LITMIR.BIZ

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along one of the wildlife trails that intersected the lane. Her hand patted her chest in a long-familiar gesture—Aunt Pearl had claimed heart palpitations for as long as Noelle could remember. The family affectionately accused her of using sympathy to get what she wanted. She never denied it. Aunt Pearl could always charm people into giving in to her, and when she couldn’t charm them, she pulled rank—though Cecil and Jill had incorporated the business to save on taxes, Pearl owned the property and everything on it. It had passed to her through the Cooper family trust.

      Pearl’s iron-gray hair stuck out in haphazard tufts, straggling over her forehead to frame deep-blue eyes—Cooper eyes that saw more, sometimes, than one wanted them to see. She seldom wore anything other than jeans and old plaid flannel shirts, even in summer, and now she had the legs of her jeans tucked into a pair of well-used hiking shoes—she’d been the one to teach Noelle this practical trick for warding off tiny, biting varmints.

      “Can’t swear to it,” she said as she neared them, “but I think the geese running free and the pennyroyal I planted did the trick. No ticks in the yard or this part of the woods all summer. Of course, you’ve gotta watch close or you’ll be ankle-deep in goose poop, but it’s better than ticks, to my notion. The backwoods are another problem, though. That where you’re headed?” Without pausing, she grabbed Noelle in a fierce hug, wrapping her in the pungent aroma of rosemary that always clung to Pearl from her herb garden.

      Noelle’s great-aunt Pearl lived in the same house she’d been born in, a sturdy, sprawling rock dwelling that had changed little since it had been built in the early nineteen-hundreds. For as long as anyone in the area could remember, Pearl Cooper had gathered herbs and made her old-time medicines, distributing them to anyone who needed them. She’d protested loudly when the general store in Hideaway had opened a pharmacy, and she’d been only slightly mollified when she discovered Nathan would be the pharmacist.

      “Good to see you, girl,” she said to Noelle now. “I’ve been expecting you. Come to search for Carissa?”

      “Yes, but I don’t know what I’ll find that others haven’t.” Noelle gave Nathan a look of caution over Pearl’s shoulder, and was reassured by his small nod of understanding.

      “I thought since Carissa and Noelle are such good friends,” Nathan said, “that Noelle might have some fresh insight.”

      Pearl was frowning when she stepped back from Noelle’s embrace. “All those searchers probably turned up the same rocks and looked behind the same trees two or three times. Seems this holler’s been scoured from top to bottom and end to end. If she’s any where near here, a feller’d think we’d’ve found something.”

      “It seems that way, Aunt Pearl,” Noelle said. “You haven’t seen any strangers hanging around out on the property lately, have you?”

      Pearl shook her head. “There’s strangers and tourists swelling the town to three or four times its normal size, but nobody ever wanders this far from the fun.”

      Noelle nodded. It was unlikely that any stranger would have ventured this far into the wilderness on the off chance of happening across a twelve-year-old girl to abduct in the dead of night—if Carissa had been abducted. Noelle prayed it wasn’t so, but she couldn’t dismiss the conviction—Nathan might call it a message from God—that someone with sinister motives was involved in Carissa’s disappearance.

      Pearl gestured with a loose-jointed shrug. “Seems like the loggers, mill workers and farmhands are here all the time.” She hesitated, her eyes narrowing at Noelle. “Did you hear about poor Harvey Sand? Died from that fall he took last week. I heard tell Greg’s investigating foul play there.”

      Noelle shifted impatiently. Pearl could be a talker when she was in the mood, and this wasn’t the time to stand around making idle conversation.

      “I don’t know what’s come of Hideaway lately,” Pearl continued, “what with all the new folks moving in and taking over. Mind you, there was no love lost between Harvey and me—heaven knows we went round and round about the price he charged for a couple hours of work every month—but the guy was just a kid, still in his forties. Such a tragic loss.” She shook her head. “That new secretary of his had all our files delivered to the shop at the sawmill on Monday. Can you believe it? Fifteen years’ worth of tax records she just dumped on us, without even offering to help us find another accountant.”

      Noelle rubbed her tightening neck muscles and rolled her shoulders.

      Pearl noticed at last. She patted Noelle on the shoulder and nodded at Nathan. “You two can look as far and as long as you want. I’m going back out myself after I rest up a bit and give my heart some time to catch up with the rest of me. Melva should be back to the house by now after her latest foray into the woods.” She grunted. “Surprised me to see her scrambling through brush so much. She’s not exactly the outdoorsy type, if you know what I mean.”

      “Aunt Pearl, give Melva a break.” Noelle kept her chiding voice gentle. Sparks had flown between Pearl and Melva in the past—Melva had taken over the bookkeeping for Cooper Enterprises from Pearl several years ago, and Pearl was not an easy person to please when it came to the family business. “She loves Carissa. I hope you’ve been nice to her.”

      “I’ve been nice as I had to be,” Pearl replied grumpily. “Guess you know Jill’s here, too. She’s been searchin’ all night. We all have. I told her to take a break.”

      “Thanks, Pearl.” Nathan took Noelle’s arm and stepped along the road. “We’re headed in that direction, so we might see them.”

      “When all this craziness settles down,” Pearl called after them, once more tapping her fingers against her chest, as if the rhythm of her heart would regulate better that way, “you come by my house for some iced sassafras tea. Been too long since we visited last, Noelle.”

      “I know, Aunt Pearl. I will.” Noelle fell into step beside Nathan. Pearl returned to the trail through the trees, taking the shortcut to her own house nestled at the foot of the hills that formed Cedar Hollow.

      “I should get down here more often,” Noelle said. “Last time I saw Aunt Pearl was at Jill’s a few months ago. I haven’t been to the hollow for a couple of years.”

      “Why is that?” Nathan asked.

      “Too busy, I guess.” She broke off a twig from a nearby branch and rubbed it between her fingers, deep in thought.

      “Or still avoiding it for some reason?”

      “Could be. Pearl implied she thought I was still stuck in the past.”

      “I disagree,” Nathan said. “You wallow in guilt over the past, but I don’t think you’re stuck there.”

      Noelle gave him a look of aggravation.

      “So what did she say?” he asked.

      “She said, ‘Noelle, you’ve got a lot goin’ for you now, kiddo. Just keep on lookin’ forward, and don’t look back so much. The past can’t hurt us if we stay away from it.’”

      Nathan walked beside her in silence. The crunch of their boots against gravel matched, as if they were marching in cadence toward the house where Cecil and Melva lived with Cecil’s children, seventeen-year-old Justin and twelve-year-old Carissa.

      Whenever Noelle returned to this hollow, she felt as if she were stepping back in time. She also felt as if she were returning to old, dysfunctional family dynamics. Maybe, deep down, she feared she would once again become the rebellious teenager who’d made so many wrong choices. She knew better, of course. She had a tendency to be oversensitive.

      Pearl was right. The past couldn’t hurt her if she stayed away from it.

      She navigated around a puddle the circumference of a small car, in which the mud had been churned up into a slick mess with tire tracks. Obviously, there had been dozens of cars in and out of this place since last night, and Noelle glimpsed several vehicles still parked out in the cleared hayfield behind the

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