“Leo?” she called out once more.
No response.
She stood by the towering cedar for another few moments. Part of her wanted to find Leo and smooth things over. But how could she explain it to him?
What did it matter? Leo was furious at her, and Jordan found her interest in him embarrassing.
She had a weird thought about how sorry they’d be if she got lost in these woods and was missing for hours and hours. It was such a juvenile notion—like when she was a kid running away from home, mostly to worry her parents.
Yet a part of her truly wanted to disappear for a while—to shut out everything and everyone else.
Moira gazed at the path she’d been taking—the one that led back to the cabin.
Then she started walking in the opposite direction.
“All right, Ms. Blanchette,” the sheriff said on the other end of the line. “You stay put there at Rosie’s, and I’ll be by in about five minutes. Over and out.”
Susan heard a click. “Okay, thanks,” she said to no one. Then she hung up the receiver and slid the desk phone closer to the clerk’s side of the counter at Rosie’s Roadside Sundries.
One elbow resting on top of the lottery ticket machine, Rosie was watching Mattie in the small play area near the back door. She glanced over her shoulder at Susan. “The sheriff on his way?” she asked.
Susan nodded. “Thanks for letting me use the phone—and watching Mattie. I owe you big-time.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure looking after this one,” she replied, with a nod toward Mattie. “Y’know, I bet you had a wayward hunter poking around your backyard earlier, that’s all. Some of these guys are absolutely nuts. They start chasing after a deer, and totally forget where the heck they are. You want anything?”
Susan shook her head. “No, thanks.” She moved down to the end of the counter, closer to Rosie. She could see Mattie on the multicolored plastic jungle gym in the little play area. “Sheriff Fischer said he’d be here in five minutes.”
“If Stuart Fischer tells you five minutes, you can expect him in ten,” Rosie said out of one side of her mouth. “Unless it’s a major emergency, which I haven’t seen in my seven years working here—with one notable exception—the sheriff always takes his sweet time. So…get comfortable, honey.”
Susan nervously drummed her fingers on the counter. “The one notable exception,” she said. “Was that the missing person case last year?”
“Oh, then you heard about that,” Rosie said soberly. She nodded. “They never did find her, the poor thing. I was the last one to see her before she disappeared, a very sweet girl, too. She stopped into the store on a Friday afternoon, and the sheriff came across her abandoned car that same night. You wouldn’t believe how many detectives and policemen and special investigators were through here asking me questions. And all I could tell them was the same thing, over and over again. She drove up, came in alone, bought some stuff, left alone, and then she drove away.” She gave Susan a sidelong glance. “You sure I can’t get you anything, honey?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, you might be able to help me,” Susan replied, lowering her voice so Mattie couldn’t hear. “Did a good-looking man with silver-black hair come in here a little over an hour ago?”
Rosie squinted at her. “Nice dresser, about thirty-five?”
Susan nodded. “Yes, that’s him, that’s Allen. He’s my fiance.”
“Well, well, congratulations, honey. He’s a looker.”
“So—he was here?”
Rosie nodded again. “Yes, ma’am, he stopped in at around—eleven forty-five. He bought some sunblock lotion….”
“And that’s it?” Susan asked. “Did he ask for anything else? I mean, something you might not have had, something he’d need to go into town for?”
“Nope,” Rosie replied, shaking her head.
Susan sighed. “I’m sorry to be asking all these dumb questions, but the thing of it is, he never came home.”
“Oh, dear,” Rosie murmured. “And then this business with the hunter. No wonder you’re on edge, you poor thing.”
“Did he say anything to you about where he was headed—anything at all?”
Rosie fingered the glasses on a chain around her neck. “Hmm, just that he needed the sunblock because he was going sailing this afternoon.”
“Was there anyone else in the store who might have talked to him?”
“Yes, there was another customer, Jordy Prewitt, a nice young man from Seattle. His folks have a cabin on Cedar Crest Way, not too far from where you are—”
“Was he in the store yesterday—with some friends?” Susan asked. “I spoke with a tall, handsome, dark- haired boy….”
“Yes, that’s Jordy. He was here again today, when your fiance dropped by. But I don’t think they talked at all. Jordy was feeling sick, and he left rather quickly.”
“So there was no one else in the store when Allen left? No one who might have talked to him or seen which way he was headed?”
Rosie shrugged. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could be more help. He just drove up, came in alone, bought some sunblock—”
“He left alone, and then he drove away,” Susan finished for her. She winced at the thought of him vanishing like that.
Rosie reached over the counter and patted her hand. “Oh, honey, I’m sure he’s fine.” She glanced back at Mattie, oblivious, playing with one of the toys. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your fiance looked like a man who can take care of himself. He probably decided to go into town for something at the last minute and got sidetracked….”
Susan tried to smile at her. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe that’s what happened.”
She wished she could believe it. She wished right now that Allen’s black BMW would pull in front of the store. And she’d see him step out of the car.
But right now, she didn’t see any other cars in the lot but her own. And all she heard was the distant wail of a police siren.
As he hit the first rough patch on the dirt road, Jordan heard more knocking and kicking from inside the cramped trunk of his car. No doubt, the son of a bitch was getting quite a pounding back there over the rear tires.
Meeker had been out cold during their last trek on this bumpy trail. In a way, Jordan had done the guy a favor knocking him unconscious earlier, because he hadn’t been awake to feel every jolt of the bouncy, nausea-inducing ride.
Jordan watched the road ahead, resisting the temptation to torture his indisposed passenger and steer toward the rough patches.
Jordan remembered: “A rough patch” was how his mother had described the divorce. Jordan had been eight years old at the time.
“This is going to be a rough patch for you,” she’d told him when she was getting ready to move away from their house in Bellingham to her own apartment ninety minutes away in Bellevue. “I really wish you could stay with me, but the people who decide these things think you’re better off with your dad—for now, at least. But don’t you sweat it, kiddo, because we’ll get to spend weekends and holidays together. It’ll be a lot of fun, you’ll see….”
A beautiful, curvaceous blonde, his mother looked like a movie star. All of his friends thought he had the coolest mom. She came to every one of his Little League games and threw parties for the team afterward—the worse the defeat, the grander the party. After one particularly humiliating trouncing, she even rented two ponies to give the kids rides in the backyard. As one of the most affluent families in one of the most affluent sections of Bellingham, they had a huge house, which had become headquarters for Jordan and all his pals—much to his mother’s delight. She was always cooking up something for them to do—putting on skits, water-coloring, shaping clay, and a ton of sports activities. One bitter-cold winter afternoon, she suggested they flood the driveway so he and his friends could play hockey. She didn’t tell his dad about it, and that night, the old man pulled his Mercedes-
