Page 96 of Serenity Harbor

She drove to Bowie’s house in record time and parked in front just as her new brother-in-law showed up in his Haven Point patrol vehicle. Bowie hurried down the steps, the expression on his features a perfect match to the fear in her heart.

She fought the urge to go to him, to wrap her arms around him as he had comforted her earlier.

Later. For this moment, both of them had to focus only on doing everything possible to find Milo. She did hurry to his side, and he gave her a grateful look before he greeted Cade. “That was fast. Thanks for coming, Chief.”

“Let’s go inside, out of the rain, and you can tell me what’s going on,” Cade said.

They moved up the steps and into the great room of the house, where she found Debra Peters on the sofa, her eyes red and her features pinched.

“Oh, Katrina,” she wailed. “I’m so sorry. Less than twelve hours into my tenure and we’ve lost him.”

“I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she said, squeezing the woman’s arm.

“Start at the beginning,” Cade said.

“My younger brother, Milo, is missing. He’s six years old, brown hair, freckles, about forty pounds and forty inches tall, last seen wearing blue pajamas with Superman on the front. He has limited verbal skills and autism, which will make it tough for him to answer back if searchers try to call out his name.”

“I’m going to assume you’ve thoroughly combed through the house,” Cade said.

“Every closet, every corner, under every bed. We’ve been searching for half an hour, since Mrs. Peters went in to check on him and found his bed empty.”

“Is it usual for you to check on him in the night?” Cade asked Debra.

“I don’t have ausualwith him yet,” she admitted, her voice wavering. “This is my first day. I only arrived this afternoon. I checked on him because I knew he was...upset when he went to bed. He had a meltdown earlier but seemed to have calmed down by the time his brother tucked him in.”

“What upset him?” Cade asked.

Bowie’s gaze flickered to Katrina, then back to her brother-in-law.

“As I said, he has autism,” Bowie said. “It could be anything from a tag inside his shirt rubbing against his skin to a pillow out of place to having to use the wrong flavor of toothpaste.”

Debra gestured to Katrina. “He missed Katrina. He kept sayingKat, Kat, and grew increasingly upset when we tried to explain she wasn’t coming back.”

“That was the reason for the meltdown,” Bowie agreed. “When we couldn’t find him here, I thought maybe he went looking for her. That’s why I called.”

“Do you know anything about this?” Cade asked her.

“No,” she whispered. “I haven’t talked to him since I left this afternoon.”

“You think he slipped outside?” Cade asked, nodding toward the security panel on the front door. “Looks like you’ve got a pretty intense security system here.”

“I do, by necessity. But I disarmed it earlier when I went outside for a moment during a break in the rain to...clear my head.”

He didn’t look at her when he spoke, but somehow she had the distinct impression it may have been her fault he needed fresh air.

“I walked out on the dock for a moment, and it’s possible he slipped out somehow when my back was turned and I didn’t notice. I would like to think I would have heard or seen something, but I was...distracted.”

He raked a hand through his hair, and he looked so upset and vulnerable that she again had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around his waist and promise everything would be okay.

It wouldn’t. She knew that better than anyone. Sometimes happy-ever-after was just a fairy tale.

“We have to find him,” Bowie said. “He’s just a little kid who doesn’t understand the world very well. I hate thinking of him being out there in this weather, cold and alone and afraid.”

She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Milo’s fascination with the water and that big lake out there, just begging for a little boy to wander into it.

“We’ll do our best,” Cade said. “I’ve already alerted everyone in my department and called in everyone on standby. They’re all ready to assist in the search. Our first job is to set up a grid.”

“While you’re doing that,” Katrina finally spoke up, “I’ll check out a few of the places he and I liked to go together. The playground, the baseball field, the dog park.”

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