C Box: In Plain Sight

“Sheridan,” Marybeth said, dropping her voice to a near-whisper, “Lucy has never done that. She brings most of her lunch home with her, and you know it. If only I could get Lucy to eat. Now what is going on? Where are you calling from?”

“The bus,” Sheridan said, too breezily. “On my cell phone.”

“On your cell phone,” Marybeth repeated back. “ Your cell phone.”

“That’s why you got it for me,” Sheridan said, “for emergencies like this…”

Suddenly, the call was disconnected.

Marybeth felt as if she’d been hit with a hammer. Sheridan had been trying to tell her something, all right.

“Oh my God,” Marybeth said, standing, dropping the phone on the table and running out of the room while Missy called after her to ask her what was wrong.

“JOE!”

JOE WAS NOT in the bedroom, but in Bud’s cramped and cluttered home office. He had recalled his conversation the day before with Tony Portenson’s office, how he’d requested a fax be sent to him. But since he wasn’t at his house to see what had arrived, he had called again that morning and asked Portenson’s secretary to fax the information to Bud’s home office instead.

He stood near the fax machine, watching the paper roll out.

SHERIDAN SAT WITH Lucy on the bus. Julie was in the seat behind them. Bill Monroe had taken the phone and dropped it in his pocket and had returned to the driver’s seat, saying, “I hope you didn’t just do something there that will fuck us up.” His eyes were pulled back into thin slits and his jaw was set. He needed a shave and he needed to clean what looked like blood off his hands and shirt.

The bus shuddered as Monroe worked the gears and did a three-point turn and the bus almost foundered in the ditch. But he got the bus turned around, and it picked up speed, and Monroe clumsily raced through the gears with a grinding sound.

They were headed for the Thunderhead Ranch.

Sheridan held Lucy, who had buried her head into her chest, crying.

MARYBETH FOUND HIM in the office, holding up a sheet of paper.

“Joe,” Marybeth said frantically, “I think something has happened to the girls. Sheridan just called me and said she was on the bus, but I don’t know where she really is. Or Lucy, either. She said she was calling from her cell phone. Something is horribly wrong.”

The look he gave her froze her to her spot. He held up the sheet of paper and turned it to her. It was the mug shot faxed by Portenson’s office.

“This is J. W. Keeley,” Joe said. “He’s an ex-con who supposedly murdered a man in Wyoming and a couple of others down in Mississippi. The FBI is looking for him. But he has another name, Marybeth: Bill Monroe.”

Marybeth couldn’t get past the name Keeley.

The name of her foster daughter who had died tragically. This man had the same name? And was from the same place?

It all became horribly clear.

JOE JAMMED THE MUG SHOT OF J. W. KEELEY INTO HIS back pocket and violently rubbed his face with his hands, trying to think of what to do next. Marybeth stood in the doorway of the office with her arms wrapped around herself, swaying a little, her eyes wide.

“Okay,” Joe said, forcing himself to be calm while his mind swirled with anger and fear of the worst kind. “I need to find the bus. A school bus can’t be hard to find.”

“Should I call the sheriff?” Marybeth asked.

“Yes, call him. Call the school too. Call the FBI in Cheyenne-the number’s right here on this sheet,” he said, handing her the remaining pages of the fax that outlined the allegations against J. W. Keeley. “My God…” he moaned.

“Joe, are you going to be all right? Does this man have our daughters?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But he might. I’m going to go find him.”

“I can’t think of anything worse,” she said, tears bursting from her eyes, streaming down her face.

“Stay calm,” he said. “We’ve got to stay calm and think.” He paced the room. “If he took the bus into town, it’ll be easy to find. The sheriff can find it. Ask for Deputy Reed, he’s competent. But if the bus turned around, it would be headed back here or to the Thunderhead Ranch. Or to the mountains. I’d guess he’s going that way.”

Joe plunged into the closet and grabbed his belt and holster and buckled them on. Then he pulled out his shotgun.

“I’ve got my cell phone,” Joe said, clamping on his hat. “Call me and tell me what’s going on since I don’t have a radio. If you hear something-anything-call me right away.”

Marybeth breathed deeply, hugged herself tighter.

“The sheriff, the FBI, the school. Anybody else?” she asked.

Joe looked up. “Nate. Tell him I’ll be on Bighorn Road headed toward the mountains. If he can get there to meet me, I can use the help. If he isn’t there in fifteen minutes, I’ll leave him. I can’t wait for him to do his hair.”

Marybeth nodded furiously.

“Tell him to bring his gun,” Joe said.

Missy came into the room, said, “What is going on?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Marybeth said, shouldering past her. “I need to use the phone.”

JOE ROARED OUT of the ranch yard with his shotgun on the bench seat, muzzle pointed toward the floor. The sky buckled with a thunder boom that rolled through the meadows, sucking the sound from the world for a moment. He drove fast, nearly overshooting the turn from the ranch onto the highway access road and he fishtailed in the mud, nearly losing control of the truck. He cursed himself, slowed down, and felt the tires bite into the slop. If he got stuck now, he thought, he would never forgive himself.

The ditches had filled even more than when he took the girls to the bus that morning, and the water was spilling over the road. He drove through it, spraying fantails of brown-yellow water.

The highway was in sight, and he made it and didn’t slow down as he turned onto the wet blacktop.

JOE TRIED TO put things together as he drove. He couldn’t. He hoped like hell Marybeth had overreacted to the phone call, but he doubted it. Her intuition was always right on, especially when it came to their girls. The thing about the cell phone, that Sheridan was calling from her cell phone, tipped it.

If that bastard J. W. Keeley had his girls he would kill him, Joe vowed. Simple as that.

God, how sometimes he hated the distances. Everything out here was just so far from the next. Thirty miles to Saddlestring. Twenty-two miles from his old house. Fifteen miles to Nate’s. And thirty miles in the other direction to the first entrance to Thunderhead Ranch. Joe knew enough about Thunderhead and its proximity to the flooding river to realize that there would be only one road still passable, the road to the lower ranch, Arlen’s. The other roads would be flooded. Would Keeley take the girls to Arlen’s place? And if so, why Arlen?

No, Joe thought. He wouldn’t even try to figure out Keeley’s motivation and loyalties. That would come later. Now, he just needed to find the bus.

Even if Marybeth was able to get the sheriff on the first call and the department scrambled, it would be a half hour before they could traverse the length of Bighorn Road in search of the bus. The helicopter was grounded because of the weather.

It was up to him.

NATE STOOD ON the shoulder of the highway wearing a long yellow slicker. His shoulder holster was buckled on over the top, and he stepped out into the road as Joe slowed and stopped.

Nate jumped in and slammed the door. Joe floored it to get back up to speed.

“So we’re looking for a bus,” Nate said.

“Yup.”

“Marybeth said the guy was named Keeley.”