April?”
The blond man with the ponytail slowly shook his head.
The heavy beat of helicopter rotors coming over the mountain drowned out any more questions.
PART THREE
People will kill their puppies to stop global warming these days.
26
MARYBETH WAS THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED BY THE HOSPITAL staff to go see the girl who had been admitted that afternoon under the name of Janie Doe. A nurse told Joe that unknown female patients under the age of eighteen received that moniker at Rapid City Regional Hospital.
He sat with Sheridan and Lucy in the reception room. Not until he realized he’d read the front page of the
The late-summer sun was ballooning outside the west windows and throwing discordantly festive peach- colored light into the room. Joe refused to be impressed. As it got later and the sun went behind the Black Hills, the hospital seemed to rest as well. Others in the reception area left one by one after visiting whomever they were there to see.
Joe smiled at Lucy. “Hungry? It’s past dinnertime.”
Lucy, who was always hungry, shook her head no.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
She shrugged and pursed her lips, the precursor to crying herself. “I’m sorry I got so mad at you and Mom,” she said.
“It’s okay. You just wanted to help.”
“I wanted to see April again,” she said, and the tears came.
Joe said, “Come here,” and held out his hand. She slid away from Sheridan and sat next to him and burrowed into his side. He put his arm around her and his muscle memory told him it wasn’t Lucy at all but a much older girl. The Lucy he remembered was small, a thin stalk with downy white-blond hair. It was as if she’d grown into an adolescent overnight.
“How can it not be her?” Lucy asked after a while.
“I don’t know.”
“Does it mean April is still out there somewhere? Is this the wrong girl you found?”
He squeezed her tighter. “I don’t know who she is or why she said she told us she was April. I don’t know if the real April is out there or not. For whatever reason, she pretended to be April to all of us.”
“It’s just so unfair,” Lucy said. “To make us believe like that.”
Joe said, “There has to be a reason, but we don’t know what it is. Maybe your mom will find out something.”
“I hope so. If anyone can, it’s Mom.”
WHEN MARYBETH AND LUCY had arrived in Marybeth’s van, he’d had a few moments alone with his wife without Sheridan or Lucy. Marybeth’s first thought, that they’d simply located the wrong girl, was dispelled when Joe explained what had happened. How he’d called out the new cell phone number to Coon, how Coon had been able to get his people in Cheyenne to contact the phone company and track it under the original judicial authorization. “For once,” Joe had told Marybeth, “she didn’t turn her phone off right away after she sent the text. The FBI was able to pinpoint a tower. Luckily, there was only one road in the area and we were able to get there fast. Fifteen more minutes and . . .” he left the sentence to hang there with meaning.
Coon and Portenson had loaded the girl on their chopper and taken off en route to the nearest large medical facility: Rapid City. According to Coon, Janie Doe had lost consciousness in the air. The Crook County Sheriff’s Department arrested Corey Talich and sent for a state helicopter to airlift Chase’s body to town. Joe had climbed back up the mountainside, dreading Sheridan’s reaction when he told her.
“What about Nate?” Marybeth asked him. “Where is he?”
Joe said, “As soon as the chopper came over, Nate vanished. He didn’t want Portenson to see him and grab him. He knew we had to get April—or whoever she is—out of there fast.”
“Where is he now?”
Joe shrugged. “You know Nate. He’s probably hiding out with some falconer buddy of his. Those guys take care of each other.”
WHILE THEY WAITED for Marybeth to return, Joe looked up at the silent wall-mounted television and was surprised to see a visual of Leo Dyekman’s ranch house. He didn’t need to turn up the volume to follow the story. A local correspondent did a stand-up on the front lawn of the ranch house and theatrically gestured behind him. The camera zoomed in on the front door and panned across the crime scene tape. The initial on-the-scene report was followed by a clip of Portenson, flanked by local law enforcement, speaking behind a podium. Coon was at his left, avoiding the camera lens and looking uncomfortable. There was a photo of a handsome older man in a tuxedo identified as David Stenson, aka “Stenko,” who looked remarkably like Ernest Hemingway, Joe thought. Then came a grainy, poor- resolution photo of Robert standing in what looked like a rain forest. Joe guessed the image had been taken from the ClimateSavior .net website. A graphic read ARMIED AND DANGEROUS. Joe guessed “armied” instead of
