“She used to be pretty mean,” Sheridan said. “When she first came to live with us, I was kind of scared of her, but I never let her know that. It wasn’t until the end that she kind of opened up. Don’t you remember how mean she could be?”
Joe remembered. But they’d chalked it up to her transient childhood and to the presence of her on-again, off-again mother, Jeannie Keeley. April’s hardness was a tactic against getting hurt or betrayed, they’d decided. April tested them early on with outbursts and rudeness, but Marybeth said she was simply probing to see where the boundaries were. Once April found out there were limits and rules in the family, she visibly softened and relaxed. April, Joe thought, was like a horse. She needed to know what was expected of her and where she fit in the herd. Once she knew both she was all right.
Sheridan said, “April scared her teachers, she told me that. Every kid wants to be feared by adults. And the truth is a lot of adults fear us. You can see it in their eyes. It gives us power, you know? We’re like vampires. We feed off adults being scared of us. I could see April being pushed into hurting somebody.”
He said, “Sheridan, let’s not speculate too much until we have some kind of evidence, okay?”
Which didn’t stop her. She said, “What if we find her and she’s so messed up we know she’ll kill again? What do we do then?”
“Stop it,” he said. “We don’t know if she’s done anything wrong in the first place.”
Sheridan nodded, apparently thinking that over. She said, “No matter what, I miss her,” she said. “Toward the end there, I was really starting to like her and I thought it was cool how she looked up to me. She must still feel that way or she never would have started texting me.
“I remember when she lived with us,” Sheridan said, almost dreamily. “I came down the hall to get a drink of water at night and I heard you and Mom talking. I remember you saying you wondered if April was doomed.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Joe said, although he could vaguely recall similar conversations.
“What if she heard you say that? What if it stuck with her? Do you think that would mess her up?”
They crested a hill and the countryside opened up ahead of them. In the distance were the Pumpkin Buttes; four massive flat-topped cone-shaped land formations that dominated the southern horizon. They looked like crude sand castles formed by inverted God-sized buckets. Moonlight bathed the tops of the buttes, which shone like four blue disks.
“Wow,” Sheridan said. “Those things are awesome-looking.”
“I’ve been on top of them,” Joe said, grateful to change the subject.
“What is it like up there?”
He told her how he’d climbed to the top of the middle butte and walked around. The surface was as flat as a tabletop, covered with short grass. Chippings from arrowheads and other tools winked in the grass like jewels, and there were a half-dozen campfire and tipi rings where the Indians used to camp. The height of the buttes afforded them protection from other bands because the view was unparalleled: oceans of treeless prairie to the east, north, and south. He told Sheridan he could see until the land met the sky and vanished. To the west was the knotty blue spine of the Big Horn Mountains.
“I’d like to climb them someday,” she said. “I’ve never found an arrowhead.”
“Look,” Joe said suddenly, “I’ve done and said things in the past I regret. I wish I could take some things back. You’ll understand someday. But getting a second chance to save April means a lot to me right now. So let’s concentrate on that, okay?”
Sheridan nodded. “Okay.”
“No more speculating.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll shut up.”
“You don’t have to shut up,” Joe said. “Just quit bringing up things that give me a stomachache. I’ve got to concentrate.”
She laughed, “So what is your opinion about never listening to old music?”
AS THEY DESCENDED on the two-track, Joe pointed out the windshield at a tight cluster of blue lights on the prairie floor to the northeast. “See that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Savageton.”
“That’s all there is?”
“Yup.”
Joe’s cell phone lit up and rang: Coon.
“Yes, Chuck?”
Joe could hear a roar in the background and recognized it as the ascending whine of helicopter rotors. He was surprised how quickly the FBI had located their pilots and fueled the helicopter. It sounded like they were ready to scramble.
Coon had to shout: “Damn it, Joe. You’re holding out on us.”
“What are you talking about?” Joe asked, wondering if Coon and Portenson had learned about April.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Coon yelled. “The subject fired up the cell phone a half hour ago. Are you telling me your daughter didn’t get a call or a text?”
Joe slowed to a stop on the two-track and jammed the pickup into park. He glanced over at Sheridan, who’d heard Coon shouting.
Sheridan shrugged and checked her cell, just in case. “No new texts,” she said, looking at the display, “and I still have a strong signal.”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “We’ve heard nothing. Do your contacts say calls are being made?”
“Yes, but we’re not sure which numbers were called. We don’t have that information yet,” Coon said. “The night staff at the phone company isn’t up on the tracing procedure, I’m afraid. But we do know the phone is on and starting to move.”
Joe felt a tremor in his face muscles. So April had been at Savageton all this time? And was just now starting to drive away? He dug beneath his seat for his spotting scope while Coon said, “Yeah, we’re tracking it going south on Highway Fifty, which is the wrong way! They’re supposed to be headed north to I-Ninety, where we’ve got the roadblock set up!”
Without consulting the map, Joe knew 50 would intersect with Wyoming Highway 387, which went southwest to northeast. On that road and several others, it would be possible for Stenko to access the Black Hills without ever putting his tires on the interstate. They’d all guessed wrong. He gave Stenko credit for being unpredictable in his movements.
Sheridan said, “I wonder why she turned her phone on.”
“Hold on a second,” Joe said to Coon and dropped his phone in his lap while he tightened the bracket of the spotting scope to the top of the driver’s side window. He leaned into it, focusing on Savageton.
Savageton consisted of a single green corrugated metal building on a small rise a two hundred yards from Highway 50. The sides of the structure had been battered by snow and wind over the years and the words SAVAGETON LOUNGE AND RESTAURANT could barely be read in the moonlight. The large gravel parking lot where energy trucks and semis parked during the day was empty and lit by four pole lights. He could see fifty-gallon drums that served as garbage barrels and large wooden spools that were used as makeshift outdoor tables. Two abandoned cars sagged on the side of the building. All the interior lights were on, but as Joe focused on them they went off one by one, from the back of the building to the front. Ten seconds later, the front door opened and a single large man came out, turned, and locked the front door. He was alone and obviously closing the place for the night. Joe was sure he couldn’t be Stenko.