Kaleidoscope Eyes (34 page)

Thank heaven Jayce was out walking Kodi. Dan, Kyla, and Shelby were more than enough of an inquisition.

“So? Do you?”

Kyla’s question hung in the air, and Annie was almost afraid to answer it. Did she think Jed was the one? Without a doubt. Was she going to tell her family that?

Not on your life!

Not yet, anyway. Not until she and Jed had had more time to figure out for themselves what the future held. Far better to be as noncommittal as possible.

She closed the dishwasher, started the wash cycle, then turned to her questioners. “I haven’t known Jed long enough to be able to say that.”

“Told you so.” Dan poked Shelby with an elbow.

His wife, in turn, pulled a face at him then looked at Annie. “But you care about him, right?”

Annie allowed a nod. “Even so, I want to get to know him better. But it’s the oddest thing … ”

Kyla was instantly on the alert. “What? What has he done? Tell us and Dan will deal with him—”

“No, no!” Annie put her hands out. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just … well, he doesn’t talk much about his family Or his job. I mean, I know his mom lives here in the valley somewhere. But every time I ask about his childhood or his job, he changes the subject.”

That got Dan’s attention. “You don’t think he’s hiding something, do you?”

“Oh for—!” Shelby stomped her foot. “This is your sister’s friend we’re talking about here, not Jack the Ripper.”

The front door slammed, and Annie heard the tramping of human feet and the scrabble of canine paws on the wood floor. She called toward the sound. “We’re in the kitchen, Jayce.”

Kodi came loping into the kitchen, a wide doggy grin on her face.

“Annie, do you think he’s hiding anything?”

Jayce caught the question as he came in. “Who’s hiding something?”

“No one.” Annie ignored the suspicious look in her brother’s eyes, letting her tone scold him for even thinking what she knew he was thinking—that Jed might be the one sending the threatening e-mails.

“How well do you really know this guy?”

“What guy?” Jayce stared from Annie to his dad. “What are you—you mean Jed? You think he’s not who he says he is?”

Great. Now her nephew was getting all protective. “Stop it, you two. Jed is exactly who he says he is.”

Kyla pushed at Kodi, who was leaning against her leg and staring up at her with wide, adoring eyes. “But you just told us he hasn’t really said much of anything about himself, right?”

Annie pierced Kyla with a glare. “Don’t you start now. Try to
remember I haven’t known Jed that long. I don’t think he’s hiding anything so much as he’s careful.”

Dan was not mollified. “Careful? What’s that mean?”

Annie shrugged. “I can’t explain it exactly but I get the feeling things maybe weren’t great when he was a kid. That there are some issues he still needs to deal with.”

“Oooh. Issues.” Shelby looked at Dan. “Nobody here knows anything about dealing with issues.”

“But being
an issue.” Kyla directed a smirk at her brother. “Now
that
someone here knows intimately, doesn’t he, Avidan?”

Dan went to wrap his older sister in a bear hug. “Oh, Kyla, I’m so
glad
to hear you admit you’re an issue.”

“You know, Auntie K,” Jayce joined in, a wicked gleam in his eyes, “that’s the first step to getting help. Admitting the problem.”

Annie watched her family, loving the way each one’s color blended with the others. Dan’s marigold provided the perfect complement to Shelby’s clear emerald. Kyla’s deep pink added a flare of playful contrast, even as Jayce’s raspberry tinged her color, deepening it a fraction.

It was like having a living palette right here in her kitchen.

Of course, the palette was exceedingly vocal.

Kodi padded over, sitting beside her, leaning her solid body against Annie’s leg. She caressed the dog’s ears, listening as the music that was her family’s laughter flowed around them, pouring into her heart, filling it with joy Peace. And anticipation.

Soon.

The promise whispered through her.

Soon another voice would join the chorus. A deep voice. One that made her smile every time she heard it.

One that she couldn’t wait to hear again.

THIRTY-SIX        

O
CTOBER
13

11:00 p.m.

She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to admit the truth.

Her child was missing.

Brianna looked through her despair at her husband’s ashen face. She knew he wanted to comfort her, but fear kept him silent. She ran a hand through her hair. “We’ve been looking for hours. It’s going to be cold soon. Really cold.” Had Amberly taken her jacket with her?

Bree blinked back tears. “We have to accept it—” the words caught in her throat, but she forced them out—“our baby is lost. We need to call the police.”

Mark nodded. He reached for the cell phone and dialed. Then, with a muffled oath, threw the phone. “What good does it do to have these stupid things when they don’t have service?”

Ernie stepped forward to lay a steadying hand on Mark’s shoulder. “I’ll take you to the ranger station down the road.”

Mark nodded again, started to follow his friend, then
stopped. He turned back to Brianna … and held out his arms. She went to him, let his strong arms enclose her.

“Well find her, Bree. I promise you, well find her.”

She prayed he was right.

11:45 p.m.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The sound cut through Annie’s living room, and several things happened at once. Kyla almost jumped out of her skin; Kodi bounded up, ears cocked; Dan was on his feet, heading for the phone; and Shelby and Annie both reached to pull their pagers from their pockets.

“It’s not mine.” Shelby glanced at Dan.

He held his pager high. “It’s mine.”

“Mine too.” Annie headed for her purse and her cell phone, since Dan was on her phone.

Kyla frowned at Annie. “You’ve got to be kidding. A callout? Now?” She craned her neck to see the clock on the wall. “It’s almost midnight.”

Annie brought her cell phone back into the living room. “Which is when most calls come.” She rolled her shoulders, working out the fatigue, starting to get herself into working mode. “You know the drill, sis. People think they’ll find whoever is lost, so they keep looking until it’s late. Then they get scared and call us.”

She dialed the number on her pager and waited for someone to answer.

“Station Seven.”

“Hi, it’s Annie Justice.”

“We’ve got a callout for the Diamond Lake area. Can you respond?”

Annie looked down at her watch. “We’ll be there.” She hung up, and Jayce jumped off the couch.

“So what’s the callout for?”

“Don’t know.” Annie dropped the phone back in her purse.
“We don’t get the details until we reach Station Seven.”

“It’s like a mystery, huh?” Jayce’s eyes were wide. This was the first time he’d been there for an actual callout. “That’s kinda cool.”

“Ridiculous, is what it is.” Kyla settled back on the couch with a huff. “Going out this time of night, traipsing around heaven knows where—”

“Diamond Lake, is where.”

They all turned to Dan, coming back into the room.

Well, this was a definite perk to having a brother who was a sheriff’s deputy: getting the details of the callout right away Annie tipped her head. “Lost hiker?”

Dan’s somber gaze rested on her. “Lost child.”

Annie stopped. Her two least favorite words. “How old?”

The look on Dan’s face said it all. “Five. A little girl.”

Lord …

Kyla’s entire demeanor changed. “Oh, Annie. A child.”

Her sister had heard Annie talk about searches often enough to understand the implications. Finding a lost child could be one of the hardest things to do. With most lost people, there was a kind of pattern to how they wandered. That made them at least somewhat predictable. But with children, there was seldom a pattern. To make matters worse, children younger than six often were too scared to answer a stranger when called.

Seldom anything to help the searchers find the lost before …

Annie laid her hand on Kodi’s soft head. Five years old. In the Diamond Lake wilderness. She glanced out at the darkness. Five years old and out there alone … cold … probably terrified …

A moist nudge at her hand pulled her from her thoughts. She met Kodi’s brown eyes. “Okay, girl. You’re right. Time to get to work.” She glanced at Dan. The Diamond Lake area fell in his jurisdiction. “You ready to go?”

He nodded.

“Give me five minutes to change.” She was halfway down the hall when she realized Dan was right behind her. She turned to him, taking in the troubled crease on his brow. “What’s up?”

“Are you sure you should be doing this?”

Annie cocked her head. “Doing what? Changing clothes? It’s cold out there.”

“No, Annie. Search and rescue. Are you sure, with what’s been going on, that you should respond to this one?”

“Dan … ”

“It’s not like there aren’t other K-9 teams. You guys can sit this one out. Just to be sure.”

Annie leaned against the wall. “And what about the next callout? Do we sit that one out too? Do we just hide out here from now on, just in case there’s someone out there who isn’t content with just writing mean-spirited notes and e-mails?” She shook her head. “No, Dan. I won’t do it. I can’t. God called us to this, me and Kodi. And unless He releases us from that call, we’ll keep doing it.”

He stared at the floor, then nodded. “You’re right. I just—”

“You’re worried about me.”

His shrug was sheepish. “What can I say? You’re my little sister.” He gave a gruff sigh. “So what are you waiting for? Go change already Time’s.”

It actually only took four and a half minutes before she was back at the front door, pulling Kodi’s lead from the hook. She looked at her brother. “Ready?”

He planted a quick kiss on Shelby’s lips, then joined Annie. “Ready” He looked back at the others. “Wish us luck, everyone.”

“We’ll do better than that.” Shelby slipped her arms around Kyla and Jayce. “We’ll pray.”

O
CTOBER
14—A
N
E
LDERBERRY
B
LACK
B
EAUTY
D
AY
(B
LACK AND
R
OSE
)

3:30 a.m.

Annie lay stretched out in her tent, one hand resting on Kodi as the dog snored at her side.

When Annie and Kodi first arrived at the point last seen with the crew from SAR, Dan was on-site already. He’d seen Annie’s Jeep pull up, and when she stepped from the vehicle, he signaled
for her to come over. As Annie drew close, she heard a cry and suddenly found herself engulfed in a fierce hug.

“Oh! I’m so glad you’re here!”

Brianna Heller and her husband, Mark, filled in Annie and the other SAR personnel. When they’d gathered all the information they could, they went back to the command post—a large van equipped with maps, communication equipment, and phones to manage the search on the scene—and waited while the search manager determined the next step.

The search manager pinpointed the different areas for the teams to grid, and everyone who was there headed out. With any luck, they’d find the girl in the next few hours. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way Annie and Kodi had trudged back to camp hours later, set up their tent, and tried to grab some shut-eye. But sleep was proving elusive. This was Bree’s daughter out there, and that fact ate at her. Hard enough when a child was lost, but to have to look a friend in the face, tell her that her little girl wasn’t coming home …

No. Don’t go there.

Annie closed her eyes. She might not be able to sleep, but she could do the one thing that would help most of all.

She could pray.

THIRTY-SEVEN