AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Relax.” J.D. patted her knee as he shifted down. “Let’s start with the obvious. Tell me where his friends live.”
“Okay. Let’s think. He said he was with Sam—Sam Prescott—but when I called over there, no one answered.”
“Where does Sam live?”
“On the outskirts of town, to the north, near the water tower.”
J.D. maneuvered his Jeep through town, past the park and shopping mall to a residential district. The Prescotts resided in a log cabin that had been in the family for generations. The house was dark, the porch light burning when Tiffany hurried up the front path to the door. She rapped firmly on the old oak panels, then jabbed at the doorbell, but though the buzzer went off inside, no one answered.
“Something’s really wrong,” she said, spying Sam’s ten-speed chained to a post supporting the roof of the porch and his skateboard left near the steps. “If Sam were with Stephen he’d be on his bike or skateboard.”
“You think.”
“I know.” Though the evening was warm, she felt a chill deep in her soul and rubbed her arms where goose bumps had taken hold. Where was Stephen? Thoughts of injury, kidnapping or worse skated through her mind. She noticed the uneaten bowl of cat food and two rolled newspapers left on the front porch, as if no one had been home for a couple of days. “It’s possible the Prescotts are out of town,” she admitted.
J.D.’s expression hardened as he, too, noticed the signs of inactivity at the house. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“So Stephen lied,” she said, disheartened. Ever since Philip’s death, her son had become more secretive, and he’d started lying about the time of Isaac Wells’s disappearance. “I think we should go over to the Deans’ house. They live in a mobile home about two miles up the road.”
J.D. didn’t waste any time. He drove unerringly to the Dean property and pulled into a weed-choked drive. Two disabled cars sat rusting by a vegetable garden surrounded by a high chicken-wire fence to keep out the deer. Besides the mobile home, there were a shed and a lean-to barn by which a skinny horse stood, flicking flies with his tail and trying to find any blade of grass in the small paddock.
Tiffany was out of the Jeep before it stopped. She hurried up a couple of weathered steps, nearly banged her head on a hanging pot overflowing with dying geraniums and pounded on the door. Vera Dean, Miles and Laddy’s mother, opened it a second later. She was tall and thin, with a fading beau
ty that matched her worn-off lipstick, short, shaggy blond hair and tanned skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. She looked as tired as a plow horse after a day in the fields, and her smile, friendly at first, fell as she recognized Tiffany.
“Hi, Vera. I’m sorry to stop by unannounced, but I’m looking for Stephen,” Tiffany said. “He’s missing, and I thought he might have come here.”
“After the fight he had with Miles?” Vera shook her head and reached into the pocket of her jeans for a leather case that held a pack of cigarettes. “No way.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Tiffany wasn’t convinced the woman was telling the truth. “Could I talk to Miles?”
Vera unclasped the case and stared at J.D., looking him up and down as he stood on the step behind Tiffany. “Miles isn’t here.”
Warning bells clanged in her mind. Both boys, known to get into trouble together, were missing. “Do you know where he is?”
“Miles?” She let out a throaty laugh. “Nope. That boy’s just like his old man. Never around when you need him. But I’ll let him know you dropped by.” She shook out a long, slim cigarette and held it between two fingers. “Anything else?”
“No. Just please have Miles call me when he gets in.”
“Will do.” She shut the door, and Tiffany walked back to the car, convinced that the boy would never get the message.
“Friendly,” J.D. observed sarcastically.
“She doesn’t like me. Or Stephen.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Not that I know of, but I don’t take it personally. She doesn’t get along with many people. Her husband, Ray, is a guy who hires on at local ranches, and he’s been in and out of jail since he was nineteen. Right now he’s out, but no one thinks it’ll last.”
“You know a lot for a newcomer to Bittersweet.”
“It’s a small town. Everyone has his nose in everyone else’s business. I hear it all day long—down at the insurance office or when I’m having coffee down at Millie’s or, if all else fails, from my renters.”
They drove toward town as the stars winked in the dark sky. Tiffany leaned her arm out the open window and tried to imagine where her son had gone. Was he with Miles, and more importantly, was he safe? Oh, dear God, she prayed, please, let him be all right.
