The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [96]
“I don’t understand why Janine went back to Vienna,” Frank said suddenly, as if reading Joe’s mind.
Joe felt Paula’s eyes on him. “To be with Lucas,” he said.
Frank shook his head. “I don’t understand her. She’s putting her own needs above her daughter’s.”
“She wanted to get her car,” Paula said. “To have it here.”
“Do you believe that?” Joe asked her.
Paula rested her novel facedown in her lap. “What I do believe is that it’s Lucas she’s getting comfort from right now. You blame her, Joe, and you and Donna blame her, too, Frank. You barely even talk to her, for heaven’s sake. Lucas is the only person who’s giving her any support. Why wouldn’t she want to be with him?”
Frank was silenced by Paula’s retort, and Joe, although angry with her for it, was stunned by her courage. He was about to respond to her, when there was a sudden bustle of activity on the road to their right. A few of the searchers glanced in their direction as they ran past them into the trailer, and the buzz of the radios was steady and loud.
Joe looked from Paula to Frank and back again. Had someone found Sophie? And had they found her alive?
He got to his feet just as Valerie Boykin came out of the trailer and walked toward them.
Frank got up from his own chair to stand behind Paula’s. “Is there some news?” he asked.
“We think one of the dogs picked up her scent,” Valerie said.
“One of the dogs who finds live people or…?” Joe couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yes. It’s one of the tracking dogs. He might have picked up her scent yesterday, actually, but we weren’t sure. Today, he’s back on the same trail. So if he’s really got Sophie’s scent, and we think he does, then she was alive when she left it. He picked it up about a half a mile from the road.”
“A half mile!” Frank said.
Joe couldn’t find his voice. It seemed unbelievable. His frail little daughter had walked a half mile, by herself, through the woods!
“So,” he was finally able to say, “is the dog still following her scent?”
“There’s a snag.” The pager on Valerie’s belt beeped, and she looked down at it for a moment, as though memorizing whatever message she saw in its display, before looking up at Joe again. “The dog reached a creek, and he can’t seem to pick up the scent on the other side. We’re calling in some of the dogs from the other areas to see if they pick up the same scent and if they might be able to find it on the other side of the creek.”
“What would it mean if they can’t find it again?” Paula asked.
“Hard to say,” Valerie said. “It may mean that she actually walked in the stream for a while, although I don’t know why she would do that.”
“Maybe she was confused,” Frank suggested.
“Or her feet hurt,” Joe offered. “Remember, she was missing at least one of her shoes.”
“The other probability is that the rain we’ve had has masked her scent,” Valerie informed them. “That’s a very realistic possibility.”
Valerie’s pager beeped again, and this time she excused herself. “I’ll let you know the minute we have any more information,” she added, as she walked back to the trailer.
“I’ve got to call Janine,” Joe said, walking away from Paula and Frank. “She needs to get back here.”
He made the call from the side of the road, away from the activity near the trailer.
“Where are you?” he asked, afraid to hear that she was with Lucas, probably up in his tree house.
“At Ayr Creek,” she said. “In the cottage. Is there…has Sophie been found?”
He knew she was bracing herself for the worst. “It’s good news,” he said quickly. “A little bit of good news, anyhow. One of the tracking dogs—the live tracking dogs—picked up her scent today, about a half mile from here.”
“Oh, my God!” Janine said.
“Can you imagine she walked