Sunflower Lane Page 22

  “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!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  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. Wh
at 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.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  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.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  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.”