Travis

Dressed in the stiff new jeans and dark pullover shirt, my father had insisted on purchasing for me the night before, I waited. I paced from the bed back to the window, looked out at the parking lot, seeking any sign of my dad’s bright red truck. The wall clock registered noon. I’d been waiting four hours.

Something’s wrong.

She’d left a message at the nurse’s station that she would be there at eight. It took just over an hour to get from Pine Haven to Jackson. Even if she hadn’t left her place until eight and had run into traffic, she wouldn’t be four hours late.

I dialed her cell number again, and again it went straight to voicemail. Did that mean her phone was off? Or was she in the mountains with no service?

I erupted into a string of violent cursing, that I punctuated by an open-palmed slap on the marble window ledge. I had to get out of there. Still cursing, I punched the speed dial for Grant.

“Sissy’s waiting at the bar for a delivery,” said my brother. “Let me call over there, find out when she left. Maybe she was delayed.”

When the nurse came to check my vital signs, I waved her off then called her back.

“Is there someplace close I can rent a car?”

“About a block away,” the young nurse replied. “But your discharge instructions recommend against driving.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

By the time my phone rang again, I was just signing the papers on my rental. Grant got right to the point. “She left just before seven.”

That was no surprise. If she promised to be somewhere at eight, she would be there at seven-fifty. But it was more than that. Something was wrong. I felt it with everything in me.

“Do you want me to come up and get you?” Grant asked.

“I want you to drive up this way and watch for the silver Grand Prix I just rented,” I said, slipping behind the wheel. “We’ll probably meet halfway, but if she’s stranded on the road, you might reach her before I can.”

Tossing my phone onto the passenger seat, I stomped the gas pedal and squealed out of the rental company parking lot, heading toward home and, I hoped, the woman I loved.

“Damn it,” I muttered as I hit the main highway. The brush along there was so thick in places, it could easily swallow a vehicle whole and pop back into place. If she’d gone off the road, finding her would take keen eyes and patience to look thoroughly. I definitely had none of the latter.

As I had predicted, I met up with Grant at the halfway point between Pine Haven and Jackson. I pulled my rental into a scenic overlook and waited for Grant to turn around and join him.

“I didn’t see anything on the way up,” Grant said in response to the unvoiced question. “I saw Phyllis MacKay coming back from Jackson, flagged her down, but she said she hadn’t seen anything. She must have been about thirty minutes ahead of you.”

I paced to the road, looked in both directions, willing my father’s red pickup to appear from around either of the bends in the road.

“Bull still in jail?” I asked without turning around.

“Transferred to Jackson late yesterday evening,” said Grant with a hint of satisfaction. “I got the impression that’s where Phyllis had been.”

“Damn it!” I punched the hood of my rental, not caring about the fist-sized dent I left. “Where is she?”

Grant touched my good arm. He held the radio from the cab of my truck. “Trav, it’s time to call DC,” he said gently.

* * *

The sheriff was already in his office when we pulled in, one behind the other.

“I’ve reported her missing under suspicious circumstances,” DC told them before the door finished closing. “They’re going to take a long, hard look at Robert MacKay Senior, because of Christine’s visit to Bull yesterday, and the report I filed about concerns for the welfare of Wanda and Wyatt.”

“Wait, wait!” I held up a hand. “What the hell are you talking about?”

DC brought them up to speed about the events of the previous afternoon. My gut began to eat at itself.

“The boy had fresh burns on his arm,” DC reported grimly. He looked at me as he spoke. “Six round burns in a line on the underside of his arm between his elbow and his wrist. He said he got them from fighting the fire at your place.”

I shook my head. “No way. I asked if he was okay, looked him over before he left. I would have noticed burns like that.” My mind was racing. Burns on the kid, probably Mac’s kid. “Old man Robert has a history of using cigarettes for discipline,” I murmured, more to myself.

But DC heard me. “I know,” he said, meeting my eyes with a haunted gaze.

“Did you tell the MacKays it was Christine showing concern for Wanda and Wyatt?” asked Grant.

DC shook his head. “No. The request to check welfare came from Bull.”

I started as though he’d been slapped. “Bull?”

“He seemed pretty worked up after Christine left,” admitted the sheriff.

In a lightning move, I swept the pile of papers from the edge of DC’s desk. Sheets of white glided to the floor like dozens of unfolded paper airplanes. “What did they do to her?”

The sheriff pushed the papers into a pile with the toe of one boot.

My cell phone rang. Christine! I fumbled to answer it, saw Dan’s number, and hit reject, my spirits deflated. “I should be out looking for her. But I don’t know where to start.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my temples. My head was killing me. Not knowing what had happened to Christine was killing me quicker.

The door to the office opened and a pair of state troopers entered. The one in the lead shook his head in response to DC’s question of whether they’d made any progress. The building closed in on me. With profound claustrophobia assaulting me, I stepped outside while DC spoke with the troopers.

I used my cell to check in with dad while I paced around the parking lot.

“Have you tried calling her?” He asked.

“Several times. It just goes straight to voicemail.”

“On the radio, son. The other day, I sent her off with one of our handhelds.” At last, something else I could try. I sprinted to Grant’s truck, reached in and grabbed my radio.

I checked the frequency on my way back inside.