Winterkill - C. J. Box [72]
Jeannie made a “What can you do?” gesture.
Twenty
Sheridan and Lucy stood waiting at the curb when their father pulled up to the school to pick them up. Sheridan held Lucy’s hand. It was darker than it had been all day, and mist tendrils reached down from the sky like cold fingers. It wasn’t really snowing, but ice crystals hung suspended in the air.
“Where’s April?” her dad asked, as Lucy climbed over the bench seat to the narrow crew-cab backseat and Sheridan jumped up beside him.
“Mom came and got her this afternoon,” Sheridan said, pulling the seatbelt across her.
Her dad nodded, and began to pull away from the curb. Then something seemed to hit him and he slammed on the brakes. Lucy yelled “Dad!” to admonish him, but Sheridan turned in her seat to face her father.
“Sheridan,” he said slowly, enunciating clearly, each word dropping like a stone. “How do you know your mother came and got her?”
“I heard the announcement from the other room,” she said. “The secretary came on and asked for April to report to the principal’s office. That’s what they do.”
Lucy came to her older sister’s defense. “They made an announcement like that for me when Mom came and got me to take me to the dentist. Whenever they do that it means your mom or dad is waiting in the office for you.”
“Did you see her?” her dad asked. “Did you see your mom?”
Both girls shook their heads. Sheridan had seen a woman in a green dress pass by her classroom door. But it wasn’t her mother. She had no idea why their father seemed so upset. Then she realized what must have happened—Jeannie Keeley must have come for April and taken her away. Sheridan clapped her hand to her mouth. She had been afraid something like this would happen. Her parents had never spelled out what was happening with April, but Sheridan knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“Your mom was at work all day at the library and the stables,” he said.
And their sister April was gone.
Sheridan began to sob, and Lucy joined her. Sheridan felt awful. April was her responsibility because she was the oldest. Her dad closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and drove. He did not say It’s okay, it’s not your fault.
“I need to call your mother,” her dad said, his voice resigned.
Joe lay awake in bed and waited for Marybeth to join him. It was late, and he was exhausted. He watched Marybeth brush her teeth and clean her face in the vanity mirror. He could hear the murmur of late-night television from downstairs, a nightly habit of Missy Vankueren’s.
Marybeth had amazed him once again that night. By the time Joe got home, Marybeth had again channeled her rage and frustration into usefulness. Her ability to push her emotion aside and develop a strategy was stunning, Joe thought.
She had calmed Sheridan and Lucy as well as she could, and made dinner for them all. While she cooked, she methodically called both the principal and the sheriff to notify them of what had happened. She left after-hours messages with the county attorney and three local attorneys, asking them to call her in the morning.
While the girls bathed and watched television with Missy, Marybeth filled a suitcase and several boxes with April’s clothing and toys. At the first opportunity, she announced to Joe, they must make sure Jeannie received April’s belongings. She said it with a kind of chilly determination that had unnerved him.
“Jeannie got April before we could prepare our little girl, or kiss her goodbye,” Marybeth said. “I will never forgive her for that.”
Missy always thought—and often said—that Marybeth would have made an excellent corporate lawyer if she hadn’t married Joe Pickett and started having children. Now Joe could see what an efficient and cold-blooded lawyer she could have become.
Marybeth turned the vanity light off and came to bed. Joe held her.
“We’re going to get April back,” Marybeth said through gritted teeth. “We’re going to get her back, Joe.”
Three times during the night, Marybeth left the bedroom. Joe slept so fitfully that