Page 66 of Mountains Divide Us

“I hope not, but I’m thinkin’ it probably did. If Burroughs is right and it was his mom who came with him to Ace’s House the first time he showed up there, where is she now?”

“What could’ve happened to her?”

“Maybe she abandoned him.” Maybe she was dead.

Samantha gasped. “Frank. Why would you say that?”

Why? ’Cause I knew all too well it was a possibility. “It happens,” was all I said.

“I really hope you’re wrong, but I’ll stay here tonight in case he comes back.”

“You will not.”

The obstinance in her eyes and the way she cocked her head was adorable. “Uh, yeah, I will.”

“Not alone, you won’t. Besides, if he knows someone’s here, he won’t show.”

She deflated a little when she realized I was right, her shoulders slumping and her lips twisting to one side. “Okay, so what do we do?”

I smiled, imagining another night in my truck with her. “You up for a stakeout?”

* * *

“Success!” she declared when she came rushing out of the Food Mart and hopped in my truck.

We’d closed up the library but left the upstairs windows unlocked. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to get to the second floor from the outside if they climbed the wooden trellis, where honeysuckle vines grew in the summer on the east side of the building. It led right to the conference room window.

She dug through a grocery tote filled with cholesterol-inducing goodies. “I got all the good stuff—Twizzlers, Reese’s Pieces, and I grabbed these all-natural fruit roll-up things to balance out our stakeout diet. Oh, and I picked up a six-pack of soda.”

“What’d you do, stick up the Food Mart?”

“Huh?”

“You came runnin’ out here pretty quick.” I laughed. “Like an outlaw.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Frank, I paid for our snacks.”

“Did you get Nerds?”

“Nerds?”

“You’ve never had Nerds? It’s candy.”

“Of course I’ve had them, but you like Nerds?” She shook her head, laughing and reaching for the door handle. “I can run back in and get some for you.”

I stopped her with my hand on her arm. “Thank you, but I was kiddin’. I don’t eat that junk anymore. And by soda, do you mean pop?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Soda, pop. Same thing. Then what do you eat when you go on a long drive or have to do one of these stakeouts?”

“Usually just bring water and fruit. Carrots. Couple sandwiches. Homemade venison jerky.” She made a disgusted face at the mention of venison jerky as she opened her package of licorice. “Besides, if we drink all that pop, we’ll have to leave our post for latrine breaks.”

“Oh, well, I wasn’t thinking about that.” She looked up. “Why are you so careful about what you eat?”

I shrugged and motioned to her candy and cans of carbonated liquid sugar. “Makes sense to me to give my body what it needs. Can’t you tell the difference when you eat something healthy compared to when you eat all that?”

“I don’t know. I guess not.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “You’re still young.”

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