Hazardous Homecoming. Dana Mentink

      He was unsure how to respond as she moved by and passed out of sight into the lobby.

      Ruby broke from his grasp. “My family had nothing to do with this,” she said, turning blazing eyes on his.

      He felt the flush of anger and pride. “And neither did mine. Feels rotten when someone thinks you’re a liar, doesn’t it?”

      He expected an acid response to match his own bitterness. Instead he saw her falter as the barb struck home. For a moment, he wished he could retract the words. No one escaped unscathed from that long-ago moment. No one.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was...”

      A shout from the receptionist interrupted his apology. Ruby and Cooper charged through the reception room and out the front door to find Josephine lying on the steps, eyes half-closed, Perry kneeling beside her.

      “She collapsed,” Perry said.

      The receptionist covered the phone with one hand. “I’ve got an ambulance en route.”

      Sheriff Pickford addressed the few passersby who had hastened to help while an officer tended to the fallen woman. “Ambulance is on its way. Let’s just give the lady some privacy.”

      “Isn’t that Josephine Walker?” The question came from a whip-thin woman dressed in jeans and a denim jacket. “I heard she found her daughter’s locket in the woods.”

      Pickford’s thick brows drew together. “News travels at Mach 2 around here. What of it, Ms. Bradford?”

      She flashed a smile. “You can call me Heather, Sheriff.”

      “I make it a practice to keep away from a first-name basis with reporters.”

      “Freelance writer.” Heather kept the smile.

      “Whatever.”

      “So it’s true that the locket was found? The one that belonged to the abducted girl?” she pressed.

      The ambulance made the turn onto the main road, lights flashing. Cooper thought a look of relief washed over Pickford. “No information now. Priority now is getting emergency medical help to Ms. Walker. I’ll need everyone to step back and let our medics do their jobs.”

      Cooper stayed at a distance. Mick and Perry bookended Ruby, standing like protective pillars on either side of her as Josephine was loaded into the ambulance. He wondered what was going through Ruby’s mind.

      Would the investigation stall until Josephine was released?

      And in the meantime, the locket, the clue to finally clearing Peter’s name, was hidden somewhere, unaccounted for.

      Heather was edging her way toward the Hudson family.

      Perry immediately steered Ruby to the car and bundled her inside, but before he closed himself in the driver’s seat he cast one look at the approaching reporter and Cooper saw something that surprised him on the older man’s face.

      Fear.

       THREE

      Ruby’s eyes burned as she tried to decipher her miniature writing in the tiny notebook. She should break down and get one of those fancy tablets or iPads for her notes, but the whole notion of trekking around the forest with a computer seemed ridiculous. So she sat in the closet-size office, a converted shed, truth be told, transcribing her notes and typing them into the ancient desktop computer. The space was cramped, to be sure, but the little shed was tucked in a stand of coniferous trees away from the main house, with a view of the soaring mountains behind and sheltered by massive boughs alive with birds and squirrels. The sounds of the forest night shift commenced in earnest as the sun sank behind the mountains, beginning with the Myotis bat that flickered past her window. There was no finer office anywhere on the planet, she was quite sure.

      She forced her mind back to the job at hand. Barn Owl pair 0907 and 0665 (Ted and Flossie) have chosen a nesting site in barn on northwest corner of the property. Her fingers paused as she pictured the stunning birds with the heart-shaped feathers framing fiercely intelligent eyes. Pride swelled inside her. It was a huge victory. She could not resist the self-indulgence. Ted had only been released on the sanctuary property three months before, after treatment at the avian hospital for an eye injury resulting from a pellet gun. Ted survived, thrived, found himself a mate and now if all went well, a little fuzzy family would begin their journey in the musty barn. It was another step toward the sanctuary goal of rebuilding a thriving community of wild birds.

      She sighed as she tapped in the information, wishing she had someone else to share it with who could appreciate the triumph. Her last “boyfriend,” if he could be called that, stuck around just long enough to land himself a job with the fire service.

      I’m just not a bird guy, he’d explained. That was an understatement. He grew increasingly more bored with her daily hikes to every forgotten corner of the sanctuary. And he couldn’t comprehend her sorrow when she discovered a dead red-tailed hawk that must have been shot by a trespasser. How could someone not grieve the sight of an elegant creature massacred in such a way? Feathers broken and bloodied, proud eyes dulled by death. It’s just a bird, Tony had said.

      Just a bird. But weren’t the littlest lives supposed to be worthy in God’s eyes?

       Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.

      But Alice had fallen, or been snatched, just a tiny bird with her whole life to live, and God had not so much as lifted a finger. Ruby remembered in vivid detail the day they’d gone out into the woods to play together. She’d been distracted by something, a feather caught in the root of the tree, and scurried to find it. When she turned to show Alice, she realized her playmate had vanished, as if she was a tiny sparrow snatched up by a raptor.

      Just a bird.

      Just a child from a poor family that never had a chance to fly.

      And her abduction had stripped something away from Ruby, too—her innocence, her ability to trust. Truth was, she’d never really shared with Tony the deep river of emotions that trundled along inside her. And at the heart of it, she’d been the tiniest bit relieved when he’d left. She swallowed. Perhaps the abduction also obliterated her ability to love anyone but her family.

      “So where were you, God?” she asked the cracked ceiling tiles, “when Alice was taken?”

      She looked at the clock again. Ten hours had passed since their meeting with the sheriff, and it was now nearly nine. Almost sundown and no word on Josephine or the investigation.

      Had Sheriff Pickford retrieved the locket? Her stomach tensed. Maybe, at long last, they would know what happened to Alice. And what would it mean for Cooper? Exoneration for his brother? Or perhaps it would be the final proof that Peter had indeed been guilty all those long years ago. She pictured Cooper, shoulders braced, mouth set in a firm, determined line. He would be forced to acknowledge the truth. It should thrill her, but she found it only made her stomach knot a little tighter.

      Pine needles crunched outside. She froze. Why had she stayed so late in the office? She took her phone out of her pocket. A quick text, and Mick or her father would be there in a flash.

      Ruby, you’ve got to stop depending on them to keep you safe. Still, she clutched the phone and crept to the front window. There were so many thick trunks available for hiding places, so many shadows offering dark pools of concealment. She eased aside the worn white fabric that served as a curtain.

      Knuckles rapped on the door, and she leaped backward, heart in her throat.

      “Ruby?”

      With a gusty sigh, she put down the phone and opened the door for Cooper. “You scared me.”

      “Sorry.” He shoved his hands into the pockets