The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [92]
“What’s that?”
“A tube. It hooks her up to a machine that does the work of her kidneys for her.”
Marti shook her head in disbelief. “Who the hell let her loose out here when she’s that screwed up?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” Zoe said. “What matters is that I get her to the road, and that’s what I’m going to do. That’s final. If we leave right when she wakes up, I should be able to get her up there in a few hours and be back here before it gets dark.”
“Fine,” Marti said, her cheeks flaming. “If I’m not here when you get back, just assume they found me and took me back to prison for some more rape and battery.” She stormed out of the shanty, trying to slam the door behind her, but it only creaked feebly against its old hinges.
Through the window behind the sofa, Zoe watched her run into the forest. She remembered Marti’s teenage years, when she’d slam out of the house in a fury over some argument or another. She’d take off for a friend’s house or to meet a sympathetic boyfriend on the beach, and Zoe would feel overwhelmed with helplessness—much the way she was feeling now.
This time, though, she knew Marti had nowhere to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Joe asked.
He was standing in front of Janine in the parking lot of the motel. It was Thursday morning, and Lucas had gotten a ride into town, where he planned to rent a car. Then he would return to the motel and pick her up.
“Lucas has to go back today, and—”
“So, let him go,” Joe said.
She ignored the barb. “I’m going with him to get some of the medicine that Sophie’s on, so when we find her, she’ll be able to have it administered right away,” she said. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
She had spoken to Valerie Boykin, asking her if a paramedic would be able to administer Herbalina to Sophie. Valerie said they would need a prescription from the doctor to do so, but if they had that, it would be no problem. Yet, although Valerie was kind in her answers, Janine had the feeling that the search manager did not believe Sophie would ever get the chance to receive Herbalina—or any other medication, for that matter.
“Why does Lucas have to get back?” Joe asked. “He doesn’t have a job.”
“There’s something important he needs to do.” She wanted to defend Lucas even though she, herself, had trouble understanding his insistence on going back to Vienna.
Her mother was walking down the motel stairs from the second story. “What’s going on?” she asked, more to Joe than to Janine. She had circles under her eyes—just like the rest of them. “Have you heard anything?”
“Lucas needs to get back to Vienna, so Janine is going with him,” Joe said.
“I hope he isn’t hurrying back to his job at Ayr Creek,” her mother said. “He realizes he no longer works there, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, Mother,” Janine said. “He knows.”
“I don’t think Lucas Trowell can stay in one place more than a few hours,” her mother said. “He’d come to work, then he’d leave early. He comes here, then he leaves early. Why are you going with him, Janine? You follow him around like a puppy dog.”
“Mom, Sophie’s missing,” Janine said. “I really don’t feel like arguing about this.”
“Sophie’s missing here, in West Virginia, and you’re going home, to Vienna, to be with your boyfriend,” her mother said. “What kind of a mother are you?”
“Janine wants to get some of that herbal…medicine to give Sophie in case they can find her,” Joe said. If he thought he was being helpful with that explanation, Janine thought bitterly, he was mistaken.
Her mother made a sound of disgust. “She’s going to need dialysis the moment they find her, not herbs.”
“Maybe she will,” Janine said, “but I want to have Herbalina available for her, anyhow, just in case.”
She spotted Lucas pulling into the parking lot in a white Taurus and walked rapidly toward the car without saying goodbye to either her mother or Joe. She was in the passenger seat before he even had a chance to open the door for her.
“Get me out of here,” she said, fastening her seatbelt across her chest. “Please.”