Lavender Beach (35 page)

“That’s not a bad idea, Delacourt,” Bobby said, slapping his buddy on the back. “We could pretend to sail her out of the harbor like pirates.”

“Let’s do it,” Jonah said eagerly.

“Shouldn’t we tell our dads first?” Tommy suggested. “They’re back there talking to Mr. Rafferty about selling the tourists more T-shirts.”

Jonah scratched his bare belly, then his head. “Nah, all adults ever do is keep telling you not to interrupt them. Besides, we won’t be gone that long. It’s just around the bend on the other side of the bay.”

Abandoning the football they’d been tossing around and all the other toys in the sand, the trio took off down the opposite end of the beach. They trailed past the fancy restaurant. They heard the sound of electrical saws and drills coming from the boatyard. By the time they reached the back end of the Fanning Rescue Center, they heard the din of the resident seals barking and carrying on.

But when they got to the dock area, the boat was nowhere in sight.

Bobby’s shoulders slumped. “Just our lousy luck. I guess they had to go rescue something.”

“So what do we do now?” Jonah asked.

“How about we go climb those rocks over there?”

Jonah’s eyes bugged out. “Those rocks in the middle of the water? I’m not swimming out there. My dad says the current’s too strong.”

Disappointed, Bobby toed a rock. “Now what are we gonna do?”

Tommy picked at the scab on his elbow, turned to Bobby. “Remember that time you ran away from home? What did you do all that time you were gone?”

Bobby wasn’t about to tell anyone how scared he’d been during that time. “Oh, man, it was great. I headed south of town, stuck to the highway, and just kept going. There’s this overhang off the 101 that sticks out over the ocean. I crawled out over rocks to look at an owl’s nest, thought about spending the night there. I’ll show it to you if you want.”

That sounded like a better Sunday adventure than the dumb old beach.

“Was it a family of owls, baby ones?” Jonah asked.

“Sure. The babies didn’t even have their eyes open yet. There’s a bunch of ’em. And they were fuzzy-looking and brown.”

Jonah bobbed up and down. “Do you think they’re still on the cliff? Let’s go see ’em.”

“I’ll lead the way,” Bobby said with confidence.

Beginning to have second thoughts about going that far without his dad, Tommy shifted his feet. “Maybe we should go home, get our bikes, and tell someone where we’re going. It’ll be pretty far on foot.”

Eager to show off the spot he’d found on his own, Bobby dismissed that notion. “Nah. It’s just down the road a little ways. Besides, if we go back now we’ll probably get stuck with that horde of people on the beach. Who wants to spend the afternoon doing that if we can’t play without getting into trouble?”

Jonah dipped his head in agreement. He’d already made up his mind what he wanted to do if it meant getting to see baby birds. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

In the hope of doing something different for a change away from the watchful eyes of parents, the three boys trekked off in the direction of the cliffs south of town, on a quest to get to know screech owls up close and personal.

Back on the
beach the boys’ dads sat in camp chairs lined up in a row on the sand. Their debates ranged from raising active boys to dating after divorce to NFL football.

Forty-year-old Archer Gates had survived a tough year, maybe the toughest of his life. After going through an expensive and nasty divorce, Archer had moved out of the house in Fresno he’d shared with his cheating wife, and brought his son Tommy back home where he could raise him in a less hectic environment. His wife hadn’t wanted custody, hadn’t fought to see Tommy, nor had she asked for visitation. All she’d wanted was to get on with her life.

That was fine by Archer. He’d found a decent-paying job installing cable for a company over in San Sebastian and he was happy living back in Pelican Pointe.

Archer’s situation had mirrored single-dad Greg Prather’s. Both men were raising their sons alone just as Thane had been doing until meeting and marrying Isabella last year.

Archer rubbed his chin. “I’ve dated some since coming back, but let’s face it, my date with Sydney Reed will be hard to top. We went over to Santa Cruz to see a movie, but instead of that we snuck into this little dive Ethan told me about and closed the place down dancing to a live band.”

Greg shook his head. “Not me. I have no desire to date. Right now, I’m concentrating on doing right by Bobby.”

“How’d Bobby do in school this year?” Thane asked. “Jonah says Bobby’s not picking on other kids the way he used to.”

“A lot better. Julianne said she’s never seen a kid do such a one-eighty in temperament like Bobby has. All that bickering and fighting his mother and I did really took a toll on him. Now that his mother is no longer in the picture and he isn’t witnessing a battle of wills every single day, it’s like he’s a different kid.”

They shifted from that topic to the recent NFL draft and how well their respective teams had fared.

After picking apart the upcoming supplemental draft, Thane glanced over and looked around the beach. He stopped in mid-sentence. “Where’s Jonah? I don’t see that boy anywhere.”

Archer Gates waved Thane off. “He’s over there, playing with Tommy.” Archer bobbed his head toward the water, expecting to see his son playing in the sand, and frowned when he didn’t.

Greg Prather groused, “I hope Bobby’s not bothering those girls again. God, I’m glad I don’t have a daughter. Ever notice how teen girls spend most of their time shrieking and squealing? That would drive me up the wall. Then there’s the way they dress. I wouldn’t let a teenage girl of mine out of the house in a two-piece bathing suit like some of these other girls wear.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Thane said, still trying to pick out Jonah in the sea of bodies. “Malachi does his best to keep tabs on his two, but says they’re a handful and pretty much know all his buttons to push whenever his back’s turned. Raising kids, boys or girls, is a challenge on the best of days.”

Thane slicked his hair back, got to his feet to get a better view. “I don’t see Jonah anywhere. I hope he isn’t cannon-balling off the pier again.”

He put his hand up over his eyes to block out the sun and scanned the bay, counted the surfers in the water. But he didn’t spot Jonah.

Thane zigzagged his way through beachgoers to get to the edge, a ball of alarm hitting him in the gut when he didn’t see his son swimming.

His heart pounded in his chest as he realized Jonah wasn’t in the water. Thane began to yell out in alarm. “Jonah! Jonah! Where are you? Answer me!” He took off in the other direction, back toward the street. If he found Jonah playing between the cars, they’d go home right this minute.

But Jonah was nowhere in sight. Full-blown panic set in as he raced back to the pier. With each foot that hit the sand, fear swept through him. He spun toward Greg and Archer. “What if they got caught in the current under the wharf and were swept out into the bay?”

Archer took off in a run to see for himself with Greg following.

“Wouldn’t someone have surely seen that?” Greg reasoned, a wall of terror building up.

Thane cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled as loud as he could, “Has anyone seen three boys? Did anyone see if they went into the water? Help us find our kids!”

Other than stirring everybody up, he didn’t get the results he wanted. That’s when realization hit him. The three boys were gone.

The blood drained from his face. His stomach felt sick.

Archer and Greg came running up. “The boy’s action figures are still there on the sand. So is the football they were tossing around. Wherever they are, they must have gone together.”

“Let’s try looking down the beach where it curves around to the Fanning Rescue Center,” Greg suggested. “They probably went to visit the animals. Bobby does that sometimes. He loves that place.”

But after forty minutes of searching everywhere they could think to look, they didn’t find the boys. Thane called Isabella to see if, by chance, Jonah had walked home with his friends. But she hadn’t seen him either.

“I’ll be right there,” Isabella promised.

“I’m hanging up now to call Brent,” Thane told her as he ended the call and punched in Brent’s number.

Brent’s phone rang inside his home across the street. Trying to calm Thane down was like trying to put out a raging wildfire with a water pistol.

“We’ll find them, Thane. We have a system in place for this very thing. I’ll mobilize a search right away utilizing our list of volunteers to get the word out.”

While Brent made the jog across to the wharf, it went through his head that he’d been through this same scenario once before with Bobby Prather and it had turned out fine.

He reminded himself of that as he sprinted up to three worried fathers. “Did the boys get in trouble earlier? Were they angry about anything in particular that might have made them want to take off?”

Thane folded his arms across his chest, tucked his fingers under to keep his hands from shaking. “I didn’t know it when I called you but some of the older boys got on to them about running around on the beach and annoying people. The teens told them to stop getting in their way and go find someplace else to play. I guess they did. No one has seen them since. I need to go get my truck and look for them. It’ll be getting dark soon.”

“Look at me, Thane. Look at me,” Brent said again. “You’re too upset to get behind the wheel. That’s why the three of you should stay put here in case the boys circle back. Let me handle this. I’ll call county and make sure they get Search and Rescue involved.”

While Murphy handed out grid maps of the town sectioned off to start the hunt, Brent ordered everyone within earshot to begin canvassing the neighborhood. 

After Brent gave his pep talk, the next thing he did was place a call to Eastlyn. “Are you ready to earn your deputy pay? We have three missing kids.”

“I’ll be right there.”

By the time
Eastlyn and Cooper pulled up at the pier, fifty people had already turned out within fifteen minutes of getting the call.

They hopped out of Eastlyn’s Bronco and dashed down to the beach area where everyone had gathered.

Eastlyn bounded up to Brent and wanted to know, “Have you notified Search and Rescue?”

“I did, but they’re dealing with a boat accident twenty miles out of Monterey Bay, several missing are feared drowned. They promised me they’d pull someone off that and head this way to patrol along the coast as soon as they can.”

“So, in the meantime, it’s up to us. Who’s handling the grid? And where do you want me? North? South? East?”

Brent took out a map. “This is where I found Bobby the last time he did this, south of town at the San Sebastian cutoff.”

“This happened before?”

“With Bobby. Last fall. I don’t think this is a runaway situation with Jonah and Tommy or Bobby, for that matter. I think these kids went exploring.” Brent circled an area behind the Rescue Center. “The dads already checked here and here. But my idea is three boys with time to kill on a Sunday afternoon would want some excitement.”

“Okay, so where should we start?”

“South. We’ll take two cars. You keep to the coast road.”

“That two-lane job that hugs the cliffs?”

“That’s the one. I’ll take the 101 as it branches off and go back to where I found Bobby near the turnoff.” He handed her a two-way radio. “Use this between us. If any of the dads call your cell phone, try to keep your voice level, the chatter upbeat.”

“Got it.” As she headed to the car, she thought of something and abruptly turned back. “Does this mean everyone will know I’m working for you and that it’s no longer a secret?”

Brent shook his head. “Are you wearing a uniform? No. You don’t officially have a badge yet either. Look around you at all the folks who turned out to help in the search. We’re not giving anything away here. Right this minute, you’re just another concerned citizen looking for three missing kids. Is that okay with you?”