More Than Friends (42 page)

The Maxwell girls were torn. They had to weigh deserting Michael against skiing with Jon and Zoe, and then J.D. muddied the works by inviting them to join him in Arizona. Jana went. Leigh chose to ski with Jon. So Annie had five people at the chalet. She figured she could handle that, and she did, with surprising ease. It helped that Sam rarely let her cook.

"Let's go to the Onion Patch," he said the first night they were there, then, on the second night, Christmas Eve, "I heard Stoney's was great this year," then, when Annie announced she was going to cook a roast beef for Christmas Day, "Save it. I made reservations at the inn."

"Sam," Annie protested, "I haven't cooked dinner once."

"So?"

So it was expensive to eat out all the time. So Sam and the law firm were on the outs. So maybe they should watch their pennies more closely. "Teke always cooked. I should."

"Teke didn't just go through exams. Come on, Annie, I want you to have a real vacation. Beside, if you cook, I have to help, and frankly, I need a vacation."

She didn't argue for long. She was no glutton for punishment. Back home she made dinner every night because the kids' schedules precluded eating out, but this wasn't home. School was recessed. She was enjoying the break.

She was also enjoying Sam's attentiveness. Though a better skier than she, he stayed by her side for all but the last runs of the day, when she

retreated, half-frozen, to sit in the lodge with a cup of hot chocolate while Sam made his daredevil runs.

It was at one of those times that she unexpectedly spotted Zoe across the lodge, looking out the window forlornly. Clunking in her ski boots around and between sprawled skiers, it took Annie a while before she finally reached her.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders.

"How long have you been here?"

Zoe shrugged. "An hour, I guess."

"I thought you were skiing with Leigh and Jon."

"Nah. They wanted to be alone."

"Did they say that?" Annie asked. She would tell Jon a thing or two if they had.

"No, but I knew."

"Well, you knew wrong," Annie insisted, then took a different tack. "I saw Susie VanDorn on the slopes a little while ago. They arrived just after noon. You can ski with her tomorrow."

"Uh-huh."

"Want some hot chocolate?"

"Nuh-uh."

Annie sipped hers. "Want to eat somewhere special tonight?"

"Whatever everyone else wants is fine."

Annie settled beside her on the window ledge. Zoe had always been an agreeable child, but what Annie was picking up on now wasn't agreeableness so much as lack of spirit. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"Nothing."

"You don't look like you're having much fun."

"I'm tired."

"Do you feel all right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe you're coming down with something."

"I'm just tired, Mom."

Okay, Annie thought. Just tired. I'll buy that for

now. "Are you still angry at your dad?" she asked. For the purpose of the trip, an unspoken truce was in effect between Sam and the kids. Annie feared it was a tentative one.

"I'm tired," Zoe said, looking annoyed. "Why can't you leave it at that, Mom? Why does there have to be something hidden in everything I say?" She jumped up. "I'm going home. I'll see you there." Annie let her go, though it took some effort. Given her druthers, she'd have pulled her back, wrapped her arms around her, and coaxed every little torment from the girl's mind. And the torments were there. Sweet Zoe, her pal, had been having a hard time of late. But Zoe was nearly sixteen. Instinct told Annie that she couldn't force herself on her daughter the way she once might have. Everyone needed space. Lord knew Annie did herself, and Zoe was cut from her mold. So Annie bided her time. Sure enough, Zoe went happily off to the slopes the next morning. Annie guessed that whatever dark cloud had hung over her had simply blown away, and so it was through the rest of the week. During the day the kids went their own way, meeting Sam and Annie at the chalet at night. Such was the plan for New Year's Eve. They were going to relax at the chalet after skiing, then go as a family to dinner and a party at one of the inns near the mountain. When Annie and Sam returned from the slopes at four-thirty, though, Jon and Leigh were alone.

"Wasn't Zoe skiing with you?" Annie asked. "She said you were spending the day on the North Face."

Leigh glanced at Jon nervously. "We did, but she got tired in the middle of the morning and said she was skiing back down to South."

"We assumed she was with you," Jon added.

Annie shook her head. "Maybe with friends. Let's give her a few minutes. She'll be along."

A few minutes passed with no sign of Zoe. Sam, who was at the window watching the front walk, checked his watch. "The slopes have been closed for an hour."

Determined not to be concerned before it was warranted, Annie came to his side. "She must have stopped somewhere on the way home."

"Where?"

She didn't know. It was dark, cold, and icy outside. Families were gathering for the holiday. It wasn't like Zoe not to be with hers. Curious more than worried, Annie began to call one after another of the friends Zoe might have been skiing with. Each was home. None knew where Zoe was. Several had seen her at lunch, but not since. With each unproductive phone call, Annie grew more uneasy. Sam was hovering over her by the time she hung up the phone on the last of the possibilities. It was five-thirty. She raised frightened eyes and whispered an urgent, "Something's wrong. I know it, I just know it." Taking over the phone, he called the management office at the mountain and learned that the base lodge was closed and deserted, but that a sole pair of skis had been left standing against the otherwise empty racks. A description of the skis matched Zoe's.

He called the police.

Annie checked Zoe's bedroom, but it was in the same state of disorder in which she had left it that morning. There was no sign that she had been back during the day. From what Annie could see, nothing was missing.

"Where could she be?" Leigh asked in a frightened voice when Annie returned to Sam's side.

He look agitated as he hung up the phone. "They'll keep an eye out for her, but they won't do anything more until she's been gone longer. They

say they have reports of missing children every day of the week, but they always turn up."

"Zoe wouldn't make us worry this way," Leigh said. Annie didn't think so either. Zoe didn't have a malicious bone in her body. But she had been upset lately. When people were upset, Annie knew, they sometimes did things they wouldn't normally do. "Maybe she wanted to walk around the village."

"How would she get there?" Jon asked logically. "The shuttle bus doesn't go that far."

"A friend might have taken her," Annie offered.

"What friend?" Sam asked. "You've called them all." He pushed a hand through his hair. "There's no note anywhere?"

"Not in her bedroom," Annie said, and went to search the rest of the house. The others joined her. They found nothing. By the time they met back in the living room, it was after six and Annie was beginning to panic. Her imagination was acting up, taking her in directions she didn't want to go. "Where is she, Sam?"

He looked pale, not terribly reassuring, though he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. "I don't know."

"Do we just... wait?"

"Can't do that." He closed his eyes in a distressed way that furrowed his brows. When he opened them again, his look was urgent. "Did she say anything during the week about wanting to be somewhere other than here? Maybe in Arizona with Jana?"

"She wanted Jana here," Annie said. "She never said she wanted to be there." She looked to Jon and Leigh for confirmation and got a pair of nods.

Sam turned to them, too. "Any hint to either of you? Any passing reference to going somewhere? Any mention of someone new she might have met?"

They shook their heads. "But she's been strange lately," Jon said.

"She doesn't talk like she used to."

Annie swallowed back her fear, but the words spilled anyway. "What if a group of college guys lured her to their place?" Zoe might have been flattered and gone, just as Annie been flattered by Jason Faust. But whereas Annie had been in a position to stop things before they got out of control, Zoe wouldn't be. She was an innocent. And so pretty. Annie had an even worse thought. "What if some man started talking with her on one of the lifts and lured her into his car? What if he said he'd take her into the village and then just kept driving?"

"Jana should have come with us," Leigh cried. "She and Zoe always watched out for each other."

"Jana wouldn't come," Jon reminded her pointedly. "She didn't want to be with my father."

"Let's not get into that," Sam snapped.

"It's true."

"Let's not get into it," he repeated sharply.

"I can't just wait here," Annie said, leaving his side. "I'm going out to drive around. She may be walking back from wherever she's been." Sam reached for the car keys. "You two stay in case she calls," he told Jon and Leigh. "We'll check back every few minutes." The night was darker, colder, and more icy from the car than it had looked to Annie from the chalet. Cars passed by on their way to New Year's Eve gatherings. Bright lights marked the houses where those gatherings were being held. Between the cars and the bright lights were large, opaque, ominous pockets of woods.

"Oh, God," she whispered, pressing her fist to her mouth as she scoured the shards of landscape that the car's headlights revealed. "We should have kept her skiing with us. But she didn't want to be fussed over. She got angry at me when I did it."

"We'll find her," Sam said grimly, and drove on. At seven they stopped back at the house. Zoe hadn't called. They left again and drove on, venturing farther this time. They called Jon from the village, but there had been no word from Zoe.

Annie gripped the dashboard, peering out into the darkness as Sam drove. It was after seven-thirty. The situation was more frightening by the minute. Annie didn't understand why Zoe hadn't called or come home. She was terrified. "Zoe, where are you? Where are you?" By eight it had started to snow. Shifting into a lower gear, Sam drove back to the chalet. "I'm calling the police again," he said as they climbed out of the car. "If the local police won't do something, the state police might."

Jon and Leigh were waiting at the door. Their faces fell when they saw that Sam and Annie were alone. Behind them, the phone rang. Annie ran for it, but it was one of the girls she had called earlier, wanting to know if they'd found Zoe. "Not yet," Annie said, shaky and breathless and scared half to death, "but we will." She needed two tries to get the receiver caught on the hook. Her hand was still there when the phone rang again. She snatched it up. "Yes?"

There was a long pause, an eternal five seconds during which Annie fully expected a kidnapper to issue a ransom demand. Then came an unsure, "Annie?"

"Pop? It's me," she said in a quavering voice. "Pop, Zoe's missing. We don't know where she is."

"She's here," Pete said in his sandy voice.

"She's there?" Annie cried, putting a hand on her thudding heart. The others crowded around. Sam put his ear by hers so that he could hear what Pete was saying.

"My doorbell rang just before dinner, and she was standing right there, a little cold, but fine."

Annie's knees went weak with relief. She sagged against Sam as Pete went on.

"She said you knew she was coming, but I didn't think you'd send her along without calling me first, and then there was the matter of no satchel. Pretty little Zoe always carries a satchel."

"She's safe," Annie breathed. "Thank God, she's safe."

"It wasn't until I'd fed her a little and asked her about you folks'

plans for tonight that she started feeling guilty."

"How did she get there?" Sam asked.

"She hitched a ride."

"Hitched?"

"With someone she knew, one of Jon's friends." Annie wasn't reassured by that. Some of Jon's friends, particularly his football friends, were pretty high on themselves. She could easily imagine them taking advantage of Zoe. "Is she all right?"

"A little upset."

"Was she hurt?"

"Oh, no. Not that." His voice lowered. "She's upset about other things."

"Let me talk with her."

"Later, maybe."

Sam took the phone from Annie's hand. "I'm coming for her, Pop." Annie sensed that her father was suggesting otherwise, but Sam insisted. "I have to talk with her. It won't wait until morning. Don't tell her I'm coming. She might run off again. I'm leaving now. I'll be down by eleven." He handed the phone back to Annie.

She saw his determination and knew that nothing was changing his mind. To Pete, quietly, she said, "Sam's right. Hold on to her until he gets there, okay?"

For three hours in the car, Sam thought of all he wanted to say to Zoe. When he arrived at Pete's

place, though, words weren't necessary. She was curled at the foot of Pete's bed, fast asleep.

After sitting down on the mattress, he lifted her into his arms and cradled her close, as he used to do when she'd been little. As he used to do then, he thought of how special she was, how sweet and gentle, and how much he wanted to give her.

He had failed her. That thought was foremost in his mind when, after a bit, she stirred. She rubbed her face against his sweater and curled closer. Then she went still.

"Daddy?" she whispered.

"It's me, baby."

She said nothing. Sam kissed her forehead. When she turned into him and began to cry, he held her tighter, aching more with each small sob.

"It's okay, Zoe, it's okay, baby. Mommy and Daddy love you so much." She cried on. He shot a helpless look at Pete, who was sitting on his orange crate looking back helplessly, and wondered why a man had to feel so inadequate in situations like these. Women didn't. They were content with the hugging, saw it as a comfort in itself. Sam tried to do the same, but it was tough. His little girl was hurting. That hurt him in turn. He wanted to do something.