Chapter Seventeen
Truth be told, Apricot didn’t think she was in any better shape to be driving than Simon was. Her hands shook as she turned off the dirt road and onto the main thoroughfare that ran through town. The elementary school was less than two miles away. She saw the building every time she drove into town. If she hurried, they could make it there in two minutes flat.
“Slow down, Apricot,” Simon said so quietly the words were just a soft suggestion at the back of her brain.
“Apricot, slow down!” he said a little more firmly.
“What?”
“If you get us killed, how am I going to find my girls?”
“Sorry.” She eased off the accelerator. “I wanted to get you there as quickly as possible.”
“I appreciate it, but I prefer to arrive in one piece,” he said, a wry edge to his voice.
“Maybe the girls will already be there. Maybe they were just in the bathroom or library and got overlooked the first time those places were checked.” That’s what she was hoping, that the girls were somewhere that hadn’t been checked yet, bickering with each other about silly silence games or discussing childbirth and fake boobs.
“It’s not that big of a school. They’d have been found if they were there.”
“How long have they been missing?”
“The bus dropped them off forty minutes ago. They made it into the school. No one knows what happened to them after that.”
“They’re okay. I’m sure of it,” she said more to herself than to him. Thank God they weren’t in LA. Thank God Apple Valley was a small town filled with people who knew each other. Wherever they were, the girls were among friends.
Unless someone in Apple Valley wasn’t a friend.
Big cities didn’t corner the market on criminals, pedophiles, or lunatics.
She swallowed down the thought as she turned into the parking lot at the elementary school. Two squad cars were already there, and she pulled up behind them.
Simon was out of the SUV before it came to a complete stop, running to the building before Apricot managed to get her shaking hands to cooperate and open the door. By the time she was out of the vehicle, he’d disappeared from sight.
She jogged into the school’s lobby, her clothes sticking to her skin, her hair plastered to her head. A couple of kids eyed her suspiciously as she followed the signs to the office.
Not that she needed signs.
She could hear someone wailing, the sound like the wild cry of an injured cat.
She opened the office door, stepped into noise and chaos like the kind she’d lived with every day of her life for most of her childhood.
Simon was in one corner, Cade and Max flanking him on either side, all of them listening to a trim, gray-haired woman who was trying to make herself heard over Daisy’s cries. Behind a long counter, two receptionists were speaking on two different phones, both of them doing everything they could to make themselves heard. A man sat in a chair near the counter, arms dangling between his legs, a look of utter dejection on his face. A woman sat beside him, a hand on his arm as she spoke into his ear. If she had to guess, Apricot would say that they were the school bus driver and counselor.
If she had to make another guess, she’d say that Daisy’s caterwauling wasn’t bringing anyone any closer to finding the girls. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure it was doing the exact opposite—keeping people from organizing the search in the most efficient way possible.
Since no one else seemed willing to deal with the problem, she decided she’d better.
“Daisy?” she said, keeping her voice at a normal range. Raising it would only escalate an already escalated situation. She’d learned that as a kid, and she’d used the skill often in her business dealings.
“Daisy?” she tried again. “You need to calm down. Would you like some water or tea?”
“How can I calm down when this is all my fault?” She yelled loud enough for everyone in the world to hear.
“You’re going to have to try,” Apricot said reasonably. “Being hysterical won’t help anyone.”
“This is my punishment from God. He’s smiting me for what I did!” Daisy blubbered on, her nose running, her eyes weeping. “I lied. Liiiiiied!” she wailed. “Because I didn’t want you to have Simon. I didn’t want you to take my family from me.”
Everyone in the room stopped talking and looked their way.
Daisy didn’t look like she noticed; she was too busy raising her head to the heavens and begging for forgiveness.
“Daisy.” Apricot touched her arm. “I really don’t think anyone cares about that right now.”
“And, then,” Daisy continued as if she hadn’t heard. “I did even worse. I hired poor Eliza Jane to help me prove the lie as truth. I see her at the library every Monday during story time, her little boy dressed in hand-me downs. Her parents barely help her with raising that child, and I knew she could use the money. I called her while Simon was gone, asked her to come over. Then, I held out five hundred dollars, just waved it under her nose and told her she could have that and five hundred more if she hid my things somewhere only you and Jet had access to.” She sobbed, every word a little louder than the last.
“Daisy,” Apricot interrupted. “You can confess it all to the sheriff once the girls are home. Right now, you just need to calm down so that we can figure out what’s going on.”
“I turned a hardworking young woman into a criminal!” she shrieked. “All because I fell. Fell and broke my phone. I felt like an idiot admitting it, because you were always around looking perfect and beautiful, and I knew that if I didn’t do something, you’d steal my family from me. And then I took those kittens you gave the girls, and I left them outside because I wanted the girls to forget about you. And now God has taken the girls from me because of it. They’ll haunt me forever. Their tiny dead bodies will be floating above my bed—”
Apricot slapped her.
The sound reverberated through the room.
When it faded, there was silence. Not a breath. Not a rustle of fabric.
“You hit me,” Daisy whispered, touching the red mark on her cheek.
“You were hysterical.”
“But . . . you hit me.”
“Because I don’t have time to brew you a cup of calming tea, and I’m not in the mood to listen to you talk about the girls as if they’re already gone.”
“They are. They’re dead. I know it,” Daisy intoned, but her voice never rose above a whisper.
“The girls—” Apricot responded, meeting Simon’s eyes. He looked stricken, heartsick. “Are not dead.”
“If they are, it will be because of me,” Daisy said woefully.
“This isn’t about you,” Simon cut in. “It’s about finding my kids.”
“I know. It’s just—”
Simon raised a hand, cutting off the words. “I don’t have time to deal with your mental health problems or your guilt. Now that you’ve mentioned those cats, I think I know what’s going on. The girls were really upset this morning. I bet they decided to leave school to search for the kittens. If I can figure out which direction they went, it shouldn’t be too hard to find them. And when I do . . .” He shook his head.
“When you do,” Max finished for him, “you’ll probably hug them close and hold on tight for the rest of your life.”
“Probably,” Simon admitted. “I just hope they stuck together. Evie will be fine on her own, but Rori will get scared pretty quickly.”
Thinking about Rori wandering around alone made Apricot’s stomach ache.
“We won’t assume anything, but the girls are close, and I can’t imagine them splitting up. Emma has already put out a call for volunteers. We should have a few dozen people out searching soon. In the meantime,” Cade said, “maybe we can narrow the search down. Any idea what direction the girls might head? Do you think they’ll head home or go somewhere else to look?”
“Good question.” Simon raked his hand through his hair, paced to a window that looked out into the parking lot. “If I had to guess, I’d say that they’d head back home. That would be the direction Rori would want to go. Evie might—”
“The Shaffer house,” Daisy said, so quietly Apricot barely heard her.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“Your place or your aunt’s or whatever you want to call it. I bet the girls headed there. They were talking about it this morning, saying that you might have a special tea to attract lost cats.”
“They did, and if I know Evie, that’s exactly what she’s going after,” Simon said, already opening the office door. “And knowing Evie, she’s making sure that she and Rori stay out of sight until they achieve their goal. I’ll head in that direction while you coordinate the search, Cade.”
He didn’t wait for a response. Apricot didn’t either. She followed him back out into the rain, nearly running to try to keep up with him.
“Do you actually think they’re heading to Rose’s place?” she panted. She really needed to start working out, because she could barely keep up with him and he was only walking quickly.
“I don’t know, but it’s our best bet. If they are headed there, they’ll stay close to the road. I hope. Take the SUV back to your place. If I find them, I’ll call your cell phone, and you can come pick us up.”
“I have a better idea. I’ll come with you. Two sets of eyes are better than one, and if we find them, we can call Hubert. He’ll come pick us up.”
“Fine by me, but you’d better keep up.”
With that, he took off, jogging through the parking lot and out onto the road.
She kept up with him for a mile, his easy loping pace not too bad. They split the road, Simon to the left and Apricot to the right, both of them calling for the girls as they scanned the farmland that stretched to either side.
At first, Apricot thought they’d been mistaken, that the girls hadn’t come this way. Not with the rain pouring down and the wind blowing cold spray in their faces. She reached the mile-and-a-half mark before her lungs began to burn and her legs started to shake.
Up ahead, Simon was making quick progress, his voice ringing through the morning as he shouted the girls’ names. Right where Apricot was, things were looking a little more grim. She was breathing so hard she couldn’t utter a sound.
She slowed to a fast walk, taking a couple of deep breaths and finally managing to shout, “Girls!”
A piece of paper fluttered across the ground, skittering out from behind a tall spruce and landing a few feet in front of her. Apricot reached for it, but the wind picked it up, tossing it into a field of thigh-high grass.
“Son of a monkey’s uncle!” she panted, darting after it.
The wind gusted again.
“Oh no, you don’t!” she shouted, diving at the fluttering page and snatching it before the wind could carry it away. She landed on her stomach, her face in a puddle of water, holding the paper away from the ground.
She got to her knees, looked at the page. It was hard to read, but she could see the name scrawled across the top right corner, big and bold as life—Evangeline Baylor.
The girls had been there! It couldn’t have been long ago. Otherwise, the page would have been too wet to flutter and float.
“Evie!” she screamed, jumping to her feet and scanning the field. “Evangeline Rose Baylor! You’d better come out here!”
Nothing.
She tried again. “I know you’re out here. Everyone is worried sick about you. Come on out, and we’ll go home and I’ll make you both a nice cup of tea!”
Still nothing.
She didn’t have her cell phone with her, and she had to make a choice—try to catch up to Simon or search the field herself. Since she didn’t want the girls to get any farther away, she chose the second option, calling their names over and over again as she headed farther into the field.
In the distance, she could see Dusty’s house, the chimney shooting white smoke into the air.
If she were an eight-year-old who’d run away from school, was soaked and tired and probably a little cold, that’s the direction she’d have headed.
Which, of course, meant that that was the direction she had to go. She tucked the paper under her shirt, knowing it wasn’t going to do one bit of good, but trying to protect it anyway.
She was halfway across the field when Simon shouted her name.
She stopped, waiting as he sprinted to her side.
Water streamed down his face, and his shirt clung to his muscular chest and thighs. It was his eyes that drew her attention, though, the anxiety in them spearing straight into her heart.
“What happened? I turned around and you were gone,” he said, a frown furrowing his brow. “I was worried we were going to need two search parties. One for the girls and one for you.”
“No.” She shook her head, lifted the wet hem of her shirt and peeled the paper from her abdomen. “I found something. It’s Evie’s.”
He took the page, squinted at the soggy sheet.
“Last night’s homework,” he finally said. “Where did you find it?”
“Near the spruce over by the road. It wasn’t soaked through when I found it, so I don’t think it had been there very long.”
“They’re close then. Of course, the grass in this field is so long, they could be a foot away and we might not see them.” He shouted their names, shook his head when they didn’t answer. “They’re probably hiding somewhere. Scared to death they’re going to get in trouble. Were you heading toward Dusty’s?”
“It’s the only building around. If I were eight, soaked to the skin and worried that my father was going to kill me, I’d probably try to find a house or a barn to hide in.”
“I’m not going to kill them. I’m just going to ground them for life,” he muttered.
“I’m sure that is their second option for punishment, and I’m sure they’re not all that excited about that either.”
“Then they shouldn’t have left the school,” he ground out. “Natural consequences suck, and the natural consequences of this stunt are going to be painful.”
He trudged across the field, shouting the girls’ names.
She followed, doing the same, the rain slowing a little as they cleared the field, stepped out onto Dusty’s gravel driveway, and knocked on his front door.
He didn’t answer, so they searched the yard, the back porch, the old tree house that someone had built in a giant birch tree. Every minute seemed longer than the next, every second that the girls were missing draining a little life from Simon’s face.
Apricot watched it happen, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no tea that could fix this, no tincture that could make it better.
She took his hand, squeezed gently.
“We’re going to find them,” she said.
“I hope to God you’re right,” he murmured, the words filled with a thousand fears she knew he would never speak.
“We are, and when we do, I’m going to make them both a nice cup of ginger tea. They can drink it while you lecture them on the foolhardiness of their actions and Lilac force-feeds them those cow tongue sandwiches she always . . .” Her voice trailed off, a spot of color near Dusty’s barn catching her attention.
She sprinted forward, adrenaline rushing through her as she lifted the tiny pink bow triumphantly. Simon took it from her hand, pressed his finger to his lips, and gestured for her to follow him into the barn. It was dim and quiet there, the musty scent of wet wood and dry hay filling the air. True to Dusty’s nature, the place was clean as a whistle, every tool hung from a hook on the wall, every stall mucked and empty.
Something rustled in the loft above their heads, tiny bits of hay sprinkling down on Apricot’s shoulder. Simon brushed it off, his hand lingering, his palm warm against her cold skin.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Apricot,” he said loudly. “If the girls don’t return home, I may very well die of a broken heart.”
He winked, and she smiled, because all the fear had drained from his face, all the worry had disappeared. He was himself again—the man who always seemed to be in control, who always seemed to know what to say and do, who could put up with his crazy sister-in-law and Apricot’s crazy family, and even Apricot, because he was just that kind of guy.
“If you do,” she said solemnly, “I will try to revive you with true love’s kiss.”
The thing in the loft shifted again, more hay spilling down.
Simon grinned, and Apricot’s heart just kind of soared, her joy-meter just kind of filling up and spilling over.
“Only a princess can offer that,” he said dramatically. “Are you a princess? Have you been hiding the truth from me? Do you have a kingdom where I can rest from my weary search?”
“As a matter of fact, I am, I have, I do. My orchard is my kingdom. The apple blossoms are my crown,” she replied and was sure she heard a little girl giggle.
“I love apple blossoms,” he replied with just the right touch of awe. “Decorate my coffin with them, okay? Because a father can’t live without his daughters, even if he has a princess to love.”
“Don’t die on me, Simon!” Apricot cried, surprising a laugh out of him.
He covered it with a fit of fake coughing.
“I have to,” he rasped. “I can’t go on without my girls.”
He dropped to his knees, fell to his back, lay there with his eyes closed.
“No!” Apricot shouted. “He’s gone. His broken heart did him in.” She knelt beside him. “What shall I ever do?!”
“You could try true love’s kiss,” he whispered, and she laughed, leaning over to do what he’d suggested, the sound of little girls scrambling down the ladder filling her ears as her lips touched his.
God, he tasted good! Like fall rain and promises.
“Daddy!” Rori cried. “Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break your heart.”
She rushed in, throwing herself on Simon’s supine body, sobbing uncontrollably.
Evie hung back, her dress torn, one of her shoes missing, a look of abject misery on her face. “If you’re really dead, Daddy, then my heart is going to be all broken up,” she said, a silent tear sliding down her damp face. “And I really think that I might die too.”
“Then I guess,” Simon said, levering up onto his elbows, “it is really good that I’m not dead.”
Evie squealed and jumped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, telling him over and over again how sorry she was.
Somehow he managed to get to his feet, the girls clinging to him like monkeys, their loud apologies filling the barn.
He set them down, met Apricot’s eyes. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You led me right to my girls.”
“You would have found them without me.”
He shrugged, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ears. “I learned something new about you today, Princess Apricot.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re quite the actress. I especially liked the kiss.”
She blushed. Blushed!
“Really? I thought it could use a little practice.”
That made him smile.
“You know what? I’m thinking you might be right. But at this moment, I’ve got two girls who look like they could use a little warming up. How about we take them to Rose’s place and do a little celebrating?” he suggested, pulling Apricot to his side. It felt right to be there. It felt good. It felt as if all the years she’d spent trying to be someone different than Apricot Sunshine from Happy Dale had been the lie and this was the truth.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“Ginger tea and cow tongue?” he suggested.
“That sounds perfect!” She laughed, taking his hand and leading Simon and the girls home.