Courage Tree (27 page)

L
ucas did not know where to look. He sat next to Janine in a pew near the center of the chapel, clutching her hand to comfort her, although he needed the comfort every bit as much as she did. Possibly more. Two rows ahead of them, Joe and Paula sat next to Donna and Frank. Joe had acknowledged Janine with an embrace and a kiss on the cheek, but Donna and Frank had ignored their daughter, and Lucas hoped that he was not entirely the cause of their cruelty. It was not like him to ignore their wrath—
anyone’s
wrath—without addressing it, putting it on the table, trying to fix it. But Lucas was not himself these days

The small chapel in Vienna was filled with people, both adults and children, and the sorrow in their faces was nearly too much for him. A large photograph of Holly Kraft rested on an easel near the pulpit, and he’d looked at the picture without meaning to, his gaze slipping in that direction before he’d realized what he was doing. He’d only looked for a moment, but that had been enough for the little girl’s smile to burn itself into his brain, and he wished he could think of another image to take its place.

He kept his eyes averted from the front pew, where Rebecca
and Steve were sitting with the rest of their children. He couldn’t look at the minister, either, nor could he give any attention to Holly’s other relatives, who, one after another, came up to the microphone at the front of the chapel to talk about Holly’s life and her spirit and her future cut short. Some of them attempted to tell funny stories about Holly, and had it been an adult being eulogized, the anecdotes might have provided some relief, some gentle reminiscence. But there was nothing funny to be said about a child struck down before she’d truly had a chance to live.

Before today, Lucas had been to only one other funeral for a child, and that had been one too many. He’d made a promise to himself that he would never attend another funeral like it. Yet, there was no way he could turn Janine down when she asked him to come with her today. Now, he tried to focus on her, to forget about himself. He glued his gaze to her hand where it rested locked in his own. Her nails were short and a bit ragged after a week’s worth of neglect. Her skin was lightly tanned, and he was keenly aware of the yellowish cast his own skin had next to hers. The sight gave him a jolt; he had not realized that his skin had taken on that unhealthy hue. Seeing it made him feel panicky, and he must have squeezed Janine’s hand involuntarily, because she looked at him briefly before facing the front of the chapel again.

He’d shift his focus to Joe, Lucas decided. He would shut out the rest of the chapel, and sure enough, the harder he stared at the back of Joe’s head, the blurrier, the blacker the edges of his vision became. Joe’s dark hair looked as though it would never turn gray or grow thin. His neck was tan above the collar of his shirt, and his shoulders were broad. Lucas did not need to see Joe’s eyes to remember how they looked; the moment he’d first met Joe, those eyes had held him fast with their familiarity. It was as if he’d known Joe all his life.

Paula had her arm around Joe, and her thumb stroked his back just below the shoulder seam of his jacket. She was so
obviously in love with him. And Joe was so obviously in love with Janine.

The soft, yearning sound of a violin began wafting down from the balcony above their heads. The music was poignant, excruciating in its subtlety, and Lucas wanted to run from the chapel, just as he’d wanted to escape from that last funeral. He could run out of the chapel and keep on running, until his mind was numb to the pain.

But he did as he had done before: he remained seated, holding the hand of the woman he loved, praying for this long exercise in remembering to come to an end.

Z
oe wasn’t certain if Sophie was truly sick or simply depressed, but the little girl hadn’t gotten out of bed at all that morning. At noon, Zoe finally went into the bedroom to check on her. Carrying the wobbly chair from the living room into the bedroom, she sat on it next to Sophie’s sleeping palette. Sophie was lying on her back. Her eyes were open, and the skin around them looked swollen, as though she’d been crying for hours.

“Are you all right?” Zoe asked.

Sophie rocked her head back and forth on the pillow. “I’m getting sick,” she said.

“What kind of sick?” Zoe asked. “Is it your kidney problem?”

Sophie nodded. “I can tell. I feel like I used to feel when I didn’t get enough dialysis. Before Herbalina.” She held up one of her arms. “My hand is puffy,” she said.

It
was
puffy, and Zoe knew that her little stash of antibiotics would never be able to touch what was wrong with this child. She realized, then, that the swollen look of Sophie’s eyes was not from tears so much as from the disease. Sophie
had not been crying at all. Instead, she was stoic and resigned to her fate, and that broke Zoe’s heart in two.

She found Marti in the clearing, sitting on one of the rocks, flicking her cigarette lighter on and off as she stared into the flame. She turned toward Zoe as she approached.

“Why, oh, why didn’t I think to buy about a hundred cartons of cigarettes before I came out here?” Marti asked.

“You would have had to carry them through the woods,” Zoe said, as she sat down on another rock. Sophie’s penknife lay open next to her, and Zoe closed it and slipped it into her shorts pocket.

“That’s true.” Marti nodded.

“I need to talk to you about Sophie, Mart,” Zoe said. “I have to find a way to get her some medical—”

“Mother—”

“I
have
to, Marti. Let’s talk about this, all right? Let’s find a solution instead of simply saying we can’t do it. She’s very, very ill. I think I should go and get help for her.”

“And then what?”

“And then we’ll have to face the music, whatever that may be.” She made it sound easy; she knew it would be anything but. “I promise you, honey, I will find the best criminal lawyers in the land this time. We’ll appeal. We’ll get you off.”

“I have to tell you something.” Marti stared into the flame of her lighter again.

“What?”

Marti glanced at her, then returned her gaze to the lighter. “I killed Angelo,” she said. “I killed the warden.”

“Marti…I don’t understand.” She didn’t want to.

“I had to do it. I got him the money from the barn, and once he had it, his attitude completely changed. Up until then, we’d agreed that he would drive off and leave me there. But all of a sudden, he changed his tune. He was going to kill me, Mom.” She looked at Zoe, those long-lashed blue eyes as innocent as a child’s. “He was afraid that, if I got caught, I’d
talk, and they’d come looking for him. I think he planned to kill me and bury me in the woods someplace.”

“Did he tell you this?” Zoe asked.

“No, but he got real nervous after he had the money, and I noticed he had his gun out of the glove compartment, where he usually kept it. I figured out what he was going to do. I should have realized it earlier. He would never just let me go once he had the money. So I grabbed the gun before he could. I shot him before he could shoot me.”

Zoe swallowed the bile rising in her throat. Marti’s delivery of the details was flat and cool, and that was as frightening to her as the information itself. It reminded her of the conversation she’d just had with Sophie, when the little girl had spoken about her illness with such stoicism. Was Zoe the only person in these woods capable of emotion right now? Or did Marti and Sophie know something she did not about coping with feelings that were too raw, too dangerous, to be brought into the light of day?

“So…” Zoe tried to think this through. “They would have found the warden dead and figured you did it.”

“Bingo.”

No wonder Marti had seemed so distant, so disturbed and so desperate since arriving at the shanty. She
had
murdered someone. Had she shot him in the chest? In the head? Zoe couldn’t bear to think about it. She thought of the ease with which Marti had dispatched the turtle.

“What happened to the money?” she asked.

“I took it,” Marti said. “I put it back in the barn, so we’ll know where it is if we want to get it before we go to South America.”

“Oh,” Zoe said. It upset her to know that Marti could have been so calculating and calm after murdering the warden that she’d thought to put the money back in its hiding place.

“So.” Marti slapped her hands down on her thighs. “Now you know. Now I
do
have murder on my hands. You wouldn’t
be able to get me off, Mom, even if we could get a jury to believe me about Tara Ashton.”

“But it was really self-defense,” Zoe said, although she wasn’t quite sure. “You had no choice.”

“Thanks for believing that, Mom.” Marti smiled and got to her feet. “But I’m afraid you’re the only person in the world who would.”

Zoe watched her daughter walk around the shanty toward the outhouse. Marti was being brave, she thought. Here, she’d been carrying the weight of the murder around with her for the past few days. She was probably having nightmares, flashbacks to the incident, and she’d kept them all to herself. But Zoe knew she was imagining how she, herself, would react to having placed a bullet into the body of another human being. She was not certain Marti would react the same way.

She remembered a time, long ago, when Marti was in boarding school. Zoe had received a call from the school, telling her that Marti had stabbed another student with a Swiss Army knife. Zoe had driven up to the Santa Barbara school, refusing to believe her daughter had been capable of such an act. Sure enough, by the time she reached the school, the other student had recanted the accusations, saying she had accidentally stabbed herself while using the knife to carve a jack-o’-lantern. Zoe had left the school in relief, and she’d been able to ignore the fact that, as she was being questioned by the authorities, Marti’s demeanor had been almost scary in its calm detachment. And that Zoe’s personal checking account had plummeted by several thousand dollars right around the time of the stabbing.

She hadn’t thought of that incident in many years. She hadn’t wanted to. It had been easier to ignore it, to forget about it. But now, as she waited for Marti’s return from the outhouse, she feared that she might have
two
sick people on her hands: one with an illness of the body, the other with an ailment of the mind and heart.

J
anine and Lucas drove to West Virginia late Saturday night. Joe, Paula and her parents planned to arrive the following day, but Janine was anxious to get back. The funeral had been painful and emotional, but she’d found herself growing quietly excited as she sat in the grief-filled chapel, the image of the log cabin she and Lucas had spotted from the helicopter planted firmly in her mind. It teased her while the minister spoke. She could see the deserted clearing. The fire pit. The crevice in the rock. The hint of quartz.

It had not been quartz. Not mica. The glittery shard of light had not come from something
in
the rock at all, but rather from something
on
the rock.

That thought came to her as Holly’s relatives took to the pulpit, one by one, to talk about the little girl they’d lost. Janine heard nothing they said. Instead, she pictured the flat rocks, and in her mind, the small, dark crevice in one of them turned into the penknife Lucas had given Sophie; the shard of light was the glint of its blade. The image grew stronger and sharper in her mind as the service continued, and she
could barely wait to escape from the chapel to tell Valerie Boykin her theory.

Once they had left the funeral, she used the cell phone in Lucas’s car to call the search manager.

“I think I saw Sophie’s penknife on a rock near a log cabin, about five miles from the road,” she said when she had Valerie on the phone.

Valerie took the information in, wordlessly, and Janine knew the search manager was humoring her. Valerie was about to give up. Janine could hear it in the silence.

“Please,” Janine begged. “Just have someone go out there and check.”

“I know how much you want Sophie to be found alive, Janine,” Valerie finally said. “We all do. But she couldn’t have walked that far. You know that, don’t you? And you’re not even sure of the location of the cabin.”

Janine had pleaded a while longer, then decided her only recourse was to get to the site early in the morning and make her plea in person. Lucas had agreed to go with her, but only reluctantly. He seemed a little distant, and she feared that he, too, was giving up.

They arrived at the trailer early Sunday morning to find it and its tow truck standing alone on the road. There had been no orange cones forming a barricade across the road when they’d turned onto it minutes earlier. There were no sheriff’s cars, no vehicles belonging to the searchers. The only other sign of the activity that had consumed the area during the past week was the blue portable toilet standing next to the embankment.

“Where is everyone?” she asked Lucas as she parked near the trailer.

Lucas didn’t respond, and she feared she knew the answer. They had called off the search. To the rest of the world, Sophie’s short life was now a closed book.

Valerie Boykin looked up from the desk in the trailer when
Janine and Lucas stepped inside. Slowly, she got to her feet. Nothing needed to be done quickly, now, Janine thought. The emergency was over, at least in Valerie’s eyes.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Valerie said.

“Where is everyone?” Janine repeated.

“We’ve decided to call off the search, Janine,” Valerie said with real sympathy in her voice. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t have done a better job for you. But with no sign of Sophie, and with the dogs completely unable to pick up her scent again—if it was ever her scent they found in the first place—there seems to be—”

“You can’t just stop looking,” Janine said. “You have to check that log cabin.”

“The medical consultants have told us that, given Sophie’s condition, she couldn’t possibly have survived this long out there,” Valerie said.

“That would be true if she hadn’t been taking Herbalina,” Janine said. “But she could—”

“The doctors don’t believe that a herbal treatment could possibly make that much difference to her.” Valerie put her hand on Janine’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I know this is hard to hear.” Valerie looked at Lucas as if asking him for some support, but Lucas only excused himself and went outside to use the portable toilet.

“Well,” Janine said, “I guess now I’ll be allowed to search for myself, right?” Anger clipped her words. “The mother is allowed to look for her daughter only when everyone else has given her up for dead.”

“Janine,” Valerie said, “I can understand—”

“She’s not dead, damn it!” Janine pounded her fist on the counter. “I know she’s not.”

She stomped out of the trailer and stood in the middle of the road, arms folded across her chest as she waited for Lucas. She’d been there for a few minutes when Valerie appeared at her side.

“Are you really planning to search yourself?” Valerie asked her.

“You better believe it,” Janine said.

“Well, then, take this with you.” Valerie handed her a small device, and Janine recognized it as a GPS, one of the tools the searchers had used to keep from getting lost. “We don’t want to have to come back here looking for you, too,” Valerie added.

“I don’t know how it works.” Janine looked at the gadget in her hand.

“It’s easy to use,” Valerie said. “I’ll give you a little tutorial, and you can borrow one of the maps. Then you’ll always know where you are. Okay?”

Janine nodded. “Thanks.”

“Come inside when Lucas gets out of the john,” Valerie said. “I’ll show you how it works.”

It was another minute before Lucas joined her on the road, and she held the small black device up to show him. “Valerie gave me a GPS,” she said. “Will you look for Sophie with me?”

He did not show the sort of enthusiasm she’d been expecting. “You mean, now?” he asked.

She nodded. “Please, Lucas. Every minute counts.”

He looked into the woods, then touched her arm. “How will you know which way to go, Jan? The dogs couldn’t find her. I’m not sure—”

“We’ll go in the general direction of the cabin we saw,” she said.

He still looked dubious.

“I have to try, Lucas,” she added. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

It took him a moment to look at her again, and he nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll help you today, but I have to go back to Vienna tonight.”

“You don’t believe she’s alive, either, do you?” she asked.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and she noticed how tired he looked. How beaten. “What I do believe is that you need to look for her,” he said. “That you won’t rest until you’ve searched every possible inch of this forest for her, and that’s okay. And I’ll help you. But I’ll have to be on the road by four. All right?”

“All right,” she said, although she knew that he, like Valerie, was only humoring her. He thought this was a fruitless mission. Maybe it was, but she wouldn’t know that until she’d searched the woods herself.

Inside the trailer, Valerie showed them how to use the GPS, then Janine leaned over the map on the counter.

“The cabin we saw was somewhere up in here,” Janine said, pointing to an area on the map. “Did they search up that far?”

“Like I told you yesterday, Janine, that’s over five miles from here,” Valerie replied. “We cut off the search at three miles in every direction. It’s extremely doubtful she could have gotten any farther than that.”

“You don’t know her,” Janine said. “And I told you I saw her penknife lying on one of the rocks near the cabin.”

“You
think
you did,” Valerie said. “It would be very hard to see anything that small from the helicopter. Our minds can play some mean tricks on us.”

“Jan,” Lucas said, “I think Valerie’s right. I think even if Sophie hadn’t lost a shoe and even if she’d been in the best shape, she couldn’t have made it that far. I know that cabin’s been on your mind, but I think it’s just because it was one of the few things we could see from the air, so that’s where you can imagine her being. But I—”

“I need a target, Lucas,” Janine interrupted him. “I need a goal. Something we can walk toward. I think we should start at the creek where the dogs picked up her scent, and then head from there toward that cabin. It’s as good as any other direction. And if Sophie had seen that cabin, she would have gone to it.”

“It’s very far,” Lucas said again.

Janine looked at Valerie. “Is the Herbalina still in the fridge?” she asked.

“Yes.” Valerie walked toward the small refrigerator at the rear of the trailer. She took the soft-sided cooler out of the lower compartment, then reached into the freezer for some Blue Ice. She handed the ice and the cooler to Janine.

“Thanks.” Janine opened the cooler and placed the Blue Ice inside it, then slipped the strap of the cooler over her shoulder. She looked at Lucas.

“Ready?” she asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

They said goodbye to Valerie, then began walking down the road, heading for the part of the cliff where the descent into the woods was less steep.

As they entered the woods, Janine could hear a truck engine cough to life and knew that Valerie and the trailer were leaving. How did the woman feel after an unsuccessful search? Janine wondered. Would images of Sophie haunt her dreams, or could she simply put this week behind her and move on to the next search with the hope that it would have a happier ending?

She and Lucas didn’t speak as they hiked toward the stream. This area had been searched over and over again, and so they didn’t bother looking for clues as they walked. Janine was certain that Sophie was farther out than any of the searchers had imagined. They didn’t know what a fighter her daughter could be.

She felt some disappointment in Lucas. Not just that he was anxious to get out of the woods and go home to Vienna tonight, but that he’d given her so little support with Valerie. Whether he was willing to admit it to her or not, she knew he thought Sophie was dead. He was lagging behind her as they walked, and she could hear him breathing hard. At this rate,
he’d never make it all the way to the cabin. His heart was not in this. Maybe she should have simply sent him to the motel and had him come back to pick her up later.

They were only a hundred yards or so into the woods when Lucas suddenly stopped walking.

Janine turned to look at him. “What?” she asked. “Did you see something?”

Lucas shook his head. He drew in a long and labored breath, scaring her, and she walked back to him quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to have to go back.”

Holding on to his arm, she studied his face. In the shadow of the trees, his skin took on an unhealthy yellowish cast. His face was damp; perspiration ran from his forehead into his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I need to sit down.” He looked around as if searching for a chair.

“There’s a tree stump just ahead,” she told him. “Can you make it over there?”

He shook his head again. “I’ll just sit right here,” he said, lowering himself to the forest floor.

“Does your chest hurt?” she asked, wondering if he were having a heart attack.

He shook his head.

“Where’s your water bottle?” she asked.

“It’s not with me.”

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Janine said. “You’re dehydrated. Here.” She reached over her shoulder to pull her own water bottle from her backpack and held it out to him.

He brushed it away with his hand. “No,” he said. “I don’t want any.”

She lowered herself in front of him. There was a deep crease between his eyebrows.

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

“Muscles are cramping,” he said. “And I’m just…weak. Nauseated.”

“Would you please drink some water?” She held the bottle out to him again. “You’re probably dizzy because—”

“I don’t
want
it,” he said with some genuine anger, and Janine drew away from him.

She stood up and shrugged herself out of her backpack. Inside it, she found a handkerchief. Squeezing water from her bottle onto the cloth, she ran it over his hot, damp forehead and the back of his neck. He shut his eyes as she dampened the cloth again and wrapped it around his right wrist. Reaching for the splint on his left wrist, she began unfastening the Velcro.

Instantly, Lucas opened his eyes and grabbed her hand. The handkerchief fell to the ground.

“I won’t hurt your wrist,” Janine said. “You’re arm is so hot. You’re perspiring…. You’re soaked under the splint. Let me take it off and put some cool water on you.”

He stared at her a moment, the look in his eyes blank and a bit scary. Slowly, his eyes fell shut, and Janine reached for the Velcro again.

“Janine…” His voice trailed off, and she knew he was too weak and tired to fight her.

Carefully, she unfastened the splint, not wanting to manipulate his wrist in any way. He was always so protective of it. She removed the splint, rested Lucas’s hand on his knee, then picked up the handkerchief from the ground and wet it again with water from her bottle. Lifting his hand, she gently turned it to place the handkerchief on the inside of his wrist.

She sucked in her breath at what she saw: the inside of Lucas’s forearm bulged with the unmistakable surgical crossing of an artery and a vein.