“Right,” Joe said.
“Then she goes for a long run and never comes back. We haven’t seen her or talked with her in two years. Think about that. It’s been eating us up, Jenna and me. I nearly lost my company—I build superhigh-end office parks—because I spent so much time talking to local yokels and listening to every crackpot who said they might have seen her. That’s because I put out that half-million-dollar reward, right?”
Even though Brent’s eyes burned into him, Joe let his return gaze slip away. McCue sat in his chair like a good hired soldier, betraying nothing. There was a slight smile on his face, as if he enjoyed seeing someone else on the other end of Brent Shober for a change. He’d likely heard the story twenty times, but he didn’t betray his boredom or familiarity. Jenna, on the other hand, made a point not to look at Joe or her husband, even when he referred to her. No doubt she shared his pain, Joe thought, but she didn’t share his bombast.
“So,” Brent continued, “for two years this has been our quest—to find our Diane. We’ve hired private investigators, I’ve gone personally to meet with the FBI in D.C., Denver, and Cheyenne, and we’ve even listened to hack psychics tell us she is definitely alive, and definitely waiting for us to rescue her. Her no-good fiancé used to work with us, but he’s given up the fight. That little rat bastard picked up and moved to Baja and we haven’t heard from him in months. But I’m not giving up, Pickett. I know she’s still up there somewhere, that somebody’s got her, right?”
Joe felt pummeled and somehow at fault. “Mr. Shober, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose your only daughter.”
Brent stuck out his palm to stop Joe from talking. “No, Pickett, you can’t imagine what hell feels like.”
Joe wanted to say, But I have a pretty good idea . . . when Jenna Shober spoke for the first time. She said, “Diane is our youngest. We have an older daughter and an older son. But they aren’t . . .”
Brent cut her off, said to Joe, “So we need you to go back up there. Take as many men as you need. Hire experts, if you have to, and send me the bill. But you are the only soul alive who has seen her in the past two years, and you are the only one who has a chance of finding her again, right?”
“Wrong.” Joe felt as if he were being screwed into the floor with guilt. He wished he’d never have mentioned her name.
Brent Shober sputtered, “What did you say?”
“I said ‘wrong,’ ” Joe repeated. He pointed at McCue. “I told your guy and every investigator since I made the initial statement that I didn’t get a good look at the fourth person up there. It was dark, I was hurt, and I was influenced by all those fliers you put up. Her name popped into my mind, is all. I wish I could tell you different, but I have no idea at all who that woman was.”
Brent shook his head. “You’re backing out on me.”
Joe said, “I was never in. Look, at least let me ask you a couple of questions before we end here.” He was fully aware of his promise to Marybeth and he was honor-bound to keep it, even though the circumstances may have changed. But his curiosity was up.
Brent turned to Jenna, incredulity on his face, as if he were being confronted by madness.
Joe forged on. “Did you or Diane ever know a couple of brothers named Grim? Or Grimmengruber? Is there any reason to believe if this person I saw was your daughter that she’d be with them?”
Brent screwed up his face with utter contempt. “That’s the most fucking ridiculous question anybody has ever asked me. Of course we don’t know anybody like that.”
“What about Diane?”
“Jesus, are you deaf? We don’t know anybody like that. We’d never know white trash like that, right?”
Joe paused. He looked at McCue, then back to Brent Shober. “How do you know what they’re like?” Joe asked. “I never said a word about them. I never used the term ‘white trash.’ So how would you not ever know anyone like that if you don’t know a thing about them?”
Brent’s face got redder, and Joe could see the cords in his neck pull taut from his clavicle to his jawline.
McCue said, “He knows what’s in your statement and the report. I told him all that.”
Joe wasn’t sure. He looked to Brent’s face for clues but read only fury. Jenna wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Brent closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, obviously to calm himself. A full minute passed. Joe started wondering where his pepper spray was amidst the clutter. Just in case.
Finally, Brent said, “To accuse me of anything is beyond ridiculous. I love my Diane more than life itself.”
Joe felt ashamed. “Really, Mr. Shober, I didn’t mean to imply you were guilty of anything.”
Brent waved him off and continued. “Do you realize, Pickett, what a special girl she is? That she has the capability of representing her family and her country in the Olympics? Do you know how rare that is? Do you realize that in the life of a long-distance runner, you get maybe—maybe—two shots at the Games? That’s how short the window is. And if you miss your chance, you never get it back for the rest of your life. You grow old knowing you had your shot and you didn’t take it.”
Joe said, “Are we talking about Diane here?”
McCue was faster than he looked, and was able to throw himself in front of Brent Shober before the man could leap over the desk and throttle Joe.
McCue and Jenna managed to get Brent turned around, and McCue wrapped him up and guided him out the door. Brent yelled over his shoulder, “YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME! YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME! ” even as McCue pushed him across Joe’s lawn toward the Expedition. Jenna followed, her head down.
As they reached the SUV, he turned and looked back at the house, as if sizing it up for demolition.
AFTER THEY DROVE AWAY, Joe moaned, collapsed on the couch, and put his head in his hands. He ached for Brent and Jenna Shober. What torment they’d gone through. Torment like that would likely turn him into someone like Brent, or worse. He didn’t have to like the man to feel sorry for him.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the fourth person on the mountains, but her face became no clearer.
AFTER CLEARING away the breakfast dishes and noting that the girls had eaten the magic bacon but little else, Joe called the FBI field office in Cheyenne and asked for Special Agent Chuck Coon.
When the receptionist asked who was calling, Joe gave his name. When she came back, she said Agent Coon was in a meeting and would have to get back to him. So Joe called Coon’s private cell phone number.
“Hello?” Coon said.
“It’s me, Joe.”
“Damn, I didn’t recognize the number. If I knew it was you, I would have let it go to voice mail.”
“You gave me this number last year, remember?” Joe said. “You said to use it if I couldn’t get through to you.”
“That was last year,” Coon said.
When they were both working on the Stenko case, Coon wanted Joe to be in contact. Joe pictured the agent on the other end of the conversation. He had close-cropped brown hair, small features, and a boyish, alert face that didn’t jibe with his tightly wound manner. He had a young son and another child on the way. He’d worked for several years under Tony Portenson before Portenson got his wish and got reassigned. Joe assumed Coon and the entire FBI office had sighed a collective sigh of relief when Portenson walked out the door.
Joe asked about the baby on the way (she was due in a month) and Coon’s son (four and starting preschool), and he briefed the agent on his family and how things were going now that April was back with them. It all took two minutes. Then: silence.