At 7:45, as the sun dropped over the Sangre de Cristos to his left, Robert received a phone call from the Hope House landline.
“You miss me so soon?” he said kindly, expecting Lucille.
“They found the Kia,” she said brusquely.
“That’s goo—”
“They found it a quarter mile away from the cabin, Robert.”
Robert’s mind started flying through explanations. Janeal had never actually told him where she had gone. He had assumed . . .
“No sign of Janice, though,” Lucille complained.
“Call Katie.”
“I did. She said she’s fine, that everything’s fine.”
“Is Janice with her?”
“Katie said she wasn’t, but Robert—”
“I know. I agree. I’m on my way back.”
Robert pulled off I-25 at the nearest off-ramp and made a loop back into the southbound lanes. He berated himself for having left. It was going to take him an hour to get back.
It was nearly eight thirty when Janeal decided to take a shower while Katie went to see if she had a change of clothes to offer. But first, Katie went in search of something to eat. In spite of the day’s emotional stress, she could feel hunger eating away at the inside of her stomach while her blood sugar dropped. Her head felt light and wobbly when she stood.
She opened a cupboard door and heard Janeal turn on the fan in the bathroom as she searched the cupboards for something bland and dry. Saltines or rice cakes would work.
She found peanuts. Not quite the fast-acting blood-sugar stabilizer she hoped for, but decent protein. She popped a couple in her mouth and considered calling Robert.
A gentle pop, a soft hiss, and a light thud sounded from the back of the house. She turned her head toward the sound. Her ears picked up something that sounded like a window closing.
Water started running in the shower, covering the sound. Katie went down the hall to investigate.
Katie hadn’t meant to mislead Lucille when she’d called. It was true that Janice wasn’t here—Janice would never be seen again, Katie believed—but Lucille was not the type to understand the kind of story Katie and Janeal had to tell. That was something they were going to have to work out.
Katie imagined the possibility that Robert would not come back. She wouldn’t blame him for that. How would any man react to her tale of being . . . what? Split in two like Solomon had butchered them himself? Who wouldn’t run from that kind of horror?
The scent of gasoline passed over her, bringing her to a halt in front of the bedrooms at the back of the house. Or was it natural gas? She returned to the kitchen and checked the burners. All off. She stood in front of the living room fireplace but didn’t smell anything unusual there. She moved through the house, ending up in the laundry room behind the kitchen, until satisfied that nothing was out of order.
Sometimes her mind did that to her. She could think of a truck zooming down the highway and she could generate the scent of its fuel as if she were drafting it on a bicycle.
Katie decided to go back to her room and see what she had to offer Janeal to wear. Katie had no idea what Lucille might have hastily packed for her yesterday.
Katie had stayed in this room often, as many of the Hope House women had, and knew the layout well. It was small, smaller than her little room at the Hope House, but entirely sufficient for a restful getaway. Four steps toward eleven o’clock put her at the bed on the left wall, under a window. A bookcase that doubled as a night table abutted the bed. The reading chair was two steps to the left, at nine o’clock, between the bookcase and the door. The closet: three steps ahead in the right wall, at the foot of the bed.
The air of the room smelled sweet, pleasant. Heavy. Katie wondered why she hadn’t noticed it when she napped earlier. Sometimes fatigue took the edge off her senses.
She went to her travel bag from the reading chair and leaned over it to rifle through the contents. A fresh pair of denim jeans and cotton khakis, socks, three T-shirts. A Braille book she’d been reading. Lucille had packed all this for her. Most people found Lucille callous and unthoughtful, but she paid attention to details like this. She wasn’t all sharp corners.
Katie felt light-headed and knelt in front of the chair. The sweet smell of the room seemed almost overwhelming.
She fished the jeans and her most comfortable cotton tee out of the bag to take to Janeal. She took a deep breath and shook her head. It seemed to be filled with cotton. She must be hungrier than she realized.
Holding the clothes on her lap, Katie leaned forward to rest her head on the cushion of the chair. She’d close her eyes for a minute.