The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age

by Regina Hale Sutherland

  Cade stood on the porch, but he wasn’t alone. Roy was on his left side and Eddie was on his right. “Hey, you three.” She laughed nervously. “Funny that you all showed up at the same time.”

  Their expressions assured her the simultaneous arrival was no coincidence. This is it, Mia thought, preparing for the inevitable and hating it for everyone, Rachel most of all.

  She stepped back. “Let me tell Aggie and Leanne you’re here.”

  When she turned toward the kitchen, Cade stopped her by touching her arm. “We need to talk to you first, Mia.” He pulled several snapshots from his coat pocket and handed them to her.

  Mia glanced at the first one. Leanne in the front yard wearing Brent’s old school jersey and the pink boots Rachel stole.

  Meeting Cade’s gaze, she said quietly, “I could argue that this doesn’t prove anything. There are certainly more than one pair of pink boots in the world.”

  Cade appeared sorry rather than smug. “Take a look at the others.”

  Mia shuffled through images of Rachel giving Aggie a pedicure on the backyard patio. Rachel darting for the back door while Aggie looked toward the camera. Rachel standing behind Aggie holding a slingshot.

  “Can’t argue with those,” Roy blurted.

  Focusing her attention on Cade, Mia sighed and asked, “So did you get another warrant?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t force me to do that. If the judge sees these photos, it’ll incriminate you, Aggie, and Leanne.”

  Mia studied Cade’s face. “Cade . . . what you’re doing . . . it means a lot.”

  “Don’t be so quick to thank me.” He pushed back his hat, looking as if he’d rather have a tooth pulled than go through this. “I’m sorry, Mia. Sooner or later, the girl’s going to have to go back to Amarillo and face the consequences. I can’t promise you how she’ll be treated if somebody else finds her and takes her back. But I can promise you that if I take her, I’ll do everything in my power to see that her case is handled fairly. I can’t help thinking that, if we’re honest, everything will work out for the best.”

  Mia couldn’t speak. She nodded, stepped back, motioned for him to come in.

  “Not you two,” came Leanne’s voice from behind as the other two men started to follow Cade inside. “After what y’all did yesterday, you can freeze your butts off outside, for all I care.”

  Roy looked around the others at Aggie. “My bad hip flared up after that fall,” he said, sounding pathetic. “The cold aggravates it.”

  “I’m not over my mad yet, Roy.” Aggie crossed her arms. “As for your hip, I guess you got what’s comin’ to you.”

  Looking dejected, the two retreated to Cade’s truck to wait.

  “Can we talk to her first?” Mia asked Cade. “Before she sees you? I don’t want to scare her.”

  “She already knows,” Leanne said, her eyes bleak.

  “The poor girl.” Aggie’s voice wavered. “She’s been through so much.”

  “She’s going to be mad at us.” Leanne turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll go get her.”

  Mia shook her head and looked from Leanne to Aggie. “We’ll all go together. The three of us.”

  Cade nodded. “I’ll wait here.”

  They found the kitchen empty.

  “Rachel?” Mia called. “She must’ve gone to the bathroom.”

  They didn’t find her there. Or anywhere else in the house. No Rachel. No backpack. Not a trace of any of her things. It was almost as if she’d never been there at all.

  After searching the back yard and alley, Cade said, “Eddie, Roy, and I will separate and look around town for her. You three stay here in case she shows up.”

  “Try the Nelson’s storm cellar,” Aggie suggested, her face creased with worry. “That’s where she hid last time.”

  Mia glimpsed uncertainty in Cade’s eyes and knew what put it there. She touched his arm. “If she comes back here, I’ll call you. I promise.”

  Right now, she regretted she hadn’t called him after they’d first found Rachel in their storage room. What good had their little undercover operation done for her? The girl was in no better position than she’d been before. She was alone, afraid, and on the run.

  Cade handed her a business card he pulled from his pocket. “My cell number,” he said.

  Dusk shadowed the lawn. Soon darkness would descend. Bitter cold. Mia took the card, her fingers brushing his. “Find her, Cade,” she said, her voice cracking.

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 18

  An hour passed, then two, with no word from Cade. Mia prepared for a sleepless night reminiscent of ones she had spent ten years earlier when Christy had run away.

  She relived the sinking dread, the rising panic that followed; a bumpy road she had hoped not to travel again. Would the nightmare repeat itself? Would one frantic day stretch into another then another until, finally, time blurred into a week, and still no news? When would they hear Rachel’s voice again? What if they never did?

  She, Leanne, and Aggie sat around the kitchen table drinking the same house blend they served at the coffee shop. Aggie had offered to cook supper, but they were all too nervous to eat.

  Leanne wrapped both hands around her mug. Steam drifted toward her face. “I’ve decided to look into the possibility of having mine and Eddie’s foster parenting credentials reinstated.”

  “Reinstated?” Mia said. “I wasn’t aware you ever went through the process.”

  “Twenty years ago we were approved. But when they called and said they had a baby . . .” Her eyes misted. “I couldn’t go through with it. The child was a boy. He was only two years old.”

  “I remember,” Aggie said softly. “I was heartsick when it didn’t work out. You and that child would’ve been so good for each other.”

  Leanne closed her eyes. “I felt I didn’t deserve him. Not after what I did to my own baby.”

  “Leanne.” Mia shook her head. “You were a child when that happened. You made a stupid mistake. All kids do in some way or another. Stop beating yourself up. Any kid would be blessed to have you for a mother.”

  She looked at them. “Most kids’ stupid mistakes don’t end up killing a baby.”

  Aching for her, Mia said, “It was a tragedy, but you learned from it and made a better life. Now you have to forgive yourself.”

  “I think you’re doing the right thing.” Aggie smiled at Leanne. “These days, lots of folks your age raise babies.”

  Leanne blinked at her. “I want Rachel.”

  The moment she heard the words, Mia knew it was the answer. Leanne and Rachel were meant to be together. Like Rachel, Leanne had lived a turbulent childhood. Both had lost parents while young. Both had made poor choices, and paid dearly for them. And, more than once, Mia had noticed something special between the two of them.

  “I wanted to have everything lined up before springing the idea on Eddie,” Leanne said. “Before, he was reluctant about taking in an older child. He was afraid there would be too many ingrained problems.” She sipped her coffee. “He might take some convincing. But there’s no time to work all that out now. After Rachel’s found, I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Mia asked. “It’s a huge step.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “It’s meant to be,” Aggie said, smiling.

  “This may sound silly, but I think you’re right, Ag.” An expression of wonder passed over Leanne’s face. “Rachel ended up in our storage room for a reason. She’s the child I’ve prayed for.”

  Aggie patted Leanne’s hand. “That doesn’t sound one bit silly.”

  Mia agreed.

  “If it works out for all of us,” Leanne said, “if she’s happy with us, I hope maybe Eddie and I can adopt her.” Her attention drifted toward the window, out into the black night. “They have to find her,” she whispered.

  “They will,” Mia insisted. “Cade doesn’t stop until
he gets what he’s after.”

  At eleven o’clock, Cade called to say they’d seen no sign of Rachel, but he refused to give up.

  Though he’d told Eddie and Roy to go home and get some sleep, they wouldn’t until Aggie and Leanne went with them. They both knew that wasn’t about to happen unless they found Rachel.

  Mia didn’t remind Cade that, as far as Aggie was concerned, Roy had a few more tasks to complete before she’d return to the farm. Mia would bet that the new, more stubborn and confident Aggie would set Roy straight about that soon enough.

  The women moved from the kitchen to the living room. Mia stretched out in the recliner, Aggie on the loveseat, and Leanne across the couch.

  They dozed fitfully until three-thirty A.M. when Aggie rose to brew fresh coffee. Mia and Leanne joined her in the kitchen. Again, they tossed around ideas of where Rachel might’ve hidden.

  “Maybe she found a way into the coffee shop’s back room again,” Aggie suggested.

  “We locked up, Ag.” Leanne yawned. “Unless she broke a window, I don’t see how she could get in.”

  “Cade said they checked there,” Mia told them. “Eddie used his shop key.”

  Leanne leaned back and crossed her arms, her eyes as tired as Aggie’s. “Crazy little Packrat. What if she hitched a ride with some trucker again?”

  “Lord.” Aggie pressed a hand to her chest. “Don’t even think that.”

  Mia breathed in the scent of perking coffee. “Remember that morning we found her? Leanne, you mentioned something about how she should’ve broken into Betty’s.”

  “That’s right.” Leanne straightened. “Betty can’t stand the beauty shop to be cold when she arrives in the mornings. She keeps the heater blowing full blast all night. I told Rachel that.”

  “Sometimes Betty stays to do a cut or a perm after dark,” Aggie said, her eyes alert now rather than sleepy. “If she did last night, the back door might not have been locked. Rachel’s a wily little thing. I bet she could’ve slipped right in unnoticed.”

  Mia thought they might have their answer. Crime was practically nonexistent in Muddy Creek. Residents were relaxed about locking up. Even merchants.

  With a trembling hand, Mia reached for the phone to call Cade.

  Cade locked Rachel inside his truck then turned to Betty Rigdon. “Thanks for hightailing it over here so fast.”

  “Thank you.” She nodded toward Rachel. “How’d you know she was in there? You don’t usually roam the streets this early, do you?”

  “I had a phone call, an anonymous tip from somebody who said they’d seen movement inside the shop.”

  “You didn’t recognize the voice?”

  Cade shook his head. “It was muffled.”

  Betty frowned. “Had to be Aubrey Ricketts. Who else is up and out this time of the morning? Wonder why he wouldn’t identify himself?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t say. Maybe he didn’t want to get involved. In case it was a friend of his inside or something like that.”

  “Aubrey? Knowing him, he’d be all too happy to be in the thick of things. Maybe he didn’t want me knowing he noses around my shop in the middle of the night.”

  Shrugging again, Cade glanced toward the truck at Rachel. “You want to pursue this, Betty?”

  “No way.” She tossed tangled hair from her face. At the moment, she looked like anything but a person in charge of other women’s grooming. “I looked around. The kid didn’t bother anything. I’m just glad she found a warm place to sleep.”

  Cade smiled at her. “You’re a good woman.”

  “So where’re you taking her?” she asked as Cade started around to the driver’s side of his truck.

  He paused, his hand on the door handle. This was the moment he’d both hoped for and dreaded. What he had to do now would break Mia’s heart. Aggie’s and Leanne’s, too. They would want to say goodbye to the girl. But he was duty-bound to do his job. And his job entailed taking in fugitives. He couldn’t risk Rachel Nye slipping away again. But Cade also didn’t want to lock her up in his jail. “I’m heading straight to Amarillo.”

  “Now?” Betty squinted at her watch. “It’s not even four in the morning.”

  “No sense wasting time.” After telling Betty goodbye, he climbed in beside Rachel and took off.

  He’d wait until they were on the road before calling the others to let them know he’d found her. Roy and Eddie. The women, too. Otherwise, they would try to talk him into waiting so they could see Rachel one last time.

  When Mia had called him about looking for Rachel at Betty’s, she’d said she and the other women would wait for him at the coffee shop, that they were too antsy to stay at the house any longer. He’d asked that they avoid the beauty salon, and they’d respected his request.

  Cade didn’t tell Mia he would bring Rachel to the coffee shop, though without question, it had been an unspoken understanding between them. But all it would do was make Rachel’s leaving harder for everyone. Better to cut the cord sharp and quick rather than drag out the pain.

  Cade turned onto Main and, when they passed the coffee shop, he saw lights on inside. He glimpsed the women behind the window.

  Beside him, Rachel started sobbing. She stared out at the Brewed Awakening, her body trembling.

  “Sweetheart, don’t.” He’d rather suffer a sharp blow to the solar plexus than deal with a female’s tears.

  Rachel cried harder.

  Something turned over inside him. Reaching across the seat, Cade opened the glove box, where he stashed paper napkins collected from too many fastfood meals. “Here.” He handed her one.

  She took it, pressed it to her eyes.

  Damn it, the girl was getting to him. Cade told himself he was doing the right thing. The only thing he could. He forced his attention to the road, determined to harden his heart. Though he had always loved being Sheriff, right now he hated the job.

  Too nervous to talk, Mia, Leanne and Aggie prepared for the day ahead. They all sensed strongly that Cade would find Rachel at Betty’s. With that hope in mind, they’d called Roy and Eddie and told them to meet them at the coffee shop. Then they had left both the front and back doors unlocked. Mia guessed Cade might want to slip Rachel in through the storage room so that no passersby might see her.

  If he came at all.

  She hadn’t mentioned to the others her fear that he wouldn’t show. Cade’s sense of responsibility to his job might push him to take Rachel to Amarillo right away, without stopping to allow them goodbyes.

  They were all in the kitchen when the front bell jingled. Everyone went still and looked toward the swinging doors.

  Leanne made the first move. Aggie and Mia followed.

  Cade stood in the middle of the front room with his hands on Rachel’s shoulders. Her face was splotchy red and tear-streaked, her eyes wide and dark.

  Mia’s gaze locked with Cade’s. He smiled and shrugged. “I found her huddled up in Betty’s back room. She ate a package of Pepperidge Farm sugar cookies for supper last night but Betty was fine with it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel wailed, bursting into tears as Eddie and Roy rushed through the door behind her. “I’ll pay the lady back for the cookies. I promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it, darlin’.” Winded from hurrying, Roy leaned forward, hands on his thighs, to catch his breath. “Those gals over at the beauty shop could stand to eat a few less cookies.”

  Rachel’s tears started a chain reaction. First Aggie, then Mia, followed by Leanne. They gathered around the girl.

  “You worried us sick, sugar.”

  “Packrat, I’d wring your neck if I wasn’t so happy to see you.”

  “Rachel . . .” Mia’s relief made her feel ten pounds lighter. “I think you managed to gray every hair on my head that Christy missed.”

  Rachel blinked up at her. “Your hair’s not gray.”

  Mia laughed, then cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, “That’s what you think. Just ask Betty
.” She introduced Rachel to Eddie and Roy, then broke free of the circle and made her way over to Cade. Taking him aside while the others talked, she asked quietly, “What now?”

  “Are you asking me what I should do? Or are you asking what I plan to do?”

  Overwhelmed by the affection she felt for him, Mia answered, “Both.”

  “I should take her straight to Amarillo.” He pushed his hat back, scratched the top of his head. “What I plan to do is give you ladies a couple of hours with her first.” When the others in the room quieted and turned to look at him, Cade squinted at Rachel and added, “Don’t you be getting any ideas, though, young lady. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He shifted to Aggie. “How about some of those special sweet rolls? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m hungry.”

  Aggie hustled off to the back as the room filled with conversation again.

  Mia took Cade’s hand. “Thank you.”

  He looked down at their joined fingers, then up at her. “I wouldn’t do this for anybody else.”

  She tilted her head, smiled at him. “I know that.” And it warmed her heart. Later, she’d let him know just how much that meant to her.

  Cade glanced toward Rachel, Aggie, and Leanne, then met Mia’s gaze. “Why did y’all hide her? We could’ve worked all this out a long time ago. Putting it off didn’t change anything.”

  “I know we were foolish, but we were afraid for her. We didn’t know how to help her so we just hung on.” Biting her lip, she looked at her friends. “And you’re wrong; having her with us for a while did change things. It changed us.” She nodded toward the women and Rachel. “All of us. Aggie, Leanne, and I had selfish reasons for keeping her, too. Rachel reminds us of things we’ve lost, people we’ve lost, because of our own mistakes. I guess giving her a taste of happiness seemed like a way to right past wrongs, at least a little.”

  She saw understanding in Cade’s expression. Nodding toward the others, he smiled and said, “Come on. Let’s make the most of the time that’s left.” Holding hands, they joined the group.

  “Why did you take off like that?” Leanne was asking Rachel. “Didn’t you know you’d get caught again?”