Dream Country Read Online Free

that?” The detective was staring at the photo of red mesas against a bright blue sky. “Did you take a trip there once?”
    “She was born in Wyoming,” Daisy said. “We lived there until she was four years old, and we haven’t been back since.”
    “Her father lives there,” Hathaway added.
    “You said he’s ‘out of the picture,’” Detective LaRosa said.
    “We’re divorced,” Daisy said. “He lives on a ranch, and he sent her those antlers for her tenth birthday. She covers them with things like they’re a Christmas tree.” Stepping forward, she looked at the photo of James dangling from a blue ribbon. He was a stranger to her now, older, still lean and tan and unsmiling.
    “That’s him?” the detective asked.
    “Her only photo of him,” Daisy said. “He hates having his picture taken. She must have begged him—he sent it to her a couple of Christmases ago.”
    “They’re in touch?”
    “Not very much.”
    “He doesn’t visit?”
    “No.”
    Hathaway stepped forward, as if she sensed Daisy needed protection. Staring at James, Daisy’s throat closed up. She felt tears coming, and she lowered her eyes. She had gone to Wyoming because she wanted to find inspiration in the wilderness. Instead, she had met James Tucker, a man with the wilderness inside him.
    “Why hasn’t he seen his daughter since she was four?” Detective LaRosa asked.
    “Because he won’t leave the ranch,” Daisy answered. “And I wasn’t going to send my daughter out to Wyoming alone.”
    “Blue booties?” The detective touched Jake’s tiny knitted shoes.
    “My son,” Daisy explained. “He was Sage’s twin, and he died when he was three.”
    The detective’s head snapped up.
    “How did he die?”
    “We don’t know,” Daisy said quietly.
    The detective waited.
    “James—my husband—took him out riding. It was a roundup, lots of men. James, his father, and their foreman were there. He always took Jake with him—Jake loved it. He was a little cowboy, always wanted to be with his father. James put Jake down for one minute, told him to sit still and watch—” At the detective’s expression, Daisy shook her head. “No—I know you think that was crazy. But we did it all the time. We lived on a ranch—there was always so much going on. We thought the kids were so lucky—all those wide-open spaces. The air was so clean, they loved the animals. Jake was such a good little boy. He’d do what he was told—”
    “So, your husband told him to sit still,” the detective prodded.
    Daisy nodded.
    “What happened next?”
    Hathaway stepped closer. Daisy swallowed. The words were so hard to get out. “We don’t know what happened next.”
    “Was there an investigation?” Detective LaRosa asked.
    “Yes,” Daisy said. “Oh, yes.”
    The canyon was vast, the natural dangers obvious and brutal, but the police had seemed to count those out. They immediately focused their attention on James. Daisy thought of the detectives with their hard eyes, their suspicious voices. She was insane with worry, and they were treating her like the wife of a murder suspect. They kept James from joining the search party those first critical days, bombarding him with questions.
    “They never found anything,” Daisy said. “No sign of my son. The area where he’d been waiting was covered with prints—boots, horses—we couldn’t find Jake’s tracks at all. We had search parties, helicopters, a Shoshone shaman. The police questioned my husband for hours and hours—”
    Detective LaRosa nodded. Everyone knew the father was the first suspect, no matter how much he—or the rest of the family—protested.
    “By the time they let him go,” Daisy said, spinning back, “he was like a tornado. He told me he wouldn’t come home until he had Jake—he promised me. He went out searching.” Daisy swallowed. “And I didn’t see him again for fifteen days, until long after the search party quit. He was sick and dehydrated—his