The Courage Tree. Diane Chamberlain

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      “I live up here as much as is reasonable,” Lucas said. “I store things in the house, and I cook in the house. I don’t like to keep food up here. I think I’d have a bug problem. The trees go through the house, and I have a steady stream of ants and spiders as it is. We’re living harmoniously at the moment, but I wouldn’t want to encourage any more of them to visit.”

      “Any chance I can see inside?” the officer asked.

      “In a minute,” Lucas said. He’d had enough of the game playing. “First, though, tell me why you’re here.”

      “Yes. Sure.” The young man looked embarrassed, and Lucas relaxed to see that the cop’s interest had, in all likelihood, been genuine and not some ruse to get him to open up. He’d been seduced by the trees. It was usually that way. People lost themselves up here. They forgot about everything else in the world, at least for a moment. “I’m Officer Russo,” he said. “You work over at the Ayr Creek estate, right?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Well, the little girl who lives there…”

      “Sophie.” He felt his heartbeat quicken, but carefully kept his face impassive.

      “Sophie. Right. She was away at a camp this weekend and she was due back at Meadowlark Gardens at three, but she and one of the other girls and their leader never showed up. So I’m talking to people who know her to see if they might have any information.”

      “I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you saying the rest of the girls are back?”

      “Right. They showed up on time, but they were riding in a separate vehicle.”

      “Maybe Sophie’s ride got a late start?” Lucas offered.

      “No. The other leader saw them take off ahead of her.”

      He felt a sort of panic rise up in his chest. “Could they have been in an accident or—”

      “We’re checking on all of that,” Russo said. “So far, they’ve just fallen off the map.”

      “Well, I was aware that Sophie was going away for the weekend,” Lucas said. “I don’t know any more than that. I’m not even sure where she went.” That was a lie—and probably an unnecessary one—but he felt the need to play dumb to this cop when it came to Sophie.

      “Have you been here all day?” Russo asked.

      “Most of it,” he said.

      “And when you weren’t here, where were you?”

      “What are you getting at?” Lucas asked.

      “Just routine questions,” Russo assured him.

      “I took a drive to Great Falls to see a friend around one or so. I was back here by three-thirty.”

      “Could your friend verify that information for me?”

      Lucas sighed. He should have lied. “Do you think I have something to do with this?” he asked. “With Sophie being late?”

      “We’re just checking out everyone who has any relationship to Ayr Creek,” Russo said easily.

      Everyone with a relationship to Ayr Creek, Lucas wondered, or just the gardener Frank and Donna Snyder distrusted around their granddaughter?

      “My friend could verify it, but I’d rather not put him in that position,” he said. That would make things very messy.

      “All right, I think we can hold off on that for the moment,” Russo said. “Now can I have that tour?” He looked up at the second tier of the house. “How many trees is this thing resting on?” he asked.

      “It’s built between four, actually,” Lucas said. “This one’s a white oak.” He pointed to the tree supporting the deck. “That second level is built on a shag bark hickory, and, it’s hard to see from here, but there’s another oak and a tulip poplar doing the rest of the work.”

      Russo stomped his foot on the deck. “Feels sturdy enough,” he observed.

      “Oh, sure,” Lucas said, as he opened the front door and led the officer inside. “On a really windy day, though, the whole contraption sways in the wind, and I start to wonder if I’m out of my mind to live up here. Other than that, it’s pretty secure.”

      “Holy…” Russo exclaimed, as they walked into the living room.

      It was the usual reaction Lucas got when he brought someone inside. The trunk of the hickory cut through the room. The floor was tongue-and-groove fir, the walls, shiplap paneling. Huge windows and healthy houseplants were everywhere. A sofa was built in along one side of the room, and three captain’s chairs provided the rest of the seating.

      “This is something else,” Russo said. “I wish my wife would let me do something like this in our backyard. We have the trees for it, I think.”

      Lucas switched on the light for the back deck, so that Russo could see the treetops through the windows.

      “Unreal,” Russo said. “And you even have electricity. What do you do in the winter?”

      Lucas pointed to the baseboard heaters. “I have heat,” he said, “and everything’s insulated.”

      “Man, oh man.” Russo shook his head. “So, show me the rest. Where’s the bedroom?”

      “Up here.” Lucas pointed to the covered stairway leading to the second tier. He climbed up ahead of Russo and opened the door to the bedroom.

      Russo walked past him into the room. He glanced at the double platform bed and the dresser. An air-conditioning unit, unattractive but necessary, was in the bedroom window. “It must be great to sleep up here,” he said, opening the small closet at one end of the room and peering inside, and Lucas knew this was not merely a tour to satisfy Russo’s curiosity about his house.

      “Ready to go down again?” Lucas was getting impatient.

      “Sure.” Russo pointed to the blue splint on Lucas’s left wrist. “You must have carpal tunnel syndrome, huh?”

      “That’s right.” Lucas said. He’d blamed the splint on carpal tunnel so often that it was beginning to feel like the truth.

      “My wife has that,” Russo said, as Lucas led him down the stairs and into the living room again. “She got it from her computer job.”

      Lucas tried to usher Russo toward the front door again, but the officer had noticed the locked door at the rear of the living room.

      “What’s in there?” he asked.

      “My study,” Lucas said.

      “I’d like to see it.”

      “It just has my computer and printer and some books,” Lucas said, walking toward the door. He reached in his pocket for the key. “I keep it locked СКАЧАТЬ