Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(35)

“Not really,” Marybeth said.

Sheridan laughed and said, “I mean, us girls had to beg him to even get a cell phone. Do you remember he used to keep his off all the time to, quote, ‘save the battery’?”

“He’s gotten better about that. He even texts, as you know.”

“Yeah, but in complete sentences,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “April and Lucy and I laugh about it all the time. We send each other stuff he writes because it’s so formal.”

Giggling, Sheridan dug her phone out and found the message app. She opened it up and showed the screen to her mother. It read:

    Dear Sheridan:

I hope this finds you well. As you know, next week is your mother’s birthday and I wonder if you have any ideas on what she might like as a gift? She’s mentioned a new saddle but . . .



Marybeth smiled. She was flattered that Joe was aware of her birthday, even if he was flummoxed about what to get her. She opened her phone and the ConFab app and handed it to Sheridan.

“This is the most recent post, from last night,” she said.

Sheridan shook her head as she scrolled down through the posts. “I can’t believe I knew nothing about this.”

“It was supposed to be a secret,” Marybeth said. “Apparently Steve-2 and his people think otherwise.”

“Since I started working at Yarak, I feel so out of it,” Sheridan lamented. “I spend a lot of days out of cell phone range and I just don’t keep up on what’s going on anymore. Nate’s like Dad—he doesn’t do social media. I used to live on my phone, like everybody else I know. It seemed so important. It seemed vital to be connected at all times. Do you realize that in my lifetime I’ve never not been online?”

Marybeth sat back. “I’d never thought of it like that.”

“It’s true. I’m not online during the day, and when I get home at night, I’m too tired to check Facebook or Insta for very long. I hardly ever post anything because everyone is so judgmental. It’s hard for my old friends to understand what I do, and too many of them feel the need to comment on it. I never comment on what my friends are doing unless it’s positive and innocuous. I know they aren’t as happy and successful as they pretend to be, but I let it go. But not some of these people I’m talking about. They ask, ‘Why are you wasting your life?’ or ‘Whatever happened to you and Lance Romance? Is he still in the picture?’ None of it is anyone’s business.

“I’m grateful I haven’t gotten married and had any kids,” Sheridan said without realizing her words were a shiv into her mother’s heart, “because if you have a baby, every damn supermom in the world feels entitled to tell you you’re doing everything wrong and harming the child. I’ve seen it. My friends who have kids get beaten up more than anyone. It’s no wonder so many of us don’t have them.”

Sheridan sighed. The topic was obviously very much on her mind. “But it’s maybe not so bad,” she said. “I imagine it’s like quitting drugs cold turkey. It hurts at first, but as time goes by it gets better. You start to feel normal again. But the thing is, Mom, I’m not sure I know what normal is. Social media has always been there, you know? Maybe we take it too seriously.”

Marybeth said, “I know what you mean. I’m probably overreacting myself. There’s probably a really good reason why your dad didn’t call or text me last night, and I’ve let it derail my entire morning. There was a time when men went off to sea or into the frontier and their wives wouldn’t hear from them for months, even years. Somehow they survived.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan said. But she didn’t sound convinced.

“So you haven’t heard anything from him this morning, either?” Sheridan asked.

“Not yet.”

“And Steve-2 hasn’t posted anything more?”

“No.”

“Maybe they got their elk and they’re busy taking care of it.”

“That’s the only explanation I can think of,” Marybeth said. “It’s the only one I want to consider at the moment, because it means they’ll be headed back soon.”

“Do you know where he is in the mountains?” Sheridan asked.

Marybeth vaguely gestured toward the east. “Kind of,” she said.

“He didn’t leave a note?”

“No. He told me, but I didn’t write it down. He has a sat phone and he swore he’d take a personal locator beacon. Brock Boedecker is also along with them, so I didn’t worry about it this time.”

“There are ways of finding him if Steve-2 doesn’t post again,” Sheridan said. “You know, cell phones can be tracked and things like that.”

Marybeth sat back. “A full-fledged search-and-rescue operation could be launched, I know. But that takes time and we’ve got this new sheriff who hasn’t done it here before . . .” She trailed off. Then: “If I don’t hear from him by this afternoon, I may need to call him, as well as Director Ewig. I don’t want to overreact, though. Lord knows he’s been late or out of touch before.”

“We grew up with it,” Sheridan said. “Dad can handle himself pretty well.”

“He can,” Marybeth said. “I’m sure there’s a good explanation. But right now I want to know he’s safe so I can kill him.”