Courage Tree (21 page)

“Do you get along with them? Lucas and Paula?”

Sophie nodded. “Yeah. They’re really nice to me.”

“And what’s your mom like?”

“Oh.” Sophie dipped her spoon into the oatmeal. “She’s nice, and she takes good care of me when I’m sick. She used to fly a helicopter when I was little, but now she just stays home with me.”

A good mom,
Zoe thought. Not the sort of mother she had been.

“And your daddy?”

“He’s an accountant. He handles money.”

Zoe had to smile at her again. She sounded so grown-up. “What grade are you in?” she asked.

“Second. Since I’ve been getting Herbalina, I’ve been able to go to school. Before that, this lady—a home teacher—would come and help me do my schoolwork at home.”

Sophie must have been very seriously ill, Zoe realized. Perhaps she still was, since she still had that catheter coming out of her stomach. “How long have you been sick?” she asked.

“Since I was three, but I started getting
really
sick when I was five. So, I never got to go to school for more than a couple of weeks, anyway.”

“It must have been hard to make friends, then.”

“Oh, I had friends in the hospital. And I have friends at Dr. Schaefer’s office, and in my Brownie troop.” Her face darkened, and tears filled her eyes. “I think Holly is really, truly dead,” she said, and Zoe struggled to remember who Holly was.

“You mean the other little girl in the car with you?”

Sophie nodded, swallowing hard. “I don’t know how I got out and she didn’t. She must’ve been scared when she was burning up.”

Zoe moved next to her, putting an arm around her. “I’m glad you got out, Sophie,” she said. “You were very lucky. And very, very brave to survive in the forest. And I’ll get you home, honey, by hook or crook.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s just an expression.”

Sophie set her bowl down. “I’m going to take a nap on the courage tree flower now,” she said. “When I get up, we can go, all right?”

“You bet,” Zoe said. “Sleep tight.”

Sophie started walking toward the shanty, then suddenly stopped. “I never did go to the outhouse,” she said. “I completely forgot.”

Zoe started to get to her feet. “I’ll take you,” she said.

“No, I can go by myself.” She looked toward the rear of the shanty, where the outhouse was hidden behind some trees. “So long as you’ll be right here.”

“I’ll be here,” Zoe promised.

She sat a while longer on the flat rock, trying to figure out what material she could use to make Sophie a shoe. She had brought three pairs of walking shoes with her and one pair of good hiking boots. Sophie’s feet were a lot smaller than hers, of course, but with the swelling and the bandage, and with a little extra stuffing, perhaps one of the walking shoes would work for her.

Zoe was carrying the bowls over to the pump when she heard the sound of crackling twigs in the forest behind her. Dropping the bowls to the ground, she ran to the shanty and grabbed her rifle where it rested against the step. She raised it to her face, her fear mixing with relief, as the rustling sound grew nearer. It would be best if the intruders were searching for Sophie, she thought. She’d do the mountain mama routine, Sophie’s rescuers would take her away, and she wouldn’t have to make that ten-mile, round-trip trek through the forest. Even better, she wouldn’t have to worry about Marti arriving at the shanty to find her gone.

She stood frozen, the rifle pointed in the direction of the sound, and saw a flicker of yellow cloth darting through the trees. Then suddenly, Marti burst out of the woods and began running toward her.

“Marti!” Zoe lowered the rifle to the ground and moved forward to embrace her daughter. “Oh, honey, you made it!” she cried. “You’re so thin!” Marti was skin and bones beneath Zoe’s hands.

“Oh, God, Mom.” Marti clung to her. “I was in the woods all night! I never expected that. It was horrible. I had no flashlight or anything. You should have left me a flashlight.”

A flashlight! Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

“Well, you’re here now,” Zoe said. “You’re safe.” She had just uttered these words to Sophie, who had spent
three
nights alone in the forest without a flashlight. “Why didn’t you have the warden drop you off early this morning? Then you could have walked through the woods in daylight.”

“I had to do whatever he said, Mom.” Marti pulled away from her, eyes downcast, and she waved her hands in the air as she spoke. For the first time, Zoe noticed that she was holding a gun.

“Where did you get the gun?” she asked.

“I managed to take it from him. From Angelo, the warden.” Marti sat down on one of the flat rocks. “You tied those blue cloths way too tight, Mom,” she said. “It took me forever to untie them all.”

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I wanted to make sure they didn’t come off the branches.”

“No way they’d ever come off without someone untying them.” Marti rested her head on her hand. She looked truly exhausted, wasting away and pale, as fragile as she’d looked toward the end of the trial.

Zoe noticed the gun again. “What did you mean, you took the gun from the warden?” she asked. “You mean, by force? He got the money, didn’t—”

Leaves rustled on the other side of the shanty, and Marti’s eyes widened in terror. She stood up quickly, lifting the gun with both hands, like a well-trained cop—or a seasoned criminal—aiming it at the corner of the building just as Sophie appeared. Zoe darted forward to grab Marti’s arm.

“Don’t shoot her!” she said.

Sophie stood at the edge of the clearing, her bandaged foot off the ground, her arms once again rising in the air, and a look of frozen terror on her face.

“Who the hell is that?” Marti said, lowering the gun in front of her.

“Put the gun down, Marti,” Zoe commanded. “All the way down.”

Marti set the gun on the ground, and Sophie slowly lowered her hands to her sides.

“Come here, Sophie.” Zoe waved the girl toward them, and Sophie edged forward slowly. “Everyone’s pointing guns at you these days, aren’t they, honey?” she said, working to get a light-hearted tone in her voice, even though her whole body was trembling from Marti’s reaction to the unexpected guest. She hugged Sophie with an arm around her narrow, bony shoulders.

“Sophie, this is my daughter, Marti,” she said. “Marti, this is Sophie. She got lost in the woods a few days ago and found her way here. I’m planning to walk her up to the road and—”

“You’re
what
?” Marti exclaimed.

“Sophie and I have already talked about it. I’ll hide and let someone else pick her up to take her to the police,” Zoe assured her quickly. “And Sophie understands that I don’t want anyone to know she’s met me, don’t you, Sophie?”

Sophie was staring, riveted, at Marti, but she managed a nod.

“Mother, you cannot do that,” Marti said. “They’re going to be looking for me. They’ll be all over these woods. They probably are already.”

“Why would they be looking for you?” Zoe asked. She felt Sophie sidle closer to her. “How would they know to look for you here?”

“They just do,” Marti said.

“Listen, Marti.” Zoe’s anxiety was rising. “You’d better tell me what’s going on. You took the gun from the warden, and…I just don’t understand. Did something go wrong with the plan?”

Marti laughed. “I’d say that.”

“Okay,” Zoe said. “Let’s just cool our heads about this. Everybody sit down. Pick a rock.” She sat down on the nearest flat rock, and Sophie sat down right next to her.

“Not out here in the open,” Marti said.

“This is hardly ‘the open,’” Zoe countered.

“Mother, you don’t get it. We need to go inside.”

It would be easier to follow Marti inside the shanty than to fight her. With a sigh, Zoe got to her feet and walked toward the shanty with one protective arm around Sophie, who was hopping along next to her to avoid putting any weight on her swollen foot. Zoe had to help her up the porch stairs. How she was going to get this girl over five miles of forest floor was anyone’s guess.

“Oh, my God, you’ve actually been
living
here?” Marti asked, once they were in the small front room with its sheet-covered sofa, makeshift shelves and filthy walls. “This place is probably crawling with vermin, Mother. There are no screens in the windows.”

Zoe laughed, a bit uncomfortably. “Well, yes, that’s true,” she admitted. “There’s not even any glass in the windows, for that matter.” She hoped Marti’s sour mood was simply a product of her night in the woods and that it would soon lift. “I put some screens up in the bedroom, though.”

“Where am I supposed to sit?” Marti looked helplessly around the room.

“The sofa is perfectly clean with that sheet on it,” Zoe said, “and that chair is fine.” She pointed to the wobbly old wooden chair in the corner. She watched her daughter lower herself gingerly onto the edge of the chair, while she herself sat on the couch. Sophie sat down so close to her that she was practically in Zoe’s lap, and Zoe put her arm around her again.

“You’re going to have to get used to a little dirt,” Zoe said to Marti. “You’ll have to adjust to less than perfect living conditions.”

Marti looked at her angrily, her eyes filling with tears. “Don’t talk to me about adjusting to less than perfect living conditions, Mother,” she said. “You have no idea how I’ve been living. I’ve been in the slimiest, seediest, most abusive prison on the face of the earth.”

Zoe regretted speaking so harshly. She had to remember
that Marti had suffered, and suffered unfairly, paying for a crime she didn’t commit because Zoe had hired sloppy lawyers to defend her. Marti looked unwell. Her hair was longer than it had been in years. Probably she had not had it cut since the trial. Its pretty blond color had faded, and even her huge blue eyes had lost their sheen.

“I’m sorry, hon,” she said. “So, tell me everything. Tell me why you think anyone would be looking for you out here?”

Marti pulled a cigarette from the pack in her shirt pocket and lit it with a purple lighter. Zoe had never allowed her to smoke in the Malibu house, but figured it would be best if she simply bit her tongue about it now.

“I think they’ll be looking for me because Angelo told me he was going to tell the police where he dropped me off.”

“Why on earth would he do that?” Zoe asked. “He has the money, right? He’ll only get himself in—”

“I don’t know why.” Marti sounded very tired. She rubbed her hands over her face. “I stopped trying to figure him out days ago. That’s just what he told me.”

“Oh, it sounds like he was shooting off his mouth, don’t you think, Mart?”

“No, I don’t think, Mom,” she said sarcastically. She drew on her cigarette. “I think he’s going to tell, and they’re going to come looking.”

“But then they’d pick him up, too.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense.” Marti waved a dismissive hand in the air, and the ash of her cigarette fell on the floor.

She’s going to burn this place down,
Zoe thought.

“Maybe he’ll call from a pay phone or something,” Marti continued. “All I know is that the man hates me and has no scruples whatsoever.”

“Well, even if he did call the authorities, he dropped you off by the barn, right?” Zoe asked. “And you walked back a mile to come into the woods, and we’re a good ten miles deep into the forest, so it’s unlikely—”

“They’ll use dogs, Mother. They’ll pick up my scent.”

Dogs
. She hadn’t thought of that. “Well, what should we do?” she asked.

“Well, first and foremost, you’re not going to leave me here alone and go take her—” she pointed at Sophie “—through the woods to the road.”

“I have to,” Zoe said. “I don’t really have a choice.”

“You shouldn’t have let her come here.”

“I didn’t invite her, Marti. She’s lost, do you understand? She just found her way here.” Beneath her arm, she felt a shiver pass through Sophie’s body, and she looked down to see the little girl crying. “It’s okay, Sophie. We’re going to work this out, honey. She was in an accident and got lost, Marti,” Zoe repeated. “You know how you feel after spending one night in the woods? Well, Sophie spent three of them.”

Marti looked at Sophie and seemed to soften at that information. “Okay,” she said. “All right. But she’ll just have to stay with us then. You can’t take her—”

“No,”
Sophie whimpered.

“Marti, I’m going to fix her a shoe and walk her to the road,” Zoe said firmly, “and the sooner I get going, the sooner I’ll be back.”

“Do you honestly expect her not to tell anyone that she met Zoe in the woods?” Marti asked. “And now she knows I’m here. They’ll ask her a lot of questions, and—”

“I won’t tell!” Sophie promised. “I’ll just say a nice lady helped me.”

“Right,” Marti said. “And they think there’s only one ‘lady’ running around out here in the woods, and that’s me. So they’ll pump you for information on the lady, and you’ll screw up, and—”