Eddie beyond all reason.” He gave a small, derisive laugh and shook his head in futility. “You know, I can still remember when I was a kid how even one word of praise from him was the best thing imaginable.”
He moved nearer the window and watched his son glide through the turquoise water to the end of the pool, climb out, and quickly grab the towel to dry himself. Then Phillip slipped his robe and sandals on and headed back toward the veranda.
“I should go,” Jo said.
Ben nodded and led her back through the vastness of a house that seemed to hold nothing but a silence waiting to be shattered.
The children and Mal had gone to a movie. The teakettle had just started to whistle on the stove when Jo walked in. Rose poured boiling water over the herbal tea bags in the cups on the kitchen table, then sat down with Jo, who told her what she’d learned from Jacoby.
Jo didn’t touch her tea, but the aroma, the soothing scent of apple and spice, registered in her senses. She wished she could give in to the pull of that smell, which seemed to come from a place of calm, of placid domesticity that was out of her reach at the moment. All she felt was irritation and worry.
“No wonder they wouldn’t tell me anything. He’s done it again, Rose. It’s that damned cowboy mentality of his. That’s the part of him I hate.”
“If you were to ask me, I’d say it’s also part of what you love about him,” Rose said. “He’s certainly come to your rescue on occasion. And mine.”
“I know, I know.” She lifted her cup, sighed into her tea.
“You’re worried, Jo, and that’s understandable. Why don’t you call Aurora again. Now that you know what’s going on, maybe they’ll be more forthcoming. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”
She was right, of course. Jo used the phone in the kitchen.
Bos was on duty. Jo told her what she understood of the situation and pressed Bos for more details.
At the other end of the line, Bos hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. She told Jo that the search party consisted of Cork, Morgan, Meloux, Fineday, and now Dina Willner. They hadn’t had any contact with Stone or Lizzie. Last check-in was at twenty-two hundred hours, ten o’clock, and everything was fine.
“Why did he do it, Bos? Why didn’t he just wait for Stone to come out?”
“He was concerned about the Fineday girl. He believed that if he didn’t locate her quickly, Stone might kill her.”
“Did it have to be him?” She hated herself for the question, for the whining way it came out. Of course Cork felt it had to be him, and that was all that mattered. “Bos, you call me with anything, good or bad, you hear?”
“I hear, Jo.”
She hung up, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. The whole kitchen was suffused with the smell of the tea.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I wish…” She let it drop.
Rose stood up and put her freckled arms around her sister, offered a comforting embrace. “I know, but would you have him be less than he is?”
“Of course not.”
They sat at the table again. Jo sipped her tea. “Morgan. He’s a good officer, and Cork trusts him. And Meloux as a guide, that’s a godsend. He’s old, but he’s tough.”
“There you go. God has sent good people along with Cork.”
They heard Mal returning with the children. “I don’t want the kids to know, Rose. Tomorrow, when you go to South Bend, I’m going to stay here and wait for word on Cork.”
“A good idea.”
That night, after Stevie had gone to bed, Jo stood for a few minutes at the window, listening, thinking of the unnatural quiet that came with the mornings since the birds were dead. West Nile virus was a merciless killer.
A breeze rose up, and outside the leaves of the trees murmured softly, as if to remind her that there were those things, like the wind, that moved swiftly and could not be killed.
Jo thought of Cork and the others with him. “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “let them be the wind.”
41
The Moon, before it rose, put a glow in the sky above the trees, as if a lost city lay blazing somewhere in the distant forest. Under the aspens on Lamb Lake, Cork and the others prepared for sleep.
“What about Stone?” Dina asked. “Will he sleep?”
“It has been a long day for him, too,” Meloux said. “He will sleep.”
“To be on the safe side,” Cork said, “we’ll stand watches, two hours each. Howard, Will, Dina, and me, in that order.”
Meloux said, “I don’t sleep so good anymore. I can watch, too.”
“If you’re up, you can help whoever’s on watch stay awake.”
Morgan took his rifle and walked to the shoreline as the moon began to push up out of the trees. Cork and the others settled into their bags. Cork didn’t think Stone would try anything that night, but who really knew? It would have been comforting to have more deputies there, but Stone could probably elude an army if he wanted. It was best this way, to try to draw him out. Someone had to do it. Still, he couldn’t help feeling the weight of the responsibility like an anchor on his chest. He was glad Jo didn’t know what he was up to. Or the children.
He was surprised when Dina shook him awake.
“Your watch,” she said.
He rolled out of his bag, his body stiff from the hard ground. Moonlight lit the woods, casting a net of silver and shadow all around. The air was cold, and he unrolled his fleece-lined jean jacket, which he’d used as a pillow, and put it on.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Only a beautiful night,” Dina replied. “I’m not ready to sleep yet. Mind a little company?”
Cork arched his back, working out a kink that felt as though a horse had kicked him. He sat down beside Dina on the fallen trunk where earlier Meloux had smoked. On the lake, the silhouettes of the two islands were clear, the water in the channel between them sparkling like a swatch of black velvet sewn with a million sequins. Occasionally a soft breeze came out of the west and the aspen leaves rustled with a sound like the running of fast water.
“I never have nights like this,” Dina said. “All my nights echo off concrete.”
“But you like being a city girl. Or so you said.”
“I could get used to this.”
“Why are you here, Dina?”
She stared at the lake, then at the sky, and finally turned her face to Cork. Her skin was milk white in the moonlight and flawless. “People around your town tell me that even when you weren’t sheriff you helped take care of some pretty troubling situations. Not because the responsibility was yours officially, but because that’s who you are. I understand that.”
“Nature of the beast?”
“Something like that. Also, I thought that when you found Lizzie, having a woman around might help.”
“If you like this kind of thing so much, why did you leave the FBI?”
“Men and money. Too many of the first, too little of the second. By men, I mean flaming assholes with enormous egos. Now I only do what I want to do.”
“And you do this kind of thing a lot?”
“I hunt people, yeah. Usually I find them. That’s something I’m good at. I also protect people. I’m good at that, too.”
Cork realized that his breath had started coming out in faint clouds. Soon, he knew, the frost would start to form, the leaves becoming brittle.
