Hazardous Homecoming

“Thank you,” she managed. “For helping me in the woods.”

He gave her a courtly bow. “Anything for a damsel in distress.”

Even a damsel you believe destroyed your brother?

Mick grabbed his cell phone. “I’ll call dad on the way.”

“Your father’s still a private eye?” Cooper asked, arms folded as he slouched against the doorframe.

“Retired,” Mick said with no further explanation.

Ruby thought it might be an opening to restore a more civil relationship between them. Whatever he thought of her, Cooper had gone out of his way to help. “Your brother...is he...okay now? I know he’s living in the cabin.”

“Sober, at the moment, and he’s got a small job of some kind. Always wanted to be a firefighter, but they don’t welcome people with his history into that line of work.”

Ruby felt her stomach tighten. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” he said, watching as Mick led Ruby out the door and to the car.

* * *

Cooper would not reveal it for a king’s treasure, but he was reeling inside from the shock as he drove his pickup into town, sick with fear that the Alice Walker incident was abruptly springing back to life. He’d come back to make sure Peter had a home again, that he’d permanently given up living in a car or on the streets. What strange twist of circumstance was it that the whole sordid past should be ripped open now, like a poorly healed wound?

God, I thought you were on this? That the past was finished and done with? He and Peter had worked so hard to let go of what lay behind them and press toward the future. Wasn’t that what it said in Philippians 3? He felt the old familiar stir of anger, the one he’d fought all his life to crush. He’d decided to read those words, in the tattered Bible left by his father before he’d died in a wreck before Alice was taken. Years later as a twenty year old, he’d eventually listened to a friend and mentor who had encouraged him into a small group where he fit in like a snowman in the Sahara. Slowly, slowly, the peace and comfort in that old book was seeping into his soul, but sometimes there were moments when it seemed too hard to hold on to in a world where there was seemingly no justice or peace.

He arrived at the sheriff’s office a minute after Ruby and her brother did. They sat in a depressing wood-paneled room that had not changed since the fifties when Cooper guessed it had first been constructed. Sheriff Wallace Pickford was a big man with strong shoulders and the weathered skin of a person who spent time outside and liked it.

Pickford turned on an iPad that looked ridiculously small under his massive paws. Nonetheless, he opened a file with amazing speed considering he was only using his pointer fingers to type.

Pickford fixed a heavy stare at Ruby. “Mick says you’re stubbornly refusing to go to the hospital. Do I have that right?”

Ruby’s cheeks pinked, her coloring like a china doll Cooper’s grandmother used to own. “We have to get the locket from Josephine. It might tell us what happened to Alice.”

Pickford’s eyes drifted to Cooper. “Hello, Mr. Stokes. You’re back. Joining your brother?”

“Temporarily,” Cooper said.

“Hmm. Bad time for both you boys to be back in town,” Pickford said, fingers poised above the keys.

“Why shouldn’t we be here?” Cooper said. “It’s our property, and Peter hasn’t done anything. He’s got a right to live here and so do I.”

Pickford shrugged. “Just thinking the climate might not be good, since the Alice Walker case just officially reopened.”

Cooper was about to tell the sheriff exactly what he thought of the climate, when a silver-haired, mustached man entered. Perry Hudson. Ruby’s father was probably nearing sixty, if Cooper remembered correctly, but his shoulders were still square and his body trim and athletic.

Pickford’s mouth tightened.

“Mick told me over the phone,” Perry said, rushing to Ruby and assuring himself that she was unharmed. He raised an eyebrow at Cooper. “I think I owe you a thank-you for helping my daughter.”

Cooper allowed his hand to be shaken. “Surprised you started with a thank-you.”

Perry frowned. “I know we’ve got bad blood between us...”

“Because you tried to prove my brother kidnapped Alice Walker.” Ruby flinched at his tone, but he didn’t let it slow him. No more kid gloves. If Peter was going to claim any chance at a future, it was up to Cooper to lay the groundwork. Cooper’s “live and let live” philosophy would not serve here.

“I investigated your brother,” Perry said calmly, “because he was the likeliest suspect and he was in the proximity at the time.”

“Which doesn’t make him guilty. And your son Mick was close in age to Peter and in the same proximity.”

Mick glared and started to answer, but Pickford cut him off.

“That’s why we checked him out, too, as well as investigating Lester Walker,” Pickford said. “Can we get on with the matter at hand? My wife has a pot of chili on the stove.” He flicked a glance at Perry. “You know how good Molly’s chili is, don’t you Perry?”

Perry stared at him. “Yes.”

Cooper didn’t understand the subtext of whatever was going on between Pickford and Ruby’s father. Hostility? Distrust?

Ruby detailed the encounter with Josephine Walker. “So we have to get that locket.”

“All right,” Pickford said, grabbing his radio. “Let’s just go do that.”

They did not make it farther than the front counter before the door banged open. Josephine clumped in, a shocked silence burying them all for a moment at her wild-eyed stare, her dress bunched and knotted, dirty hem dragging on the floor.

Pickford recovered first. “Mrs. Walker. Come into my office. We were just making plans to go see you.” They returned to the back and he continued. “Ruby said you’ve got a locket. I’ll need to have a look at that.”

“He’s coming back,” she said. “He called me a few minutes ago to tell me so.”

“Who has, ma’am?”

“My husband.”

Cooper tried not to look disbelieving, but he knew Lester Walker had taken to acting strangely, convinced that the Hudsons or Peter knew something they weren’t telling about his daughter’s abduction. Days after Alice’s abduction, he’d disappeared, too, though the police had no evidence to suggest he’d done anything to his daughter and had not even been in the county when she was snatched. Indeed the man was grief stricken, according to accounts that Cooper had heard. Lester hadn’t been seen since, that Cooper was aware of.

Pickford fiddled with the three-hole punch on his desk. “Your husband is coming back, ma’am? Mr. Walker?”

She nodded, a smile of satisfaction pulling at her thin lips. “Yes, and he’ll make sure my baby is found.” Her eyes slid to Ruby. “You’re going to pay now. For what you did.”

“She did nothing,” Mr. Hudson said.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Walker singsonged. “Oh, yes.”

Cooper saw delicate patches of color deepen on Ruby’s cheeks.

“I did not hurt Alice, Mrs. Walker. She was my friend, and I’ve grieved every day since she disappeared.” Her voice hitched, and she cleared her throat. “You need to give Sheriff Pickford the locket so he can have it DNA tested.”

She glared at Ruby. “It’s at home. My husband is on his way to get it. He told me when he called.”

The chief held up his hands to soothe her. “All right. We’ll just call your husband to talk it over. Okay? What’s the number?”

“He doesn’t have a cell phone. He called from a pay phone on his way to our house. He must have felt deep in his soul what was happening with our Alice, and he called just at the time we needed him the most. I told him about the locket.”

“We’ll go talk to him in person, then, at your place.”

“That’s a good idea, before anything happens to the locket.” Ruby strode to the door.

“Not to be rude at all, Ruby, but this is a police matter now. You’re not to tag along.” The sheriff shot a glance at Perry. “Or any of the clan.”

Cooper knew he was included in the directive, as well. Stay away. Let the police handle it. The last time he’d trusted the police to handle things, his brother had been brought in for questioning, turned into the object of hatred by the whole town. He wasn’t going to intrude on an investigation, but he was not going to be the mild-mannered bystander either.

Ruby’s expression was a blend of anger, determination and exasperation. He was struck by the fact that as much as he did not have fond feelings for the Hudson family, he could not deny that it was hard to tear his eyes away from Ruby. Her hair was the kind of rusty red found in autumn leaves, skin creamy and porcelain, but she was certainly not fragile. Ruby was dainty and graceful, but he knew there was steel running along her spine.

“He’s right. Let’s take you to the doctor and see to your injury,” Perry said.

Pickford focused again on Josephine. “You’re very fortunate that Ruby wasn’t injured badly and isn’t pressing charges, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take action if I believe you’re intending to hurt someone. I’m going to insist you go speak to one of the doctors at the hospital right now.”

Josephine frowned.

“Let’s have you all wait outside for just a minute,” Pickford said. “I need to make a phone call.”

Mick was already heading to the door, looking relieved that he’d been sprung from the tiny, crowded room.

Perry thanked the sheriff and nodded to Cooper before he exited, as well.

Considering the Hudsons were low on the list of his favorite families, he could not explain why he took a step toward Ruby when Josephine walked by. Maybe it was the memory of Josephine standing over her, triumphant. Or the feeling that something about Lester’s well-timed phone call felt wrong, like the scream of a chain saw cutting through a silent forest morning.

Josephine surged close and Ruby backed into Cooper’s steadying arms.

“Now you’re going to get what’s coming to you,” Josephine said, her breath stirring the hair around Ruby’s face, one side of her mouth drooping slightly. “You’ll be punished, just like you should have been all those years ago for hiding the truth about what happened to my girl.”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed and went pale as milk. He tightened his sideways embrace. “Accusations can ruin people, Mrs. Walker.”

She peered at him. “Peter and the Hudsons. Both of them worked together to ruin my life. Lester said it was a conspiracy all along. But no more. Now it’s time to pay.”

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 of his jeans. “Got some info. I should have left it with your brother and dad at the main house but...”

“But you don’t like them.”

“And they don’t like me, which is odd, because I’m a hugely 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?