C Box - Below Zero

Missy asked icily, “Why are you doing this?”

“I bet it would be a shock to him if he found out the truth,” Marybeth said conversationally. “Of course, he’d never need to find out if you and the Earl of Lexington performed a particular act of kindness.”

Joe always knew Marybeth could play hardball. She knew no bounds when her maternal instincts took over. Even Missy, who continued to surprise Joe with her ruthlessness, must have felt that she’d finally encountered a worthy opponent in her very own daughter.

THEY WATCHED from the Suburban as the liaison, Doran, Dickenson, and two uniforms knocked on the front door of 18310 Kilpatrick. Sleet had begun to fall and it smeared the windows of the SUV and made all of the dark-clad bodies near the door undulate.

The woman who opened the door was tall and wide and angry. She yelled, “Ed!” over her shoulder.

Ed appeared behind her. He was overweight with a perfectly round bald head and a comb-over that started just above his ear. He wore an open flannel shirt over a black wife-beater, and when he saw the police he went still and turned white.

Joe could see Mary Ann yell at him to do something. Ed didn’t do anything. He looked down at his slippers and stood aside for them to enter. Mary Ann continued to harangue him, but Ed looked beaten.

“That was easy,” Coon said to no one in particular.

In a few minutes, Jane Dickenson stepped back out of the front door and gestured a thumbs-up to the SUV.

“She’s here,” Marybeth whispered. “Are you girls still okay with this?”

Sheridan nodded grimly.

Joe said, “Your mother can go in there with you to talk to her. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“We want to do it alone,” Sheridan said. “If she’s going to talk to anybody, it’ll be us.”

Lucy said, “Do you think they’ll let me use their bathroom?”

IT WAS A LONG HALF HOUR for Joe and Marybeth. While they waited, Dickenson and Doran organized a team of their colleagues to lead children from the house into waiting cars. Joe noted that the children looked well fed and well clothed and normal, and he felt sorry for them. It wasn’t their fault their parents or guardians were Sovereigns and had opted to place them within their network of survivalists rather than government-sponsored foster programs. He hoped they would do as well or better wherever they wound up.

Mary Ann Voricek was brought out with her hands cuffed behind her and stuffed into the back seat of a cruiser. Her face was red and angry. Ed came out more passively. When the police officers led him toward the car Mary Ann was in, Ed stopped and gestured to another one. The officers exchanged smirks and complied.

When Sheridan finally came out the door and made her way toward the SUV, Marybeth sat up straight in her seat.

Coon said, “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll give you folks some privacy.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.

Sheridan climbed in and shut the door. “I can’t believe it’s her, but it is,” she said, flashing a grin. “She’s April, all right.”

“Thank God,” Marybeth said.

Joe felt as if something inside of him had been released.

“Lucy and April are sitting in there catching up,” Sheridan said. “She’s got lots of questions.”

“So do we,” Marybeth said.

Sheridan nodded. “She’s really worried about Vicki, though. She wants to go see her if she can. She said Vicki called her last week and told her what she’d done and that it would be just a couple of days before we’d all be together-April, Vicki, Lucy, and me. She told April we could all be sisters together.”

Marybeth shook her head. There was moisture in her eyes.

“It’s sad, Mom,” Sheridan said. “Vicki sort of worshipped April and April told her everything about our family, including our phone number. Vicki told April on the phone that she wanted to get us all together again-plus her. She just wanted to be a part of a real family. Isn’t that crazy? So when Stenko took her away from here, Vicki said she pretended to be April because April was the strongest girl she knew and she wanted to be strong, too. She told April that Stenko was nice to her and was going to give her money for plane tickets so we could all be together in a place without adults. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I think Vicki had had it with adults,” Sheridan said, grimly looking at Joe and Marybeth.

“My God,” Marybeth said. “I can see why she didn’t trust adults, but…”

Joe rubbed his eyes.

“But why didn’t April ever contact us herself?” Marybeth asked.

Joe knew what was coming by the way Sheridan avoided his eyes.

“She said that the last thing she remembered seeing in the campground that day was Dad standing across the road with all the other cops. She said she thought he was there to save her, but he didn’t. She thought we’d all just thrown her away. You can imagine how that felt to her.”

“That’s so sad,” Marybeth said. “And did you tell her the truth?”

Sheridan nodded.

“Does she believe you?”

“I think so. It helped that it was just Lucy and I. She trusts us.”

Marybeth paused for a long time. She said, “So will she come back with us?”

“I’m not sure, but she doesn’t know where else she will go.”

After Sheridan left and went back in the Voricek house, Marybeth said to Joe, “This may turn out badly. We’ve got to prepare ourselves for that. If she comes out of that house, we’ll need to set up counseling at the very least. There will likely be some really tough days ahead. That girl has been through things we can’t imagine, both before we took her in and for sure the last six years.

“And I’m worried, Joe,” she said, turning away from him, speaking to the rain-moist window. “Can I love her again like she’s mine? Can you?”

Joe said, “I don’t know.”

“Doing the right thing is so hard sometimes.”

APRIL KEELEY and Lucy and Sheridan came out through the front door one by one. When they were all outside on the porch, they stood shoulder to shoulder. April was in the middle. Joe could see Sheridan watching April closely. Lucy, too. April looked straight ahead, toward the SUV.

Joe noticed that the cops, social workers, and Coon stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the three blond girls.

Marybeth got out first. Joe could tell by the way she jammed her hands into her coat pockets that she didn’t want anyone to see they were shaking. He got out and stood behind her.

“April,” Marybeth called, “can I see you?”

April was frozen. Joe studied her without appearing to stare. She was taller, more angular. She had sharp cheekbones and white skin and acne on her cheeks and forehead. Her face was stoic, a mask that revealed nothing, the way it was when they’d first taken her in. She’d looked older than her years then and now her body had grown into the somewhat surly, defiant attitude that had come with her. He remembered how Marybeth described it at the time as a shell of self-protection. In the months before the Sovereigns arrived, the shell had shown cracks. Now, Joe thought, it was harder than ever.

“Go ahead,” Lucy said, reaching up and tugging gently on April’s hand.

April let go and started to walk forward. Marybeth cried out and ran until the two of them embraced. They held each other for a long time.

Joe didn’t move. He waited until April finally raised her head over Marybeth’s shoulder and looked at him. For a moment their eyes locked. For Joe, it was like looking into the eyes of one of Nate’s falcons. Whatever was going on behind those blue eyes was hidden from him and unknowable.

He mouthed, “I’m sorry.”