Page 56 of Shelter for Tanna

“Nah. I can’t remember that. But I’m thinking it was way on out there.”

“Define ‘way on out there,’” Braden barked, feeling as though he’d totally lose his shit at any moment.

“Uh, like almost to Rocky Point Baptist Church?”

Braden thought about it for a split second. Four runs, all in one afternoon. What wouldhedo?

He’d start with the one farthest away.

By the time he could get the words out, he was already on the move. “Highway eighteen twenty-one. That’s where we need to start looking. I’m going out there.”

One of the officers reached for his arm, but Braden shook him off. “Sir, it’s dark. You can’t?”

“I can’t just sit here. I’ve got to at least start looking. Come with me or not, but I’m going out there.”

As he ran to the truck, he heard one of the officers call out, “We’ll call the sheriff’s department and ask them to head that way.” Braden just waved back to them as he leaped into the truck and fired it up.

The rain was still coming down in sheets, and his truck hydroplaned a couple of times as he drove, but he never slowed. Finding her was all that was important, and too much time had been lost already. The turn onto the narrow county highway took him back in time to high school days when they drove out to hang out at the rock quarry a few miles down the road, and it reminded him of how narrow and twisty the low-traffic roadway was. God, it was dark. There were few security lights out there, most of them above garages, and long stretches where there wasn’t a house.

About eight miles out, the road seemed to narrow even more, and it began to get hilly. Hill, curve, hill, curve?one right after another. At one point, there was a guardrail, and Braden could see that the edge of the road dropped off in a sharp embankment. There were several of those without guardrails, and that worried him. He reached Rocky Point Baptist and turned around to go back and look again. A mile into his return trip, he met a WarrenCounty deputy sheriff, and they stopped and let their windows down. “See anything, Braden?” the deputy asked, and Braden recognized him immediately as TedWallace, a veteran officer.

“No. Nothing.”

“Got any other locations to check?”

“No. This seemed the most likely.”

“Okay. Well, let’s get these windows up to keep the rain out and keep looking.”

“Thanks, Ted.” He felt a little better knowing he wasn’t the only one looking for her, but not much.

The temperature was dropping and it was still pouring down rain. Braden kept driving back and forth on the highway, hoping he’d see something, anything, that might give him a clue, but there was nothing. It had to be the wrong spot, so he headed back to Charlie’s office to see if the officers had managed to get anything else out of him.

And his jaw dropped. There were three city cruisers and two sheriff’s department SUVs sitting there when he pulled up, so he ran inside to see if they had any word. Instead, Charlie was sitting at the desk, poring over mug shots on a tablet belonging to one of the officers. Adam was the first one who greeted him. “Hey, any luck?”

“No, Ted was out there too, and we found nothing. Anybody looking anywhere else?”

“Yeah, ourhelpful witness,” Adam spat with contempt, “said he thought there was another call out on ReedRoad, but so far, nothing out there. He couldn’t remember the other two, but he thinks they were in town.”

Braden shook his head and sat down hard on the office sofa. Fuck, Charlie was a sloppy son of a bitch. If he’d kept halfway decent records, they might actually have some idea where they should be. Instead, they were literally flailing around in the dark, hoping for a miracle.

At one o’clock in the morning, they finally gave up for the night. Braden called Marsha and told her he’d be there shortly. He prayed the boys wouldn’t be awake when he got to Tanna’s because he didn’t think he could answer questions from them. It would be too hard to look into their faces and tell them he had no idea what had happened to their mother.

There was a pot of hot coffee on and his mother was sitting in the kitchen when he got to the house. “You need to shower in the boys’ bathroom. Your dad and I are going to sleep in there tonight.”

“But the boys?”

Rising from her chair, she motioned for Braden to follow her, then tiptoed down the hallway. Cracking the door open to Tanna’s little bedroom, she pointed.

In the bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, were Daniel and Max. Braden’s heart broke. Those two kids and their mom had never managed to catch a break, and he was terrified of what would happen to them if… No. He couldn’t think that way. They’d find her. He had to keep up hope.

After he’d showered and had a cup of coffee, he did what he dreaded most and headed into the bedroom. Even though he tried to slip into the bed easily so as not to wake them, both kids sat upright, rubbing their eyes. “Where’s Mom?” Max asked, his voice thick with sleep.

God, it tore him apart to have to tell them! “We don’t know yet, honey, but we’re looking. I swear we are. We’ll find her.”

“I’m scared,” Daniel whispered.

Max nodded. “Me too.”

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