Chapter 31
Noah
Students will be able to search.
No.
This wasn’t happening.
Just— no.
Gennie had to be in the house somewhere. She was hiding. She was in the closet or under the bed. Curled up in the bathtub and giggling into her arm while everyone went crazy searching for her.
She wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be. I wouldn’t accept that as reality.
But this was all my fault. I was the only person left to take care of this kid and I should’ve known that leaving her for the entire day was a mistake. She was still struggling through so many issues and I should’ve known this was too much to ask of her.
“I’ve looked everywhere,” Gail said for the tenth time, wringing her hands. “I don’t even know how she could’ve gotten out. I’ve been here all night with my crocheting. I would’ve heard her or—”
“It’s all right,” I said to her as Shay came down the staircase. “Anything?”
She shook her head. “Her backpack is gone. The sword too.”
My stomach turned.
“Fuck.” I ran both hands down my face. “I gotta get out there. I have to search the land.”
Shay hooked a hand around my arm as I moved toward the door. “Slow down. Think. There are only a few places she’d go. Dogs, goats, maybe cows. Right?”
“Right.” I blew out a breath. “But we don’t know how long she’s been out there, Shay, and she doesn’t know the land at night. It’s a three-mile walk to the dairy barn from here. One wrong turn and she falls in a stream or veers off the trail and walks into a coyote den or—”
Shay held up a finger. “Don’t do that. This isn’t the time to think about the worst possible outcomes.
She is smart and she is capable. Keep telling yourself that.
We’re going to find her and we’re going to bring her home.
” She gave me a serious nod that said I wasn’t to argue with her.
“Let’s get everyone organized so we can split up and cover as much ground as possible. ”
I reached for her hand. “You’re staying with me. Okay? I can’t handle losing both of my girls today.”
“We’ll find her together. We’ll bring her home.”
I turned to Gail, saying, “I need you to stay here and call the chief of police. You have his home number. Wake him the fuck up, all right? And call the boys at the oyster farm. Ask them to send their boats up to this end of the cove and circle the perimeter until we find her. Tell them to get as close to the shore as they can.”
She picked her phone up from the table, her hands shaking. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do that.” Then, “Blankets,” she cried, upending the quilted bag seated on the table and pushing an armload of soft wool into my arms. “Take these. Please. I’m so sorry.”
“Call the chief of police,” I echoed. It was the best I could do. “And the oyster boys.”
I followed Shay outside where we found a crush of four-wheelers and pickup trucks, farm crew, dairy workers, and neighbors. Gail’s husband and four grandkids, all on horseback. Wheatie handed out flashlights and headlamps while Nyomi and Bones distributed walkies.
When he spotted me, Bones called, “We’re hauling up the floodlights from the orchard now. They’ll be here in ten.”
Wheatie held up a map as he passed Shay a pair of flashlights. “We’ve divvied up the farm into sections. Which one do you want, boss?”
I took the map from Wheatie. As much as I tried, I couldn’t focus on it.
“We’re going back over her favorite places.
The dog run, the goat enclosure, up to the farm stand.
Then over to the dairy barn. Talk to me on the radio.
” I slashed a hand through the air. “And no ATV accidents tonight. No rollovers. We don’t have time for that. ”
“We know the drill,” he replied with a nod.
I motioned to the Castros and their horses. “Send them over to the dairy. They can cover more ground and they know the territory—”
“We know,” Wheatie interrupted. “Go. We have this.”
Bones handed me a radio. “I sent trucks down to the base of the hill to block traffic. No one is getting in or out unless we allow it.”
The police were going to love that. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
Shay followed me into the shed, silent as I settled behind the wheel of my ATV.
She fastened her seat belt and grabbed onto the overhead handle as I shot out into the night air.
“We’ll hit the dog run first,” I said. “Shine the light on your side. There isn’t much in the way of hiding places around here but if she fell or she got tired or—”
“Eyes on the trail,” she said gently. “Focus on what’s right in front of you.”
When we reached the dog run, I drove in a wide circle to get a look at the surrounding area. “Gennie loves these dogs,” I said, mostly to myself. “She would’ve come here.”
“Let’s look around. We’ll get a head count.”
“Of…the dogs?”
Shay aimed her light at the kennel. “Yeah. She might’ve taken one with her.” I opened the gate for Shay and followed her inside. “How many should there be?”
“Twelve.” The old pups came streaming out the kennel door, ears perked and tails wagging at the unexpected visit. “Twelve dogs, twelve goats, twelve chickens.”
“Was that intentional?” She patted each head as she counted to herself.
“No. I didn’t realize it until Gennie pointed it out to me a few months ago.”
She turned to face me, her flashlight pointed down. “Eleven.”
Shaking my head, I jogged toward the kennel. The last one had to be asleep. Too old and too tired to bother with a late-night circus. I opened the door, fully expecting to find another dog.
The kennel was empty.
A breath whooshed out of me. If she took a dog, it was because she needed a friend. Or a protector.
Or both.
I closed the kennel door, saying, “Eleven.”
“We’ll check out the goat pen,” Shay said with more calm than anyone could possibly possess in this situation.
We didn’t speak as we bumped along the trail toward the goat enclosure.
This part of the farm was darker than most others, closed in by a tall stand of trees and the natural slope of the land.
The goats were less enthusiastic about us visiting and only glared with their round eyes as we counted heads, finding them all accounted for and no sign of Gennie.
I didn’t even see any pint-sized shoe prints in the damp soil leading into the pen.
“Let’s think like Gennie,” Shay said when we were back in the four-wheeler. “She leaves the house because—”
“Because she thought I wasn’t coming back,” I said.
“She knows you’d always come back.”
I shook my head as I drove toward the farm stand.
I doubted she was up there but I had to see for myself.
“Any time I’ve ever tried to leave her with a sitter at night, she’s panicked.
I should’ve known she wasn’t ready for this.
” Before Shay could argue, I added, “When we get inside, you search the shop and back room. I’ll take the second floor. ”
As we drove Shay called Gennie’s name and shone her light on the dense line of apple trees. In the distance, we could hear other search parties and see the beams of other flashlights. There were sirens too, and the glow of floodlights brightened the night sky.
If something happened to this kid, I’d never recover. I knew that as deeply as I knew anything. And I’d never be able to look my sister in the eye again.
When we pulled up to the back door of the farm stand, I dropped my keys twice before getting the door open. Shay covered my hand with hers, saying, “We are going to find her.”
I nodded because I didn’t trust myself to speak.
We went our separate directions, Shay ducking into the back room while I climbed the stairs.
Gennie rarely came up here though she was always fascinated by the fact our marketing manager worked out of a portion of her mom’s childhood bedroom.
She didn’t care much about the portion we’d carved out to make a storage closet.
I checked each of the offices, all the closets, and the bathroom. Gennie wasn’t here.
Jogging downstairs, I found Shay waiting for me, her hands on her hips and her gaze determined. “We have to think like Gennie,” she said again. “She’s not going to run away just to wander the farm. She has a destination in mind and I don’t think it has anything to do with the animals.”
“Then where the fuck would she go?”
“What if she went to my farm?”
“Your— what ? No. As I’ve explained to you before, this hill is dangerous at night. And what would she want with Twin Tulip? It’s empty and she knows that. Why would she go there?”
“I don’t know,” Shay admitted. “But it’s one place we haven’t considered and I think she knows we wouldn’t look there right away.”
My gaze glued to Shay, I reached for my radio. “What’s the update from the dairy?”
Wheatie responded immediately. “We’re combing the pastures now. No sign of her in the barn or pavilion.”
Shay twisted her fingers around the chain at her throat. The bandage at her wrist caught my attention as she said, “I have a feeling about this. We need to go down the hill.”
I ran a hand over my mouth. Into the radio, I said, “We’re going to check out Twin Tulip. Keep me updated.”
“You got it,” Wheatie said.
We headed straight for Old Windmill Hill Road, quiet as we coasted down the steep incline. “Where should we go first?” I asked.
Shay didn’t answer right away. “Inside,” she said eventually. “Then the front gardens and the barn. But if she’s there, she’s inside.”
“How would she get in?”
“Aside from the fact there are at least ten doors in and out of that place, I wouldn’t put it past her to jimmy open a window or break the damn thing. She believes she’s a pirate, Noah.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s part of the problem,” I yelled. “I’m sorry, I just—”
She dropped her hand to my thigh. “I get it.”
“I’m going to put bars on her windows. Locks on her doors. A tracking device in her shoes.”