by Hope White
“She thinks I’m a loser, but I’m not!” the girl shouted.
“I doubt Shannon would think that you’re a loser,” Zoe tried.
“She kicked me out of Angie’s Club. She hates me.”
“She asked you to take a break and return when you could control your disrespectful attitude,” Wendy offered.
“No, she kicked me out, I’ll never be allowed back,” the girl said.
“I’m sure we can figure this out,” Zoe went on, trying to de-escalate the situation.
“I miss my friends.” The teen’s voice hitched.
“I would, too. I’m Zoe. What’s your name?”
“Jeanie.” She eyed Jack. “Who’s he? A cop? Are you here to arrest me, cop?”
“He’s my friend Jack.”
“Your friend.” Jeanie clenched her jaw as if she didn’t believe Zoe.
“Yes. We sincerely want to help, Jeanie,” Zoe promised.
“Then take this.” Jeanie extended her arm, a piece of paper clutched between her fingers.
The elderly man took a step toward her.
“No, not you.” She nodded at Jack. “The cop.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Whatever.” She waved the piece of paper.
Something felt off.
“This is proof I belong here,” Jeanie said.
Jack took a few steps toward her.
“Jack, wait,” Zoe said.
He froze, his back to Zoe, and raised his hands.
“Jack?” Zoe said.
He turned around with a defeated look on his face. Jeanie stepped slightly to her left so Zoe could see her clutching a gun.
SEVEN
Jack took a slow, deep breath. Calculated his options. The possibility of Zoe being shot outweighed any benefit of trying to disarm the teenager. He was stuck, because he hadn’t read a signal, hadn’t seen the signs that the girl intended violence.
Zoe must have because she told him to wait at the very moment the teen pulled the gun. She’d known something was about to happen.
“I’m going to sit down.” Zoe went to a nearby table, her hands also up and visible.
“Get out of here, Zoe.” The words escaped his lips before he even realized he’d spoken.
“No, I want her to stay. But they can go.” Jeanie nodded at Wendy and the older man. They backed out of the room.
“Put the gun down,” Jack tried.
“Shut up, cop.”
There was no reasoning with this kid. She’d decided Jack was a police officer, the enemy, and only wanted to do her harm. If he tried to disarm her, the slightest miscalculation could end up in disaster.
“Come on, sit down,” Zoe said, motioning to a nearby table.
The girl pressed the gun barrel into Jack’s back. “You first.”
Jack slowly sat at the table, unable to make eye contact with Zoe. Instead he focused on a poster across the room. It showed a mountain range and the words imprinted across the top read, Faith Can Move Mountains.
Faith. Too bad Jack didn’t know how to access faith in a higher power. He could use some divine assistance right about now.
He noticed the girl had yet to sit down at the table, but Zoe and Jack were both seated, which put Jeanie in a position of control.
This was even worse than when Jack had stood as a barrier between the gun and Zoe. There had to be a safe solution. He considered everything from the position of the chairs around him to using the table as cover.
“You seem incredibly frustrated, Jeanie,” Zoe said. “How can I help?”
What an odd question, Jack thought.
Jeanie didn’t answer. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw her step closer to Zoe.
“Talk to me.” Zoe touched the table beside her.
No, he didn’t want the girl getting too close to Zoe.
As he was about to stand up and block Jeanie’s aim toward Zoe, the girl started to back away toward the door. Good. He hoped she’d flee the scene and no one would get hurt.
“Come on, Jeanie. I seriously want to help,” Zoe pushed.
“Then find Shannon,” Jeanie said.
“We’re trying, believe me,” Zoe said. “But the weather is preventing Search and Rescue from going up into the mountains to look for her.”
“You have to find her. She’s the only one who can get me back into Angie’s Club.”
“You’ve got bigger problems than your social life.”
“Jack,” Zoe admonished.
Shame coursed through him as he shot a glance at Zoe. He’d never seen that look before. He snapped his attention to the Faith poster.
“Jeanie, please excuse my friend,” Zoe said.
“What a jerk.”
“He doesn’t mean to be. Talk to me about the situation with Shannon.”
“She cut me off and turned me away. This was the only place where people accepted me. It was bad enough when she stopped giving me the stuff for my dad, but then she said I couldn’t come back because I was a danger to other kids. I’m the danger when she’s dealing drugs?”
Jack snapped his attention from the poster to Zoe. No visible reaction. Then he saw her eyes blink three times rapidly. Blink, blink, blink. Pause. Blink, blink, blink. He wished he knew what she was thinking.
“I didn’t know she was dealing drugs,” Zoe said.
“Guess you weren’t that great of friends, then,” Jeanie said.
Zoe sighed. “Please know, I am sorry for your pain.”
“Dad’s the one in pain. That’s why he needed the drugs. On Fridays I’d leave cash beneath the bear statue out back and she’d put drugs in my backpack. Then one Friday, nothing. We paid her and everything. When I asked her about it, she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. We got into this huge argument and she kicked me out of the club.”
“You didn’t exchange money for drugs in person?” Zoe asked.
“We’re not stupid, duh.”
“Then how do you know it was Shannon?”
“She left a note with the first bottle of pills. It said she’s got something for my dad, but it’s not free.”
Sirens echoed through the window.
“Oh no, they called police. I’m outta here.”
“Jeanie—”
“Forget it.” She turned and ran down the hall.
Jack stood to follow her and glanced at Zoe, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Go,” she said. “Don’t get shot.”
Jack cautiously followed the teenager. He spotted her at the end of the hall by an exit door. She paused, put the gun in a garbage can and took off outside. Why dump the gun?
Jack went after her, hesitating at the door in case she was waiting for him with another weapon. He wouldn’t be caught unawares again.
He cracked the door open and leaned back, out of range. Nothing.
He peered around the corner into the recreation area. Didn’t see anyone. Jeanie had essentially disappeared.
* * *
Something was incredibly wrong. As Zoe waited for Jack to return, she tried making sense of what the teenager had said.
Shannon was a drug dealer.
Nope, did not make sense. Not even a little bit. Zoe wouldn’t accept it.
Wendy poked her head into the room. “Police should arrive any minute.”
“Great, thanks. How did you know it was safe to come back here?”
Wendy pointed to a camera in the room. “Some have cameras, some don’t. I saw her leave.”
Zoe nodded. “Did you hear what she said, too?”
“No, why?”
“She claims Shannon’s been dealing drugs.”
“I’ll never believe that. Jeanie’s trouble and Shannon knew it. She wanted her to get help and not be
a bad influence on the other kids.”
Zoe stood from the table, suddenly needing to feel taller, in control. The truth was, she felt totally out of control, like she’d been sucked into a tornado barreling across the countryside.
Jack returned with a strange look on his face.
“What?” she asked.
“She dumped the gun in the garbage can, then disappeared.”
“Okay, good.”
“Why is that good?”
“I didn’t want to see her hurt during a shoot-out.”
“She tried to kill me—you—us,” Jack said. His tone sounded nothing short of judgmental.
“Did she?” Zoe said. “I think she was scared, angry and utterly frustrated.”
“You’ve been scared and frustrated and haven’t threatened to kill anyone,” he said.
“I’ll go greet deputies when they arrive.” Wendy excused herself, probably wanting to get away from the tension bouncing back and forth between Jack and Zoe.
“You knew, didn’t you, that she planned to do us harm?” Jack asked.
“I sensed something, yes. But the more I spoke with her, the more I realized it was about her pain, not her wanting to inflict pain on others.”
“I don’t understand how you came to that conclusion.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” She glanced at him, realizing she needed to clarify her statement or else he’d take it the wrong way. “I have a master’s degree in counseling, plus five years’ experience with this age group, remember?”
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Whoa, signal before you change lanes next time.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
She would’ve chuckled at the fact he was playing along with the banter, but she was too distraught about Shannon to find anything funny.
Especially because Jeanie had accused Shan of dealing drugs.
“That’s wrong,” Jack said.
“What?”
“I said that wrong. I meant, I’m sorry you had to find out that way, about your friend dealing drugs.”
“I’m not accepting it yet, so let’s drop the subject.”
“The sheriff’s office will ask us what Jeanie said.”
“I know.”
“We’ll have to tell them the truth.”
“Yes, we will. That still doesn’t make Shannon a drug dealer.”
* * *
Jack headed back to the suite where Zoe would pick up what she’d purchased this morning, and then he’d take her to the Ashford Inn.
So much for proving Shannon’s innocence, Zoe thought. Her statement to Detective Perry seemed to solidify his suspicion that Shannon was a criminal.
Zoe wished she could speak with Jeanie again, but it seemed that she had run away. Detective Perry sent a deputy to Jeanie’s house, but she had not returned.
Detective Perry. Zoe could hardly look at him when she’d repeated what the girl had said: I’m the danger when she’s dealing drugs?
No, Zoe wouldn’t believe it. There had to be another explanation.
“They issued a BOLO for Jeanie, so they’ll find her,” Jack said.
Again, it amazed Zoe how he sensed what she was thinking about. “Let’s hope they’re kind to her when they do.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me some time,” he said.
“Explain what?”
“How you can be so forgiving to someone who threatened you and accused your friend of being a drug dealer.”
She glanced out the window. “It’s called giving someone grace.”
“It’s foreign to me.”
“You’re not alone.” She remembered the last argument she and Tim had before their breakup. Their challenges weren’t solely caused by his need to climb the corporate ladder. No, Tim had lacked the ability or at least the interest to learn to offer grace. The implosion of their relationship taught her it would be easier if she found someone who shared her values, including her faith. It also taught her how blind she could be when she loved someone, blind enough to look past their faults.
Like she had with Shannon?
Was that what was happening with her best friend?
This was different. She knew Shannon, her family, her upbringing. Zoe would not accept that Shannon had changed so much in the past ten years.
Then again, Tim seemed to change in the fourteen months they’d dated, from generous dating partner to self-absorbed jerk, and Zoe hadn’t even seen it happen.
“You need to love Jesus to do that, right? To give grace?” Jack said.
His comment snapped her out of her analysis.
“I don’t even know Jesus,” he said.
“Well, you’re more like Him than you think.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You volunteer to save people’s lives. That’s pretty selfless.”
His eyebrows furrowed, like before when he was processing something.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said.
He nodded.
“Angie Adams...?”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe backtracked. “Never mind.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t have to die.”
“That’s...sad. How did—”
“She made a foolish choice to go into the mountains during a snowstorm with her friends.”
Zoe waited, thinking he had more to say.
“Those weren’t friends. Friends would have stayed with her after she fell.”
“And they didn’t?”
“No, they were worried about getting into trouble. Only after they came down off the mountain did they call Emergency, made up a story about Angie going up there alone. By the time we found her...” His voice trailed off as he pulled into the motel parking lot.
“She was gone?”
Jack didn’t look at her, just stared straight ahead at their motel room door. “Not quite. But she did eventually die.” He pinned her with dark blue eyes. “Because I couldn’t save her.”
Zoe opened her mouth to correct him, to say it wasn’t his fault, that he wasn’t a doctor, nor did he make the unwise decision to hike in a snowstorm or choose friends who would abandon him.
But she recognized the look on his face: a look of self-defeat and guilt that couldn’t be eased with platitudes from a stranger. And in his eyes, Zoe was still a stranger he’d known only a couple of days, a stranger who had no right to tell him how he should feel.
Zoe didn’t have any right to insinuate herself in his feelings, his life.
“You’re not talking,” Jack said.
“No, I’m holding space.”
He looked at her hands.
“It’s another term for compassionate listening.”
“The purpose of which is...?”
“To support you, to sit with your pain.”
“That’s pointless.” He opened his door.
She grabbed his arm. He froze and looked at her.
“I’m sorry you weren’t able to save Angie.”
“I need to check on Romeo.”
She released him and watched as he walked to the motel room and opened the door. The dog practically jumped into his arms, easing the strained expression pinching at the corners of Jack’s eyes. He didn’t know how to deal with emotions like guilt, and she didn’t want to “shrink” him, an expression used by some of her friends when she offered advice. In this case she had no advice or wisdom to give a man who obviously held himself accountable for a young woman’s death.
He was brave indeed to feel such guilt, yet still search for lost or injured hikers. For some, the loss of one life would be enough to walk away.
She grabbed her shoulder ba
g, got out of his truck and went into their room at the lodge. Romeo greeted her with a perfect sit.
“Good boy,” Jack said, then looked at Zoe. “I got a text from SAR. There’s a break in the weather and Command wants to send teams up.”
“Go, go,” she said.
“You’ll stay here?”
“I’ll call a cab to take me to the inn.”
“No, I’ll take you.”
“I don’t want you to waste time.”
“It’s on the way.”
Zoe quickly gathered her shopping bags and they were back in the truck within minutes, headed for the Ashford Inn.
“You didn’t tell anyone where you’d be staying, correct?” he said.
“Other than police and you? No.”
“Good.”
“You still think I’m in danger?”
“You’re vulnerable if you’re alone. At least at the inn you’ll be with other people. The innkeeper seems strict about not giving out information regarding her guests.”
“You know her?”
“No, I tried to find out if you’d checked in yesterday and she wouldn’t confirm or deny.”
“So that’s good.”
“Yes. You should be safe there. I did a background check on the owners. They are solid people.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“I can call the sheriff’s office and see if Sergeant Peterson can park a patrol car out front or at least check on you tonight. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be gone. It could be hours, or if the weather holds, days.”
“No problem. I’ve really appreciated your support.” And she did, but she realized she was growing more dependent on him than she should. This man had a life and, at present, a critical mission.
She needed him to find Shannon.
* * *
Two hours later Jack and his team approached the location where a ranger said he’d spotted a woman in an orange ski jacket running through the snow shouting. The ranger wasn’t close enough to assist, so he’d called it in. Jack hadn’t told Zoe the part about the woman shouting for help because he didn’t want to upset her.
If the woman was Shannon, that meant she had escaped her captors, which would explain why the man who’d broken into her home the other night and assaulted Zoe asked where “she” was.