third night alone out there. She hates the dark.”

Lucas nodded. “I remember the night you two were at the tree house and the lights went out.”

Janine could not help but smile at the memory. Sophie had panicked in the darkness, which had been truly impenetrable and eerie in the woods behind Lucas’s house. But Lucas had lit candles and told Sophie a story about a girl who lived in a tree house who had tried to read a book using only lightning as her source of light. So only a few words here and there were legible to her, and it made for a very funny story. Sophie had giggled. She always thought there was something magical about Lucas.

But Lucas wasn’t with Sophie in these West Virginia woods.

“She must be terrified out there,” Janine had said, looking out the window into the darkness. Lucas had not replied, and she’d wondered if he thought she was deluding herself. Did he, like Rebecca, think Sophie was dead? Is that what he was thinking about now, as they waited for Joe and Paula in the parking lot?

“I wish they’d hurry up.” She looked up at the door to Joe’s motel room.

“I bet he’s not pleased at finding you in my room last night,” Lucas said.

She hadn’t thought about that. Joe must have gone to her room first only to find it empty and then realized she was with Lucas.

“He probably didn’t give it a second thought,” she said. “He was just thinking about Sophie, like I was.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Lucas said, turning at the sound of Joe’s motel door opening. They watched as Joe and Paula made their way down the three flights of stairs. Paula was carrying a coffee cup in her hand.

“Morning,” Joe said as he neared his car. He clicked the remote button on his key chain, and the locks on the car doors popped open.

Lucas held the back door open for Janine, and she slid across the seat. “Do you remember the way?” she asked Joe once he was in the car.

“I think so,” he replied, and he turned the key in the ignition and headed out of the parking lot.

The road was once again blocked off with orange cones, but this time, the barrier was at the entrance to the road, a mile or so from the site of the accident. A uniformed guard let them pass through the barrier when Joe identified himself.

The dawn light dappled the road as they drove along its twists and turns. As they approached the accident site, they began to pass cars and vans parked helter-skelter along the route.

“There’s the trailer,” Paula said, pointing ahead of them. A white trailer was parked next to the embankment, directly across the road from where the Honda had been found.

Joe maneuvered his car as close to the trailer as he could get, but there were so many other vehicles in the road, that he still had to park a good distance away. Janine was touched and heartened to see dozens of people milling about. Some wore uniforms of one sort or another; others looked like hikers readying for a day on the trail. A few of them had bloodhounds and German shepherds at their sides. Suddenly, she felt less alone.

“I’ll go see what’s happening,” she said, jumping out of the car before Joe had even come to a complete stop. She ran toward the trailer, up the step and through the open door.

Inside, a woman and a man were leaning over a counter, studying a map. Another woman sat at a built-in desk, working on a lap-top computer. All three of them looked up when Janine walked in.

“I’m Sophie’s mother,” she said. “Janine Donohue.”

The woman studying the map walked toward her, hand out-stretched in greeting, and she squeezed Janine’s hand rather than shook it.

“I’m Valerie Boykin,” she said. “I’m the search manager in charge of the search for your daughter.”

“Great, thank you,” Janine said.

Valerie was a tall, big-boned woman with short dark hair. She looked like the sort of take-charge person who could succeed at any task she chose to undertake.

“What do we do first?” Janine asked.

“Is your husband with you?” Valerie looked toward the door of the trailer. “Then I can explain everything to both of you at the same time.”

Janine followed her gaze through the door, just as Joe, Paula and Lucas were approaching the steps.

“Here they are now,” she said. She made the introduc
tions, and then Valerie took them to one end of the trailer, where uncomfortable seats were built into the walls. They sat down to listen, as she described the form the search would take.

“We’ve called in search teams from this part of the state, and a few from across the border in Virginia. They’ve been arriving for the last few hours. They—”

“Valerie?” The man in the trailer called to her, and Valerie looked in his direction.

“Yes?” she asked.

“The guy’s here with the portable toilets. Where do you want them?”

“You decide,” Valerie said, her voice tinged with annoyance at the interruption. She returned her attention to Janine and the others.

“So, we’ll be using a task force approach. That means, we’ll combine different types of resources to improve the odds of finding clues. We’ll start out with the dogs, breaking the terrain down into a grid so each dog and handler will have their own area to cover. Then, a short distance behind them will be the ground searchers. This way, the dogs don’t get confused by the scents of the ground searchers.”

“Can we help with the ground search?” Janine asked.

Valerie shook her head. “These people are specially trained. They’ll be looking for footprints and other clues.”

“I thought we could get out there in the woods and help to look,” Joe said.

“You’ll have to trust us on this, Joe,” Valerie said. “I know it’s hard to sit and wait, but that’s going to be your job. Oh, and hold on a second.” Valerie walked to the other end of the trailer and returned a moment later carrying a large white plastic garbage bag. She held it open in front of Janine.

A charred smell filled Janine’s nostrils, but it took her only a second to recognize the burned contents of the bag as Sophie’s backpack.

“That’s Sophie’s!” she said, arms outstretched to receive the plastic bag and its contents.

“Right,” Valerie said. “It was in the trunk, so it was not completely destroyed. If you don’t mind, take a look through it and pick out a couple of things that might still have Sophie’s scent on them.”

Janine’s hand shook as she struggled to unzip the charred backpack, still inside the garbage bag. Lifting Sophie’s Winnie the Pooh T-shirt from the pack, she raised it to her nose.

“Oh, God.” She pressed the shirt to her face again to breathe in her daughter, then handed the shirt to Valerie. “I know this smells mostly like smoke,” she said, “but Sophie’s smell is just beneath it.”

Valerie nodded. “We’ll see how the dogs do with it.” She took the backpack and garbage bag away from Janine and placed them on the floor of the trailer. “There’s one more thing you should know about,” she continued. “I don’t think this will actually affect our search in any way, but, we just need to be aware of it.”

“What’s that?” Joe asked.

“You know Zoe? The actress?” Valerie asked.

They nodded, and Janine frowned. Zoe was dead. What could she possibly have to do with Sophie being lost in the woods?

“Well, her daughter—Martina Garson—was convicted of murdering another actress. You might remember—”

“Tara Ashton,” Paula said, and Janine remembered the graphic descriptions of the bludgeoning death of the young actress and the well-publicized trial that followed it.

“What does this have to do with Sophie?” she asked.

“Well, about five days ago, Martina Garson escaped from prison in California. She was helped by one of the wardens there, and the authorities figured that the two of them were traveling together. You know, on the run together. Last night,
some hikers came across a car on a dirt road about twelve miles from here, as the crow flies. On the other side of this piece of forest.” Valerie pointed in the general direction of woods. “Inside the car was a man, shot to death. He’s been identified as the warden.”

Janine glanced at Lucas, who wore a frown. “What does that mean?” she asked Valerie.

“Well, we’re pretty sure it means that Martina Garson shot and killed the warden, for whatever reason. She had definitely been in the car with him. There were beer cans and other paraphernalia with her prints on them. Maybe they had a fight. No one really knows. Maybe she just used him to get across the country and didn’t need him anymore. At any rate, the speculation is that she killed him, then took off on foot.”

“But that’s twelve miles from here,” Joe said. “What does that have to do with finding Sophie?”

“Probably very little,” Valerie admitted. “But there’ll be a search for Garson starting from that dirt road, just like there’s one starting from here for Sophie. And, yes, twelve miles is a good distance, but desperate people can cover a lot of miles pretty quickly. The point is, we’re going to have to be careful. Garson’s considered armed and dangerous. We don’t want our searchers to be in jeopardy.”

“Is Sophie in any danger from her?” Janine asked.

Valerie chewed on her lower lip for a moment before answering. “Mrs. Donohue,” she said. “Janine. Based on the evidence from the Honda…It was completely demolished….”

“I know,” Janine said impatiently. “We saw it.”

“Well, based on the condition of the Honda and the trauma suffered by the other two victims, it’s our best guess that Sophie would have been very severely injured in the crash. I doubt she could have gotten far enough to be in danger from Garson.”

“You think she’s dead,” Janine said, the words more of an accusation than a statement.

“We’re operating on the assumption that she’s still alive,” Valerie said. “But we will have dogs out there who are trained to find the deceased in case—”

“And dogs who are trained to find the living, too, I hope,” Janine said. She felt Lucas rest his hand against her back. “I know Sophie’s still alive,” she said. “I could feel her when I was down there by the car yesterday.”

Valerie nodded, although Janine figured the search manager now thought she had a lunatic mother on her hands.

“If she’s alive, we will find her,” Valerie said. “But you should know that the dogs are going to have some problems today, unfortunately. The rain we had yesterday will make it harder for them to pick up a scent. And more rain is predicted for this afternoon.”

“What are the woods like around here?” Paula asked. “Do any people live nearby?”

“No,” Valerie said. “The woods are very dense, which can also be a problem for the dogs. There are a few old abandoned buildings…shacks, really, here and there. But no one lives up here anymore.”

“What about animals?” Janine asked.

“The usual. Deer. Some bears, but you don’t see them much. Hikers have seen an occasional mountain lion, but that’s really rare.”

“What about using a helicopter?” Janine asked.

“Too dense,” Valerie said.

“Val?” A man poked his head inside the door of the trailer, and Valerie waved at him.