The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [137]
“I’m so afraid, Sophie,” Zoe said, her gaze resting on the little girl’s puffy face.
“What are you afraid of?” Sophie asked
Zoe shook her head. “I’m afraid for you, and for Marti. I’m a little afraid of Marti, actually. She’s…she’s just…”
“She’s crazy, I think,” Sophie finished the sentence for her, and Zoe had to nod in agreement.
“And I want to get help for you, darling. I do. I wish I could. But if I did that, I’d be sending my own daughter to…” She shook her head. “They’d lock her away for the rest of her life,” she said. “Maybe worse. They won’t see what I see…the troubled little girl inside her. They’ll just see someone who—who has done some terrible things. It’s always that way. They put people in prison instead of trying to help them.”
Sophie looked out the window. “I think I have to go to the outhouse,” she said, standing up.
She hasn’t heard a word I’ve said, Zoe thought to herself, as she watched Sophie hobble out the front door of the shanty. Just as well. Those words were truly not meant for the ears of a child.
She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew, Marti was standing over her.
“Where’s Sophie?” Marti asked. “She’s not in the bedroom.”
Zoe sat up on the sofa, her head foggy. “She—” Zoe struggled to remember. “She went to the outhouse, but that was a while ago, I think.” She stood up quickly, heading for the door. “I hope she’s all right out there.”
She and Marti rushed around the side of the shanty to the outhouse. It was empty. There was no sign of Sophie anywhere.
“That little bitch must be trying to get away,” Marti said. She ran back to the front of the shanty, and by the time Zoe caught up with her, she was emerging from the cabin with her gun in her hand.
“Where are you going?” Zoe asked.
“I’m going to find her,” Marti said.
“You don’t need to take a gun with you.” Zoe reached for the weapon, but Marti quickly turned away from her and headed for the woods.
“I’m just going to scare her with it,” she called over her shoulder.
Zoe ran after her, but Marti swung around, pointing the gun in her direction. “Leave me alone, Mother,” she said. “I mean it.”
Frightened, Zoe set out in the opposite direction, hoping that she would be first to stumble across Sophie. The little girl could not have gotten very far, not in the shape she was in.
She searched for nearly an hour, her nerves on edge as she listened for Marti’s gun to be fired. But there were no gunshots, and no Sophie.
She reached the shanty before Marti had returned, and when she looked into the bedroom, she spotted Sophie sound asleep on her sleeping palette. Her breathing was loud and gravelly, but at least she was still alive.
Lying down on her own palette, with its lumpy mattress of towels and clothing, she vowed to stay awake all night. She would not let Marti harm this little child.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Janine was turned around. Even with the GPS, she felt uncertain of her bearings, although she’d tried to follow her progress on the map. If these woods got any thicker, she would not be able to make her way through them. She had a new appreciation for hiking trails—and for the people who cut them. But she felt no fear at being alone in the forest, amazing even to herself. She knew it was because she felt so bonded with Sophie in these woods. She could feel Sophie out here, the way she had at the camp.
This was her second day alone in the forest. She’d been out here the previous afternoon, trying in vain to find the old log cabin and returning to the motel just before dark. She was not having any more luck today,