Hazardous Homecoming. Dana Mentink

likeable guy.” He offered a grin that set off the sparkle in his eyes. “Your brother has a tendency to put me in a headlock when we share airspace.”

      “He’s a little overprotective. Former marine, you know.”

      “Yeah. Reassuring to know he’s highly trained in ways to kill me. Anyway, I had a call from Heather Bradford. She wanted to talk about Peter and what happened. An interview is what she was really after, I think.”

      A painful fluttering began in Ruby’s stomach. “I see. I heard she’s been working on a story. It’s why she came to Silver Peak, I think. Josephine mentioned something a few weeks ago about Heather, but I thought she was rambling. I think Heather’s been dredging it all up for a ‘twentieth anniversary of the disappearance’ type of story.” It was all flooding in again, still every bit as fresh and raw, as if the decades in between did not matter in the least. “Did you talk to her?”

      “No.”

      Ruby started. “You didn’t? Why not?”

      “Dunno.” He looked away at a lark that flitted in the branches from one twig to the next. A slight smile curled his lips as he contemplated the little bird. “I guess...” He sighed. “I know this situation is hard on everyone involved. I don’t want to do anything careless that will deepen wounds.”

      “Pretty mature,” she said.

      “Yeah, not so much. Still a work in progress. Ten years ago I would have unleashed some serious venom to anyone who would listen, but these days...” He shook his head. “I need to think and pray about it before I talk to her.”

      To think and pray about it. The setting sun darkened his hair and painted the strong planes of his face.

      She realized he was staring at her, waiting, perhaps for a response. “That sounds good. Certainly it’s the smart thing to do, to be cautious.” The weight of his green-gold gaze made her breath quicken. Her phone rang, and she snatched it up, gesturing for Cooper to step inside the crowded space as she answered. “Hello?”

      “Ruby, I wanted to let you know that Josephine has had a stroke of some kind. She’ll be in the hospital awhile, and she’s unresponsive at the moment,” Pickford told her.

      “Will you go find the necklace anyway?” The words tumbled out before she thought them through.

      He paused. “I’m going to give it a day. If she isn’t coherent tomorrow, I’ll get a search warrant and take a look.”

      “Tomorrow?” Ruby groaned.

      “She said her husband was coming back. We’ll keep an eye out and if he arrives, he’ll let us in to look, I’m sure, or hand it over himself.”

      “But Sheriff, this is so important and Lester wasn’t, um, stable. He might have been involved, all those years ago.”

      “There was never one shred of evidence to make us believe Lester did anything to his daughter.”

      “But, if anything happens to that locket...”

      His tone hardened into stone. “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Ruby. I’m the man in charge here, not the Hudsons.” He sighed. “She’s been through a parent’s worst nightmare, and I know it’s damaged her and Lester. She lost more than anyone, and her wish is to wait for her husband. I’m going to honor that, at least for twenty-four hours. I hope you can live with it.”

      It was clear. Whether she could live with it or not, that was the way Sheriff Pickford was going to proceed. She thanked him and disconnected before filling Cooper in. He listened, rolled his wide shoulders and let out a sigh.

      “I’m becoming a pro at waiting around. Peter’s been off somewhere. I haven’t even seen him.” She caught the flash of worry in his eyes.

      “How long will you stay in town?”

      “I’m taking a week of vacation, but I’ll be in the area for a while. Doing some work for the national park.”

      “What kind of work?”

      “Logging borer beetle damage. I’m a botanist with the Forest Service.”

      She giggled.

      “Something funny about that?”

      She pressed hand to her lips. “I just remember when you were a kid, you picked all kinds of wildflowers even when I ordered you not to.”

      He grinned. “I gave you one, didn’t I? When I asked you out on a date.”

      “Yes, but I refused to be placated by your paltry blossom.”

      “The rest were for my mom.”

      “How is your mother?”

      “Lives at her sister’s place in New Mexico. Peter stayed with her for a while over the years when he flirted with sobriety. Together we managed to pay for two stints in rehab.” His voice grew soft. “It’s not easy for her to see him like that.”

      Ruby felt shamed that she had never taken the time to wonder what had become of Mrs. Stokes after she moved away with Peter and Cooper following Alice’s disappearance. They were the polite neighbors, a single mother with two boys who would wander onto the sanctuary property and explore it every chance they got. Ruby’s father had never shooed them away and sometimes he’d even paid Peter to help out with some brush clearing. She suspected that he understood how hard it was to be a single parent, since he’d walked the same road after he lost his own wife to ovarian cancer when Ruby was a baby.

      “Well,” he said, turning to go. “I’d better get back in case my errant brother shows up. May I walk you back to your house?”

      She hesitated only a moment. “Yes, thank you.”

      He stepped out on the porch and inhaled deeply. “This is my favorite time of day, my brother Peter’s, too.”

      The words splintered the fragile pleasantries. Evening rose between them, swallowing up the waning daylight.

      * * *

      Cooper ground his teeth. Ruby was charming and lovely, but how could he have forgotten for a moment that the woman walking along beside him had accused his brother of child abduction, saddled Peter with an onerous sentence that would weigh down his soul with endless sorrow?

      Ruby said Peter was in the woods that day and she saw him there, crouching behind the bushes, watching them. Peter maintained he was not anywhere near the two girls the morning Alice disappeared. So who was telling the truth? A five-year-old girl who had seen Peter many times in those very woods? Or Peter, a fifteen-year-old boy who was supposed to be sweeping floors at the lumber mill but hadn’t shown up for work that day?

      Ruby was just a child at the time, like Alice, he reminded himself.

      But Peter was just a kid, too.

      He slowed his pace and allowed Ruby to catch up while he breathed in the comfort of the forest, letting it soothe the angry thoughts away. Though he was loathe to do it, he forced some conversation to ease the distance he’d created between them. “The Umatilla National Park, where I work when I’m not on loan here, is thinking of thinning a stand of ponderosa pines to open up the canopy a bit. I’ve been doing the botanical surveys.”

      Ruby nodded. “Find anything interesting?”

      “A new species of wild carrot,” he said, glancing at her sideways. “You actually look interested. Most people put me into the crazy-plant-guy category when I tell them about the carrots.”

      She sighed. “I’m in the crazy-bird-gal category so I guess I can sympathize. I wish I could explain it better to folks. It’s just that everything here makes sense, you know? Things live and die, sometimes so quietly we never even know they existed.”

      He took her hand when she stumbled over a twisted log crossing the path. Instinct, he told himself, though he could not explain why her touch made