Hazardous Homecoming. Dana Mentink

we need to talk.”

      “Right,” his brother said, heading into the kitchen. “Can I cook while we talk? I’m starving.”

      Cooper watched as Peter moved around the kitchen. He was thin, maybe a bit too thin, but his hands were steady and sure as he minced garlic and chopped herbs to sprinkle on a pair of pork chops he’d fished out of the bag. Peter was an excellent cook, no doubt about that. “This place is a wreck, Coop.” He heated olive oil and slid the meat into a pan. “If you’re gonna stay with me, you’ll have to learn to clean up after yourself.”

      Cooper was about to fire off a retort when he saw the grin. Typical Peter. The jokester. But the hunted look he’d seen in the past on his brother’s face was no joke. He was relieved there was no sign of it now.

      “Something has come up.”

      “Heard a few things. Why don’t you tell me what you’re worrying about? You get this crinkle between your eyebrows when you’re stewing and it’s gonna ruin your handsome baby face.”

      “It’s coming up again, what happened to Alice all those years ago. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to stay here.”

      Peter hesitated for a moment, staring into the sizzling pan. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Need to work. Can’t stay with Mom, she’s barely making it with the money you send her, and I know when I’m there she feels like she has to take care of me.”

      A thrill went through him at the unselfish words. They’re just words, Coop. He’s got to walk the walk, not just talk about it. Cooper took a deep breath. “Ruby Hudson found Alice Walker’s locket hanging in a tree.”

      Peter still did not look at Cooper. “I heard.”

      “You did?”

      “Yeah. It means they can find the guy who snatched her. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”

      The pop of oil startled Cooper, but Peter didn’t flinch.

      “Yes, but it’s going to bring up a lot of bad blood.”

      “I’m tougher than I was when I was a teen, Coop.”

      Cooper waited. His brother had something to say.

      Peter slowly turned to face him. “Are you worried that I’ll be proven innocent?” Another hiss and pop from the hot oil. “Or guilty?”

      Cooper gaped. “You’re a piece of work to say that after I’ve stood by you since the moment it happened. I know you’ll be proven innocent.”

      “You’re a better brother than I deserve.”

      Something flickered across Peter’s face for a split second. In that tiny increment of time, Cooper’s soul quaked. “Peter, I know you didn’t do anything to Alice Walker and you’ve told the police everything about that day.”

      Peter looked away, fussing over the dinner.

      Peter was innocent.

      Wasn’t he?

      * * *

      Ruby sat bolt upright in bed. No sunlight peeked through a gap in the curtains yet. The thought that had niggled at her since she found the locket burst into her consciousness with crystal clarity. The clock read four-thirty. Her brother and father were still asleep, but she could not stow the idea churning through her mind a moment longer.

      Throwing on a pair of jeans and a thick sweater that had been a gift from Molly Pickford on Ruby’s high school graduation day, Ruby tiptoed into the kitchen, filled her thermos with coffee, snatched up her cell phone and tossed them both into a backpack before padding outside. She retrieved her hiking boots from the porch and laced them on. A thrill of fear rippled through her. Lester, if it really was him, was still at large somewhere, but she did not think he would brave the sanctuary property, and definitely not with the police on the lookout for him.

      Still, anxiety lingered in her veins, but she forced herself into action anyway. Her whole life had been steeped in fear that colored and shadowed every moment since Alice disappeared, and she was sick of it. Finally, it seemed, there was a chance to shed some light in that darkness, and she would not let the precious moment pass. She’d have to be certain before she told anyone else.

      Jacket zipped and cell phone clutched in her hand, she headed out. The sky was unclouded, which meant precisely nothing on the southern coast of Oregon. A lovely morning could morph into a rainy afternoon. Overhead the sounds of rustling birds reminded her that life was burgeoning again as spring meant babies for many species. Her precious bald eagles were tending to their young eaglets, the awkward fuzzy creatures not yet ready to fly. They needed constant attention, which they received from both the mother and father.

      An image of her mother rose in her mind, a photo she’d seen of an elegantly dressed, smiling woman holding court at a Hudson family Christmas party in their neat San Francisco Victorian. Ruby had no memories of her mother that weren’t secondhand stories told by her father or Mick. As a young child, she’d thought about those anecdotes, embroidered them in her mind, hoping to embed them so deep they would somehow become her own, but they hadn’t. Ruby had no imprint of her mother, like a bird abandoned just after hatching. If things had been different, and her mother had not succumbed to the cancer, would she have let Ruby go into the woods that day with Alice? Or might they never have come to Oregon at all, staying in San Francisco, amid the forest of eclectic buildings instead of the whispering pines?

      She had almost reached the tree when she heard footsteps running through the underbrush, moving fast, coming close. She slipped behind a screen of bushes, heart thudding. Thoughts of Josephine’s knife slicing into her flesh and Lester’s hot breath against her throat ratcheted her pulse even faster.

       Stay hidden. You’re safe.

      Not in these woods, her mind taunted.

       Not anywhere.

      Cooper burst into view, his sweatshirt damp with perspiration, moving fast and fluid as he churned along the path. The intensity in his face brought her to her feet, and before she thought it through she’d stepped out of her concealment.

      He jerked to a stop, breathing hard, sweat glistening on his face. “Ruby,” he panted. “What are you doing out here at this hour?”

      She wished now she’d stayed hidden. “I was, uh, checking on something. Do you always run before sunup?”

      He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Insomniac. It’s either run or watch countless hours of NBA basketball reruns.” He paused. “My brother’s home.”

      “Oh. I’m glad he made it.” The silence grew awkward between them. She wished he would say goodbye and move on, leave her to her mission. He didn’t, staying there with hands to his narrow waist, regarding her without his usual good-natured smile, which made her wonder.

      “I heard from the sheriff that there was no sign of the locket at the Walker’s house.”

      “Hmmm. That’s a setback. So what are you checking out then?”

      She sighed. No point in holding back. “I just wanted to see if my memory was accurate.” The pine needles under the tree were thick and fragrant as she knelt and sifted her fingers through the detritus.

      He took a knee next to her, uncomfortably close, heat emanating from his body. He didn’t say anything, which made her feel a pressing need to fill the silence.

      “When I found it, the necklace I mean, some debris from the nest fell down. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. The nest has been vacant for years. As the trees grew up around this one, it obscured the view, you see, and eagles don’t like to have their view obstructed so they found another location. The tree sort of became invisible until the others around it were cleared.”

      He let her babble, crouched down, one arm resting on his muscular thigh. When she ran out of