Page 10 of Snow Creek

“Something’s wrong,” she says. “I know it.”

I try to calm her. “The fact that their parents left them alone is wrong in my book, but Joshua is old enough to look after his sister.”

I don’t tell her that my own parents were far, far worse. I survived.

“Something was missing,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense.”

I take my eyes off the road and glance at her for a split second.

“I haven’t been out here for several years. Maybe six. My sister always had her wedding portrait hanging in the front room. Next to the kids’ latest photographs.”

“Okay,” I say.

“It was gone. I think that’s weird, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”

I don’t tell her what I thought was out of place.

The T-shirt.

Maybe it was something Joshua had hidden and wore it only when his parents were away. Miller High Life didn’t fit the Wheaton family at all.

“I’ll check with the orphanage in Mexico,” I tell her. “Name?”

“La Paloma.”

“All right,” I say. “If it checks out, we’re good. If they aren’t there—though I’m sure they are—then we’ll fill out the paperwork and report them missing.”

“My sister never said they were going there,” she says. “She would have told me.”

“Do you share everything?”

“Yes. Everything.”

I look at her eyes.

“Does she know you wear mascara?”

Ruth turns away.

“No,” she replies, her voice hushed. “I only do that when I travel. I like to fit in when I’m outside of my church group.”

“Look,” I tell her, “we don’t know what happened. What we both know is that no matter how close you are with someone it’s only what you think you know. Only what they choose to reveal to you.”

She’s upset, and I notice that she is fidgeting with the shoulder harness, pulling it up and down… almost hard enough to leave a mark against her neck. She’s hurting herself. I immediately pull over and stop the car.

“Ruth, we’ll figure this out. You need to trust that we will do everything we can to find your family.”

Tears are flowing now. Silent tears.

“I know. I know. But…”

“Tell me.”

I gently pull her hand from the shoulder belt and she quietly reaches for a tissue she has stored under her bra strap. She dabs hard at her eyes. Harder, I know, than needed.

“Don’t tell my sister or my husband about the mascara.”

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