Diane Chamberlain - The Courage Tree

“This is something else,” Russo said. “I wish my wife would let me do something like this in our backyard. We have the trees for it, I think.”

Lucas switched on the light for the back deck, so that Russo could see the treetops through the windows.

“Unreal,” Russo said. “And you even have electricity. What do you do in the winter?”

Lucas pointed to the baseboard heaters. “I have heat,” he said, “and everything’s insulated.”

“Man, oh man.” Russo shook his head. “So, show me the rest. Where’s the bedroom?”

“Up here.” Lucas pointed to the covered stairway leading to the second tier. He climbed up ahead of Russo and opened the door to the bedroom.

Russo walked past him into the room. He glanced at the double platform bed and the dresser. An air-conditioning unit, unattractive but necessary, was in the bedroom window. “It must be great to sleep up here,” he said, opening the small closet at one end of the room and peering inside, and Lucas knew this was not merely a tour to satisfy Russo’s curiosity about his house.

“Ready to go down again?” Lucas was getting impatient.

“Sure.” Russo pointed to the blue splint on Lucas’s left wrist. “You must have carpal tunnel syndrome, huh?”

“That’s right.” Lucas said. He’d blamed the splint on carpal tunnel so often that it was beginning to feel like the truth.

“My wife has that,” Russo said, as Lucas led him down the stairs and into the living room again. “She got it from her computer job.”

Lucas tried to usher Russo toward the front door again, but the officer had noticed the locked door at the rear of the living room.

“What’s in there?” he asked.

“My study,” Lucas said.

“I’d like to see it.”

“It just has my computer and printer and some books,” Lucas said, walking toward the door. He reached in his pocket for the key. “I keep it locked in case any kids decide to come up here. I don’t want them to make off with my equipment.”

His heart thudded in his throat as he tried to remember how he’d left the study. Was there anything in clear view that might tweak the cop’s suspicions? He couldn’t remember. Thank God he’d thought to log off the Internet.

He opened the door about ten inches, enough so that Russo could see inside without actually stepping into the room.

“Nice,” Russo said, peering in, nodding. “Hey, I like that screen saver.”

Lucas followed his gaze to the baobab tree on the screen of his monitor. “Thanks,” he said.

Russo drew back from the door, showing no interest in the narrow closet with the louvered doors, and Lucas felt the muscles in his neck release. He was home free now—at least as far as the tree house tour went.

But Sophie was missing. He wanted to ask if they had any clues as to what might have happened to her, but he didn’t dare appear too interested. “Sophie’s mother must be very upset,” he said, hoping that would prompt Russo to tell him where Janine was.

“Yes. Everyone’s pretty shaken up.”

“Maybe they just got lost coming back,” Lucas suggested.

“Not five and a half hours worth of getting lost,” Russo said. “Highly unlikely.”

“I know she’s been sick. Could that have something to do with it?”

“We don’t know,” the officer admitted.

“Well, I sure hope she’s okay.” Lucas worked at the indifference in his voice as he walked Russo out the front door and onto the deck again. “Good luck trying to find her.”

“Right,” Russo said. “I have your phone number. I’ll be in touch if we need to talk with that friend of yours.”

Lucas listened as the officer descended the stairs and watched as he disappeared into the darkening woods. Then he looked through the treetops toward Ayr Creek, a couple of miles from his house. What was going on over there right now? Was Janine there, waiting and upset? Was Joe with her?

Sophie didn’t like the dark. He recalled the evening she’d been up here in the tree house, playing a game with him and Janine in the living room, when the power went out. It had gone out all over the neighborhood, and the still darkness was a glorious wonder up here in the trees. But Sophie had been panic-stricken, clinging to Janine until he’d lit several candles, enough to let them see one another’s faces. Wherever Sophie was now, he hoped she had light, and for the first time the seriousness of the situation sunk in. Sophie had been due to arrive at three. It was now nearly nine. There could be no simple reason for that much of a delay.

He looked toward Ayr Creek again, wondering if he could come up with some excuse to go over there. Not much need for a gardener in the dark, though, and they would know. They’d know it was his interest in Sophie that brought him there.

And they would be entirely right.

Janine’s eyes burned from trying to pierce the darkness. For hours, she and Joe had been driving along the route Alison and the girls should have followed from the camp. Joe was at the wheel, and he drove as slowly as safety would allow, while they searched the side of the road for a disabled car hidden by the darkness. They stopped at every restaurant and gas station that was still open at that hour, asking if anyone had seen the missing Scouts. Several sheriff’s cars had passed them along the way, reassuring them that they were not alone in their search. Still, their cell phones didn’t ring. They’d kept in touch with everyone who had remained behind at the parking lot, hoping for good news, but nothing had changed. Nothing except the fear which grew inside all of them as the minutes ticked by.

When they’d reached the camp, they’d spent some time talking with the sheriff who was questioning the supervisor and counselors there, then started to retrace their route back to Virginia. Joe suggested they get a hotel room—actually, he wisely suggested they get two—but Janine couldn’t lock herself, safe and secure, into a hotel room when she had no idea where Sophie was.

Leaning her head against the window of Joe’s car, Janine closed her eyes. Instantly, a familiar, unwanted image slipped into her mind, as it often did when she was in a moving vehicle and slightly disoriented. She was suddenly flying her helicopter through the smoke above the Saudi Arabian desert. The smell was acrid, filled with the chemicals that she, in her darkest moments, feared had altered something inside her and caused her to produce a child whose kidneys did not work correctly.

If it had been Lucas with her in the car, rather than Joe, she would have told him about those memories, but she had no energy to recount them to her ex-husband. He would have no sympathy for her, anyway.

“Tell me more about this Alison,” Joe said grimly, bringing her back to the present.

Janine opened her eyes to see that they were driving slowly past a restaurant, while Joe tried to determine if it was still open. It was not, and he sped up again.

“Is there a real chance that Alison might have taken off with them?” he asked.

“She’s a free spirit,” she said, only half aware that those were the same words Joe had often used to describe her in their early years together. “She’s made a few mistakes working with the girls, but I just can’t believe she’d do anything that extreme.”

“What do you mean, a few mistakes?”

“Oh, she talked to them about the birds and the bees without getting parental permission, that sort of thing.”

“Well.” Joe let out a sigh. “Let’s face it, Jan. They never got back from this trip, and I know it’s dark, but we’ve scoured this route, and her car is not anywhere along it. Wouldn’t you agree?”