Diane Chamberlain - The Courage Tree

“It wasn’t that far,” Joe said, although he certainly shared her concern. “I can hear Frank there,” he said. “Can you put him on?”

There was some fumbling with the phone, then Frank’s voice came on the line.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and Joe repeated what he’d told Donna.

“Janine isn’t a clear thinker these days,” Frank said. “She’s gone back to that crazy girl she used to be, all of a sudden. After this, I want you to go to court and get more say over what happens to Sophie, all right? Get veto power.”

Joe was already thinking of taking that step. “Well, for right now, we just need to get through this situation,” he said.

“Do you think this has to do with the gardener?” Donna had gotten on the extension.

Joe was confused, but only for a moment. “Lucas Trowell?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe he knew Sophie was due back, and he kidnapped her and the other girl, or—”

“No, Mom, I don’t think he’d go to those lengths.”

“You don’t really know him,” Donna asserted. “You don’t see how he’s always looking at the cottage, watching for Sophie to come out. He hardly does any work, just bosses the fellas under him around. He tries to get close to Janine to get her to trust him, and—”

“I know you don’t like him, Mom, but let’s not get into this now, okay?” Joe was no fan of Lucas’s, either, but it seemed unlikely that he’d had anything to do with Sophie’s disappearance.

“I’m always afraid that Janine will turn her back one day,” Donna continued, “just for a second, and Lucas Trowell will make off with Sophie. You hear about that happening all the time. It’s always the gardener or the handyman or someone who works nearby.”

It seemed far-fetched, but maybe Donna had a point. “I’ll ask one of the cops to take a drive by Lucas’s house just to make sure he’s there and that there’s nothing fishy going on, okay?” he offered.

He saw Janine step out of the police car. Although it was not yet dark out, the parking lot lights came on, and Janine stood uncertainly in the glow of one of them for a moment before walking toward the white van. There was a fragility about her that Joe had never noticed before. Not even during all those days and nights in the hospital, standing at Sophie’s bedside, wondering if she would live or die. A moment later, Sergeant Loomis got out of the car himself and waved to Joe.

“I’ve got to go,” he said to Donna.

“Should we come over there?” Donna asked.

“No, you sit tight. We’ll call the second we know anything.”

He passed Janine as he walked toward the police car.

“You okay?” he asked her.

She nodded, unsmiling, and he knew she was anything but okay.

“Too hot in there,” Loomis said, as Joe approached the police car. He wiped his damp forehead with a handkerchief. “Let’s stand out here and talk.”

Joe leaned against the closed door of the car, while Loomis asked him the predictable questions. Where had Joe been that day? What was his relationship with Sophie like? With Janine?

“Your ex-wife says you strongly disapprove of the medical treatment your daughter is receiving.”

“Yes, I do,” Joe said. “But I haven’t kidnapped her and taken her to the Mayo Clinic, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“And you didn’t want her to go to this camp, either,” Loomis continued. “How badly do you want to prove your ex-wife wrong about her decision to send your daughter there?”

Joe’s temper was rising, and he wondered if that was Loomis’s intent. “I would never use my daughter that way,” he said, working to keep his voice calm.

Loomis asked him a few more questions, about where he worked, about his relationship with Paula. Finally, he sighed and looked toward the clot of people a dozen yards or so away from where he was standing with Joe.

“Do you have any gut feeling about this?” he asked, once he’d seem to run out of questions. “Any instinctive sense of what’s going on here?”

Joe thought for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I just spoke with my in-laws. Sophie’s grandparents. They have some concerns about their gardener. Sophie and Janine live on their property, so the gardener knows them. My in-laws think he’s a little too interested in Sophie, and they’re worried he might have something to do with this. I told them I’d pass that along to you, in case you wanted to swing by his house and just make sure he’s there…and that Sophie isn’t.”

“What do you think?”

“I think the guy’s maybe a bit more interested in little girls than he should be, but I frankly doubt he has anything to do with this.”

“Do you know his address?”

“It’s on Canter Trail. Over near Wolf Trap. I’m not sure of the number, though. It’s a small ranch sort of house. A rambler. Brick. But he actually lives in the wooded lot behind the house, up in a tree house, and—”

“Are you talking about that Trowell fellow?” Loomis looked interested.

“You know him?” Joe felt a flash of fear. Why would the police know Lucas? Could he really be the pedophile Donna and Frank feared him to be?

“No, not personally,” Loomis said. “I just know that he lives there. Everyone knows about the guy in the tree house.”

“Can you check to see if he has a record?” Joe asked. “His first name is Lucas.”

“Will do. And I’ll have someone swing by there.”

“Thanks.”

It was dark by the time Sergeant Loomis had finished his questioning of everyone in the group. He stood beneath one of the parking lot lights and drew them all together again with a wave of his arms.

“All right,” he said. “That’s it for tonight. You—”

“That’s it?” Joe asked. “What are you going to do? Who’s out looking for them?”

“Look, Mr. Donohue,” Loomis said. “We’re not miracle workers. We’ve got a situation here of some travelers not reaching their destination. They’ve covered about a hundred miles, through several counties, in a blue Honda Accord, not exactly the rarest car on the road, and we don’t have a clue if they might have taken off in another direction altogether or if they stopped at a rest stop and took naps on a picnic table or if they were kidnapped by someone or decided to stop to eat, or who knows? So there’s not much for us to go on right now. We’ll do all we can. We’ll have the patrol cars along the route keep a lookout for them. Not much else we can do tonight.”

“What about talking to people in shops or restaurants along the way?” Paula asked.

“Most departments don’t have the manpower to do that, ma’am. At least not at this point in the investigation. So for now, you should all go home and stick close to your phones tonight.”

Go home? Joe could not imagine being able to go home. He looked at Janine and knew she was thinking the same thing.

He moved next to her. “Let’s drive up to the camp,” he said. “Follow the route they would have taken.”

“We’ve already got that covered.” Loomis had heard him. “There’s no need for you to—”

“I want to,” Janine insisted.

“And we’re staying right here,” Rebecca said. “In case they’ve just been delayed somehow and are on their way back.”

The police officer sighed. “Most of you have cell phones. I’ve got all your numbers. Let’s make sure you’ve all got each other’s.”

Holly’s parents had no cell phone, but Paula said she would stay with them so that they could use hers. Joe was grateful to Paula for not suggesting she join Janine and himself on their drive. She knew he’d want this time alone with Janine.

They exchanged phone numbers with everyone, and he and Janine got into his car. Once they were on the road, Janine began to cry. She wept softly, her face toward the window, and he pulled the car to the side of Beulah Road and turned off the ignition.