15
Sheena
The police officer who had dragged Dad away from fighting with the guys in the truck took my statement. It lasted maybe fifteen minutes.
Dad interrupted twice, blustering, “ You can ’ t detain us without a warrant. Let me see your badge. I ’ d outrank you in my day, don ’ t you know that? What in the Sam Hill is this about?”
The officer was patient and kind to him but didn ’ t re-explain what he ’ d already told us both. There was no sign of the children. Or the bus. None of the kids or the bus driver were answering their phones.
I knew that much already. Sage ’ s phone just rang and rang and went to voicemail.
The FBI was already working alongside the police.
Ten children, vanished into thin air.
Two of them, mine.
I could barely choke out half-coherent answers to the questions the police officer asked, clenching and unclenching my hands uselessly until he gave me his cell number and told me to go home.
There was nothing I could do to help my girls from the Bright Beginnings parking lot.
The police were already doing everything possible to locate the bus, the phones, the kids.
I took Dad ’ s arm and walked through the churning sea of parents. Some had red eyes, or clenched jaws, like they were trying not to scream. Others were fighting with each other and the police, voices raised shrill and sharp. Then there were the ones, like me, who looked like they ’ d been holding onto an electric fence without letting go. Wide-eyed and shaking, waiting for the surge of awfulness to stop.
“ What in the Sam Hill is going on?” Dad repeated yet again, looking around furtively then back at me. “ Sheen, what happened?” he blustered.
I stopped walking and stared back at him. His tear-stained cheeks were still wet from the initial five minutes his mind had taken in the horror of what the officer told us both.
Sage was gone. Bonnie was gone.
For a second, I almost wished I could trade places with him. Purge everything I ’ d seen and heard. But I could tell from the way his arm shook that his body hadn ’ t forgotten what he ’ d learned. Just his mind.
“ It ’ ll be okay, Dad,” I told him, but I knew my performance wasn ’ t convincing. “ Come on, our car is over there.” I pointed down a side street where an officer had reparked the car we ’ d left in the intersection. It had taken half an hour, but officers had finally managed to break up the gridlock, coaxing keys from distraught parents until cars could continue through the jammed intersection. But with the growing number of red-and-blue lights flashing all across the parking lot, traffic stayed at a slow crawl from rubberneckers anyway.
The curious onlookers wanted the same thing the parents and police did: To find out what the hell was going on.
As Dad and I got into the car, I felt something jingle in my pocket. Dad ’ s Rolex. The clasp was completely broken. He ’ d raged at me about it for a few seconds—then forgotten as soon as the officer started talking. Even so, I watched as he absently rubbed his wrist.
The street swam in front of my eyes, and I wondered if I should be driving at all. I knew I could call someone. A coworker. A neighbor. They ’ d be eager to help.
No. I could already imagine their horrified pity and barely concealed curiosity. Just like the people driving by in a slow stream past the Bright Beginnings rec center.
What I needed was a friend, but I ’ d lost most of those during my divorce five years ago. My world had bloomed when I first married Jacob. His friends were my friends. It was love at first sight—a “ whirlwind romance,” Dad had said when we got married just nine months after meeting.
It wasn ’ t until we got divorced that I realized how small my share of our world really was. And how “ our ” friends were really Jacob’s friends all along. They all quietly disappeared, practically overnight, even though he ’ d been the one to leave me for his office manager Jenny, who he ’ d been “ in love with for years”—and was pregnant with twin boys.
I got the house in Sunset Springs, and the girls—who were two and six at the time. He moved to the East Coast with his mistress to start over.
The last time I ’ d tried to text him a couple of years ago, I ’ d gotten a message saying that the text couldn ’ t be delivered. He ’ d erased us.
I blinked back the tears and gripped the steering wheel like it could anchor me in my body.
Dad and I drove in merciful silence through the neighborhoods until we reached the onramp to the highway that would take us back to Sunset Springs.
Then Dad suddenly shifted in the passenger seat to face me. He cleared his throat. “ I ever tell you about that hiker, Sheen? Mindy Falcrest?”
The words pinged through my numb brain. This was one of the higher profile cases he ’ d worked on while I was growing up. The story had been in the local and some national news for almost a week—and it hadn ’ t ended well. I knew it was one of those stories that haunted him, but I had no idea what made him think of it now. Maybe that same growing dread, that same helplessness from all those years ago mirrored what he felt now and had churned the memory up. He ’ d never told me the story firsthand. I ’ d only read the old articles. And as much as I didn ’ t want to shut him down, I couldn ’ t handle it right now.
“ No, Dad,” I said more angrily than I ’ d planned.
He went quiet. When I glanced at him in the corner of my eye, I was horrified to see that his jaw was clamped down and trembling. Like he was trying not to cry.
“ I ’ m sorry,” I muttered, tilting my head so he wouldn ’ t see the tears leaking down my own cheeks.
He was silent for so long, I thought he ’ d given up on the story. But from the tentative smile he flashed me as he repeated, “ Sheen, I ever tell you about that hiker, Mindy Falcrest?” I realized that what he ’ d forgotten was my angry outburst.
“ Tell me,” I whispered, eyes on the road.
He sat back in the passenger seat and sighed heavily. “ A woman went missing—a thirty-year-old with a young family. Mindy Falcrest went hiking out by Prairie, Idaho in the boonies. We weren ’ t that worried at first. She was one of those ultra-outdoorsy types. There was still plenty of daylight. Good visibility for searchers, plenty warm outside. Her husband found her car at the trailhead when he drove out there that afternoon.” He sighed again. “ Mindy was only meant to be gone for a couple of hours when she left that morning.”
Despite myself, my mind latched onto the thread of his story, desperate for a moment ’ s respite from the nonstop, churning-sick despair in my gut.
“ I was the one in charge of the search and rescue. The hiker ’ s daughter—an itty bitty eight-year-old girl who was missing her front tooth—kept insisting her mama took ‘ the hot springs trail,’ a few miles south in middle-of-nowhere Featherville. It didn ’ t make sense. Mindy ’ s car was at the Prairie trailhead, right where her husband thought it ’ d be. The husband said … he said the little girl was just upset and confused. That his daughter had gone on the hot springs hike with her mama the year before—that’s why she remembered the place.” He cleared his throat and waited a second before continuing. “ We searched for three days. Brought out horses, a helicopter. No sign of that woman. Had us all racking our brains. Finally, because I didn ’ t know what else to do, I sent a couple of guys over to Featherville.”
He waited so long to keep talking, I almost thought he ’ d decided not to continue. But finally, he said, “ We found Mindy in Featherville, collapsed in the brush just twenty yards past the trailhead. She ’ d been dead for about a day.”
My stomach lurched. I realized I no longer wanted to hear the rest of the story. But when I opened my mouth to ask him to stop, I couldn ’ t get the words out past the hard lump in my throat.
Dad kept going. “ Thought at first she ’ d had a heart attack. But the autopsy—which the husband didn ’ t want—showed kidney failure as the cause of death. Turns out, he ’ d added antifreeze to her energy drink that morning. Husband found her unconscious on the trail when he ‘ went looking for her. ’ Pushed her into the brush and moved her car to the Prairie trailhead.”
The churning sick in my stomach roiled harder. How could he remember all of that so well, when he couldn ’ t remember what we ’ d just learned about Sage and Bonnie?
Dad blew out a breath. “ He didn ’ t realize his daughter knew Mindy was really going to Featherville. If I ’ d listened to that little girl—hell, if I ’ d listened to that nagging in my gut—there’s a pretty good chance we would ’ ve found her mom. Probably even saved her life. But ‘ kids are unreliable. ’ That’s what my partner reminded me.”
“ Oh,” was all I could manage. I slowed the car, debating whether I needed to pull over onto the shoulder so I could be sick.
“ Kids know more than you give them credit for,” he said sadly. “ After that, I promised I ’ d listen to the kids, take more time to listen to my gut.”
The highway swam in front of my eyes, and tears wet my cheeks, but I was glad he seemed done with that story. I realized I ’ d missed the first turnoff for Sunset Springs. I needed to calm down my breathing or else I was going to crash this car.
Then Dad spoke again, his voice suddenly irritated and harsh. “ I got something to say, and I know you don ’ t wanna hear it.”
I really didn ’ t. I couldn ’ t listen to anything more about the Mindy Falcrest case. I bit my lip to keep from saying so. Just get through this. It ’ s easier than telling him to stop talking.
“ You ’ ve gotta knock it the hell off,” he said abruptly in the voice I remembered from when I was a teenager and he found a joint I ’ d hidden in the garage.
I cocked my head in shock. His tone of voice was beyond annoyed.
He doesn ’ t know what ’ s happening. Just get home, I told myself, digging as deep as I could for patience. “ Okay, Dad,” I managed in a strangled voice, hoping it would pacify him. I wiped at my cheeks as my mind pinballed from one thought to the next, desperate for some action to take, someone to call, anything that would get me my girls back. Was I really just supposed to go home and wait for more information?
I ’ d overheard some of the parents talking about driving back and forth along the highway and side roads. Bright Beginnings and the police were doing the very same thing. Nobody had found a single thing yet.
The FBI was working on tracing the location of every phone on that bus.
What else could I do?
Nothing.
“ Don ’ t ‘ okay, Dad’ me,” he huffed, turning to face me. “ I know you don ’ t want to be coddled right now. But maybe what you need is some tough love.”
I gritted my teeth, stayed silent, and kept my eyes straight ahead. I had no idea what he was talking about anymore, but the gruff words landed like salt in a wound just the same.
“ Marriage is sacred. Not somethin’ you rush into after a few months to play house. But you ’ re an adult and God help me for trying to talk sense into you. What ’ s done is done. My mother raised me all by herself. You ’ ll be all right, too.”
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my fingers went numb.
I couldn ’ t do this right now. I was going to explode. He thought I was crying about my divorce. About Jacob leaving me—years ago.
“ Stop, just stop ,” I snapped, my patience long gone. “ No more.” My voice hitched, and this time I couldn ’ t hold back the tears from rushing down my cheeks. I swiped at them furiously and kept driving into the hills, ignoring his sullen silence. Fifteen more minutes, and we ’ d be back home.
My empty, silent home.
A police cruiser, lights off, passed me on the left.
Please find them, I begged whoever sat behind the tinted windows. Find the bus driver. Find my girls. Turn on your lights, your sirens. Find them now, goddammit.
Dad huffed and shifted in his seat, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek. He wasn ’ t ready to back down.
“ That’s the problem with your generation,” he muttered. “ Can ’ t handle the hard truths. Self-care and ‘ put yourself first.’ I ’ ll tell you what, Sheen. Sometimes you gotta put yourself last. If you were a teenager, I ’ d tell you to cry all you want. But you ’ re a mother. So pull yourself together and snap out of it. Your babies come first. Bonnie and Sage need you right now.”
It was all I could do not to howl.