Kaleidoscope Eyes (6 page)

For a second he thought Andy would refuse, but then years of working together must have kicked in, because he fell into step beside Jed. They ran, feet pounding the ground as they followed the firefighters racing toward the window. As they drew closer, Jed almost did something he’d sworn never to do again.

Pray.

Almost, but not quite. Because that part of his life was gone, buried so deep inside him that not even the heat of the fire reaching out to chafe his face could touch it.

No, prayer would stay where it belonged.

In his childhood, with the rest of the fairy tales.

FOUR        

S
EPTEMBER
8

3:30 a.m.

“You know, once upon a time I had a doggy just like you.”

“Just like …? For heaven’s sake, Doris, don’t be a nit. Your dog was about as big as that dog’s head, and you know it.”

Annie glanced over her shoulder to where Doris was lavishing hugs on Kodi, ignoring Aggie’s outrage. She leaned toward her brother. “They almost sound like they don’t like each other.”

“I wish.”

Annie started. “You do?”

Her brother snorted. “Sure. Because then they wouldn’t talk to each other.” He tossed a glance their direction. “No such luck though. Just pretend they’re not there.”

“Does that work?”

“Not yet.” Dan’s pained look was almost as comical as the two women. “But I’m willing to work at it till it does.”

Annie turned back to the map in front of her. She’d reached Sanctuary about ten minutes ago and found Dan ready for her, a topographic map rolled out on his desk. Within minutes he was giving her a quick rundown of the situation, highlighting where the searchers had looked so far.

Doris piped up again. “I wish I’d brought Half-Pint with us. You two would have had such fun together. Don’t you think so, Aggie?”

“What I think is that that huge beast would think your silly little Chihuahua was a walking hors d’oeuvre.” Ignoring Doris’s wide eyes at such a horrific thought, Aggie went to peer over Dan’s shoulder. She’d listened to his briefing, adding tidbits here and there and driving Dan to distraction. Now she reached an arm around Dan to point at a spot on the map, then glared at him when he swatted her hand away.

Annie covered her smile under the guise of a cough. The two women had to be at least in their seventies, maybe older. But something about them, a kind of gleaming mischief in those time-worn eyes, made them seem more like teenagers than senior citizens.

It was fascinating to Annie that the two shared the same color.
A
and
d
both shimmered in happy marigold yellow. A color that fit these ladies to a T.

The same color as Dan.

Annie’s eyes widened, and she almost laughed out loud. How had she missed that? No wonder the three of them always seemed to blend together so well.

Of course, she knew better than to say such a thing to her brother.

As though sensing Annie’s thoughts, Doris looked at Annie from where she hugged Kodi, and there was no denying the concern in her clear eyes. “Where are you going to look for dear Bertha now?”

“I wish I knew.” Dan rolled his shoulders, and as he stared down at the map, Annie took in the sag of his shoulders and the
stubble on his face. Unless she missed her guess, he hadn’t slept much the last few nights. This kind of situation was stressful on anyone who understood the implications.

But with most people who were lost, you could count on patterns of behavior, things that helped in formulating a search plan. Most people, when lost, tended to travel in a straight line. If they found any kind of path, they’d stick to it, no matter what. Often they climbed to the top of the closest hill to get a better view—though the trees on top of hills could obstruct any view. Lost people seldom reversed direction on a trail and tended to travel downhill or downstream. But most helpful of all was the fact that lost people seldom moved around randomly. They usually moved with conviction, with a dogged hope that they were heading in the right direction—whether they were or not.

Then there were the unpredictable victims. Children didn’t have any concept of being lost. They just walked and wandered, their attention caught by whatever they encountered. Fortunately they tired easily and couldn’t roam as far afield as an adult. Older children were a little better. But people like Bertha, who suffered from a mental condition such as Alzheimer’s?

That could be a searcher’s nightmare.

It was bad enough that people with dementia didn’t follow any of the usual patterns—in fact, they didn’t follow any pattern period. But an added complication was the fact that so often they were caught in the past, and they might not even know what was happening or where they were. If someone was in fairly good physical shape, she could wander a long way … miles, even.

A soft hand on her arm drew Annie’s attention from her increasingly depressing thoughts. Doris was beside her, her lip trembling slightly. “You will find her, won’t you?”

Annie laid her hand over Doris’s thin fingers. “I’ll do my best.”

Of course, with each passing hour, Bertha’s chances dropped. The odds of finding someone alive were best in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. They’d been looking for Bertha for nearly thirty-six hours. But no reason to point that out to Doris.
Annie focused on her brother, listening as he indicated areas on the map where she and Kodi could start. She frowned, catching his hand as he pointed at one particular spot.

His brows drew together. “What?”

“You’ve come back to this spot at least four times in the few minutes we’ve been standing here.” She tilted her head, studying the coordinates. “That’s actually in the ravine, right?”

Dan ran his hand through his hair. “Yes. The search teams looked there a number of times, but the trees and brush are so dense. I don’t know … ” He lifted one shoulder. “They did grid searches and were thorough. They always are.”

That her usually unruffled brother was troubled could not be denied. In fact, his vexation was so pronounced that it moved over Annie, seeping into her, setting her nerves on edge as well. “But?”

“But something keeps pulling me back there.” He traced a finger across the map. “Maybe if you work the ravine edge, just in case? I don’t know … I just can’t shake the feeling that she’s there somewhere.”

Annie didn’t argue. She’d learned a long time ago to trust her brother’s hunches. “You got it. We’ll start there.” She started to signal to Kodi to follow her when Dan caught her arm. She turned back to him.

“About that e-mail you forwarded to me.”

She’d waited until a few days after he got home from his honeymoon before finally telling him about the e-mails. He had her do two things: send the posts to him and set up a new e-mail address without letting anyone else know about it. He’d monitored her old account so he could deal with anything that looked suspicious.

She studied Dan now. If her nerves hadn’t already been on edge, the caution flickering in her brother’s eyes would have put them there. “Did you figure out who sent it?”

“I handed it over to a friend who works in cybercrime investigations. Unfortunately, whoever sent it knew what he was doing. He did something called remailing, which makes it next to impossible to trace the source.”

Cybercrime? That sounded so … serious. “But it’s nothing to worry about, right? Probably just some kid fooling around?”

She waited for him to reassure her, but instead the silence between them grew tight with tension. “Dan?”

“Look, Annie, I don’t want to worry you—”

“Too late.”

“Just … be careful. Okay? You might be right. It could be some kid acting stupid. But you and I both know the cost of doing high-profile work. People find out about you. Most of the time that’s not a problem.”

She noticed her hands trembling and slid them into her pockets. “But you don’t think this is ’most of the time’?”

He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the door. “I don’t know one way or the other. What I
do
know is that you’ve got Someone looking out for you who is more powerful than any nutcase with a computer.”

Ah, there it was. The comfort she’d needed from her big brother. She managed to dredge up a smile out of the anxiety bogging her down. “Right you are. If God is for me, who can be against me, right?”

“Right.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Just hold on to that, and don’t worry”

Annie leaned against him, his solid presence as comforting as his solid faith. If God could carry Dan through the tragedy he’d endured and bring him out whole, He could certainly help her deal with a few stupid e-mails.

“Well, ladies—” Dan straightened—“Annie and I are going to head out.”

Clearly, he’d hoped the two women would stay behind. Clearly, he was in for a disappointment.

Doris stepped up to him. “We’re going with you.”

Dan angled a firm look down at her. “Now listen, you and Agatha really need to go home. Get some sleep.”

“With dear, sweet Bertha still lost out there?” Doris stood her ground, as immovable as the floor beneath their feet. “I think not!”

He wasn’t giving in. “It’s pitch-black out there. You won’t be able to see a thing.”

Doris’s already thin lips compressed, leaving her mouth a disapproving slash. “We don’t need to
see
anything to pray, Sheriff.”

Dan turned to Aggie, but the little woman’s arms were planted across her chest, and her chin jutted out like a prizefighter’s. He’d find no help there.

“Face it, Dan—” Annie motioned for Kodi to follow her to the door—“you’ve been outvoted.”

He grabbed his keys from the desk, muttering as he followed Annie. “See what happens when you give women rights?”

Neither Doris nor Aggie rose to the bait. Instead, they padded along behind Dan, bestowing sweet smiles upon him as he jerked to a halt and held the door open for them.

Doris patted his cheek as she waltzed past. “Ever the gentleman, Sheriff.”

Annie didn’t hear her brother’s reply, but the grins on Doris and Aggie’s faces—and the dark cloud on Dan’s—were enough to tell her it had been a concession speech.

FIVE        

S
EPTEMBER
8

3:30 a.m.

“Okay, fine. You win. This is going to be the best episode yet.”

Jed whooped and looked back over his shoulder. “You’d better believe it is.” The firefighters were almost to the window. “Are you getting this?”

“Of course I am! You think I’m stupid?”

No, if there was one thing Andy was not, it was stupid.

Which is probably why he stopped before Jed did. He stood there, a few feet behind Jed.

“Come on, Andy: Up here. Just a little closer and it will be like the viewers are right there.”

His friend’s head tipped from behind the camera, and he glared at Jed, lips compressed. Though he could hear Andy’s muttered comments consigning him to a very unpleasant place, the cameraman came to stand beside him.