Sunflower Lane (23 page)

As Ethan slammed the door of the Jeep and raced toward Jimmy’s house that afternoon, Annabelle stepped out to greet Sylvie Collier, Jimmy’s mom.

“Sylvie, you’re a life saver. Are you sure Corey won’t mind keeping an eye on both boys?”

After a fine clear morning, clouds had started to drift in. Though the sky was still bright blue, the weather forecast now reported thunderstorms brewing to the east, and they were likely to hammer their way right into town before dark.

“No problem.” The other woman smiled. “I’m leaving in a half hour to get my hair trimmed and tinted at the Cuttin’ Loose, but I’ll only be gone an hour or two. Martha’s completely booked up starting tomorrow, so it’s probably now or not at all before the Fourth. Corey does complain a lot when he gets stuck babysitting, but if he wants to keep his car keys, he knows he has to help me out.” She laughed.

A special dress rehearsal had been called at the
community center today for all the children involved in dance or gymnastics performances as part of the July Fourth celebration. Annabelle had planned to bring Ethan to the rehearsal with her but he’d insisted he wanted to go to Jimmy’s house instead. Apparently a new treasure-hunting book had come into the library mentioning the Henry Barnum gang. There was half a page about them, Ethan told her. Jimmy had checked the book out of the library yesterday.

The boys wanted to pore over it together, and perhaps dig and explore in the little valley that ran beyond Jimmy’s backyard. In their imaginations, the treasure could be theirs for the taking anywhere in Lonesome Way. All they had to do was dig.

Corey appeared from inside the house as she was getting ready to drive off. After the easygoing sixteen-year-old promised Annabelle and his mother that he’d keep an eye on Jimmy and Ethan for the next couple of hours, Annabelle drove Megan and Michelle straight over to the community center.

For the next two hours, the excited girls in her class rehearsed, finally taking a cookie break, chattering all the while about their pretty, white fluffy skirts and red tops with blue stars sewn on, and practicing their shuffles and their flap ball changes in their tap shoes, again and again.

Annabelle was calling them back onto the floor for yet another run-through when her cell phone rang.

A moment later, listening to Sylvie on the phone, she froze. Her face turned pale as she heard the frantic tone in the woman’s voice, the desperate apologies before Annabelle gulped out, “I’m coming right now.”

“Girls!” She spun toward her class, trying to keep her voice steady. “I have to leave. Right now. Go ahead and practice by yourselves one more time and wait right here,” she ordered.

Then she raced down the hall to the office where
Charlotte was wrestling with details of the upcoming fall schedule.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Charlotte jumped to her feet in dismay when she saw Annabelle’s face. “Is it Tess . . . the baby . . . What?”

“Ethan. It’s Ethan and J-Jimmy. Jimmy’s brother was watching them today. But Corey’s girlfriend stopped over and they decided to drive to Cougar Rock. They took the boys with them! Ethan and Jimmy were supposed to stay close by, but Corey and his girlfriend were doing what every young couple does at Cougar Rock—and they weren’t really watching the boys, at least for a few minutes. And Ethan and Jimmy must have wandered off!”

“What?”
Charlotte went still, staring at her.

“Corey says he and his girlfriend called and yelled for them. They searched all over and they can’t find them, Charlotte. The boys didn’t answer back, not even once. Sylvie’s on her way to Cougar Rock now. I . . . I need you to watch my class. Please! I have to go find them!”

“Yes! Omigod! Go!” Charlotte hurried to her, her face tight with worry. “I’ll take care of everything. Annabelle, maybe you should call Sheriff Hodge—”

“Sylvie’s calling him next to see if he and Deputy Mueller can come out and help. After I call Wes, I’m going right over there myself.”

“You’ll find them. I’m sure they’re fine. They were probably looking for that silly treasure and maybe they got a little turned around—”

Annabelle’s voice trembled. “They could have fallen, gotten hurt. There’s wolves and coyotes and . . . b-bears up there, Charlotte!”

As fear threatened to overwhelm her, she swallowed it back. “Take care of Megan and Michelle, okay?” she choked out. “I don’t want them worrying.”

“I’ve got it covered.” Charlotte hugged her. “Keep me posted on what’s going on!”

No longer trusting her voice, Annabelle nodded. Her heart clutched as she saw that the sky was already darkening with thunderclouds. She dashed out to the parking lot, raced for her car. Before she drove off, she punched in Wes’s cell number.

He picked up almost immediately.

“Hi, baby. You know, I had an idea for that hardwood flooring you picked out. It’s still back-ordered but I think I can get—”

“Wes, I need you,” she blurted, trying to keep her voice steady, but failing. She felt like the world was falling in on her, and she fought for control. “I need you right now!”

“What’s wrong?” His tone sharpened.

She felt tears squeezing from her eyes, but she couldn’t hold them back any longer. “It’s Ethan and Jimmy. They’re missing. Wes, I’m so scared! They may be lost on Storm Mountain!”

Ominous clouds shadowed the town and the mountains as word spread that Ethan and Jimmy were missing in the wilderness. Friends and neighbors from miles around began streaming toward Storm Mountain to join the search.

Sheriff Hodge was in charge. Several volunteers, including Sylvie, her husband, Dave, Charlotte’s fiancé, Tim, as well as Jake and Rafe Tanner, were combing the rocky paths to the north. Wes and Annabelle, along with Travis Tanner, searched to the south. And Deputy Mueller, along with Brady Farraday and half a dozen other volunteers, scoured the trails to the east, always in pairs.

There was no cell phone connection that far up into the mountains, but the sheriff and deputy gave walkie-talkies to Wes and a few others, and they put together a buddy system for all the searchers. They were prepared with flashlights, whistles, and water, and a few had brought first-aid kits.

People didn’t get lost all that often in the mountains flanking Lonesome Way, but when they did it was serious business. The tragic search for Randy Kirk was uppermost in everyone’s thoughts as they spread out, scrambling across the rough terrain, calling out for the boys who were two of their own.

As thunder began to boom and echo through the mountains, Wes swore at the sky. The damned weather would make it nearly impossible to search once the storm fully unleashed. Everyone combing Storm Mountain would have to take shelter once the rain and the lightning came. The trails would become far too slippery and dangerous, and the search would need to be postponed or dramatically slowed until the downpour passed.

Taking another frantic glance at the dark clouds looming overhead, Annabelle shouted again for the boys. “Ethan! Jimmy! Ethan, answer me!”

Fatigue and tension tightened her face as a scatter of rain splashed down.

“No, not yet. Please, it can’t rain yet. We have to find them,” she muttered to Wes. They were navigating their way around a massive boulder and onto a side trail that led steeply down toward the remote bluff where Coyote Pass was tucked away. If the boys had headed deliberately anywhere, that was where they’d go. Most of the rumors about that damned gold hinted that it was near Coyote Pass.

That was where Randy Kirk had headed.

She was furious at Ethan in that moment, furious that he’d snuck away from Corey and gone alone with Jimmy to find the gold. She’d told him and
told him
not to ever go off on his own!

Upset and angry and filled with dread, she slipped in her haste on some loose stones and would have fallen if Wes hadn’t seized her arm. Steadying her, he tugged her close; then one big hand gently stroked her hair.

“We’ll find them, Annabelle. I promise you. I won’t stop looking. But I want you to go back home now.”

“No. I won’t. I can’t.” She looked shocked, and pulled away, shaking her head. “Not without Ethan, not without both of those boys.”

“Look, no one’s giving up,” he said as spatters of rain began to fall. “Sure as hell not me. The volunteers will need to take cover once this storm breaks wide-open and the lightning hits. They’ll have to wait it out, but I’ll keep searching, I promise you. In the meantime, you look exhausted. Annabelle, I can’t worry about you getting hurt, too. I need to concentrate on those kids.”

“I’m not exhausted; I’m just scared. Wes, I’m so scared.”

“Honey, I know.” He wrapped her in his arms, but she leaned back, gazing at him, her face pale. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Trish . . . and Ron . . . They trusted me to keep their kids safe! And . . . I let Ethan go to Jimmy’s when I knew Sylvie wouldn’t be there to watch them. I never should have done that!”

“He’s been there plenty of times before when Jimmy’s brother was charged with keeping an eye on them. They never wandered off before. You couldn’t have known they were going to do something like this.”

“I
should
have known. They’re so crazy about this treasure. It’s all they talk about. And ever since they heard that Randy Kirk was focused on searching at Coyote Pass, too—oh God, I should have put a stop to it, Wes! I should have put my foot down. . . .”

Her voice cracked. Her eyes were wide with fear and worry and he had to fight the urge to take her in his arms and just hold her, try to comfort her, for as long as it took. But he knew she didn’t want that now, and there wasn’t time.

“Shhh, baby.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.
“It’s not your fault. Do you hear me? And it’s going to be all right. I promise you. We’ll find them!”

A heavier rain began to fall, drumming against the rocks. Annabelle’s eyes widened in dismay. Soon the path would be pooling with water, slippery as hell.

“Oh, no! We need to hurry. I’m sure they’re headed to Coyote Pass.”

“Yeah, but you’re not. Annabelle, you’re wearing sneakers, not hiking boots. You’re not even wearing a decent jacket,” he noticed suddenly, scowling at her Windbreaker. “Here, take mine.” He shrugged out of it and wrapped it around her. “You don’t belong out here in these conditions, and you’re going to slow me down. Look, all the volunteers who are sheltering out here, waiting out the storm, will need coffee soon—and food and flashlights in order to keep searching. Go back and try to organize some support for all the searchers. You don’t know these mountains the way most of us do—you haven’t lived here all your life. Trust me, you’ll be more help back there—and I won’t be worrying about you.”

She wavered. What he said was true—but she wanted so much to race across the rocks and narrow paths, to scream until her voice was hoarse. She started to tell Wes she couldn’t go, not when Ethan was still out there, but then she saw his face, those deep green eyes lit with concern for her.

He wore hiking boots and had a pack strapped to his back. He moved quickly and easily through these mountains—he’d had experience tracking and climbing in all kinds of weather and was sure-footed on the trails. He also knew the ins and outs of getting to Cougar Rock—and Coyote Pass—much better than she did. She might have balance and grace from her years of dance training, but she’d never climbed a mountain before, never negotiated a trail this steep or high. She was slowing him down, she realized.

And as a crack of thunder roared across the mountains,
she faintly heard someone calling out for the searchers to take cover. It sounded like Sheriff Hodge’s voice.

“All right, I’ll go back,” she said on a deep breath. “I’ll help organize coffee and food and more flashlights and I’ll bring everything over to Sylvie and Dave’s. They’re closest to the trailhead. Be careful, Wes. Find them, please.”

“Don’t worry. I will. It’s a promise.” He kissed her quickly, enfolded her in his arms for one more moment, then helped her negotiate back around the jagged rock as rain pummeled down. When they reached the more even path that led to the trailhead, he gave her a quick kiss.

“Take it slow. You’ll be fine. Folks are going to need that coffee and some sandwiches.”

“Yes. I’m on it.”

She met his gaze and for a moment neither of them spoke. Her heart was pounding with fear for the two boys lost, possibly hurt on the mountain. She wondered whether Charlotte had told the twins why she’d left so suddenly and why she hadn’t come back for them. Either way, the girls were probably upset.

She tried not to think about that right now, but it was even harder not to think about Randy Kirk, falling to his death in these same mountains while searching for the damned treasure.

Cupping her face, damp with rain, Wes touched his warm mouth to hers. “Annabelle, go get warm. I’ll find them, both of them, and bring them home. That’s a promise.”

He was gone then, moving so swiftly he disappeared almost immediately from her sight as the path wound upward, twisting around boulders and fallen tree limbs and scrub.

“You come home safely, too,” Annabelle whispered. But the wind blew her words away into the rush of steadily falling rain.