“Literally,” Sam muttered.
He took the two tablets she held out and swallowed them dry. Only then did she realize what she’d said. Sam sneezed again before she could be embarrassed.
“Go and change. You won’t do Chris any good if you go into anaphylactic shock. Do you know where he went? Have you checked the house?”
“Not thoroughly,” he said with a shake of his head.
She didn’t like the sound of his wheezing voice or the puffiness around his eyes. “Go change. You might want to take a quick shower.”
“We have to find Chris,” he said stubbornly.
Marly was already pulling fresh clothing from her dresser. “We will.” She refused to believe anything else. How far could the boy have gone? And why?
Sam gave a terse nod and headed across the hall. Her hands trembled as she pulled on underwear and clean jeans. How did Sam know Chris was missing, and what on earth was he doing covered in hay at a quarter after five in the morning?
Marly stuffed her feet into a pair of worn work boots and headed for Chris’s room. As Sam had said, Chris’s bed was empty. Jerome, however, stirred.
“Go back to sleep,” she told him quietly.
Jerome sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Did Sam find Chris?”
She heard the shower running in the connecting bathroom. “Not yet.”
“I can help.”
“If we don’t find him in a few minutes, I’ll need everyone’s help. For now, you stay put so you don’t get lost, too, okay?”
“Okay.”
Why had Chris left the house? None of the answers that sprang to her mind were reassuring. Why was Sam covered in hay? How could a cowboy be allergic to hay?
She checked the other rooms quickly, carefully, while questions multiplied in her head. Everyone else was still asleep. There was no sign of Chris.
Sam had figured prominently in her dreams. Racy, heart-thumping dreams, most unlike her subconscious. She would not think of those dreams, and she’d be thankful that no one else could know about them.
She heard him sneezing as soon as she entered his bedroom. The shower had stopped, and the bathroom door was ajar.
Nodding in satisfaction, she called out. “Sam? You okay?”
“Yes.” He sneezed. “I’ll be right out.”
“I left the epinephrine on my bed, if you think you need it. Chris isn’t anywhere up here. I’m going downstairs to wake Emma.”
She thought he responded, but she wasn’t sure. The image of that powerful chest sprinkled with water droplets was as out of place as her dreams had been. Was this why men thought widows and divorcees were fair game? Why was she even thinking about Sam right now?
“Because you don’t want to think about why Chris is missing. Get hold of yourself.”
She roused Emma and finished searching the downstairs. Sam entered the kitchen. He was dressed in fresh clothing. His hair was wet and his eyes were swollen slits in his face, but he looked marginally better, and she resisted an impulse to touch him.
“Anything?” Sam asked.
“The front door is unlocked. Did you do that?”
“No. It was open when I came downstairs.”
“I locked it last night,” she stated with a sinking feeling. “That means Chris left under his own power. Doesn’t it?”
“Depends. Who else has keys to the house?”
“Carter. My parents.” She thought a moment. “My ex-husband. Tell me what happened.”
“Jerome woke me and said Chris was gone. I checked around, found the front door unlocked and checked the barn.”
“That was a good thought.”
“Yeah. I hope it isn’t the route the kid took. I wasn’t the only one in the barn.”
Cold iced her stomach at his tone. “What do you mean?”
“Someone attacked me with the pulley.”
Marly focused on his face. She heard the words, but her mind didn’t want to accept them. “Who?”
“Well, it wasn’t Chris. Someone was in the loft. An adult.” He paused, as though trying to assess his next words. “I never got a look at the person. He tried to nail me with the hook. When that missed, he buried me under a pile of hay.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It gets worse,” he assured her. “Whoever it was took a young goat up there. He planned to hang it from the pulley.”
“What?” The world narrowed to this man and his outrageous tale. Fury soared through her at the horrible image his words created. Her mouth went dry with fear. “Why would anyone—?” She couldn’t force the rest of the words out.
“There’s a note. It says next time it will be a real kid.”
The words landed like a blow.
This is your last warning. Get rid of those kids before there’s trouble.
That was what the caller had told her the last time. She took an involuntary step backward and came up against the cold metal of the stove. Sam reached out a hand and steadied her.
Bile rose in her throat. Sam sneezed, but that didn’t negate his own anger, clearly expressed in the harsh planes of his face.
“I’m going to the bunkhouse and wake Carter. We need to find Chris.”
“You don’t think he saw the person—?” She couldn’t finish that sentence either.
“It’s possible. I don’t know where he went or what he might have seen, but we don’t want to delay the search any longer.”
She straightened up. “You’re right. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Why don’t you stay here until Carter and I search the barn?”
“Like hell.”
“Marly, if there’s an intruder on the grounds, the last thing we want is him getting inside the house.”
“Damn.” She hated his logic, because he was right.
“I’ll let you know what we find.”
Numb, she watched him open the back door and hurry across the deck. Her neighbors to the east raised goats. One of the females had just had twins. She didn’t know why that thought had ambushed her, but she wanted to gag. She wanted to scream. Her fingers curled into tight fists. A fit of hysterics would have gone nicely about now. Too bad she wasn’t the type to have them. Fortunately, neither was Emma.
Her friend stepped into the kitchen, belting a long housecoat. “Basement?” she asked.
“You’re right. I didn’t check.”
Time flew by in a haze of fear. Chris was not inside the house. Nor did the men, roused from their beds, find any sign of Chris or an intruder.
Marly kept hoping Chris was simply hiding somewhere she hadn’t thought to look. When she spotted Sam and Carter in a heated argument outside in the yard, she hurried to join them. They stopped talking as she approached.
“Go back to the house,” Carter ordered.
His tone gave her the edge she needed. “Have you forgotten which one of us is in charge around here, Carter?”
The tall man paled, running blunt fingers through his hatless hair. “Look, I’m sorry—”
Sam intervened. “You should call the police, Marly.”
So that was what they’d been arguing about. She looked at Sam’s ravaged face, puffy almost beyond recognition.
“You should stay out of that barn, Sam.”
He ignored her comment. “There’s no sign of Chris.”
Marly shut her eyes, while her heart pounded out a staccato. “You think he’s been kidnapped? By the person who left that note?”
“No.”
“How the devil can you say that?” Carter demanded.
“There are no tire tracks, and I didn’t hear a car or a horse leaving,” Sam said quietly. “Whoever was in that loft left in a hurry after he pushed those hay bales over on me. I’m more concerned that Chris may have seen what happened and ran away to hide. We need to call the police. It’s unfortunate Carter disturbed the evidence.”
“Damn it, Moore. I told you to let me handle things. We don’t need the goddamn cops.” Carter’s fists bunched
at his side. Sam faced him in silence.
Marly stepped between them. “Stop it. Did you put all the horses outside?”
“Yes,” Carter snarled. “They’re all accounted for. There’s no one hiding in any of the stalls. Look, Marly, you know the cops aren’t going to care about a goat. They’ve done nothing but give us grief since last summer. What good is calling them going to do?”
“There’s a little boy missing, Carter,” Sam stated quietly. “They’ll care.”
“A damn juvenile delinquent. How much do you think they’ll—”
“I said, stop it. Both of you.”
Carter’s face was ruddy with anger, while Sam looked calm and relaxed. Marly knew he wasn’t. She could almost hear him blaming himself for Chris’s disappearance. She had put him in charge of the boys—even asked him if he was a sound sleeper.
“It isn’t your fault, Sam,” she told him. “We’ll find Chris. Officer Porterfield said he’d be here at noon.”
Sam started visibly, but Carter erupted before she could do more than wonder at Sam’s reaction.
“That’s all we need. Why the hell is that pompous, fat—?” He stopped when he saw Marly’s expression. “Well, why is he coming out here now? It’s not time for his inspection.”
Marly sighed. “He called last night, while I was at dinner. He asked if he could drop by today because he’s going out of town on vacation or something. I told him that was fine.”
Carter started to curse until he saw her glare.
“I want to see the note,” she said.
“What for?” Carter demanded. “It’s ugly, Marly. Cutout letters on cheap white paper.”
“I want to see it.”
“We released the harness,” Carter continued. “The goat is downstairs in one of the stalls right now.”
“The note, Carter.”
Carter pursed his lips, glared at Sam and dug into the pocket of his jacket. He pulled forth a crumpled sheet of paper.
“You shouldn’t have touched this,” she told him, and caught Sam’s nod of agreement.
“What the hell difference does it make?”
“They might have been able to get fingerprints from it,” Sam stated.
Carter muttered something Marly didn’t catch.
“I’m pretty sure the goat belongs to the Linningtons,” she told them. “I’ll have to call.”
She unfolded the note and stared at the jumble of letters. It was crude. Dirty. Evil. She stepped back before Carter could lay his hand on her shoulder and looked up at the barn. “I’m going inside.”
“Why? It’s just a goat.”
“In my barn,” she told him, folding the note and thrusting it into her hip pocket.
“Chris isn’t in there, Marly,” Sam stated.
“You don’t mind if I have a look around, do you, Sam?” He shrugged and started to follow her inside. She rounded on him. “Stay out here, or you will need the epinephrine.”
“I’ll be fine,” he told her.
“As long as you wait here. Both of you.” She glared at both men. “I’ll be right out.”
Inside the barn, she closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t vomit from the emotions roiling in her stomach. The entire sequence of events was threatening to swamp her. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Jake watching her intently from an empty stall.
“What are you doing in there?” she demanded, shaken in spite of herself.
“Carter said I was to keep watch and not let no one disturb anything.”
“Where’s the goat?”
Almost gleefully, he pointed toward a stall. “Cute little feller, ain’t he?”
Marly turned away without replying. She would have to call the people who owned the goat and let them know. The mama goat was a family pet, and this little guy wasn’t old enough to have been weaned. It had folded its legs, and was sitting in a pile of hay, looking lost and miserable. The couple he belonged to owned a working acreage. They were among the few neighbors she had who weren’t angry about her decision to establish the youth program.
At least they hadn’t been angry until now.
“You’re sure Chris isn’t hiding in here somewhere?”
“Yep. He ain’t in here.”
She turned to find Carter waiting just inside the barn door. “Are you okay, Marly?”
“I’m fine. Where’s Sam?”
At the mention of the other man, his face hardened. “He went back to the house to talk to the kids.”
Carter grabbed her by the arm to prevent her walking away. Marly stood still, fighting an urge to shrug away from that touch. When had Carter started acting so possessive?
“What do you know about this Moore fellow?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it possible he was sent here deliberately?”
“What are you talking about, Carter?”
“Don’t you think it’s even mildly curious that he shows up so providentially, and suddenly we have a missing kid and a threatening letter?”
Marly did pull away then. “No, Carter, I don’t,” she told him flatly. “I think we’re lucky Sam is here. He’s a caring man who interrupted someone in an act of cruelty to be used as a threat against me.”
“Unless he was the one who was going to hang the goat.”
Marly blinked at the vehemence behind his words. She shook her head firmly. “He came to my room, Carter. He was covered in hay and sneezing hard enough to pop a blood vessel.”
“So?”
“So his only concern is for Chris. Why are you so set on accusing him?”
“I’m not—”
“You are. I trust Sam. He’s an honorable man. Even his last employer said so.”
“Yeah, right. It was probably a girlfriend or something.”
“Carter—”
“Think about it, Marly. A cowboy who’s allergic to hay? Who’s he trying to fool? More important, why? Unless he’s working for the folks down the street. They’d love to see an end to your youth camp. You know that. Look at Johnny D.”
Marly strove for control. There was an element of truth to what Carter was saying.
“I’ve worked for you for years now, Marly. You know I care about you, about this place.” His eyes bored into hers with fevered intensity. “Maybe Sam is legit. I’m just saying you should be careful here. We don’t know anything about him. He’s a self-proclaimed drifter, and the timing is just too coincidental.”
Carter was right. She did need to be careful. Hadn’t she already decided Sam was not what he seemed?
“We need to hold off calling the cops,” Carter insisted. “Chris is around here someplace. After all, how far could he go? Let’s try to find him before Porterfield gets here. I’ll get Jake to take the goat back, and we won’t mention the incident to anyone until we have to.”
“What if the two things are connected? What if whoever stole the goat has Chris?”
His head swayed from side to side. “I don’t believe it. Even Sam claims there was only one person up there besides himself. We’ll find Chris. I promise.”
Carter was a good man, too. He had worked for her a long time now, and his concern for her was real. He had always had her best interests at heart. Maybe he’d become a bit proprietary, but some of that was her fault. She’d relied too heavily on him when her marriage started to fall apart. He was a terrific trainer, and his ideas had benefited the farm. If he had other ideas about him and her, she’d just have to set him straight in no uncertain terms.
“Okay. We’ll hold off calling the police a little longer. But if we haven’t found Chris by the time Officer Porterfield gets here—”
“We will. I’ll get the men to saddle up. We’ll start a search grid right away.”
Marly nodded and headed for the house. A subdued group of youngsters were just getting up from the breakfast table. No one had done much eating. Five pair of eyes looked up as she entered the room.
She tried to smile
, but couldn’t make her lips comply.
Emma hovered in the doorway, watching. “Are you guys all finished?”
Heads bobbed in response.
“We’re gonna help search now,” Jerome announced.
Marly blinked. “Ah, I don’t—”
“The boys and I have worked out a plan.”
She whirled to find Sam filling the doorway behind her. He was still suffering from the effects of his bout with the hay, but there was a look of grim determination on his face.
“I don’t think—”
“Who better to find a kid than another kid? Why don’t you grab something to eat and join us? The boys gave me a list of places that they’d hide if it was them. We’ll split the list.”
There was a calm determination about him that inspired confidence, despite her misgivings. Maybe he wasn’t who or what he claimed, but she had no doubt he would do his damnedest to find Chris. And she didn’t believe for a minute that he’d had anything to do with the goat.
“I’ll eat later,” she told him. “Let me see the list.” She caught Emma nodding encouragingly. Sam handed her the paper. Her eyes scanned the places the kids had come up with, and a cold chill snaked its way up her spine. “My God.”
“What is it?”
“This rock formation they’re talking about? It’s the site of the old well. My husband hauled all those boulders to cover the opening when the well went dry.”
“Chris liked to play there,” Jerome piped up. “We played superheroes.”
Her fear was mirrored in Sam’s eyes. The rock formation was down past the training ring. She had already told the boys they weren’t allowed to play there. The counselor had scolded them twice before for going down there. What could be more inviting than a pile of forbidden rocks? And what could be more dangerous than a hidden well below them?
Chapter Five
“If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you fill in the well, instead of covering it over with rocks?”
There was genuine curiosity behind Sam’s question and, amazingly, not a trace of censure. They had decided to check the well together before splitting up. The boys raced ahead, having been cautioned not to get too close. They were excited to be a part of things, and Sam had been right to include them in the search for Chris, she realized.
Man Without A Badge Page 7