In Search of Eden (21 page)

“All right,” she said briefly. “Where's it at?”

“Follow me,” he said and took off through the woods.

Eden gave a glance at her bike and at the winding trail through the trees.

The boy stopped walking after a few paces and looked back to see why she wasn't following. “Hide it over here,” he said, taking the bike from her and expertly rolling it behind a thicket of blackberry vines.

She wondered for a minute if this was all a trick. Maybe he was working in cahoots with somebody. He threw the stick into the road, and when the victim came along and fell, one of them
offered help while the other one stole the bike. She looked around suspiciously, but there was only a slight breeze ruffling the new leaves of the trees and fluffing the tall grasses. A drop of blood fell from her face onto her arm, reminding her of her problem.

“All right,” she said, but she might as well have saved her breath because he was already headed down the path. She trotted to keep up, and after a minute he turned around and waited for her.

They walked along together for a minute.

“Where's your house?” she asked.

“Over yonder in the hollow. And it ain't a house. It's a trailer.”

“You mean a mobile home?” Grandma said not to call trailers
trailers
because sometimes people were sensitive about it.

“No. I mean a trailer.” They pulled into a clearing, and she saw what he meant. There, parked under a bunch of trees was a silver trailer hooked up to a new dark green Dodge truck. Somebody had set up a campsite with the fire going and a coffeepot perking on the grate, two lawn chairs on either side, a welcome mat under the fold-down stairs. The door to the trailer was open, and coming from inside Eden could hear country music and somebody singing. Not very good at it.

“That's my dad,” the boy said.

“I don't even know who you are,” Eden accused.

“Well, I don't know you, neither,” he shot back.

Eden was about to let fly with something else, but just then the father came to the doorway and down the steps. She gave him the once-over.

White male, dark brown hair mixed with gray, approximately six feet tall, medium build, no markings or tattoos, blue work pants, a white cotton shirt.

He looked a little startled and stared at her for a minute, then spoke. “Well, well, well,” he said, giving her a friendly smile. “Whom have we here? A damsel in distress?”

“I'm Eden,” she said, ignoring the part about the damsel in distress. “Eden Williams.”

“Pleased to meet you, Eden Williams,” the man said. “My name is Johnny,” and he sort of bent over a little bit like a bow.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, still giving him the eye.

The boy didn't say anything. His father gave him a little shove. “Don't stand there like a lout, boy. Show some manners. Tell the young lady your name.”

The boy didn't bow. In fact, he looked down at the ground and started drawing in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “Name's Grady,” he said.

She could barely hear him, he mumbled so.

“Grady Adair.”

chapter
21

J
oseph frowned and checked his watch. He'd been back at the station for nearly an hour since taking the report with Henry. Eden had missed one check-in and was due for another one in just a few minutes.

He walked down to the dispatcher's office. Loni was on the phone.

“Did my niece call in?” he half mouthed, half whispered.

Loni shook her head no without breaking her concentration.

Joseph went back out into the foyer and looked out the glass doors. He could call his mother, but that would only alarm her. He supposed he would have to go and find Eden. She was probably over at the post office memorizing the Wanted posters or at the bus station asking Floyd if any of the Ten Most Wanted had come through. He had to smile thinking about Eden. She was a scrapper, all right. Well, he would go find her and take her home. Besides, the fresh air would clear his head. He had spent the better part of an hour reading last year's police reports about Traveler scams, and his blood pressure was rising by the minute.

He went back up to his office and told his assistant where he was going, then stepped out onto the broad steps of the building,
took in a deep breath, and looked around. It was a beautiful day. The trees were covered with new half-furled leaves, the air was moist and cool, the grass green and tender, the sun shining. He looked up toward the mountains and felt the springtime eagerness to be up on the trail. Maybe he could find some time this weekend. It had been too long of a winter, and his muscles ached to be stretched and moving once again.

He immediately thought of his brother and felt a stab of grief and remorse. David would never have the privilege of climbing a hill or running a race again. Joseph felt guilty for his fitness. And for his silence and distance.

It was mid-April, and he had not been to see his brother since the accident had first occurred. He had called often, of course, and passed messages to David through Sarah. There had been a few awkward telephone conversations between his brother and him. Lots of halting starts and trailing middles and abrupt endings and too long silences in between. He supposed ten years of enmity could not be mended with a few condolence calls.

He should have gone in person again. He should go even now, and he felt shame that he would not do so. But he could not imagine standing over his brother and talking about trivialities, and the conversation they had always needed to have would never take place now. For how could you accuse someone in David's situation? How could he add to David's troubles by a confrontation? So Joseph shut his mouth firmly and clenched his jaw. His brother would come here to recuperate. He would be pleasant and kind, and then David would go back to Fairfax, and he would go back to his life.

His thoughts made him irritable and anxious, and it was in this state that he went to find Eden, his discomfort at her radio silence growing into something slightly more, although it would certainly not be the first time she had gone absent without leave. He tried to call her again.

“Wolf Mountain Two, this is Wolf Mountain One. Come in.”

Nothing but static. She must have her radio turned off.

“Wolf Mountain Two, this is Wolf Mountain One. Are you there?”

More nothing.

He drove through town and parked outside St. James. He went in the side door. Hector would be running the food bank today. Sure enough, he was there. He was making entries in a ledger book. He looked up with a pleasant expression that changed to quizzical when he saw Joseph's face. “Uh-oh,” he said. “How late is she?”

“She's missed two check-ins,” Joseph said briefly.

Hector shook his head and glanced toward the clock. “She left here about an hour ago. I assumed she was headed for St. John's.”

“I'll check there next,” Joseph said.

Pastor Hector chuckled. “She's a corker, that one.”

The comment brought a smile to Joseph, albeit a grudging one. “That she is.”

“She's probably found a story she needs to track down or a crime in progress.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Joseph said wryly. “She's a good kid, but she scares me sometimes. She'll follow her imagination anywhere, and I'm afraid someday it'll lead her into trouble.”

“I know what you mean,” Hector said, his face becoming serious. “By the way,”—Joseph tensed, for he knew what was coming—“how's David?”

“About the same,” he answered. “Some good days. Some bad.”

Hector nodded soberly and said nothing more as Joseph walked out.

No one was around at St. John's. The office was dark, the door locked, Father Stallworth apparently having closed up shop and gone home and the Ladies' Circle having adjourned. Joseph drove slowly past the Catholic and the Presbyterian churches. He didn't see Eden's bike. He was just about to call his mother when
his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and saw
St. James Methodist Church
on the caller ID.

“Did you find her yet?” Hector's voice, not exactly worried but concerned.

“Not yet.” His own clipped and abrupt.

“I thought of one more thing. I told her about Susannah Applegate going to college and that horse of hers needing exercise. I wouldn't be surprised if she headed over that way. Sorry,” Hector said. “I should have cleared it with you first.”

“No problem,” Joseph answered. “Thanks for the lead. I'll check it out.” He turned the car away from town and headed out toward White Mountain Road. He picked up his radio and tried one more time to reach her, though his anxiety was all but gone now that he had a pretty good idea of where she had gone. He had no doubt he would find her standing at the edge of Frank Applegate's horse pasture, pining after Susannah's horse. Well, every girl needed a horse, didn't she? He spent the next few minutes wondering what Ma would say about a Thoroughbred grazing in the backyard of the B and B.

He drove to the Applegate farm but saw no sign of his niece. He went up the graveled driveway and spoke briefly to Mrs. Applegate, who had been home all afternoon and hadn't seen anyone come or go. He thanked her and left, now truly worried.

“Wolf Mountain Two, this is Wolf Mountain One. Come in.” Still nothing.

He called his mother and worried her, then tried calling Eden on the radio one more time, driving slowly down the road. He was thinking about what to do next when he saw the flash of red behind a thicket of blackberry vines in the field over to his right. His heart began thumping, and his blood roared in his ears. He stopped the car, slung it into park, and ran across the field.

It was the Schwinn he had bought her. He squatted and, without touching anything, saw the scrapes on the paint. He stood up and felt himself slide into another mode. His emotions were packed away to be dealt with later. For now he turned and
began scanning the scene. He didn't say
crime scene
yet, even to himself.

He began searching with his eyes in that state of exaggerated calm. Tracking and finding someone was just like any puzzle. You began by examining all the pieces. He swept his eyes around the fallen bicycle in a three-hundred-sixty-degree arc. Humans and animals left evidence of their presence. There was a partial footprint, but the heel was too wide to be Eden's, and the sole had the waffled appearance of a hiking boot, not the crisscross of Eden's new tennis shoes. He saw her bright eyes and quick smile the day he'd bought them for her and had to press his emotions down again.

He followed the boot tracks back to the roadside and saw that whoever it was had made a round trip to the blackberry thicket where he had dumped the bike and come back here to the roadside. He knelt down, and there were Eden's prints in the soft dirt on the shoulder of the road, clearly indented from the new soles. Both sets headed across the field from here toward the woods. The tall grass was bent down, and some of the brush had been disturbed, showing the pale undersides of the leaves. There was a broken twig beside the larger boot print. He saw something. He stopped, squinted, and, hoping he was wrong, bent low to examine a dry leaf by the side of the trail. He touched it gently, and the droplet was still a bit liquid. It was blood, and it had been shed recently. His pulse pounded harder. He wanted to go crashing into the woods, but first he would behave rationally.

He picked up his radio to call for backup and search and rescue, but before he could press send, Eden's voice, as clear as if she were beside him, came through. “Wolf Mountain One, this is Wolf Mountain Two. Come in.”

“Eden! Where are you?” he demanded, all playacting put aside, relief quickly becoming fury.

And then he saw her at the edge of the woods, looking at him with trepidation. “I'm right here,” she said, then lowered the radio to her side.

“What happened? I was worried sick,” he shouted as he covered the ground between them. “I was just about ready to bring in the dogs. What happened to your face? Are you all right? Who was with you?” he demanded, remembering the waffled hiking boots. And somewhere in the midst of all that, he noticed her glancing back behind her and then turning her face toward him, the trepidation now replaced with a look of barely veiled defiance. He had seen a look like that recently and thought of the woman he had followed into town at ten miles per hour. Repentance was obviously not on either of their minds.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are you going to answer me?”

She stared down at his boots. “I fell off my bike.”

He saw the scrapes on her face, neatly washed with some kind of lotion applied, the tear in the sleeve of her shirt. The collar and shoulder of her shirt had wet spots and pinkish stains where she had obviously tried to wash off blood. He picked up her hands, and both were scraped but also washed clean. There was a dirty smudge on the side of her jeans.

“You just fell?”

“There was a stick in the road.”

“Then what?”

Her small mouth thinned as she pressed it shut.

“Where did you go?” he asked. “Who did you go with?”

“Nowhere.” The chin jutted forward. “Nobody.” The jaw clamped shut.

So that's how it was going to be.

“Come on.” He walked her to the blackberry thicket, where she retrieved her bike, then marched her back to his car, where he had to remind himself that she was not a suspect in a crime. She was a kid who'd missed a curfew and told a lie. “Hop in,” he said, holding open the front door. “I'll put your bike in the trunk.”

She climbed in. He popped the trunk and set the bike in beside his shotgun and accident kit. They drove home in silence. His mother was standing on the porch and greeted Eden with a
hailstorm of remonstrances and consolations the moment he stopped the car.