Hard Truth- Pigeon 13 (5 page)

Serious bonding had obviously taken place. Anna wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not, but she was in favor of anything that she could use to get the kids moved.
"Mind if I ask Beth a question?" Anna asked, ceding authority to Ms. Jarrod. It might get results. Besides, she could always take it back if she had to.
"Back off if she freaks?"
"Of course."
The woman nodded. Anna came around the table and sat directly in front of the wheelchair. Knee to knee. She wondered if the woman could feel the touch, sense the warmth or if, when Anna sat, it was as if she too only existed from the chair up.
She gathered one of the girl's hands into her own. The thumb was still damp and sticky from being recently sucked.
"Is your name Beth?"
A tiny nod.
"Did I say it right or is it pronounced Beeth?"
"Beth," the child said.
Anna was careful to show neither surprise nor triumph.
"You look like you've been in the woods for a while. Where have you been?"
Again a look passed between the children. Confusion? Complicity? Reassurance? Shared terror? Accusation? Surprise? Anna couldn't read it. Emotions were too high, the light too uncertain.
"I don't know," Beth whispered.
"How about you, Alexis? Do you know what happened to you?"
The blonde shook her head.
Anna turned back to Beth. "There were three of you. Candace Watson was with you. Do you know where Candace is?"
The silence was so long Anna thought the girl had clammed up again. Then Alexis said, "She stayed with Robert."
"Shit," she heard Emily whisper from the far side of the picnic table.
"Who's Robert?" Anna demanded.
"Robert Proffit," Emily replied. "He was the Christian youth group leader who got lost himself looking for them, then reported the girls miss-ing twenty-four hours after they'd disappeared. You wouldn't believe how torn up he was about the whole thing. Ran himself into pneumonia going out with search teams. He said God had given them into his care and he loved them like his own sisters."
Emily's voice was even, professional, but her sweet young face had hardened to the point it was neither sweet nor young. Emily hated. Robert? God? Herself? If she didn't watch it, Anna knew, one day that hatred could become a way of life.
"Okay," Anna said. "Dr. Littleton, Ms. Jarrod, help me get the kids out of here. It's going to rain."
five
When the heavens finally opened up and let loose a biblical downpour, Anna was glad.
Alexis Sheppard allowed herself to be loaded into the ambulance without a fuss, without anything: she said nothing, her face was emotion-less, her body moved sluggishly. The girl acted as Anna had witnessed scores of the undead-zombies, wraiths, pod people, even the occasional vampire-behave on screen. Life without life. Movement without soul. Animation without spirit.
Such was Alexis' apparent internal wasteland. Anna felt positively-guilty when she found herself wishing a like fate on Beth Dwayne. She had returned to a state of selective mutism. She remained on the disabled woman's lap. She'd returned to her thumb-sucking.
When Anna and Emily tried to remove her from the sanctuary she'd found between the spoked wheels, she'd closed her fists in the front of Jarrod's jacket, howled like a banshee and kicked out. With the poor little flayed feet, her defense probably inflicted more pain on herself and her hostess than on either ranger. Ms. Jarrod's face became an unnatural shade of gray, and sweat beaded at her hairline despite the chilly edge of the wind.
There'd never been cause for Anna to learn much about paraplegia, and she couldn't begin to guess in what kind of shape it left one's inter-nal organs, but clearly, having four score pounds of misery flopping and thrashing about on them was not beneficial. She had to give Jarrod credit for fortitude and stamina. She never complained and never lost patience with the little girl. The same courtesy was not shown Anna. She was snapped and snarled at more than once-and not by the silly-looking dog.
The solution was obvious, but Anna hated asking. Maybe because Heath Jarrod was disabled. There was the feeling of walking on eggs, as if plain old ordinary Americans, once confined to a wheelchair, immediately became foreigners with a separate culture, different rules of etiquette, customs and taboos that, in her ignorance, Anna might break.
There was that.
And there was pity. That creeping, mealy-mouthed cousin of goodness that oozed out in a parody of empathy, leaving the perpetrator nauseated and the victim feeling worse than before. Pity was born of fear. Anna wasn't afraid to die. But to be broken so bad no one could fix it and in such a way that life and comfort became dependent on being helped by others; that thought made her blood run cold. Crippled was scary and it was hard and Anna feared she wouldn't have the strength or courage to pull it off with any shred of grace or dignity.
Making a point to speak only to Ms. Jarrod and not to her aunt, Dr. Littleton, she said, "If you could accompany us to the hospital, things might go more easily for Beth."
"Not a problem."
Anna wished she'd had the metaphorical balls to ask sooner.
"We can go in the RV. It's got a lift."
"Sure," Anna agreed easily. To Emily she said, "I'll ride with Dr. Littleton and Ms. Jarrod. You go with Ryan."
Jarrod opened her mouth to argue. Anna could feel the woman's need for a fight as a physical pressure on her brain. If the Texas clock-tower, equipped with a handicapped-accessible elevator, were instantly avail-able, Anna didn't doubt Jarrod would be up there with an automatic rifle in the blink of an eye.
That's when the rains saved her. A flash and a boom so close as to be two facets of the same sensation rattled eardrums and retinas, then an icy torrent was loosed sufficient to cool whatever dark fires were fueling Heath Jarrod's fury.
Dr. Littleton ran ahead to the RV. Anna and Emily followed, pushing the doubly burdened chair through the streaming gravel.
The RV was new and spacious and outfitted for use by a chair-bound person. Comforts and conveniences had not been spared when the vehicle was retrofitted for a handicapped user. Somebody had money.
Heath Jarrod's hands full of Beth, Dr. Littleton locked the brakes on her wheels. Anna belted herself into a captain's chair on a swivel base. It was covered in velvet-soft butter-colored leather. She chose not to think what her soggy, metal-bristling nether parts were doing to the upholstery.
Dr. Littleton took to the driver's seat and followed the ambulance out the rain-dark road. Dispatch radioed that Lorraine Knight would meet them at the children's wing of the Estes Park hospital. Arrangements were being made for a child psychologist and a detective from the Estes Park police department to join them.
Estes Park was full of rich old retired environmentalists. The very sort to guarantee the small town had a truly excellent medical facility. That it was in one of the most beautiful places on earth didn't hurt either. Recruiting top-notch doctors and nurses, even at lower pay, proved fairly easy. Anna relaxed fractionally.
Explaining what she was doing each step of the way to reassure both Beth and Heath, she gently took the girl's vitals-blood pressure, pulse,
temperature-and relayed them to the hospital via dispatch. Beth was severely dehydrated: when Anna pinched up a bit of skin on the back of her hands it remained tented far too long. Under normal circumstances she'd have been put on an IV If Emily knew her stuff, Alexis would already be on a normal saline drip.
The cursory check over, Anna reached for a horribly green afghan on the arm of her chair. When she turned back, Beth was out like a light.
"She's asleep," Anna said, faintly surprised. Sleep had come so fast, for an instant she thought the kid had passed out. Or died.
"Poor little limpet came to the end of her rope. I've seen climbers do that-literally and figuratively-but I meant get caught on a sketchy face, go without sleep. They get to the top and, bang. Down for the count."
This was the closest thing to a normal exchange Anna had had with this woman. Instinct whispered that she was going to want Heath Jarrod on her side if for no other reason than to help unlock the secrets shut away in Beth's skull.
"You climb?" She was cursing herself for a fool as Heath Jarrod treated her to a scathing look.
"Not hardly."
Anna just nodded, not ready to risk another blunder. Besides, if her former mother-in-law had taught her anything during the years she was married to Zach, it was that there was no excuse for bad manners. Not that Anna hadn't exhibited them herself, but she'd never excused herself. She wasn't in a mood to excuse Jarrod, either.
After a couple minutes' silence the other woman either saw the error of her ways or, more likely, just wanted to talk and so chose to reattach the nose to her spited face.
"I used to climb. Ice mostly. But anything else when that melted."
Anna nodded again. She wanted to ask what happened, but by the cal-culating, almost triumphant look that entered Jarrod's brown eyes, it was clear she was waiting, daring her to do just that. Anna said nothing.
Another minute passed.
"I fell. Rotten ice above Frozen Lake, the Keyhole."
"Bummer," Anna said sympathetically. Frozen Lake, she knew, was in the Rocky Mountains. That was as far as her knowledge went. She'd not vet had time to do much more than study maps and fill out the reams of paperwork deemed necessary when one changed jobs. It crossed her mind to ask Heath about the Keyhole-there was no way quicker into another's heart than letting them be the expert-but something made Anna leery of exposing any weakness. Perhaps it was that Jarrod was fanatical about showing none herself. Whatever the cause, Anna sensed she would go for the jugular if it were presented.
And snarl like a wounded wolf if anyone offered help. It was that which kept Anna from pressing her with questions on her own well-being. Rain had washed the sweat away but the pallor remained, and Jarrod was exhibiting shortness of breath.
A mile or more passed in silence. When Heath Jarrod spoke again, her tone was slightly less pugnacious. "What can you tell me about the girls?" She looked down at Beth, sound asleep on her lap.
"May I take her?" Anna asked, wanting to ease Heath's stress. Fight came up in Jarrod's eyes. "She must be cramping up," Anna said. "If I move her to the sofa I can stretch her out." The appeal to Beth's comfort did what no other argument could have. Heath unlocked the clasped hands that had been keeping the girl from sliding off her splayed knees.
Gently Anna lifted the child. Half-sitting in a moving vehicle, the dead weight pulled viciously at her lower back but she remained steady until she had Beth resting on the sofa. For a moment Anna listened to her breathing, assuring herself she was truly and deeply asleep. Then she set her mind to Heath's question. Jarrod could be said to have a right to know.
During the time that had elapsed since she and the EMTs arrived on scene, much of the story of the three missing girls-read in daily snippets from the morning Ranger Report, a rambling collection of incidents from parks all over the country-had resurfaced and coalesced in Anna's mind. The tale of the search had been published in broken pieces as it unfolded, pieces that were mixed in with the stories of wildfires burning out of control in southern California; the badly decomposed corpse of a man wanted in the killings of two students at a boys' school in Pennsylvania, turning up on the Trace, apparent death by drinking battery acid, notes to the dead boys in his pockets; a series of rapes at Lake Mead; car loot-ings perpetrated by bears at Yosemite and an organized ring of humans at Yellowstone, dozens of other on-going sagas. Summers were busy in the parks. It took Anna a moment to sort out the relevant fragments pertain-ing to the girls and put them back together.
"A while back, six weeks I think, a church group was up at Odessa Lake on a weekend campout. A youth group. Girls. Six or seven all told. They were slated to stay two nights, Friday and Saturday. The girls were teens and preteens. If I remember right, the youngest was eleven and the oldest maybe fifteen. It was some kind of religious outing; Bible study on the rocks, or whatever."
Heath's eyes narrowed fractionally and Anna realized her cynicism was showing through the narrative. Since becoming engaged-married, she reminded herself, unconsciously turning the gold band on her ring finger-to an Episcopal priest-cum-county sheriff, she had worked hard to keep her ungodly thoughts from poking into others' belief systems. At times like this, when a truly heinous act sent its unholy stink to high heaven, that resolution failed her.
"]ee-zuss." Heath mimicked the traveling salvation show pronuncia-tion with a bitterness that those raised without religion could never know. Anna wondered if the fall that took away the use of her legs had started Heath on a vendetta against her personal god.
The woman's color had improved and her breathing was less shallow. Regardless of whether it was anger at a deity or the removal of an over-sized limpet from her diaphragm, Anna was glad to see it.
"Two adults accompanied the girls," she went on. "One kid's mom- I don't remember which-came as chaperone. The other was a man named Robert Proffit. He was the church's youth group leader and orga-nized the outing."
" 'She stayed with Robert.'" Heath repeated Alexis' answer when asked where the third missing girl, Candace, was. "Jesus," she said again. This time she didn't mock; she cursed.
"The backcountry ranger up at Fern Lake-it's just a half-mile or less from Odessa-"
"I know where Fern Lake is," Heath interrupted, as if Anna had insulted her.
"Okay," Anna said agreeably. "The ranger at Fern got a call from dis-patch. The chaperone mom had an emergency back home. So mom hikes out with the girls who have had enough wilderness-or preaching. Can-dace, Alexis and Beth stayed behind to finish up their weekend with the youth group leader, Proffit."
"How old's this guy?"
"I don't know. Young, I think. Early twenties."
"They left three girls alone with him overnight?" Heath sounded accusing. Anna didn't rise to the bait. She looked at Beth curled into the fetal position, thumb in mouth. Anna, too, wanted to lay the blame on somebody with a heavy lash or, failing that, to pound hell out of a service-able scapegoat.
"Evidently."
"Why?" The outrage in Heath's voice penetrated Beth's dreams and she whimpered.
"I don't know," Anna replied. "I didn't work here when the girls went missing."
"We're there," Dr. Littleton said from the driver's seat as she ma-neuvered the RV off the highway and into the Estes Park hospital park-ing lot.