She’d tried to take a nap. It was clear she wasn't getting enough sleep. But it didn't work.
Joule tried to watch TV, but the idea that she might not hear a car approaching was too much. So, she sat with a cup of herbal tea, full of caffeine and loaded with extra spoonfuls of sugar, and waited on the couch.
Kayla and Ivy were close, she told herself, any minute now. She'd heard a car approaching a while earlier, but it had gone right past the house. She'd given good instructions and Kayla's nose for detail should have made it impossible for her and Ivy to go by without stopping. So, it wasn't them.
Not much traffic out here. Thinking of the time she'd sat in front of Gretchen Mueller’s place, she must have stuck out like a sore thumb. How had they not caught her? Or had they, and Gretchen had just acted like she didn’t know Joule when she’d turned up last night?
There were no answers. Not yet, and maybe never.
The one thing she did know was that she could no longer do that since she'd introduced herself to the woman.
A faint whir revealed itself and slowly it became the crunch of tires on old road. Unable to sit still, she set down the tea, headed toward the window, and looked out anxiously. Her heart soared at the car she recognized. She expected to feel numb, instead she was whipped wildly from one extreme emotion to another, even if the situation didn’t warrant it.
Joule had already moved Cage’s things off the bed and changed the sheets, though she'd left the old ones in a pile in her room. Would they become one of the last things he had ever touched? She told herself she would wash them when he came home. Not if.
The car parked behind hers, the doors opening as Ivy tumbled quickly out of the passenger side. Joule was out the front door and enveloped in a sturdy hug that lasted longer than she expected and maybe not quite as long as she needed.
Then even Kayla was stepping forward for a rote wrapping of the arms and a quick squeeze.
“You don't look okay,” Kayla said.
Joule could only grin, “I'm not. How could I be?”
“Exactly,” Ivy told her, draping her arm around Joule’s shoulders and using it to pull her close and steer her back toward the house as if even walking on her own would be too much.
Joule felt her bones weaken, as if her joints were disintegrating, as if her own resolve was the only thing keeping her upright for these past weeks. Now that Kayla and Ivy were here, something in her decided to let go—just a little bit. She was sobbing before she knew it.
“I can't,” she barked out her broken sentences through gulped air. “What if he . . .? What if . . .?”
Ivy shook her head, “I know. It's a worry. And it's okay to ask. But we're not going to believe it.”
Joule looked at her as if to say, how would they not believe? Where should she find that faith?
“You have a dream team here.” Ivy looked her deep in the eyes before pushing the front door open.
Joule took a deep breath. That she did.
She had a sheriff's deputy with big ambitions. She had an ATF agent, a criminology professor who knew the area, and DEA agents that she could get to if she had to. She had her Helio Systems Tech team, too. They were not only brilliant but driven to find two of their own who were missing. And now, Kayla. Also, Ivy was an art historian. But during the time she dealt in art and the work she'd done restoring historical homes, she'd learned to read people. She saw connections between things that Joule and Kayla didn't.
Kayla was a technical whiz. She made systems and organized things, and they could definitely put that to use now.
“First thing,” Kayla said, “Ivy told me we need to feed you.” Joule laughed. Kayla would say it and Ivy would be the one to dictate it. “Where is your kitchen?”
Joule led them inside, pointing to the bedroom to put their things down, which they did, with a solemn reverence knowing that they were getting Cage’s room. Then Ivy apologized.
“We took a little longer on the way here. We stopped to look for a grocery store. There's fresh bread now, though, and blocks of cheese.”
Kayla searched the kitchen cabinets and pulled a pan out and proceeded to make perfectly crispy grilled cheese sandwiches. As Joule sat by, just waiting—as it was all she could muster—Ivy chopped vegetables, made a salad, and pulled out a bottle of dressing. Both foods were shoved in front of Joule with no questions. She was simply expected to eat.
Next, the two women sat down at the table and joined her as if they needed to demonstrate how to do it.
Maybe they did.
Kayla had mastered the grilled cheese and where she'd sliced it, the cheese melted and pulled apart into perfect strings. Joule told herself she would be okay once the food was consumed. But then they began moving around. They cleaned the dishes, rinsing them and putting them in the tiny dishwasher.
“The dishwasher smells,” Kayla said.
Joule shrugged. “I don't make enough dishes to wash it often.”
“You’ve got to do it every three days anyway.” Kayla said, noting it was still barely half full. Despite that, Kayla put the soap in and ran it, no further censure of Joule’s poor housekeeping skills.
It was Ivy who shoved her back to the bedroom. “You need to rest. Kayla and I are getting to work. You can take some time off and then you can take over when it's time for us to go to bed.”
“But you drove all day,” Joule pointed out.
“We took turns napping in the car. We're ready and you need sleep.”
Then she was gently shoved into the bedroom, the door pulled shut behind her. She wanted to tell them what they needed to know to get settled, what the passwords were, how to operate the tv, where to find things. Then again, they would ask if they needed it. And Kayla would either figure out the systems or reset them to make them work for her.
Joule toed off her shoes, climbed under the covers, and felt her bones melting again. Something about Kayla and Ivy being here made it okay to let go. She drifted into a hard, deep sleep.
Dusk had almost faded into night by the time her eyes opened. It had been a few hours, but it had been a deep, dreamless, restful sleep—maybe the first since Cage had gone missing. She almost didn’t want to admit that she’d been able to do it. It seemed wrong to learn to sleep well without her brother. She didn't want to learn to eat well without him either. But she also knew that if she didn't do those things, she wouldn't have the energy to sustain the effort to get him home.
She recognized that they were reaching that point—where it would be her who would have to sustain the necessary level of fight. Others would start tapping out. They would admit defeat, but she couldn't. Never.
She blinked her eyes as she wandered out into the living room. Almost not quite ready for the voice that greeted her.
“You're up.” Ivy put her hands on the table, flat on either side of her laptop, popping over to the fridge. With a quick flip of a bottle opener, she put a glass bottle in Joule’s hand. “Mexican Coke, they have those in the stores down here.”
Pure sugar and caffeine, delivered with fizz. Exactly what she needed. Joule smiled. Somehow Ivy had known.
The first big swig crossed her tongue and woke her up. Not normally a soda drinker—which Ivy also knew—she took it as the hit it was intended to be. Her eyes opened wide and Kayla grinned.
“I've been scouring the satellite footage your friend David sent.”
Joule had been forwarding them links for the past several days, so she wasn't surprised that Kayla was doing that.
Ivy held up her hands. “I tried! It lasted almost an hour. But Kayla doesn't go cross-eyed and she doesn't miss details like I do.”
Like the rest of us do, Joule thought.
Kayla was grinning. She clicked a few buttons, probably rewinding to a marked point. She motioned Joule over and pointed at her screen. “Look what I found.”