Free Dream Country by Luanne Rice Page A

know how to tell you this. Sage is missing. She ran away.”
    “Missing?” James focused on the only word he’d heard.
    “She left a note,” Daisy continued. “Two notes, actually. The police have been looking for her, and we think she’s heading out to see you.”
    “So you know where she is?” he asked, feeling relieved.
    “No, we don’t know. They have a clue, and I’m pretty sure she’s on her way west, but—”
    “By herself?” James asked, wondering how a young girl of sixteen could make it all the way from Connecticut to Wyoming without getting hurt.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daisy asked.
    “It means—” James started to explain himself.
    “She’s with her boyfriend,” Daisy said hastily, backing off.
    James didn’t reply as he thought about his daughter having a boyfriend, how the last time he’d seen her she’d been just ready to start kindergarten. But silence on a telephone line between two people—with as much between them as he and Daisy—worked in strange ways, and he could hear Daisy getting agitated.
    “She’s always wanted to go to you,” Daisy said. “I know you think I should have sent her. You probably think this is my fault, that if I’d let her spend summers with you this never would have happened.”
    “No, I—”
    “But I didn’t want her traveling alone, and I didn’t want her on that ranch. I couldn’t stand thinking of her going to the place where Jake—”
    “I know, Daisy.”
    “You could have come here,” Daisy said.
    “No,” he said. “I couldn’t.”
    “He’s not coming back, James.” Daisy’s voice was shaking. “We’ve known that since the third or fourth day. Our son is dead, but your daughter’s needed you all this time.”
    “He might.” James stared out the window at the black mountain against the sky, milky with stars. “He could walk out of wherever he’s been, come home looking for us . . .”
    “No,” Daisy said, as she’d said a hundred times. “No.”
    “I’m here,” James said, “and I’m staying here. In case he does.”
    “You’re crazy, James,” Daisy snapped with impatience. “It’s been thirteen years! And now our daughter . . .”
    James closed his eyes. When she called him crazy, he couldn’t disagree. He held back from defending himself the way he used to. But he wasn’t going to change his plans or his ways, even if he had gone slightly insane. Daisy had, too. What parent wouldn’t, losing a child?
    “Meanwhile,” Daisy continued, “your daughter’s so starved for your love, she’s on a freight train heading out to see you!”
    “You know that for sure?”
    “No! I said no already.” Daisy sounded frantic. “But she was asking questions at the depot. That part’s for sure—they identified her picture.”
    “Which picture?”
    “What’s the difference?” Daisy asked, her voice rising with the strain.
    But it did matter. James was standing by the stone mantel staring at the gallery of Sage’s photographs from birth onward. He picked up her tenth-grade picture and looked at her green eyes, her hesitant smile, her brown hair.
    “They’ve alerted police departments all along the train line,” Daisy said. “People will be checking the train at the next stop.”
    “Good.” James didn’t put the picture back down. His eyes stung, and even after he wiped them, his vision was blurry.
    “If she calls you—”
    “I’ll call you right away,” James said.
    “Thank you.” Daisy’s voice was clipped, as if she’d said everything she needed to say. James held on to the receiver for a long time, wishing she’d think of something else. Instead, she just said good-bye, and so did he. Still, he didn’t hang up the phone.
    Replacing the school portrait on the mantel, he picked up an older, much more familiar one.
    The picture was small—just a snapshot. It stood in an ornate frame, made by Daisy from silver, gold, and stones gathered by the children from the river. The