The Courage Tree

He looked toward Ayr Creek again, wondering if he could come up with some excuse to go over there. Not much need for a gardener in the dark, though, and they would know. They’d know it was his interest in Sophie that brought him there.

And they would be entirely right.

CHAPTER FIVE

Janine’s eyes burned from trying to pierce the darkness. For hours, she and Joe had been driving along the route Alison and the girls should have followed from the camp. Joe was at the wheel, and he drove as slowly as safety would allow, while they searched the side of the road for a disabled car hidden by the darkness. They stopped at every restaurant and gas station that was still open at that hour, asking if anyone had seen the missing Scouts. Several sheriff’s cars had passed them along the way, reassuring them that they were not alone in their search. Still, their cell phones didn’t ring. They’d kept in touch with everyone who had remained behind at the parking lot, hoping for good news, but nothing had changed. Nothing except the fear which grew inside all of them as the minutes ticked by.

When they’d reached the camp, they’d spent some time talking with the sheriff who was questioning the supervisor and counselors there, then started to retrace their route back to Virginia. Joe suggested they get a hotel room—actually, he wisely suggested they get two—but Janine couldn’t lock herself, safe and secure, into a hotel room when she had no idea where Sophie was.

Leaning her head against the window of Joe’s car, Janine closed her eyes. Instantly, a familiar, unwanted image slipped into her mind, as it often did when she was in a moving vehicle and slightly disoriented. She was suddenly flying her helicopter through the smoke above the Saudi Arabian desert. The smell was acrid, filled with the chemicals that she, in her darkest moments, feared had altered something inside her and caused her to produce a child whose kidneys did not work correctly.

If it had been Lucas with her in the car, rather than Joe, she would have told him about those memories, but she had no energy to recount them to her ex-husband. He would have no sympathy for her, anyway.

“Tell me more about this Alison,” Joe said grimly, bringing her back to the present.

Janine opened her eyes to see that they were driving slowly past a restaurant, while Joe tried to determine if it was still open. It was not, and he sped up again.

“Is there a real chance that Alison might have taken off with them?” he asked.

“She’s a free spirit,” she said, only half aware that those were the same words Joe had often used to describe her in their early years together. “She’s made a few mistakes working with the girls, but I just can’t believe she’d do anything that extreme.”

“What do you mean, a few mistakes?”

“Oh, she talked to them about the birds and the bees without getting parental permission, that sort of thing.”

“Well.” Joe let out a sigh. “Let’s face it, Jan. They never got back from this trip, and I know it’s dark, but we’ve scoured this route, and her car is not anywhere along it. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She nodded.

“That has to mean that she and the car and the girls are somewhere we’re not looking. Somewhere they’re not supposed to be.”

The thought was strangely reassuring. “Maybe Holly’s mother…Rebecca…was right and Alison decided it would be fun for them to go to an amusement park or something, and she’ll bring them back tomorrow. She can probably get by without the dialysis tonight, but she has to be back tomorrow to get her—” She stopped herself, but Joe knew what she was about to say.

“To get that damned herbal crap,” he said.

Janine turned her face to the window again. “It’s made her feel so much better,” she said weakly. Tears burned her eyes. “I just wanted to see a real smile on her face again.”

“At what cost, Jan?” Joe glanced at her. “Maybe she’ll get a few weeks or a couple of months of feeling good before the disease catches up with her again and kills her.”

“Shh!” She didn’t want to hear him say those words.

“What are you shushing me for?” he asked. “It isn’t news that she’s going to die. The only real remaining chance she had was the legitimate study at Hopkins, but you were determined to do this no matter what I wanted.” He braked the car abruptly. The driver behind them honked, swerving sharply to avoid hitting them, and with a yelp, Janine grabbed the dashboard.

She saw what had caught his attention—a car parked on the side of the road. Her heart still pounded from the near accident as she opened her car window to get a better look. The parked car was huge and looked deserted, a white paper stuck to its antenna.

“It’s a…I don’t know, some big car,” Janine said. “Not a Honda, anyway.”

“Sorry.” Joe apologized for his erratic driving. He reached across the gear shift to touch her hand, a surprising gesture. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said. She would have braked with equal force had she been the one driving.

Joe sighed again. “So,” he said. “Back to Sophie. Here’s what I don’t get. You and I have always talked to each other about how to deal with her, whether we were communicating about her medical care or her behavior or anything. Isn’t that right?”

She nodded. Joe sounded genuinely perplexed, and she felt guilty. She had always consulted with him in the past and taken his feelings to heart. Decisions about Sophie had, in every instance, been mutually made.

“I loved that about us,” Joe continued. “I was proud of us. We might have been divorced, but we were still a team when it came to her. Then you go off and do something half-assed like enrolling her in that study. Something that goes completely against what I want.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought it was the right thing. I still think it was the right—”

“What possessed you?” He looked at her. “You’re usually smarter than that. Whatever made you think Schaefer’s herbs could fix what no one else has ever been able to fix?”

“I didn’t go into it blindly,” she said. She heard the weakness in her voice. She always felt weak around Joe, as though being near him sucked the strength and self-esteem right out of her. “Lucas Trowell knows a lot about herbs and he researched the ingredients in Herbalina for me. He really felt it might have a chance of—”

“You know, Jan.” Joe shook his head. The muscles in his cheeks contracted, and she knew he was trying to control his anger. “Lucas Trowell is a gardener. He’s not a doctor.”

“He knows a lot about herbs, though,” she said.

“How do you know that? Because he told you so? I think he’d tell you anything to get close to Sophie.”

There it was again. That Lucas-Trowellis-a-pedophile paranoia.

“That’s crazy, Joe,” she said. “He’s been very kind to Sophie. She adores him.”

Big mistake. Joe nearly lost control of the car, sending it over the line into the middle lane, and again, a driver honked his horn at them. “You keep him away from her, Janine,” Joe shouted as he steered the car back into the slow lane. “I mean it! I am damn serious. I don’t want that guy anywhere near her.”

She hated it when he yelled. Joe had never laid a hand on her, but he didn’t need to. He was big and muscular, and his anger could be so powerful that it alone was enough to frighten her into submission. She lowered herself farther into the seat and shut her eyes.

“What does it matter to him if the treatment works or not?” Joe continued his argument. “Sophie’s not his daughter. She’s nothing to him. Your judgment is all screwed up.”

Eyes still shut, Janine pressed her temple to the window. She was not wrong about Lucas, although she’d twisted the facts of Sophie’s enrollment in the study a bit. It was actually through Lucas that she’d learned of the study; she probably never would have known about it had he not told her.

Lucas had heard a short ad on the radio about a researcher who was looking for pediatric subjects to be in a study of an alternative treatment for pediatric kidney disease. Janine had called about the study and learned it involved an herbal remedy, delivered intravenously. When she told her parents and Joe that she wanted Sophie to participate in the study, they refused to even discuss the matter with her. Instead, they wanted Sophie to participate in a Johns Hopkins study of one more horrid, toxic medication—that if it didn’t kill her—might help her.

The herbal approach had no such side effects, Dr. Schaefer had told her. As a matter of fact, Sophie would feel much better very quickly. Even so, Janine did not enroll her right away. Schaefer was a bit strange, a mousy man of few words who seemed remarkably unsure of himself to be leading a study of any kind, but she checked into his background and learned he had conducted some research of minor importance in the past, in which his hypotheses had been proven correct. She assumed he was one of those cerebral types who was brilliant despite a nerdish exterior.

Lucas researched the herbs for her, telling her he thought Schaefer might actually be on to something. She’d sat with him in his tree house, studying the computer screen as he pulled up information about each herb from the Internet and translated the scientific descriptions of them into language she could easily understand. Lucas was the only person with whom she could speak rationally about the study, who didn’t scoff at the idea or belittle her for considering it. Her parents and Joe simply wouldn’t discuss Schaefer’s approach as an option.

Still, it wasn’t until Sophie suffered another crisis, one her doctors felt certain spelled the end of her short life, that Janine did something she hadn’t done in many years: she rebelled against Joe and her parents, that mighty, controlling three-some, and enrolled Sophie in the study behind their backs. Their fury had been quick to flare, and Janine would have backed down had it not been for Lucas. He’d lifted her guilt and rebuilt her back-bone. But look where that backbone had gotten her now. Look where it had gotten Sophie.

Long, long ago, Joe had appreciated Janine’s independence and daring. They’d known each other since their first year of junior high school, and back then, Joe had often expressed an admiration of her tomboyishness, her competitiveness and her spirit. Something shifted in their relationship during their junior year of high school, though, when Joe became attracted to her as something more than just the girl who could win any race and would accept any dare. They began to date, very quickly becoming a steady item in the halls of their high school. He grew less tolerant of her rebellious side, as he began to long for her to be more like the calm, faithful, feminine young women who dated his closest friends. One bonus of that wild streak, though, was Janine’s uninhibited sexuality. She’d wanted to lose her virginity, and Joe had been more than pleased to oblige—after first making certain she was on the pill.

She had been on the Pill, but as in most areas of her life, she was not terribly careful about taking it. Still, it wasn’t until the spring of their senior year that she became pregnant.

Her parents blamed her, not Joe, for the pregnancy, and they were quick to encourage Janine to marry him. The wedding took place the day after their graduation, in the garden at Ayr Creek, and Janine, a bit overwhelmed by all that was happening, allowed her parents to plan the event. The wedding was traditional in every detail, except, perhaps, for the bloated stomach of the bride, which pressed firmly against the fabric of her wedding gown.

Her parents adored Joe. He was the son they’d never had, and for Joe, the Snyders filled the lonely, empty space only an orphan could know. His mother had abused drugs and alcohol, deserting Joe and his father when Joe was only a year old. His father abandoned him in his own way, by dying in a plane crash when Joe was ten. Joe was then raised by his elderly aunt and uncle. Janine couldn’t blame him for being thrilled by her welcoming parents, even if she had never found them welcoming herself.

Her parents, who taught history in two different high schools at the time of the wedding, helped them out financially so that Joe and Janine were able to rent a small apartment in Chantilly. Janine’s mother bought them things they would need for the baby, and her father built them a crib from a kit. But all during that pregnancy, Janine had a sense of unreality. Her body grew rounder, yet she couldn’t quite grasp the fact that, in a few months, she would be a mother. She was barely eighteen, and not ready, not willing, to settle down.

She was good, at least as good as she could be. She didn’t swallow an ounce of alcohol once she learned she was pregnant, and she stopped smoking. But the physical risks she loved—climbing the cliffs at Great Falls, kayaking in the white water of the Potomac, canoeing the Shenandoah River—she did not give up. She wanted to learn how to fly, she told Joe. Maybe she would even be a stunt pilot or a wing walker. Joe told her to “grow up.” They had no money for her to take flying lessons, he said. He was working at a grocery store, trying to keep food on their table, and Janine thought he’d become remarkably stodgy overnight. It would be years before she understood that Joe’s quiet commitment to his job was a sign of his maturity, and that her wild streak was the hallmark of a self-indulgent, self-centered girl who had no business being married, much less a mother.

It was during one of her canoe trips that her baby decided to be born. Joe was not with her; he was working and would have been upset if he’d known she had gone off with her friends for a day on the Shenandoah. It was a weekend, and she didn’t see why she should have to stay home just because Joe had to work. Yet she knew better than to ask him if he minded. She simply went. She never would have gone if she’d known the baby would come six weeks early.

She was with three of her friends from high school: her best friend, Ellie, and two male friends who were simply that—friends. They were in two canoes, deep in the forest, battling a patch of white water, when the pains started. Quickly, Janine was bleeding, her terror mounting with each stab of pain.

They paddled to the riverbank, and Ellie stayed with her on a bed of leaves and moss, while the guys went for help. Ellie had no idea what to do, of course, and looking back on the event later, Janine barely remembered her friend’s presence. Instead, she remembered feeling completely alone, the trees a canopy of gold above her as she gasped from the pain and shivered in the October chill.

By the time the paramedics found her, she had delivered a stillborn baby boy, which Ellie had wrapped in her windbreaker.

The paramedics lifted Janine onto a stretcher and covered her with blankets.

“What the hell are you doing out here when you’re nearly eight months pregnant?” one of them asked her, as he rested a blanket on top of her.

She couldn’t answer, but she knew she deserved the hostile tone of the question. Once in the ambulance, she stared at the unmoving bundle where it rested in a clear plastic bassinet, and it was as if she were acknowledging for the first time that there had truly been a life inside her that she had taken for granted. A life she had, in effect, abused and neglected. She didn’t cry, at least not aloud, but tears washed over her cheek onto the stretcher.

Joe had been furious. He didn’t talk to her for weeks, and she’d felt alone and completely deserving of the isolation. She would mourn for that baby for the rest of her life. That had been her first true taste of guilt—a bitter, vile taste that was unfamiliar in her mouth. But it was not to be her last.

“Are you awake?”

She heard Joe’s voice in the darkness and drew herself back to the present.

“Yes.” She sat up straight, brushing tears from her cheeks. They were still in the car, somewhere on Beulah Road, and she saw the lights of the Meadowlark Gardens parking lot ahead of them. Leaning forward, she tried to make out the vehicles in the far corner of the lot.

“Looks like Gloria’s van,” Joe said. “And Rebecca and Steve’s Suburban. Your car. That’s it.”

They pulled into the lot, vast and dark in its emptiness, and drove to the corner. The four of them—Paula, Gloria, Rebecca and Steve—were sitting on small beach chairs set on the macadam. The Krafts’ two sons were no longer with them, and Charlotte had apparently gone home. Crushed bags and empty cups from Taco Bell littered the ground near the chairs.

Everyone stood up as Joe parked the car next to the Suburban.

“Any news?” Janine asked, as she got out of the car.

“Nothing,” Gloria said. “How about on your end? Did you see anything?”

“No clues,” Joe said. “But it was so dark up there, and the people working at the gas stations and restaurants are not the same people who were there this afternoon. So it was a little frustrating.”

“Plus, a lot of the shops and restaurants are closed,” Janine added.

“The police told us to go home and stay close to the phone,” Gloria said. “But we didn’t want to leave until you two got back.”

“Your parents called us a million times,” Rebecca said to Janine. “They’re so worried. You might want to give them a call.”

Rebecca and Steve no longer wore their wide, optimistic smiles. They looked a little ragged around the edges now, with dark shadows around their eyes, and Janine wanted to pull Rebecca into a hug. But there was still some distance in Rebecca, as if she were intentionally holding herself apart from the scene, and Janine did not feel that they were sharing the same frightening experience at all.

Joe touched Janine’s arm. “I’ll take Paula home, then meet you over at Ayr Creek, okay?” he asked.

She nodded, uncertain if it would help or hurt to have Joe there when she spoke to her parents.

She walked toward her car. It seemed like weeks had passed since she’d driven into the lot, full of excitement at seeing her daughter. Inside the car, she felt the emptiness in the back seat where Sophie should have been, and she kept turning to glance behind her, as though Sophie might pop up, yelling “Surprise!” and telling her this had been some silly kind of trick, some crazy scheme of Alison’s. But Sophie was not in the car, and as Janine drove through the dark, winding back roads on the outskirts of Vienna, she said a prayer that, wherever Sophie was, she would be alive and healthy and, somehow, unafraid.

CHAPTER SIX

Janine didn’t drive directly home. She pulled out of the parking lot at Meadowlark Gardens and onto Beulah Road, glancing in her rearview mirror as if she still expected the blue Honda to turn into the lot any moment, then drove as quickly as she could toward Lucas’s property. He lived at the end of a cul-de-sac on an acre of mostly wooded land bordering Wolf Trap National Park. She parked in the driveway near the small, rambler and walked along the darkened, familiar path through the woods to reach the tree house. She was relieved to see that the lights were on in his living room; she would hate to wake him.

Gripping the banister, she climbed the stairs that circled the oak tree. He must have heard her, because he was waiting for her on the deck by the time she reached it. Wordlessly, he pulled her into his arms. She breathed in the soap-and-earth scent of him, feeling enclosed, but not truly comforted; sheltered, but not safe. Nowhere would she feel safe right now.

“You must know Sophie’s missing,” she whispered.

“Yes.” His breath was warm on her neck.

“How?”

“Cop came to ask me some questions.”

She pressed her hands against his back. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Is there any news?”

She pulled away from him, running her hands through her hair. “Nothing,” she said. “Joe and I drove all the way up to the camp and back again, trying to cover the route she would have followed back to Vienna. There was no sign of Alison’s—the troop leader’s—car anywhere. And we must have talked to every gas station attendant and waitress between here and there. They’ve just disappeared.”

“Come in,” he said. He guided her into his small living room, an arm around her shoulders. “Have you eaten anything?”

“I can’t.”

“Iced tea? Soda?”

She shook her head. The thought of trying to get anything down her throat nearly made her gag.

Lowering herself onto the built-in sofa in his living room, she suddenly began to cry. “I feel so helpless,” she said, accepting the handkerchief he handed her and blotting it to her eyes.

He pulled one of the captain’s chairs in front of her and sat down, taking her right hand in both of his. “Tell me everything,” he said. “What do the cops think?”

She ran her fingers over the blue splint on his wrist as she wearily answered his questions, and Lucas suggested the same possible explanations for the disappearance of the girls that she had gone over with Joe and the police and Gloria. They were lost. They’d fallen asleep somewhere and forgotten the time. They’d taken a recreational detour. The explanations sounded weaker now, in the middle of the night, and for the first time, Janine allowed the worst to enter her mind.

“What if she’s dead?” she asked Lucas. “Children disappear all the time. They’re always found dead somewhere.”

“Children don’t disappear all the time, and they are rarely found dead,” he said softly. “They’re simply the ones you hear about. It doesn’t do any good to start thinking that way, Jan.”

“She’s supposed to have dialysis tonight,” she said, “and she needs her Herbalina IV tomorrow.”

Lucas nodded. “I know. I was thinking about that. Have you ever asked her doctor what would happen if she missed an IV?”

She shook her head. “I would never allow that to happen.”

“You should call him right now.”

“Schaefer? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, but I think the police should have a very clear picture of her illness. Did you tell them?”

“Yes. But not in great detail. Not anything about what would happen if she misses that IV.”

“They should know, Jan, don’t you think?” Lucas asked. “They can get the information to the media, and the media can get it out on the airwaves. They need to know how urgent this is. If—and this is only an if—Sophie’s been kidnapped, by the Scout leader or someone else, and the kidnapper hears that Sophie needs treatment right away…well, maybe he or she has a soft spot in his heart and would drop her off at a hospital or something.”

She nodded. He was right, and making the call would give her something to do to ease the helplessness. “His number’s stored in my cell, but can I use your phone?” she asked. “I don’t want to tie mine up.”

He handed her his phone and she dialed the number. It was after one in the morning, and the woman at Schaefer’s answering service sounded annoyed at being disturbed.

“I need to speak with Dr. Schaefer,” Janine said. “It’s an emergency.”

“If this is an emergency, you should hang up and call 911,” the woman said.

“No. Not that sort of emergency. Please…just get in touch with him and ask him to call Janine Donohue right away. Only not at my usual number.” She gave the woman Lucas’s number, then hung up the phone. Her hand was shaking.

The doctor called within five minutes. He sounded wide-awake, although his usually faint New England accent was more pronounced than she’d ever heard it before.

“Is Sophie all right?” he asked, and Janine was grateful for the genuine concern in his voice.

“I don’t know,” she said. “She went to a Girl Scout camp this weekend and she hasn’t come home. She and another girl and their leader are all…missing. They were due back at three. The police are involved, but there’s no trace of them. And I’m worried she won’t be found in time to get her IV tomorrow. Will she…will she be all right without it?”

There was a long silence on Schaefer’s end of the phone line.

“Dr. Schaefer?” she prodded, wondering if he had fallen asleep.