Below Zero

“Where?” Coon said.

Joe snorted, “Chuck, you’re a good guy, but you’re not yet a good liar,” and hung up.

He turned to Sheridan. “Ready?”

Sheridan nodded. Her face was deadly serious, but her eyes sparkled.

AS JOE EASED OUT of the driveway in his pickup, he looked at his house. Marybeth was in the front picture window with Lucy, who looked stricken. Through the window, Joe could see her mouth, She’s my sister, too . . . and it was like a knife through his heart.

Joe and Sheridan waved, and Sheridan hid her face from him while she cried.

17

Savageton

THE FULL MOON IN THE CLOUDLESS SKY CAST THE PRAIRIE grass ghostly white/blue and threw impenetrable black shadows into the hollows of the hills and draws as Joe and Sheridan drove east on I-90 and crossed the Powder River. The river in the fall was no more than an exhausted stream marking time until winter came and put it out of its misery. Despite that, mule deer huddled on its banks and ancient cottonwoods sucked at the thin stream of water in order to provide the only shade and cover for miles.

Joe knew of a two-track ranch access road with an unlocked gate that would allow them to cut the corner of their journey and eventually intersect with Highway 50 and Savageton, although the likelihood of finding April still there seemed remote at best.

Although it was an interstate highway, there was no traffic at two-fifteen in the morning. Big semi-rigs were parked at pullouts with running lights on, and as they roared east, the twinkle of working oil and gas rigs dotted the prairie. This was the western frontier of the Powder River Basin. Under the thin crust of dirt were underground mountains of coal, rivers of oil and natural gas, seams of uranium. A bald eagle nearly as big as the one he’d delivered to Nate fed on a road-killed pronghorn antelope on the shoulder of the highway, and the bird barely looked up as the pickup sizzled by.

Sheridan was wide awake and filled with manic energy that no doubt came from both fear and exhilaration. The moonlight kissed her cheeks, and Joe was glad she was with him as well as concerned that she was. Her cell phone was in her lap.

“Do you have a signal?” he asked.

“Three bars,” she said.

“Good. Let me know if we start to get out of range. We can’t afford to miss a call or a text.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said. “I mean, go on an investigation with you.”

Joe said, “I know. But you’ll have to be careful. You’ll really have to listen to me. This isn’t a game.”

“I know that.”

He nodded in the dark. She was miffed at him for stating the obvious, and he wondered why he’d felt the need to do so.

He kept the radio tuned to SALECS, which stood for State Assisted Law Enforcement Communication System, and listened as Coon and the FBI talked with the highway patrol. The HP had units in Gillette, Wright, Moorcroft, and Sundance, and all were rolling toward the checkpoint they’d agreed upon near Rozet, east of Gillette. The local police departments in Gillette, Moorcroft, and Hulett were sending officers as well. The operation was going smoothly, although the HP was obviously annoyed they didn’t know what kind of vehicle they were looking for or who would be in it.

“Two male subjects and possibly more,” Coon had said in response, giving a description for David Stenson, aka Stenko. Robert was described as Stenko’s son, but Coon said there was no physical description yet. He said they thought they’d have a photo of him within the hour and they would e-mail it for distribution. Joe was intrigued. Where did they find a photo of Robert so quickly in the middle of the night? Did Robert have priors as well? If so, Marybeth had not found any arrests on her Internet search.

As he usually did in anticipation of a confrontation, Joe did a mental inventory of his gear in addition to his weapons. On his belt was pepper spray, handcuffs, spare Glock magazines, and his Leatherman tool. He was a poor pistol shot so he’d rely on the shotgun if he ran into Stenko and Robert. But he prayed it wouldn’t come to that with Sheridan and possibly April present.

Joe maintained radio silence, but he was urged to grab the mike and tell the officers they should be looking for two adult males and one teenage female. But he couldn’t risk it. Not yet. As always, he doubted himself and fought against a compulsion to tell them what he knew. If Stenko, Robert, and April slipped through the checkpoint because the HP wasn’t looking for a girl with them, the guilt would eat him alive. Not only that, he could be brought up on charges for withholding information. But if local cops, buzzed on coffee and adrenaline— or the Highway Patrol or the FBI—overreacted as they had six years before and April was injured or killed, he’d never forgive himself. He didn’t realize he’d just moaned aloud until Sheridan asked him what was wrong.

“Nothing,” he said. He slowed and eased to the right of the highway because he didn’t want to shoot past the shortcut road.

“You can tell me,” Sheridan said. “Is it that you want to tell them to look for April?”

Joe grunted.

“We can’t,” she said, shaking her head in a gesture that could have been Marybeth’s. “Not yet. Not until I get a chance to see if it’s really her. We can’t let her down again.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want her to think I snitched on her, too.”

“Gotcha,” Joe said, turning off the pavement toward a sagging wire gate. Sheridan climbed out, opened it, and closed it again after Joe pulled through. He used the opportunity to dig his shotgun out from behind the seat, check the loads, and prop it, muzzle down, between the seats. He watched Sheridan skip toward the pickup through a roll of dust turned incendiary by his brake lights.