Larry and Ben took Cuba and Chloe for a short trip around their loop. When they returned, they reported that all was dark at the Trats’ site. Frannie was in the trailer rinsing out her wine glass when Larry came in with the dog.
“About what time did Sam say he is coming in the morning?” she whispered.
“Think I’ll lock this,” Larry muttered, fumbling with the door latch. He looked up. “Around 10:00.” He headed back to the bedroom.
Frannie picked up a couple of socks and Joe’s video game off the floor and turned out the lights. After using the bathroom and brushing her teeth, she was surprised when she got into the bedroom to see Larry still fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. He was bent over, elbows on knees and hands clasped, staring at the wall.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shrugged, was silent for a moment, and then turned to face her.
“It was almost easier when I was under suspicion. It is partly my fault. If I had left Taylor Trats alone, she wouldn’t have left this road and would still be here.” He sighed. “Then this abuse investigation on top of everything else.”
She sidled around the bed and sat beside him. “That’s true. I’ve never seen you like that, Larry. If any of the rest of us had gotten that upset about the training wheels, you would have said that, while it was rude, it wasn’t against the rules.”
He sat up straight and looked at her. “Thanks for the support and reassurance.”
“I didn’t mean...”
“Never mind, you’re right.” But his tone didn’t agree with his words. “I’m going to bed,” he said pointedly, meaning she was in his way. She got up, went back to her side, changed into warm pajamas and crawled under the covers. Larry lay with his back to her, shoulders stiff. She stared at the ceiling.
******************
Happy Camper Tip #9
Camping with kids can be loads of fun but challenging as well. Safety first, of course. Give them clear instructions on what to do if they get lost, starting with staying where they are. Some websites suggest having young children wear whistles around their necks so they can call for help when lost. The standard distress signal is three blows to indicate “I’m lost” or “I need help.”
To keep some semblance of order, it is helpful if they each have a drawer or shelf for their things. They don’t usually realize how clutter creates much more of a problem in a small living space than in a home.
In this day and age, it’s often a struggle to get them away from the electronics and outside interacting with others. We have more success with putting a time limit on the video games than outlawing them altogether.
Kids love flashlights. They are handy when making trips to the restroom, for making shadow puppets on tent walls, and for reading before bed. And of course, there’s Flashlight Tag and Flashlight Statue.
Chapter Ten
Early Sunday Morning
Frannie awoke to gray light through the blinds and a soft whisper of rain on the trailer roof. She relished the sound, the coziness of the flannel sheets and comforter, and the warmth of Larry’s body sharing the bed. It was peaceful and the bed was so comfortable, she almost felt a kind of weightlessness. But as she drifted between sleep and consciousness, the elephant in the room began to emerge from the gray mist and take solid shape. The disappearance of Taylor Trats, the accusations, the visit from Social Services, the fear for Sabet and Joe, the argument with Larry. Was it only yesterday morning that they had all shared the pleasant bike ride and the fun of the flea market? Hard to believe.
She checked her watch. Six-thirty. She heard a rustle through the doorway curtain. Cuba negotiated the narrow space between bed and wall and nuzzled her face.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m getting up.” Groping for her glasses, she swung her legs out, slipped her feet in fleece-lined moccasins and eased up to a standing position. She coaxed Cuba back out the bedroom door and in the half-light, found her hooded windbreaker on the hook by the bathroom door.
The children were buried in heaps of sleeping bags and extra blankets. The dog preceded her out the door and stood patiently while she hooked up the leash that had been hanging on the awning strut. The rain wasn’t much more than a heavy mist yet.
Frannie noticed more campers than usual had left outside lights on overnight, indicating the level of nervousness in the campground. She walked Cuba over to an open area behind the campsites across the road. Chores done and cleaned up, they returned to the trailer and she tethered the dog under the awning. Back inside, she yawned as she retrieved the coffee pot from the cupboard and filled it from a jug of drinking water. She tried to work quietly to avoid waking the kids and turned to check on them.
Sabet lay curled in her sleeping bag, snarled blonde hair spraying out across the pillow. Joe was completely hidden, a habit of his since he was a baby. She went to pull back the edge of the sleeping bag to give him a little fresh air and found nothing. No scrubby blonde head, to-die-for eyelashes, or rosy cheeks.
She pulled the bag back farther, her insides churning. The fear she felt earlier in the summer trying to escape from a murderer didn’t hold a candle to this. Joe was not in his bed.
Frannie straightened up, trying to think. The door was unlocked when she took the dog out. It hadn’t registered at the time because normally they never locked the door when they were in the camper. But she had watched Larry lock it the night before. It was not like a house door that unlocked just by turning the knob from the inside; you had to push the latch up to unlock it.
She rushed back to the bedroom and clutched Larry’s arm. “Larry! Wake up! Joe’s gone!” The words choked her, and as he bolted up, she realized how cold her hand was on his skin.
“Wha—?” He looked at her as if he couldn’t place her.
“Joe!” she said, tears starting. “He’s not here.” She backed up so that he could get out of bed.
“Did you look outside?” He was now fully awake, and jerked open the half-closet above his nightstand, grabbing sweats and pulling them on.
“Not yet! I just came in from taking Cuba out. I didn’t notice before I went out that he wasn’t here.”
He ushered her out of the bedroom ahead of him. “But I locked the door last night.”
“I know, but it wasn’t locked this morning when I went out with the dog.”
Larry stopped and looked at her. “Well, he must have unlocked it—maybe he went to the restroom.”
“Maybe, but he knows we always use this one at night.” Maybe, just maybe, Larry was right. The icy grip on her heart let up a nano bit.
Sabet was stirring so Larry motioned Frannie outside.
When they were outside and the door closed, he said, “I’ll go check the shower house. You look around here.”
“But I can’t leave Sabet alone. Not now. I’ll get Jane Ann to come over—maybe he even went to their camper,” she said hopefully, heading to the Ferraros.
Larry trotted down the short cut path to the shower house, calling Joe’s name. Frannie pounded on Ferraros door and without waiting for a response, tried the latch. It opened, and she stuck her head in.
“Jane Ann! Mickey!”
Their bed was a fold down sofa near the door and Jane Ann raised her head immediately while Mickey grumbled and rolled over.
“What is it?” Jane asked, alarmed at Frannie’s face.
“Joe’s gone! Can you come stay with Sabet while we look?”
“Of course!” Jane Ann slipped out of bed and grabbed a hooded sweatshirt, pulling it on over her flannel pajamas. Mickey stirred a little more and Jane Ann gave him a terse replay of the situation as she followed Frannie out the door.
“I’ll be right there,” he mumbled.
“What happened?” Jane Ann asked. The rain had decided to get a little more serious and water dripped from the hood of Frannie’s windbreaker, while Jane Ann’s uncovered hair uncharacteristically created a wild halo.
“I just got up a little bit ago and took Cu
ba out. There was a heap of blankets on his bed and you know how he often sleeps completely covered. When I came back in, I went to uncover his face a little and—he wasn’t there,” Frannie’s voice choked again. “Larry went to check the restrooms—“
“Morning, ladies,” Ben came around the end of the camper, and then noticed their faces. “Something wrong?”
Frannie told a briefer version of the story.
“I’ll get Nancy and we’ll check out the other loops,” he said. In the next few minutes, Larry returned to report no sign of Joe, Mickey stumbled out of his RV and joined the group, and everyone talked at once about how to organize the search. Ben returned with Nancy, and Larry held up a hand.
“I need to get the ranger and Agent Sanchez—I don’t have phone numbers for them. Nancy, divide everyone else up to cover the campground, okay? Jane Ann, you’re going to stay with Sabet? Then everyone can report back to you where they’ve looked.”
He ducked into the trailer to grab the truck keys off the hook above the door. Nancy gathered Mickey, Ben, and Frannie around, assigning each a loop of the campground. They spread out in different directions, Frannie headed down the road to the tent loop. Larry opened the driver’s door of the truck. He hesitated; then shouted “Wait!” to the rest of the group. He reached in and pulled a small body out. “Here he is!”
Frannie ran back to the truck, tears running down her face. Joe clung to his grandfather’s neck while giving Frannie a tentative Grinch smile.
“Hi,” he said.
“Oh, Joe, you gave us such a scare! Let’s get him inside—the rain is picking up,” Frannie said. She and the others trooped behind Larry into the trailer. Jane Ann and Sabet were just folding the couch. Larry sat in the rocker-recliner with Joe on his lap and Frannie grabbed a fleece blanket and wrapped it around the shivering boy.
“Joe, dear, what were you doing in the truck?” she said, kneeling by the chair and peering into his face.
He shrugged. “I dunno.”
“You don’t remember going out there?” He shook his head.
“Didn’t he used to sleep walk a lot?” Jane Ann asked.
Frannie stood up. “He did—and they would find him all over the house, and once even outside, I think. I thought he hadn’t done it for a long time though.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sabet said, “he still does it. One time he was asleep on the stairs and I almost stepped on him!” She rolled her eyes at the trials and tribulations of being a big sister.
Frannie suddenly started to shake and felt her knees give way. “I think I’ll sit down,” she said and collapsed on the couch. Nancy had folded the blankets on the dinette bed and Ben was helping her to raise the table back up and replace the dinette cushions. Mickey finished making the pot of coffee and plugged it in. Jane Ann, a retired nurse, grabbed Frannie’s wrist and checked her pulse.
“Well, you’re not dead yet,” she told Frannie, who looked back at her with glazed eyes. Gradually she focused in on Jane Ann’s face and started to giggle. The laughter built until tears were streaming down her face.
“Now what?” Jane Ann said.
“I have never seen your hair look that bad in all the time I’ve known you,” she managed to gasp. Everyone looked at Jane Ann.
“She’s right,” Nancy said. “Is this maybe the End of Days?”
Mickey turned back from rummaging for coffee mugs in the overhead cabinets and gave his wife a quick scan. “Aw, she looks like that a lot of times.”
“True,” said Larry, grinning at his sister. “I remember one time—”
“Enough,” said Jane Ann.
Frannie looked around at the group crammed in the small space. The shared relief at finding Joe combined with the patter of the rain on the trailer roof seemed to settle on and enfold them like a warm blanket on a chilly day.
“Thank you all,” she said.
“I’m making pancakes for breakfast,” Mickey said. “I’ll have them ready in about half an hour, okay? Our place.”
“Cool,” Sabet said. “I love Uncle Mickey’s pancakes.”
“Half-hour’s good,” said Frannie. “Joe needs to change into warm clothes. What can we bring?”
“Nothing,” Jane Ann said as she followed her husband out the door.
“We’ll get out of your way, too,” Nancy said. “And Joe, don’t get lost again, okay?”
Joe was finally fully awake. “I knew where I was.” Nancy just shook her head and grinned.
Like the old children’s tale, cramming the trailer full of people made it seem positively spacious when there were only four left. Frannie poured herself some coffee while Larry found Joe some dry clothes in his backpack. Sabet took her clothes into the bedroom to dress.
Larry kneaded the back of Frannie’s neck as she stood by the sink sipping coffee. “Not exactly what we needed this morning, was it?”
“Oh, migosh,” Frannie said. “At least we didn’t get the sheriff and a search party involved before we found him. We’d lose our Golden Age passes.”
“Those are for the federal parks.”
“They’d probably take ‘em away anyhow. Just on principle. And Social Services would have been back,” she said. She sent the kids in, one at a time, to brush their teeth, while she gathered up their back packs and duffel bags in one place. Larry turned the TV on to get the weather.
“Looks like the rain’s about out of here.” He watched the colored blobs zip across the radar. The screen switched from the weatherman to the news anchor.
“We have an update on the Amber Alert that we reported on at the top of this broadcast,” said the stunning blonde with perfect teeth in a little girl voice. A school picture of Taylor Trats filled the screen. “Authorities state that they are looking for George Trats, Taylor’s father, in connection with Taylor’s disappearance. Taylor’s mother has full custody of the young girl and sources say her father has tried before to reverse that order. In other news...” Larry switched the TV off.
“Well,” Frannie said, “that would be a best case scenario, wouldn’t it? At least she wouldn’t be in danger.”
“One would hope not,” Larry answered, not fully convinced.
The kids had completed dressing. “Can we go to Uncle Mickey’s now for pancakes?” Joe asked.
“Yup,” Frannie said, “but it’s still raining, so put your jackets on.” They struggled into their windbreakers, racing to be first.
“What about Cuba?” Sabet said.
“She’ll stay here. Not enough room in Mickey’s camper with all of us,” Larry said. “Besides, pancakes aren’t good for her.”
Sabet knelt down to hug the dog. “Poor Cuba. I bet you would like pancakes, wouldn’t you?” She put her hands on either side of Cuba’s face and gently moved the dog’s head up and down. “See?”
“Sorry,” Frannie said, smiling at Sabet. “But she won’t know what she’s missing.” They ushered the kids out and pulled their hoods up as they dodged across through a few puddles to the 'Red Rocket'.
Ben and Nancy were already there and helped the kids out of their jackets. They piled all of the wet outerwear in the shower and stood sniffing the welcoming aroma of pancakes, sausage and syrup.
“Find a seat—somewhere,” Jane Ann said. She had harnessed her hair into a pony tail and pulled on some black sweats.
“You didn’t have to dress up for us, Sis,” Larry said.
“Shut up,” she answered.
“Good comeback.”
“You’re not supposed to say shut up, Aunt Jane Ann,” Joe informed her, in case she didn’t know.
“I know, dear. My bad.” Fortunately, Joe didn’t see her deliberately step on Larry’s foot which put an end to his smirk. “Let’s get you a plate of pancakes, Joe, okay?” She wove through the group to the kitchen area with Joe deftly following. Soon, he and Sabet were seated at the dinette attacking stacks of cakes and sausages with unbridled gusto. The others perched their plates on their laps and tried to keep up with the
kids. Mickey ate standing up while he continued flipping pancakes. A knock on the door interrupted the only sound of forks scraping on plates.
They stopped eating and looked at each other in surprise long enough for Sam Shoemaker to open the door and poke his head in.
“Anything left?”
“Daddy!” Sabet and Joe shouted in unison.
He mounted the inside steps, filling the little space that was left.
“Sam!” Mickey said. “We do have a couple of cakes and three sausages just for you. I think your kids ate half of them.”
Sam slipped out of his rain jacket and Jane Ann added it to the pile in the shower. Sabet scooted over on the dinette bench to make room for him.
He rubbed his hands together. “I figured you must be over here,” he said to his parents. “No one at your place except Cuba, and she didn’t even offer me coffee.”
“She’s gotten pretty lazy in her old age,” Frannie said. “I didn’t expect you quite so soon.”
“I figured with the rain, you’d be pretty confined and ready to throw these two out.”
“Well, you’re right—there won’t be much to do in this weather. But we aren’t tired of them.” Tired from worrying about them but not tired of them, Frannie thought.
“They had a storyteller here, Dad! He was really cool,” Sabet said.
“Wait ’til you see our marshmallow guns!” Joe was not to be outdone.
Sam raised his eyebrows and glanced at his mother, who simply shrugged and smiled.
“Any news on the missing girl?” he asked.
“They just said on the news before we came over that they are actively looking for her dad. Apparently there’s been a custody battle,” Larry said.
“Really?” said Nancy. “We didn’t turn the news on this morning.”
Ferraros hadn’t either. “That should take the heat off Larry,” Jane Ann said.
“I think Sanchez already helped with that, but it also would be better for Taylor Trats, I hope anyway,” Larry said.
Sabet and Joe helped Jane Ann with the dishes while Frannie did a once over on her own trailer checking for the kids’ things. She found a toothbrush in the bathroom and one of Sabet’s socks behind the chair. Joe’s wet clothes from the day before were still on the clothesline and now wetter than ever, so she took a plastic bag out to collect them.
The Blue Coyote (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 2) Page 10