The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [39]
“How hard do you think they’re looking?” Janine asked him, when he hung up the phone. They were only a mile or two from the camp at that point. “Alison has one of the most common cars on the road. Do you think they’re stopping every blue Honda they see? Peeking inside any blue Honda parked in a parking lot?”
“You’re right,” Joe said, and he hit the redial button on his phone. As soon as he had the sergeant on the line again, he started yelling. “You guys should be out here checking the restaurants and the gas stations,” he shouted into the phone. “It shouldn’t be up to the parents to have to take this on.”
Janine cringed at the anger in his voice.
“What the hell are we paying taxes for?” Joe continued. “These are little girls who are missing. You guys should be moving faster on this.” He was quiet for a moment, listening, and Janine could hear the sergeant’s deep, calm voice on the phone, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The cop was handling Joe’s temper better than she could, she thought. She knew much of the anger Sergeant Loomis was receiving was truly meant for her.
“Yeah, well, it’s not enough,” Joe muttered into the phone, his voice quieter now. He looked at his watch. “Fine. All right. We’ll be there.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
She saw his hand tremble as he rested the phone back on the console.
“They want us and Holly’s parents at the police station at three o’clock for a press conference,” he said. “They’ll have TV cameras there. We’re supposed to make some sort of plea for—”
“They think they’ve been kidnapped, then?”
“Not necessarily. It’s just a plea for people to keep an eye out for them.”
Janine pulled into the large, gravel parking lot of the camp and turned off the ignition. “Do you think it’s weird that Holly’s parents aren’t out here looking, too?” she asked.
“They have other kids to take care of,” Joe said, opening his car door. “And everybody has different ways of coping.”
She felt guilty for thinking of Rebecca and Steve Kraft with suspicion. She’d called Rebecca very early that morning to see if she and Steve wanted to drive up to the camp with them, and she had the feeling she’d awakened her. Rebecca had been silent for a moment, as if the thought of making that drive had never crossed her mind.
“No,” she’d said. “We’ll just let the police do their job and stay here by the phone. I appreciate your effort, though. Please call us right away if you learn anything.”
As soon as she stepped out of the car, Janine could hear the boisterous sounds of several hundred happy Girl Scouts. The lot was close to the lake, and the girls laughed and shrieked as they played in the water. Sophie would not have been one of those girls, Janine thought. She wouldn’t have been able to swim in the lake because of her catheter. If Janine had been there to clean the tube that protruded from her belly, wrap it in gauze and tape it to her body again, she might have allowed it, but she’d told Sophie not to get it wet at all over the weekend. That and sticking to her diet were Sophie’s end of the deal.
As she listened to the mirthful noise from the girls in the lake, Janine wondered if Sophie was capable of making such joyful sounds. Could she shriek that way, with such complete abandon? Janine had never heard her do so, and the thought weighed heavily on her mind. She wanted to know.
They met briefly with the camp director and the counselors in charge of Sophie’s cabin, the same people they had met with the night before, along with the sheriff. They were patient and sympathetic with Joe and Janine, and they exhibited real concern over the missing Scouts, but they had not been able to remember any new facts that might help to find them.
“Sophie’s a little doll,” one of the counselors said, and the other nodded in agreement.
“She’s much more mature than the other kids, even though she’s so much tinier than they are,