Winterkill - C. J. Box [130]
Joe had watched her, not knowing what to do. When Marybeth finally paused long enough to cry, he held her.
“I’ve never hated a woman as much as I hate her,” Marybeth said. Joe knew she meant Melinda Strickland.
Joe had never seen her so angry, or so bitter.
“She’ll go to jail. The investigation will prove that,” Joe assured Marybeth, stroking her hair and hoping that somehow he was right. “It won’t bring April back, but at least Melinda Strickland will pay.”
Marybeth leaned her head back and met his eyes. “She never even sent a note. Think about that, Joe. Think how cold her heart is.”
Joe just nodded, knowing there was nothing to say.
On the way home from the last basketball practice of the season, Sheridan sat quietly in the cab of the pickup, absently patting Maxine’s head. Joe, driving, cast wary glances at the sky that filled the top half of his windshield. Thunderheads were moving in. It looked like snow.
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mom going to be okay?”
Joe paused. “She’s going to be all right. It takes a while.”
“I miss April, too.”
“So do I, honey.”
“I know we’re not going to get April back,” Sheridan said. “But I do want my mom back.”
Joe reached over and put his hand on Sheridan’s shoulder. Her hair was still damp from practice.
“Dad, can I ask you something?”
Joe nodded.
“Are you and Mom mad at me for not watching April closer that day in school? For letting Jeannie Keeley take her away?”
Joe was hurt by the question, and pulled quickly to the side of the road so he could turn in his seat and face her.
“No, honey, of course we’re not angry with you,” he assured her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I was responsible for her,” Sheridan said, fighting tears that seemed to come, Joe thought, much more easily than they used to.
“That’s never even crossed our minds, Sheridan,” Joe said. “Never.”
As they pulled out into the road, Joe restrained a heavy sigh. He felt badly that he hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t thought to talk to Sheridan about this earlier. Of course she would feel this way, he thought. Despite her maturity, despite what she’s been through, she’s still a child, he thought. And she naturally wondered if the difficulties her parents were having were somehow her doing.
It had been rough on Sheridan and Lucy, Joe knew. They missed April, and they missed the way their mother used to be. Marybeth had seesawed between snapping at them and smothering them with physical affection. Lucy had complained to him that she didn’t know what to say to her mother because she never knew what reaction she would get.
Joe knew he was far from faultless as well. He felt distant, and uninterested in so many of the things that used to give him joy. His thoughts were still up there on the mountain, in the compound, in the snow. He sometimes forgot that the living members of his family were in front of him and needed his attention.
“Your mom will be all right,” Joe said. “She’s tough.”
Sheridan nodded.
“We’ve never really talked about what happened up there on the mountain, Dad,” she said. “It seems like the good guys turned out to be the bad guys, and the bad guys weren’t all that bad.”
Joe smiled. “That’s a pretty good way to put it.”
“I can’t really sort it out,” Sheridan confessed.
“Sheridan, it’s all about accountability,” he said after a pause. It was something he had thought a lot about recently.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that people should be accountable for their actions. They have to be accountable. There need to be consequences for thoughtless or cruel behavior,” Joe said, wondering if he’d said too much. He didn’t want her to think he was plotting revenge.
Sheridan sat silently for a few moments.
“Who is accountable for me losing a sister for no good reason?”
Joe frowned. “I am, to a certain degree . . .”
“No, you’re not!”
“Yes, honey, I am,” Joe said, looking straight ahead out the window. “I didn’t protect her as well as I should have. I didn