Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(8)

Since Beth was without a vehicle, her father had driven up to Flagstaff to bring her to SaddleBrooke. Now she had to get back on her own. During the trip down, she hadn’t paid that much attention to the landscape around her or to the roads they were traveling. Once she finally reached SaddleBrooke’s main entrance, she was dismayed to see that the highway outside the development was virtually deserted at this time of night. Beth had thought maybe she’d be able to flag down a bus and purchase a ticket, but she soon discovered that no buses were available, leaving her with only one option—hitchhiking.

She knew that sticking out her thumb in the middle of the night was a dangerous proposition, especially for girls her size—a petite five foot three. But she had already figured out that there were lots of dangerous places these days, including college campuses. With that in mind, she’d started carrying a switchblade in her pocket and a can of wasp spray in her purse, just in case she needed them.

A seemingly unnecessary stoplight at SaddleBrooke’s brightly illuminated entrance blinked endlessly through its cycle of green, orange, and red, while Beth stood there for what felt like forever. Twice, approaching vehicles raised her hopes by slowing, but each time they ended up turning into SaddleBrooke rather than stopping. At last a pickup truck came speeding through the green light, only to slow to a crawl on the far side of the intersection. To Beth’s surprise, the backup lights came on as the driver put the vehicle in reverse. When the truck finally stopped in front of her, the driver buzzed down the passenger window. “Need a ride?” he asked.

Feeling wary, Beth loaded her luggage into the bed of the truck and then climbed into the passenger seat. Fortunately, her Good Samaritan, as nice as could be, turned out to be a guard at the prison in Florence. He was on his way to fill in for someone else who’d gone home sick. Once at the prison, he parked Beth in a lobby and found a buddy of his who was willing to give her a ride to Apache Junction once his shift ended at 6:00 A.M.

From Apache Junction on, there’d been lots more traffic, and none of the people who’d offered her rides had been the least bit out of line either. Her experiences along the road led Beth to conclude that maybe hitchhiking wasn’t nearly as dangerous as everyone, and most especially her mother, claimed it was. Even so, it was still late afternoon on Thanksgiving Day before Beth finally made it back to Conover Hall on the NAU campus. For dinner she’d made do with cheese, crackers, and a soda from a 7-Eleven just off campus. Beth hadn’t spoken to either one of her parents since then, and she had no intention of doing so. She was done with them, and, she supposed, they were done with her as well.

Yawning, Beth checked the time—ten past twelve. Ron’s late-night phone calls—make that his midnight phone calls—were a challenge. Initially they had e-mailed back and forth using Jenny’s computer until Beth purchased her own. Now, however, even though Beth had a laptop of her own, they communicated almost entirely by one-way video chats. Due to Ron’s job requirements, midnight was the only time of day when he could speak to her, and even then he had to initiate the calls. Ron had Beth’s number; his number was always blocked and his image blurred for security reasons. Beth didn’t regard that as an entirely satisfactory arrangement, but she went along with it. And once he finally did get around to calling, they usually talked for an hour or more.

Going to bed late and getting up early left Beth perpetually sleep-deprived. No wonder she fell asleep in her classes. No wonder she couldn’t hold her head up when it came time to do homework. It was lucky Beth was smart enough to get by anyway. Independent study through library excursions intended to augment her mother’s bare-bones homeschooling meant that Beth was already familiar with a good deal of the material being presented in her freshman-level classes. She suspected she’d be able to pass most of her courses without cracking a book, but she needed to maintain the 3.0 GPA that Granny Lockhart’s trust required.

With a sigh Beth looked at her phone once more. Ron was later than usual, and she needed to get to bed soon. She had an early class on Thursday mornings, but she didn’t want to go to bed without talking to him. This was the best part of her day. She needed to hear his voice, needed to listen to the sweet things he said to and about her. His loving words each night were all that made her life worthwhile.

But now, sitting there alone, Beth thought about her parents. She had long rebelled against the teachings of the beloved pastor at her parents’ church. After Madeline and Kenneth Rankin married, they had fallen in with a small but strict religious sect. Pastor Ike, the sect’s original founder, was the one who had decreed that electronic devices were the source of all evil, a belief Madeline Rankin had accepted with a willing heart.

Pastor Ike also insisted that children educated at public schools were doomed to become pawns of the devil, which led to Madeline’s decision to homeschool her daughter. Granny Lockhart, a librarian and a lifelong reader, had sent her own daughter to public schools. Naturally, Madeline’s path to rebellion had led her in the opposite direction, becoming an indifferent student who hated reading and despised books, choices that made her embrace Pastor Ike’s teachings without any reservation.

Madeline’s contempt for learning should have precluded her from homeschooling her daughter, especially a child who happened to be exceptionally bright. By the time Beth was twelve, she had easily outstripped her mother’s limited grasp of both math and science. When it became apparent to all concerned, even Madeline, that Beth wouldn’t be able to progress further without outside help, rather than enrolling her in the local public school system Madeline had sought help from their neighborhood library. Madeline might not have liked books, but she was willing to tolerate her daughter’s love for reading, and that one chink in her Pastor Ike armor was all it had taken to set Beth on a brand-new path.