“The victim is a young woman, Joe,” Reed said. “She was found by Deputy Boner.”
Joe felt himself squeezing his cell phone as if to kill it.
“My deputy thinks she looks a lot like April. He says he knew April from when she worked at Welton’s Western Wear, and it might be her.”
Joe’s knees weakened, and he took a step back. April was their eighteen-year-old adopted daughter. She’d disappeared the previous November with a professional rodeo cowboy and they’d only heard from her two or three times. Each time she called, she said not to worry about her. She was, she said, “having the time of her life.”
Because she’d turned eighteen, there was little Joe or Marybeth could do, except encourage her to come home.
“She’s alive?” Joe asked, his mouth dry.
“Maybe. Barely. We’re not sure. It might not be her, Joe. There’s no ID on her.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the backseat of my deputy’s cruiser,” Reed said. “He didn’t want to wait for the EMTs to get out there. He said it looks touch and go whether she’ll even make it as far as the hospital.”
Joe took a quivering breath. The storm cloud was moving down the face of the mountains, the snow blotting out the blue-black forest of pine trees.
“Whether it’s April or not,” Reed said, “it’s a terrible thing.”
“Mike, was she in an accident?”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Reed said. “There was no vehicle around. It looks like she was dumped there.”
“Dumped?” Joe asked. “Why didn’t she walk toward town?”
“She’s been beaten,” Reed said. “Man, I hate to be the one telling you this. But my guy says it looks like she was beaten to a pulp and dumped. Whoever did it might have thought she was already dead. Obviously, I don’t know the extent of her injuries, how long she’s been there, or if there was, you know, a sexual assault.”
Joe leaned against the front fender of his pickup. He couldn’t recall walking back to his truck, but there he was. The phone was pressed so tightly against his face, it hurt.
March and April were usually the snowiest months in high-country Wyoming, when huge dumps of spring snow arrived between short bursts of false spring. The last week had been unseasonably warm, so he was grateful she hadn’t died of exposure.
Joe said, “So you’re going to meet your deputy and escort him to the hospital?”
“Roger that,” Reed said. “How quick can you get there? I’m about to scramble Life Flight and get them down here so they can transport her to the trauma center in Billings. These injuries are beyond what our clinic can handle. Can you get there and . . . identify her?”
“I’m twenty miles out on bad roads, but yes, I’ll be there,” Joe said, motioning for Daisy to leap down from the bed of the truck and take her usual spot on the passenger seat. He followed her in and slammed the door. “Does Marybeth know?”
Marybeth was now the director of the Twelve Sleep County Library. She’d be at the building until five-thirty p.m., but she was known to monitor the police band.
“I haven’t told her,” Reed said, “and I asked my guys to keep a lid on this until I reached you. I thought maybe you’d want to tell her.”
Joe engaged the transmission and roared down the old two-track.
“I’ll call her,” Joe said, raising his voice because the road was rough and the cab was rattling with vibration. Citation books, maps, and assorted paperwork fluttered down through the cab from where they had been parked beneath the sun visors. “We’ll meet you there.”
“I’m sorry, Joe,” Reed said with pain in his voice. “But keep in mind we don’t know for sure it’s her.”
Joe said, “It’s her,” and punched off.
—
HE CALLED MARYBETH’S CELL PHONE. When she answered, he slowed down enough so that he could hear her.
“Mike Reed just told me they’re transporting a female victim to the hospital,” he said. “She was found dumped south of town. Mike says there’s a possibility the girl could be—”
“April,” Marybeth said, finishing the sentence for him. “How bad is she?”
“Bad,” Joe said, and he told her about the Life Flight helicopter en route to the hospital from Billings.
“I’ll meet you there,” she said.
Before he could agree, she said, “I’ve had nightmares about this for months. Ever since she left with that cowboy.” Joe thought, She can’t even say his name.
Joe disconnected the call, dropped his phone into his breast pocket, and jammed down on the accelerator. Twin plumes of dust from his back tires filled the rearview mirror.
“Hang on,” he said to Daisy.
Then: “I’m going to kill Dallas Cates.”
Daisy looked back as if to say We’ll kill him together.
2
After what seemed like the longest forty-five minutes of his life, Joe arrived at the Twelve Sleep County Hospital and found Marybeth in the emergency entrance lobby. Sheriff Mike Reed was with her, as was Deputy Edgar Jess Boner, who had found the victim and transported her into town.
Marybeth was calm and in control, but her face was drained of color. She had the ability to shift into a cool and pragmatic demeanor when a situation was at its worst. She was blond with green eyes, and was wearing a skirt, blazer, and pumps: her library director’s outfit.
She turned to him as he walked in and said, “Sorry that took so long.”
He was unsettled from being nearly shaken to death on the ride down from the sagebrush foothills. His hands shook from gripping the steering wheel. He saw the subtle but scared look in her eyes and went to her and pulled her close.
“I saw her when they brought her in,” Marybeth said into his ear. “It’s April. She looks terrible, Joe. The emergency doctor called it blunt force trauma. Someone hit her in the head, and her face was bloody.”
“I was hoping it wasn’t her,” Joe said, realizing how callous that sounded. It shouldn’t be anyone.
“She’s alive,” Marybeth said. “That’s all they can say. She isn’t conscious, and as far as I know she hasn’t opened her eyes or tried to speak. I keep seeing doctors and nurses rushing back there, but I don’t know what they’re doing other than trying to stabilize her for the Life Flight.”
“This is so terrible,” he said.
“I kept telling her . . .” Marybeth started to say, but let her voice trail off. After a beat, she gently pushed away from Joe and said, “I’m going with her in the helicopter to Billings. We just have to hope that, with all she’s been through, she can hold on another hour.
“I called the high school and left a message with the principal that you would pick Lucy up,” Marybeth continued. “Maybe you can take her out to dinner tonight, but you’ll need to feed the horses when you get home.”
Joe started to argue, started to tell her not to worry about his dinner or anything else, but he knew this was how she processed a crisis—by making sure her family was taken care of. Only after it passed would she allow herself to break down. So he nodded instead.
“I’ll call Sheridan as soon as I know something,” she said. “I’ve already made arrangements to be gone a few days from work. They were very good about it.”
Sheridan was a junior at the University of Wyoming and had chosen not to be a resident assistant in the dormitory another semester. She was living with three other girls in a rental house and making noises about staying in Laramie for the summer to work. Joe and Marybeth didn’t like the idea, but Sheridan was stubborn. She was also not close to April, and the two of them had often clashed when they’d lived in the same house together.