LITMIR.BIZ

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cruisers, all splattered with mud.

      “I don’t suppose there was a chance to check for strange footprints before the searchers arrived?” she asked, gesturing toward the mud puddle.

      “The police looked, but they found nothing out of the ordinary.” Nathan skirted the puddle on the other side. “Cecil needs to get some gravel in here before someone loses a car.”

      Noelle’s steps slowed as they drew near the white picket fence that encircled the house and yard. There was a rumble of growls, and two black and white Australian sheepdogs came running from the backyard, barking as if a herd of cattle had suddenly descended on them.

      Noelle groaned. “Just great. I’d hoped to slip past the house without stopping.”

      “Not with Butch and Sundance on high alert. You haven’t been around often enough for them to be familiar with your scent or the sound of your voice. They only bark at strangers.”

      “We can visit later, after we’ve found Carissa.”

      Nathan tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up at him. “Relax, grumpy. It’ll only take a few minutes. Your family needs you.”

      “Sorry,” she muttered.

      The racket of the dogs set off the geese at the pond below the house, and the honking commenced.

      Noelle gave Nathan a look of exasperation. “And I thought we’d sneak in? What could I have been thinking?”

      He grinned at her.

      “Speaking of dogs, is the search-and-rescue unit bringing any search dogs in?” she asked.

      “They’ve got three already out in the field, more on the way, but the ones they’ve got are new, not very experienced.”

      They reached the white fence that circled the yard around a big, two-story white house. The dogs finally recognized her, and their barking turned to excited whines of welcome. Noelle reached through the slats of fence to pet the animals and quiet them.

      The front screen door opened, and Jill, eight years older than Noelle, stepped out onto the broad concrete porch. Jill was a couple of inches taller than Noelle, with stronger features and a more voluptuous figure—and a familiar, piercing blue gaze.

      “Noelle Cooper, what on earth?”

      “Hi, sis.”

      Jill glanced at Nathan, disapproval—annoyance? irritation?—sharpening her gaze.

      “I came to help search.” Noelle followed Nathan through the front gate and braced herself for the rambunctious dogs as they leapt forward in welcome. “Any more word about Carissa?”

      Jill shook her head, shading her eyes from the warm October sun. Her thick brown brows almost met in the middle as she squinted, and Noelle noticed the shadows of fatigue around Jill’s eyes as she stepped into her sister’s tight embrace.

      Jill held her for a long moment. “This is like a nightmare, sis. I didn’t want to drag you down here. You’ve already got so much on your plate right now.”

      “I didn’t come down here to cause you worry, I came to help with the search.”

      Unfamiliar voices spilled from the house as Jill released Noelle. The aroma of frying bacon drifted through the screen door. Apparently some of the weary searchers were taking a much-needed break.

      “So tell me,” Noelle said, “what have they found?”

      “One of the sheriff’s deputies found fresh horseshoe prints in the mud at the edge of the lane,” Jill said.

      “Maybe one of the horses jumped the fence,” Nathan said.

      “None of the horses are even on the front forty right now,” Jill said. “They’re pastured half a mile in the other direction. That means someone may have come onto the property last night, because we had a lot of rain yesterday, and the print would’ve been washed away if they’d come earlier.”

      “Surely they can’t think someone carried Carissa away by horse,” Nathan exclaimed.

      “Can you think of a better way to carry someone through miles of wilderness trails without making a lot of noise?” Jill asked. “The fact that the dogs haven’t found Carissa yet probably means she was taken elsewhere, and it’s unlikely she walked there herself. They could have followed her scent.”

      “What else did the searchers find?” Noelle asked.

      Jill closed her eyes for half a second, then opened them and held Noelle’s gaze. Sorrowful. Suddenly gentle. “Taylor Jackson, one of the rangers, he found blood on the sawmill floor. Looks like someone was injured.”

      “Maybe one of the employees was injured yesterday,” Noelle said.

      “Taylor asked all of them, and no one was.”

      “Okay, but that doesn’t automatically mean it was Carissa,” Noelle said.

      “We’ll find out before long.” Jill lifted her hair from her neck and stretched her muscles. “I know we can’t go jumping to conclusions.” She said the words quickly, as if she’d been repeating them over and over to the others. “We can’t let ourselves get discouraged and stop searching.”

      “Speaking of which,” Noelle said, “that’s what I came here to do. I’d better get to it.”

      “Okay, but first will you let Melva know you’re here?” Jill asked. “She’s been wanting to call you since last night—as if one more person searching would make any difference.” The lines around Jill’s shadowed blue eyes deepened with concern. She touched Noelle’s shoulder. “You okay?”

      “I’m fine. I just wish you’d called me last night.”

      “We kept thinking we’d find her quickly. I didn’t want to upset you over nothing.” Jill frowned and pushed at her short brown hair—which had grown out a couple of inches, and no longer resembled a hard hat as much as it did a lion’s mane. “Cecil’s still blaming himself for sending her out for the ledger. Silly, I know, but I’ve struggled with the same problem. We let her go out there after dark.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous,” Noelle said. “Nathan told me she was going out there anyway. She’s twelve years old, not a little child. Where were you when she disappeared?”

      “I’d gone up to our old house to find some other ledgers upstairs.” Jill glanced over her shoulder through the screen door, lowering her voice. “We’ve been entering this year’s records on computer and trying to justify them with the records from the accountant—you knew he died, didn’t you? Anyway, there’s a discrepancy of fifteen thousand dollars, and we can’t seem to find it. That’s why we asked Carissa to get the ledger from the office at the sawmill. Turns out she had the wrong one, anyway. It was from ten years ago.”

      “I’ll go have a word with Melva, then hit the trail.” Noelle gave her sister’s shoulder another squeeze, then opened the screen door and stepped inside.

      Nathan leaned against the porch railing, arms folded across his chest in an automatic gesture of self-protection as he watched Jill pace the length of the porch. The chilled morning air hung heavy and thick in the sunlight that gleamed on her dark hair.

      “You didn’t tell me you were going to get Noelle,” she said at last.

      He glanced toward the Coopers’ open front door. “I wasn’t sure she could get away from the store, but I felt she needed to know about Carissa.”

      Jill’s boots made little noise on the concrete porch. She turned to face Nathan across the half width of the house. “I had reasons for not wanting her here. She had a bad time right after the accident.”

      “Of course she did. The whole family did. Why single out Noelle?” Nathan had to struggle to keep his voice low. “She’s a grown woman, and she needs to be treated

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