Page 82 of Deadly Evidence
But maybe...if Mom had a little more time to think about it...
Lacey tugged on her boots and slid a sweatshirt over the T-shirt she’d planned to wear to school. Then she opened her bedroom window wide, slid up the screen, and took a careful look outside to see if the coast was clear.
When the bus came, she would call out a quick goodbye and wait until it left. Then she could race to the barn, and no one would know.
Yep—once Mom had time to think things through, she’d be sure to have second thoughts about taking her to Linda’s house in Houston.
“What do you mean, she’s not in school?” Anna shot an anxious glance at the clock on the wall of the tack room. “I heard the bus pull in here at seven-fifteen. I heard her say goodbye.”
Precious minutes ticked slowly by, while she waited near the phone for the school to call the bus driver.
When the phone rang again, she caught it on the first ring. “She’s not? Shedidn’t?But she was here—I talked to her this morning. She was ready for school!”
Hanging up the receiver, Anna hurried down the barn aisle, calling Lacey’s name. She checked the loft, where the kittens were often a good lure.
Out in the corral behind the barn, she found her answer—Loco was gone. “Girl, you are in such big trouble,” she muttered under her breath as she hurried to the house. “Big,bigtrouble.”
She made it in time to catch the others just finishing up breakfast—a longer, later affair this morning, because it would be Mia’s last at the ranch. Vicente had filled the table with huevos rancheros, refried beans, chorizo, flour tortillas, and his specialty, menudo.
“Lacey didn’t get on the bus this morning,” Anna announced. “Apparently she decided to play hooky.”
Brady stilled, his coffee cup lifted. “Where is she, do you know?”
“I saw her over by the barn just before the bus came,” Dante said around a mouthful ofchorizo. “I didn’t see her afterward, but I was out getting things set up for the calves today, out by the chutes.”
“All I know is that she didn’t get on the bus and she went off on her horse instead. She may have been upset because I told her that I was sending her to my friend’s house in Houston for a visit.”
Brady’s chair screeched against the floor as he pushed away from the table. “We need to find her now.”
Dante gave him a curious look. “She knows the ranch like her own bedroom. She’ll be back.”
“Brady’s right—we need to find her.” Anna thought fast for a reasonable explanation. “I heard on the radio that there’s a possibility of storms today, with high winds. You never know out here—we can go from dust storms to lightning and tornadoes at the drop of a hat.”
“So...we should wait on the calves, then?”
“Absolutely.” Anna folded a tortilla around a scoop of huevos rancheros and a chorizo, and headed for the door. “Lacey could be anywhere on that horse of hers. Vicente—take one of the trucks and drive down the ranch road to the highway, Cover what the pickup can handle in the more level parts of the central pastures.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Dante, you head north. Brady and I can start on the two biggest pastures to the east.”
“What about me—can I come along?” Mia asked. “Lacey took me riding that one day, and she showed me one of her favorite places. I think it was—” she pursed her lips “—north, I’m almost sure of it.”
“I don’t know,” Anna replied. “You’ve got that bus to catch tomorrow and you need to get ready.”
“But I’m totally packed, and if Dante is still searching, I can come back on my own in plenty of time,” Mia said.
Bringing her along could be risky and slow them down. But leaving her here alone...
“Okay—but stay with Dante within a mile radius of here.No more.The usual rifle shots as a signal, everyone. If no one has found her by one o’clock, I want to meet briefly here at the house to discuss it. And when we find her, Lacey is going to be grounded for amonth.”
Anna was halfway out the door when she decided that it was better that everyone knew some of the truth, for their own safety. Avoiding Brady’s eyes, she stepped back inside.
“The weather isn’t my only concern,” she began, making eye contact with each person in turn. “I received some mail yesterday. A threat, directed at me. It’s probably from some crackpot...most of these things are, I’m sure. I don’t know why it was sent or by whom.”
Mia paled. “Someone who might come here, to thisranch?”
“I don’t know—probably not. But it has me worried because I don’t know where my daughter is right now. And if there’s someone with a grudge against me, I want to find her first.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
