The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [108]
“Shit happens, huh?” Marti said. She stood up and stretched. “I am so bored! I’m going to read for a while in the bedroom.”
She doesn’t get it, Zoe thought as Marti left the room. Or maybe she gets it and she just doesn’t care. She was finished with her bandaging job. She stood up and, on a whim, leaned over to kiss the top of Sophie’s head. This child was so brave.
As she put away the peroxide and threw out the bloodstained bandage, tears burned her eyes. Sophie was in jail once again, she thought. Only this time, she and Marti were the jailers who were keeping her there.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I feel terrible saying this,” Joe said, as he turned onto Route 66. “But I’m beginning to wish that Sophie had been killed in the car accident, too.”
There. He’d finally said those words out loud. The thought had been eating away at him for a couple of days, but he’d been holding it inside, still trying to pretend to the rest of the world that he thought Sophie could be found alive. He couldn’t imagine saying those words to anyone other than Paula.
From the passenger seat of his car, Paula reached over to rub his shoulder.
“I know, hon,” she said. “But I’m still hoping that somehow…by some miracle…” She shook her head, and he knew she was as frustrated as he was.
It had been another long, disheartening day of sitting helplessly by the trailer, staring into the woods that had taken his daughter from him. It seemed to him that every dog from the search-and-rescue teams had been called to the creek to try to pick up Sophie’s scent. Valerie told him that some of the dogs seemed to find the scent for a moment or two, only to lose it again. Even the cadaver-seeking dogs were brought into the area, but no one was upset when they, too, seemed unable to pick up a scent.
Now he and Paula were headed back to Vienna. All of them—Janine and Lucas, Donna and Frank—were on their way home, because tomorrow was Holly Kraft’s funeral. And although Joe fought the feeling as hard as he could, he could not help but think that perhaps Holly’s parents had been the lucky ones. They knew where Holly was. They knew that the end for her had been swift. They knew she was no longer suffering.
“I can’t believe it’s been five days already,” he said.
“It seems like five weeks to me,” Paula said.
“Did you hear them say something about ending the search on Sunday?” Joe thought he had overheard Valerie mention something to that effect, but he had not wanted it to be the truth and so had not pressed her.
“I think that’s what Valerie said,” Paula said.
“And then we’ll never know what really happened.”
“They’ll still be looking tomorrow, hon,” she said.
“She could be anywhere,” Joe said. “And when I look at that topographical map in the trailer…I’m overwhelmed by how much land is out there. How much territory there is to cover.”
Joe’s cell phone rang, and he grabbed it from the console. He doubted he would ever be able to answer a phone dispassionately again.
“Hello?” he said, as he opened the mouthpiece.
“Is this Joe Donohue?” It was a woman’s voice, and he thought immediately of Valerie Boykin. He steeled himself for what she might tell him.
“Yes,” he answered. He was aware of Paula leaning closer to him, as if trying to hear what the caller had to say.
“This is Catherine Maitland, from Monticello,” the woman said. “I understand you needed some information on one