Yeah, Jake knew. He wasn’t all that thrilled about it. His little brother was excitable and annoying and asked way too many questions.
Jake honked again as he passed, glanced at his dad in the rearview mirror. He was still watching the truck, looking like a giantatop the horse. Jake wanted to be the man his dad was. Strong, hardworking, loyal. He wanted to raise his family here, at Whisper Creek Ranch. They were expanding, and he could build a house for his own wife and kids. Someday.
He pushed aside the memory, which with everything else going on today threatened to bring him to tears, and said to Bobby, “We need to go. You okay?”
“Yeah. We’re going to find Avery, right?”
“Yes. Mom talked to Sheriff Perez.”
“I called Ryan on the radio because I didn’t want to go on our family channel because the bad guys have Avery’s radio. I didn’t want them to hear.”
“That was very smart,” Jake said, and meant it. Then he looked down and noticed that Bobby’s feet were bare. He hadn’t noticed at first because they were caked with mud.
“Where the hell are your shoes?” Jake asked, scanning the shed again. He looked up toward the loft.
“I lost ’em. In the field. When I was running.”
No shoes, broken ladder, rising creeks, and more than two miles of back roads between here and the house because they couldn’t go home the short way.
A flash of lightning illuminated the old barn, then the thunder hit fast, like a monster closing in.
“We need to go now,” Jake said. “Before we can’t.”
His cell phone wasn’t getting a signal, so he took out his radio. “Mom, it’s Jake. Over.”
A moment later, his mom came on. “I’m here, did you find Bobby? Over.”
“Yes. He’s here with me. We’re not going to be able to go back over the creek. I’m going around the long way, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take. Over.”
“Be safe. Over.”
Bobby grabbed the radio. “Mom, where’s Avery? Jake said she’smissing. What happened?” A second later, he pressed the button again. “Over.”
Her answer came right back. “Sheriff Perez is looking for her. They’re also looking for the Mendozas’ truck. We’ll find her. Over.”
“I know what the other truck looks like,” Bobby said. “It’s a black Ram truck with four doors. And it had a Louisiana license plate. I memorized it—223HPW. Over.”
Jake hit his brother lightly on the arm. “Wow, Bobby, that was smart.”
Bobby grinned sheepishly, then said, “It’s only smart if we can find Avery.”
The radio beeped and their mom said, “I have a pen, can you repeat that? It’s 223 and? Over.”
“HPW, over,” Bobby said.
“Thank you, Bobby. Be safe out there, both of you. Over.”
Jake got up, pulled Bobby to his feet. “You okay walking to the truck?”
Bobby nodded. “Do you think Cleo is okay? Do you think she found a safe place to wait out the storm?”
The cat again. “Yeah, I think she did,” Jake said. He opened the door and they stepped out into the driving rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hello, ma’am!”
The county employee climbed out of his work truck and waved to her. Ellen didn’t recognize him, but considering that the county seat was in Gainesville and most of the time they wanted to forget how they neglected the agricultural region of the county, she wasn’t surprised. The last time she saw work crews doing anything was nine months ago when they finally repaired Privett Road and the intersection at Orchard that had been in vast need of repair for years. Ellen almost always took the long way to get to town because of the potholes on Privett.
