Sunflower Lane (24 page)

Thunder boomed like rapid gunfire, echoing through the mountains as chill summer rain pummeled the rocks and scrub brush, the weeds and the twisting trails.

Water ran in angry rivulets every which way. The gray glimmer of slashing rain was eerily illuminated by occasional flashes of lightning.

Wes had been searching through the downpour for more than an hour, working his way methodically toward Coyote Pass. Finally, he was getting close. He was headed toward one of the narrowest and most dangerous passes in the range of mountains ringing Lonesome Way, the going now slowed, made even more difficult by the rain and buffeting wind.

At least the lightning had ceased. Although it was his surest lead, he prayed the boys hadn’t come this way. It was so steep, so dangerous.

Maybe they’d turned back . . . or gotten lost, then found
shelter in a place easier to access, and safer to travel . . . or . . .

Suddenly he saw something on the ground about twenty feet ahead of him that made him halt. Hope stirred as he scrambled forward, the mountain seeming to shake beneath him during a deafening clap of thunder.

Three rocks were sitting there. Fairly big ones. They were set atop three sodden leaves, holding them in place.

Three of something. Three of anything. A distress signal for those who were lost. That was what he’d taught the kids at Jake’s retreat, the day that Ethan and Jimmy had tagged along with him.

He shouted again at the top of his voice. “Ethan!”

No answer, but he moved on, encouraged, looking this way and that, skidding ahead on the slick trail as fast as he could, gripping rocks and branches, finding his footing by pure instinct, experience, and determination.

He hadn’t seen any other searchers in a while. Most of them had probably taken shelter. He pushed on. Finally he reached a muddy, jagged path that led downward. Squinting through the rain, trying to make out what was below, Wes thought he could see three more rocks in a tiny pile, but he couldn’t be sure.

He called out again, and started down that slick excuse for a path.

His heart leaped as he reached the ledge on the bottom and saw three more rocks placed on leaves. He stared at them as lightning streaked across the pewter sky.

Speeding up as much as he dared, he worked his way past one precarious ledge, then another, driving rain slamming into his face.

He kept going, calling out into the fierce wind, working his way still farther and calling out the boys’ names as the sky unleashed its full fury all around him.

Twenty more feet along, and his voice now hoarse as he yelled, he thought he heard a sound from far below.

Was that a voice? It was faint, but still . . .

“Ethan,” he roared full-force. “Ethan! Jimmy!”

Thunder cracked, drowning out any chance of hearing a reply. He swore and wiped the dripping rain from his face. Despite the lashing, sideways downpour, he skidded forward as fast as he could.

“Where are you?” he shouted again into the growing darkness, and this time, he heard a faint reply.

“Help! We’re down . . . here!” The words came in a thin scream above the incessant rushing sound of the rain.

Head down, Wes charged forward, slipping and sliding, clutching at branches and brush, steadying himself, hanging on to his footing as he hurtled on toward the bottom.

“Don’t move! I’m coming down for you. Hang on!” he yelled.

Moments later, he reached them. They were huddled on the ground beside a rock, perched only a few yards back from a ledge with a dizzying drop. Ethan was soaked and shivering, but Jimmy was lying on the sodden ground, his ankle twisted beneath him at a bad angle.

“Jimmy fell. He can’t walk . . . or climb. . . . It might be broken!” Ethan threw himself at Wes and wrapped his arms around Wes’s waist.

“Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll carry him back. Jimmy, don’t try to move. Ethan, you hurt?”

“N-no.” Wes wasn’t sure whether Ethan was crying or his face was soaked by rain, but he heard the panicked tremor in the boy’s voice.

Quickly he scanned both of them for injuries or signs of shock. They looked drenched and pale and miserable, but aside from Jimmy’s ankle, and the pain clenched across his white face, they seemed okay. Shaken, but okay.

Alive, thank God.

“Hold on. I’ve got some water and granola bars—and a blanket—in my pack. Everyone’s searching for you two. Let me give the sheriff our position.”

He pulled out the walkie-talkie as Ethan hugged him tighter and Jimmy managed a slight, weak smile.

“Is Aunt Annabelle mad at me?” Ethan asked after Wes checked Jimmy’s ankle, gave each boy a bottle of water, and wrapped a blanket around both of them.

“Maybe not mad, but for the next ten years, kiddo, don’t plan on being out of her sight.”

Annabelle remembered about Treasure as she hurtled toward home.

This could be a very long night. Who knew when Wes or any one of them would be back to feed the dog or let him outside?

Shoving her foot down hard on the gas pedal, she sped right past her house to the cabin, then fought her way through the rain and wind to let the dog outside.

She left him in the yard for a moment or two to take care of his business, then called him in, dried him off with a fluffy towel, and put down some dog food and fresh water.

“Wes will be back later,” she murmured, and raced back out, locking the door behind her.

Her mind couldn’t stop spinning. The moment she was inside her own house, she put up a big pot of coffee, then dug frantically through the shelves for a thermos, and when
she found it sank against the counter. Closing her eyes, she drew in a couple of deep breaths.

She had to stop picturing those boys out there on the mountain. Alone, cold, possibly hurt. Pain sliced her in two at the thought.

Please, please, let them be all right
.

She knew she had to stay calm.
Focus
. The girls were safe with Charlotte, thank heavens, and she knew she could count on that. She’d call later on her way to Sylvie and Dave’s house, and do her best to reassure them.

Focus. Coffee and food. Flashlights. Batteries. Coats? Sweaters?

Blankets!

After pulling out a pound of sliced turkey from the fridge, she grabbed a loaf of bread, fingers flying as she prepared sandwich after sandwich. She’d never worked so fast in her life. When the turkey was gone, she grabbed a jar of peanut butter and another of jelly. When she ran out of bread, she filled a Tupperware container with crackers and slices of cheddar cheese.

All the while,
hurry hurry hurry
pounded through her brain. She grabbed her cell phone when it rang, her throat dry, praying it was Wes, but it wasn’t.

It was Diana Hartigan.

She went still at the sound of the other woman’s voice.

“Annabelle, we just heard the news about Ethan and Jimmy. It’s spreading through town—and everyone is pitching in. Right now we’re driving to Sylvie and Dave Collier’s place. Sophie and Ava and my husband are with me. We’re bringing a chicken enchilada casserole I’d baked for supper and some tuna sandwiches and bottles of water for the volunteers. Martha Davies and Dorothy Winston are on their way to help, too. We’re setting up shop to help feed and warm the volunteers until those little boys are safely home.”

“Mrs. Hartigan, I can’t thank you enough! I’m very grateful.” Tears brimmed in her eyes and she had to swallow back a lump in her throat. “I’m bringing sandwiches and coffee, too. I’ll be there soon myself.”

“I know Wes is out there searching. If anyone can find those boys, my son can. Oh, and my mother would like me to tell you that she’s praying for the boys and she is bringing an angel food cake she baked this morning. She thinks the angel food cake is good luck. She says angels are watching over them.”

“I pray she’s right. Thank you, and please thank Mrs. Todd for me.”

“Of course. The roads are slick, so do be careful, now.”

She stared at the cell after Wes’s mother disconnected.

Her voice hadn’t been fuzzy-wuzzy and filled with warmth, but it had been kind and very concerned. And her words had been, too.

Annabelle spared a precious moment to call and update Charlotte just before she began packing up the car.

Charlotte reported that she’d told the girls the truth and they were upset, and very worried about Ethan, but she’d given them a snack and would try to keep them calm until the boys were found.

“I’ll call you as soon as we get them back.” Annabelle closed her eyes a moment, trying to envision Ethan racing into her arms—and praying it would prove true.

“You’ll find them, Annabelle. Have faith. I do. The whole town is searching.”

But that hadn’t helped Randy Kirk, she thought after she promised Charlotte to keep her posted. Gathering up all the food and coffee, she began ferrying everything out to the car.

She reached the Collier home in record time, despite the rain and wind and thunder. It was gratifying to see so many friends and townspeople streaming in to help. Sylvie told her
that even Tess’s husband, John, had left her and their infant daughter, Fae, to come out and help search in the storm.

For a half hour she distributed sandwiches, cheese and crackers, coffee, granola bars, and cookies. She was just heading back to the kitchen for more food when three more searchers came in, sopping wet and shivering. Martha Davies hurried over to them with blankets.

“Oh, dear, these are the last of the dry blankets,” the older woman muttered.

“That’s what I forgot to pack! Blankets!” Annabelle hurried into the kitchen and gazed at Sylvie and Ava in dismay.

“We’re running a little short of them,” Sylvie admitted. “But I don’t think you should go back out in this storm. I can take some quilts off the beds—”

“No, I’m going. I have at least a dozen packed away. Trish never threw out a blanket unless it was threadbare. She always said you never know when disaster will strike—”

Breaking off, she shook her head. She didn’t want to think about how she’d let Trish down today. It hurt too much.

“Can you handle things here? I’ll be back soon.”

She had to keep doing something . . . something to help. She couldn’t stand still and wash out the coffeepot and have time to think about Ethan on that mountain. She just couldn’t.

Moments later she was racing into the house on Sunflower Lane once more. Darkness had crept in, but the rain was lightening slightly. Her hair and her face were damp and cold, though, as she ran through the night—the air brisk from the storm.

Shivering and chilled, she grabbed her hoodie from the closet and shrugged it on, then bolted up the stairs. Grabbing up a handful of neatly folded blankets from a storage trunk in the closet, she took the stairs carefully and started toward the door to load them into the car.

At that moment, someone pounded on the kitchen door.

Wes! Ethan!

Hope surged through her and she dropped the blankets onto a chair in the hall and flung the kitchen door wide.

“Did you find—”

But a stranger stood there. A tall, strongly built stranger. He wore a black shirt, black pants, and an amused expression on a face that was handsome in a sleazy way she couldn’t define. She’d never laid eyes on him before.

“Who . . . are you?”

“Evening, Miz Harper.”

His voice creeped her out. It was outwardly pleasant, but had an undertone that made her skin crawl. How did he know her name?

“Who are you?” she asked again. “What do you want?”

Then she spotted the stoop-shouldered man standing just behind him. He was older, his skin swarthy, with a hard, bony face, reminiscent of a skeleton. Thin, stringy gray hair, and the darkest, emptiest black eyes she’d ever seen.

A man without a soul,
she thought, chills prickling her spine.

“We’re here on business,” the old man said, and she caught the heavy Spanish flavor of his accent.

Fear breathed along her skin. She tried to slam the door, throwing all her weight against it, but the tall man grabbed it and pushed it wide, then shoved her backward. As she grasped the kitchen counter to keep from tumbling to the floor, both men slipped quickly into the kitchen.

The older one closed the door behind them.

Then he clicked the lock in place and turned back to stare at her.

That was when Annabelle read the hate glinting in those cold, dark eyes. She took in the cruel set of his mouth. And knew in that instant these men had come to hurt her, maybe kill her. She knew it as if they’d spoken the threat aloud.

As terror shuddered through her, the tall man pulled out a gun.

“Doc, over here!”

Carefully, Wes set Jimmy down on the Colliers’ couch.

The house was still packed with friends and neighbors. They’d all broken into whoops and applause when the sheriff told them the boys had been found and were on their way down the mountain.

Dave Collier, Rafe Tanner, and his brother Travis had been the first ones to meet up with Wes and the boys at the trailhead. Dave took his son in his own arms, and began carrying him slowly down the mountain through the rain as Wes guided Ethan close behind.

“They should go to the hospital,” Travis Tanner said as soon as the boys were in the house.

“Jimmy needs to, for sure,” Rafe agreed.

“He needs this ankle set,” Sylvie whispered, kneeling beside her sobbing son.

“Both boys should be checked for exposure.” Ben Adkins spoke up. He’d been enjoying a cinnamon bun and coffee in A Bun in the Oven earlier that afternoon when he’d heard about the missing boys, then had driven out to join the volunteers streaming to the Collier place, asking whether there was anything he could do to help. He’d been handing out water and food ever since.

Now everyone looked at him in surprise, for though he’d grown up in Lonesome Way, these days he was a newcomer. Still, most everyone knew who he was by now, and they all nodded at his words, spoken with the absolute authority of a man accustomed to leadership.

“I agree with Ben.” Ava handed Deputy Mueller a cup of coffee—the poor man looked exhausted after having
spent more than four straight hours on the mountain. “You can’t be too careful with children.”

“Right. They both need to be checked out.” Wes took a quick inventory of the room. “Where’s Annabelle?”

Sylvie glanced up from where she was kneeling, talking quietly to both boys. “She went home a while ago to get more blankets. I’m not sure how long ago, but I’d have thought she’d be back by now.”

Frowning, Wes pulled out his cell phone as Dave lifted his son again to carry him out to the car.

“Tell you what, Dave—can you take Ethan, too? Annabelle and I will meet you there,” he told Jimmy’s father. “I’m going to call her now and tell her we’ve got the boys.”

He knelt beside Ethan first. “You okay with that, buddy? Your aunt and I will meet you at the clinic pronto.”

“I want to go with you.”

“We’ll be right behind you. As soon as I meet up with your aunt. She’s worried and I know she’s going to want to see you right away.”

Ethan nodded, his face weary from his ordeal. “Okay, I guess. But if it hadn’t started r-raining . . . and Jimmy didn’t f-fall, I bet we could’ve found the treasure.”

Wes gently tousled his hair. “I’ll let your aunt tell you what she thinks about that, buddy.”

As soon as he had Ethan comfortably buckled into the Collier truck, wrapped in a quilt with Sylvie riding shotgun on both boys, Wes checked his phone. He’d tried to reach Annabelle several times, but she hadn’t picked up—or called him back.

With a flicker of unease, he punched in her number again as he roared away from the Collier home, heading toward Sunflower Lane.

Two minutes later, she still wasn’t picking up. What the hell?

Worry chafed at him as he drove. She must be frantic about the boys and she had no idea yet that they were safe. Had she gotten into a crash driving to or from the Collier place? His chest tightened with fear at the thought.