C. Box - Nowhere to Run

Joe had to clear papers from his two office chairs and fetch a folding chair from a hall closet so all three could sit down in his cramped home office. They filled the room. He closed the door and sidled past them and around his desk and sat in his office chair. Joe didn’t want any of them seeing his girls as they went about their morning routine getting ready for breakfast and school.

“You gonna wear that ?” Brent Shober asked, indicating Joe’s apron. Joe flushed. He’d forgotten about it. But he didn’t feel like taking it off, either. He put the spatula on his desk next to his pen and pencil set.

“What can I do for you?” he said.

Brent snorted and sat forward, putting his elbows on Joe’s desk. He glanced quickly toward McCue and Jenna before forging ahead. “We’re here because Bobby got a hold of the statement you made to the sheriff in Carbon County, right?”

Joe said, “Now before you jump to conclusions, I never said I positively identified your daughter. I’m sorry to say that, but. ”

“Look, Pickett,” Brent said, cutting Joe off. “I’m not one to beat around the bush. We’re here because we need you to help us locate Diane.”

“Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

Brent shook his head as if it didn’t matter. “We’ve spent the last week in agony while that search team went up into the mountains to check out your story. We waited for any kind of word from them. When they found nothing-nothing at all-it was like another twist of the knife in my back, right? And I’m getting sick and tired of having my hopes raised up and smashed back down. You’re the only one, apparently, who knows where to find her. We need you to do just that. If necessary, I’ll hire you. Just name your price.”

“It isn’t about money,” Joe said.

“Everything’s about money, right?” Brent said. “I can see how you live here,” he said, gesturing vaguely around Joe’s cluttered office. “I also know your personal situation from Bobby here. You’ve been put on the shelf. You’ve got nothing to do and who knows if you’ll even get your job back. Right?”

Joe didn’t like talking to people who ended statements with the word “Right?” for the reason of preempting any possible disagreement. But before he could speak, Brent said, “For two long, hard years, Jenna and I have done everything we could to get the word out that our daughter was missing and doing everything we could do to find her. I personally spent two weeks this summer talking to law enforcement to remind them she hadn’t been found and putting fliers in every public place I could in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Finding her is my obsession, Pickett. I know she’s alive and well. I just know it, right? And up until Bobby got a hold of that statement of yours, I was starting to think about giving up hope. Not that I did give up, but I was considering the possibility, if you know what I mean, right?”

Joe had learned not to even try to talk to Brent Shober, so he didn’t.

Brent stood up. He clearly wanted to pace, but there was no room. So he bent over Joe’s desk so his face was even closer.

“My little girl was on a schedule to go to the Olympics, something her old man barely missed out on. I was a one-thousand-meter man. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of me or not, but no matter. A month before the trials, I screwed up my knees. Still, I missed qualifying by only six seconds. Diane, though, she was on track. She was getting stronger by the month. That’s why we moved part of our company from Michigan to the mountains out here, so she could train at high elevation and gain endurance and strength. She was on track, right?”

“Right,” Joe said.

“Then she goes for a long run and never comes back. We haven’t seen her or talked with her in two years. Think about that. It’s been eating us up, Jenna and me. I nearly lost my company-I build superhigh-end office parks-because I spent so much time talking to local yokels and listening to every crackpot who said they might have seen her. That’s because I put out that half-million-dollar reward, right?”

Even though Brent’s eyes burned into him, Joe let his return gaze slip away. McCue sat in his chair like a good hired soldier, betraying nothing. There was a slight smile on his face, as if he enjoyed seeing someone else on the other end of Brent Shober for a change. He’d likely heard the story twenty times, but he didn’t betray his boredom or familiarity. Jenna, on the other hand, made a point not to look at Joe or her husband, even when he referred to her. No doubt she shared his pain, Joe thought, but she didn’t share his bombast.

“So,” Brent continued, “for two years this has been our quest-to find our Diane. We’ve hired private investigators, I’ve gone personally to meet with the FBI in D.C., Denver, and Cheyenne, and we’ve even listened to hack psychics tell us she is definitely alive, and definitely waiting for us to rescue her. Her no-good fiance used to work with us, but he’s given up the fight. That little rat bastard picked up and moved to Baja and we haven’t heard from him in months. But I’m not giving up, Pickett. I know she’s still up there somewhere, that somebody’s got her, right?”

Joe felt pummeled and somehow at fault. “Mr. Shober, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose your only daughter.”

Brent stuck out his palm to stop Joe from talking. “No, Pickett, you can’t imagine what hell feels like.”

Joe wanted to say, But I have a pretty good idea. when Jenna Shober spoke for the first time. She said, “Diane is our youngest. We have an older daughter and an older son. But they aren’t. ”

Brent cut her off, said to Joe, “So we need you to go back up there. Take as many men as you need. Hire experts, if you have to, and send me the bill. But you are the only soul alive who has seen her in the past two years, and you are the only one who has a chance of finding her again, right?”

“Wrong.” Joe felt as if he were being screwed into the floor with guilt. He wished he’d never have mentioned her name.

Brent Shober sputtered, “What did you say?”

“I said ‘wrong,’ ” Joe repeated. He pointed at McCue. “I told your guy and every investigator since I made the initial statement that I didn’t get a good look at the fourth person up there. It was dark, I was hurt, and I was influenced by all those fliers you put up. Her name popped into my mind, is all. I wish I could tell you different, but I have no idea at all who that woman was.”

Brent shook his head. “You’re backing out on me.”

Joe said, “I was never in . Look, at least let me ask you a couple of questions before we end here.” He was fully aware of his promise to Marybeth and he was honor-bound to keep it, even though the circumstances may have changed. But his curiosity was up.

Brent turned to Jenna, incredulity on his face, as if he were being confronted by madness.

Joe forged on. “Did you or Diane ever know a couple of brothers named Grim? Or Grimmengruber? Is there any reason to believe if this person I saw was your daughter that she’d be with them?”

Brent screwed up his face with utter contempt. “That’s the most fucking ridiculous question anybody has ever asked me. Of course we don’t know anybody like that.”

“What about Diane?”

“Jesus, are you deaf? We don’t know anybody like that. We’d never know white trash like that, right?”

Joe paused. He looked at McCue, then back to Brent Shober. “How do you know what they’re like?” Joe asked. “I never said a word about them. I never used the term ‘white trash.’ So how would you not ever know anyone like that if you don’t know a thing about them?”