Below Zero

The street was narrow, the sidewalks cracked. Homes that looked fifty or sixty years old lined up one after the other on both sides of the road. Most had enclosed porches and neat, close-cropped lawns. Parked cars had Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks bumper stickers. Towering leafy hardwood trees blocked out the sky. The morning was cold and dark, and the wind that had cut through Joe earlier while he opened the car door to let his family in reminded him that no matter how cold it got in the mountain west, it was colder and damper in the Midwest. Maybe, he thought, it was why they were so damned tough.

The Suburban was full of people. Coon sat in the front seat next to the Chicago-based FBI agent driver and the Chicago Police Department liaison. In the third seat with Sheridan were two senior representatives from the Illinois Child Welfare Agency. They’d introduced themselves at the airport as Leslie Doran and Jane Dickenson.

Joe was a red ball of raw nerves. He found it hard to let go of Marybeth’s hand in the car. He needed her; she was stronger about this. He wore a jacket and tie with his Wranglers and Stetson as well as a light raincoat he’d owned for fifteen years. Sheridan and Lucy wore dresses and tights, and Marybeth wore a dark business suit. Joe reached up and worked a finger between his neck and collar and tried to loosen it.

“This is exciting,” Lucy said. “It feels like we’re going to church.”

“Yes it kind of does, honey,” Marybeth said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sheridan said to Lucy under her breath from the back. “You should just stop talking.”

“Oooh,” Lucy purred. “Someone is very prickly today.”

“Girls,” Marybeth said.

The liaison, a beefy square-jawed man with gray-flecked red hair named Matt Donnell, winked at Joe and Marybeth with empathy that said, Been there, then told Coon, “We’ve got four cruisers in the neighborhood within a minute of the Voricek home ready to move in on my call. I doubt we’ll need them, but they’ll be ready.”

Coon nodded, said, “Good. Do we know who’s in the house right now?”

“Ed’s there. He’s a piece of work. From what we understand he’s between jobs again, so he’s home. His wife, Mary Ann, is always home. And we’re lucky today because it’s an in-service training day for the school district.” He raised his eyebrows.

Coon said, “Which means she’s there.”

“Should be.”

“Have your guys actually seen her?”

“There’s a girl who matches the description. We checked her description against the school yearbook. She’s there, all right. Goes by April Voricek. Problem is, there is no known birth certificate for April Voricek, and no legal record of a name change from Keeley. It’s her,” Donnell said.

Joe felt Marybeth’s eyes on him and felt her squeeze his hand.

Lucy said, “I thought Chicago would be, you know, big buildings. Skyscrapers and stuff like that.”

Jane Dickenson chuckled in the back seat. “It does look like that downtown, honey. We’re a long way from the Loop.”

“This just looks like houses,” Lucy said, disappointed.

“Where do you think people in big cities live?” Sheridan asked her sister, annoyed.

Lucy shrugged. “I thought they all lived in apartments a hundred floors up. You know, cool places, like on TV.”

Joe thought, What if April hated the sight of him? What if she refused to come back because of what she thought he’d done? What if she was so damaged by what had happened that they didn’t even know her?

STARTING OUT WITH the photograph, library card, stubs for the “El,” and a middle school girls basketball schedule, the FBI had been able to pinpoint the likely location of April Keeley Voricek within a day and a half. Joe had been suitably impressed at what the Bureau could do with their technology, manpower, and a competent leader running the investigation: Special Agent Chuck Coon. Portenson, Coon said, was happy to turn over the case and get out of the way since he had bigger fish to fry: press conferences, conference calls filled with accolades from Governor Rulon, the acting head of U.S. Homeland Security, his superiors in Washington.

Coon said Portenson had already listed his home in Cheyenne for sale.

JANE DICKENSON talked over the heads of the Picketts to Agent Coon.

Dickenson said, “We’re finding out all sorts of things about the Sovereign network. There are a lot more of them out there scattered across the country than we thought. And since they completely distrust the government, they’ve been operating their own child placement operation for years. To be honest, most of the kids seem to be doing pretty well. But in some instances, they’ve shuffled kids from family to family across the country. And because it’s all privately funded—secretly funded, to be more accurate—the kids are under our radar. They’re out of the social welfare system, so we simply don’t know how many there are or where they are. We’re learning a lot, though.”

Coon asked, “How much do you know about Ed and Mary Ann Voricek?”

Joe and Marybeth followed the exchange in silence.

“We have a file on them,” Dickenson said. “But until yesterday it wasn’t high priority. A few years ago a neighbor made a call saying it seemed like there were a lot of children coming and going in that house. A caseworker visited them and saw no signs of neglect or abuse. Since our workload is massive and some of the things we have to deal with are horrendous, we concentrate on the high-priority cases. We just don’t have the manpower to snoop around a house when everything seems in order and the children seem to be on the right track.”

Leslie Doran opened a folder. “The Voriceks seem to take in these kids solely for the money. That’s my take on them, anyway. Neither Ed nor Mary Ann seems to be very committed to the Sovereign movement or survivalist cause. Ed might have had some peripheral contacts with them, but I doubt they’re true believers. If Ed sold Vicki to a brothel like you people say he did, he must have been in a desperate situation because we don’t have any record of similar allegations on him in the file.”