“So just tick lines along the route with final X’s?”
“You got it.”
“I can do that.”
He appreciated her confidence. “Just to warn you, it’s not as easy as you might think after we’ve been walking for a while. You’ll be watching for obstacles in your path, holding tree branches aside, keeping an eye on the dogs, getting distracted by wildlife and poison ivy. It’s not a simple task being on a search. If you find your attention drifting, speak up. We’ll take a ten-minute break, drink some water. I can’t monitor the dogs, watch where I’m going myself, and correctly judge how you’re doing.”
Grace smiled. “I won’t be a wimp-I’ll speak up.”
“Good. What did you bring for food?”
“Sandwiches. Peanut butter and jelly.”
“Nice. I’ll take one to get started.”
Grace walked back to the truck and the cooler, and he used the time to send a text to Ann, letting her know they were starting. He had a gut feeling the Dayton child was going to be found near the house, or at a location the uncle could easily see, rather than in an obscure corner of the woods. If his fervent prayer was answered, they’d locate the little girl’s body in the first few days, and Grace’s parents-if they were here-within days after that.
He could keep Grace occupied while they searched the fields and woods, but he’d already seen her quick glances toward the house. He wanted it out of their sight just as rapidly as he could make that happen.
He slid his phone back in his pocket, took the sandwich she offered, smiled his thanks. “Ready?” He whistled for the dogs. “Let’s cover some ground.”
He called out the search-forward command again, using the clothesline post to steer a straight course. He watched Grace make the starting X on the map, nodded his approval, and set his pace to one comfortable for her. The dogs would surge ahead in the first twenty minutes, overeager to be on the job, but would settle back to a more normal pace after they were on task for a while.
Ten minutes into the walk, one of the dogs dropped to the ground. The other ran over to check it out, dropping immediately to the ground as well. Josh planted a flag, handed out treats and praise, gave the search-forward command again. He caught the motion as Grace sniffed, wiped her eyes. He dug out a package of tissues he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket, offered them to her.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “Probably just my cat. I had a few burial ceremonies out here.”
He reached over to lightly touch her hand. “I do this for a living, Grace. If you can agree with me that you should be curled up on that couch in the motor home or at Evie’s while this gets done by a couple of the Thane brothers, I’m not going to think less of you for it.”
“I can’t, Josh. I can’t leave this question for others.”
“Did you look for them… your parents, when you lived here?”
“Not consciously, no.”
“Good. You were way too young to be doing it then.”
She reached for his hand in return, squeezed it and let go. He directed the dogs to the left. At least once their painful search was done, it would be over one way or another, and she wouldn’t have to think about this property any longer.
Before long, the dogs dropped to the ground again, and Josh set another flag marking the spot.
Evie Blackwell
The Florist family crime wall was holding any further secrets to itself. Evie rolled her shoulders, thought about pacing a while. She glanced over at her friend, wondering how long to let the silence go before she interrupted. “You okay, Ann?”
“Just tired.”
Evie pushed the last of the breadsticks her way, since Ann hadn’t eaten much of her spaghetti. “Did you call Paul?”
She nodded. “One of the better things about being married, Evie, is that there’s always someone to call on bad days.” Ann picked up the last breadstick, but just nibbled at it.
“We could go out to the farm, search with Grace and Josh.”
Ann shook her head. “Tonight is soon enough. Grace has two ways of coping: bury it inside and do the work in front of her, and the more chaotic kind of coping where she relaxes her guard and the memories come roaring back. The evenings are by far the hardest for Grace. She’ll take some company tonight-the kind who don’t feel the need to talk, who can just hang out.”
Evie nodded. “That’s the kind of friend I can be, if she’ll let me.” She looked at the case wall once more but couldn’t generate further interest in it. “I could be out there helping with the flags…”
“No,” Ann said, “the guys are better at the shovel work. They’ll recognize animal remains at a glance, while you and I would have to take a photo and ask an expert for an opinion. Besides, you can’t be two places at once, and the Florist case desperately needs solving. What are you doing now? I’ll help. It’ll give me something else to think about.”
“The Florist family finances,” she replied. “Their banker relative thinks money’s missing from the estate.”
Ann pointed to the open files. “Send some of them my way. I can give myself a new kind of headache thinking about money.”
Evie passed over the checkbook registry pages. “I’m trying to figure out how they might have siphoned money to cash without it being obvious.”
“How far back? The month they disappeared? The year it happened?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know which of them was doing it or why. I’m not reading this as a couple heading to a divorce, one of them secretly stashing away funds. And I don’t think we’ve got someone who was simply a worrier, setting aside a rainy-day fund. But the banker’s pretty insistent that the estate’s assets are lighter than they should have been. So maybe it’s there, like the counseling was there, hidden away behind other items.”
Ann started going through the papers in front of her. “How would you siphon cash from your own income, be able to hide it for any length of time?” she asked idly.
Evie had to think about it. “I shop at a number of flea markets. I could make it look as though I paid more for something than I did, then pocket the cash difference.”
“Small amounts, but do that often enough, it adds up,” Ann agreed. “Or stop buying that five-dollar cup of coffee every morning and pocket a thousand dollars in a year. I suppose there are dozens of ways to come up with cash. Which one of them handled the family finances, paid the bills?”
“Susan did. Her bank job suggests she liked numbers and was good at accounting.”
“Start with her. Things she bought for herself, not Joe or Scott.”
Evie pulled over files she’d pored over the day before, but it was like trying to walk through setting concrete. Her mind wasn’t absorbing any of the details. After thirty minutes, she shook her head. “We’d be better off going to see a movie this afternoon, clear Grace out of our heads.”
“I’d like to simply go cry,” Ann said. “Are there any good teary movies playing right now?”
One of the numbers on Gabriel’s phone list was a movie theater in town. Evie pulled out her phone. “You want to go see Mrs. Rushville? PG-13, and reviews say it’s guaranteed to make you cry. Let’s see… it starts in twenty minutes.”
Ann pushed away the file. “I’ll need Milk Duds or something to go with it.”
Evie smiled. “I can deliver on that. Come on, I’ll drive.”
“I’m going to freeze in that car of yours.”
“It’s got a heater that could melt a glacier. You’ll be fine.”
Evie sent a text to Gabriel that she and Ann would be at the movies, hoped he wouldn’t think it entirely frivolous. “You want to split a large popcorn too?”
“Sure. Maybe I’ll eat more of it than the lunch.”
Evie nodded. She was on vacation. She wasn’t going to feel guilty for helping a friend. If ever someone needed a break, it was Ann. And I wouldn’t mind one either, she thought as they climbed into the convertible.