“Is that guy ever going to call?” Drake jumped up from hours of research and paced the length of the workshop and back.
“He always keeps his word.” Clay crossed his arms and glared at Drake.
Fine. Clay was mad at Drake for questioning his friend. He’d get over it.
“His word said he’d have eyes on the cabin in an hour, and it’s going on three.” Drake took long strides, pausing to give his brother a frustrated look.
“Something must’ve come up, but he’ll call. Just be patient.”
“Not his strong suit.” Erik cocked his head. “In fact, not his suit at all.”
His brothers laughed. Okay. Fine. But Drake couldn’t find the humor right now. He was getting tired of trying to be patient. Gentry could be hightailing it out of there, and they wouldn’t know where to look next. Drake wanted to be able to give Natalie positive news when he went to the cabin, where she was spending time with the kids.
Clay’s phone finally sounded in a police car woop-woop siren ringtone.
“See.” Eyeing Drake, Clay picked it up and tapped the screen. “Putting you on speaker so my brothers can hear what you found.”
“Place was dark when I arrived.” The guy’s deep voice rumbled over the speaker. “Watched it for an hour then slipped inside.”
“You what?” Drake shouted.
“No one told me not to.”
Clay shrugged. “I asked for a drive-by. Didn’t think I needed to warn him to hang back.”
“You want my report or not,” Clay’s friend said.
“Of course,” Drake snapped.
“Ignore his attitude.” Clay fired Drake a chill-out look.
Drake ignored it and stared at the phone.
“There wasn’t a sign of anyone staying in the place,” the friend said. “Nothing in the fridge. Trash was empty. Beds made. Fireplace cleaned out. And the place smelled stale. No one’s been there in some time.”
“Thanks for checking it out,” Clay said.
Drake slashed a hand across his throat to tell Clay to end the call before the guy started asking questions.
Clay rolled his eyes. “We’ll let you know if we need you to drive by again.” He punched the disconnect button and looked at Drake. “Hey, man, relax. For all of our sakes.”
“So that was a bust.” Drake looked at his brothers. “Anyone else find an actionable lead?”
Erik shook his head. “He doesn’t have any other family or friends that I could find.”
“He and his wife are both kind of odd,” Clay said. “Nothing on the wife either. No social media accounts at all.”
Drake stopped at the end of the table littered with plates from the lasagna dinner their mom had delivered so they could keep working. “Not everyone embraces social media. But not counting law enforcement professionals most do.”
Drake ran through in his head everything he knew about this couple. “Willow told me her dad didn’t believe in women working. I wonder if he controlled Tracey’s social media too.”
“Maybe he controlled everything.” Clay rested his elbows on the table. “Like her clothes, etcetera. So she goes out in the afternoon in search of some freedom. Maybe does all the things he forbids.”
“Controlling her would fit with his personality.” Erik leaned back and yawned. He looked totally exhausted and despite the work he still had to do, the guy needed a nap.
“We need to take a break. It’s been a long day.” Drake locked gazes with Erik. “And you, little brother, need to hit the sack. I need your techie brain ready and raring to go.”
“You could be right.” He stood and stretched, Pong coming to his feet next to him. “I’ll grab a couple of hours and get back to it.”
“Go ahead,” Drake said. “I’ll clean up.”
Clay gaped at him. “You gone loco, man? Volunteering to clean up?”
“Just accept it before I ask you for help.” Drake chuckled and stacked up the plates and silverware and carried them into the cabin.
His mother was in the kitchen mixing bread dough in a tall bucket. Keeping enough bread to feed this hungry hoard was almost a full-time job. He searched for Natalie, but she was nowhere to be seen. His dad sat in a chair reading a book, and Willow was still at the table, the castle starting to take shape. Erik and Pong were on the floor by the fireplace with Logan, who was hugging Pong and giggling. Erik obviously didn’t make it to the bedroom yet, and Drake didn’t have the heart to tell his brother to head to bed or Pong would follow, leaving Logan alone.
His cabin didn’t have a dishwasher, so he set the dishes in a sink of soapy water and started to wash them.
“I’ll do that,” his mom said.
“I can help.”
“I’d rather you go talk to Willow again. She’s still been sulking, and I hate seeing her so down. She seemed to warm to you, so could you give it a go?”
He rinsed his hands and dried them. “I can’t even imagine what she’s going through. At her age, my biggest trauma was getting picked last for the baseball team.”
His mother chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Our family is so blessed, and it’s up to us to share those blessings with these kids.”
“Agreed.” He hugged his mother’s shoulders. “Thanks for being the best mother a guy could ask for.”
“It’s my pleasure.” She smiled up at him. “Raising you all is my greatest accomplishment, and I’m so proud of each of you. At least most of the time.” She laughed again.
He gave her another squeeze and set off toward Willow before his mom moved on to her matchmaking with Natalie, which she was prone to do whether the female subject was in the room or not. In this case, with Natalie missing, his mom might really go to it.
He assumed Natalie was putting Sadie to bed as his favorite two-year-old wasn’t in the room either.
Drake had hoped to spend a bit of time with Logan today, but Erik and Pong were engaged with Logan right now. Drake sat at the table with Willow, who was chewing on that lip again and clutching the alarm that hung around her neck. Drake wanted to give her a chance to start talking if she wanted to, so he watched his brother to see how he handled the little boy.
“He’s really your dog?” Logan asked.
“Yes.”
“I like him.” Logan petted Pong’s head. “He’s pretty.”
Erik looked horrified at his rugged dog being called pretty but said nothing.
“Can he do tricks?” Logan asked.
“Hmm. Well. He sits, stays, and rolls over on command. And he’ll give you his paw if I tell him to.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “Tell him. Oh, please tell him.”
Erik smiled at the boy. “Hold out your hand near his front feet.”
Logan poked out his hand and gave Erik an intense look. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” Erik turned his attention to Pong. “Pong. Paw.”
Pong placed his paw in Logan’s hand. Logan giggled, and then hugged Pong, who started to move away.
“Stay,” Erik said, and Pong froze in place and accepted the hug.
“I like him,” Logan said, releasing the dog.
“I like him too.” Erik smiled.
“And I like you!” Logan threw himself at Erik.
Pong whimpered his unease.
“It’s okay, boy,” Erik said to Pong. “Logan’s our friend.”
Drake expected Erik to extricate himself, but he held the boy, who didn’t seem to want to let go. Maybe Logan missed his parents more than he’d been letting on. Drake was proud of his brother for spending time with Logan and for holding him when he needed it. Drake had always known Erik was a good guy who lived his faith, but this just proved it.
“Logan likes dogs.” Willow picked up a blue brick and clipped it onto a tower. “He wants us to get one, but Dad said no ’cause we already have a cat.”
“And what about you?” he asked. “Would you like a dog?”
“Sure. It would be fun.”
“Do you want to pet Pong too?”
“Nah. I’ll let Logan have fun.”
Drake respected how kind she was to her brother. Drake didn’t know what it felt like to have the kind of responsibility that Willow was carrying. Erik was Drake’s only younger sibling, and only by a couple of years. Plus Drake had three older brothers and a sister who fulfilled that role.
After a few minutes of Willow’s silence, he turned his attention to the Legos. “Looks like you’re making good progress.”
“Could do better if you didn’t keep running out to your workshop.” She tilted her head, her curls shifting as if they had a life of their own, and focused on him. “What are you guys doing out there anyway?”
Drake took a moment to make sure his answer was appropriate. “Just working on one of our jobs.”
“What kind of job?”
“We investigate things and help people who are in trouble.”
She clutched the alarm. “Is that why we’re here? Are we in trouble?”
He should’ve been even more vague. “Not at all.”
“My dad would get really mad if we were.” She sighed. “But not Mom.”
“Sounds like you miss your mom.” Drake connected two bricks together to give her a chance to answer.
Willow gave a sad nod, those Little Orphan Annie curls bouncing. “I love her.”
“Of course you do. She’s your mom. I love my mom too. She’s the best.”
Willow frowned, but Drake had no idea what he’d said to upset her, so he sat back and waited for the child to continue.
She pushed a few bricks around on the table. “My mom isn’t like yours. Not at all.”
“No?”
“Nuh-uh.” She stared at the kitchen where his mom still had her hands in the dough, a flour kissed swatch on her face. “Nana makes all kinds of good things to eat. And she sits with you and acts like she wants to be with you instead of doing something else.”
He wasn’t surprised about the cooking and baking as a lot of mothers these days were too busy to spend much time in the kitchen. Didn’t make them bad moms, just different ones. But it sounded like Tracey Gentry didn’t much like being a mom at all. “Your mom didn’t do those things?”
“She stayed in her room a lot, trying to make herself look prettier.” Willow’s chin trembled. “She had a video camera. I snuck in once and saw her using it. She was showing off her outfit and talking about her makeup like someone was listening to her. It was weird ’cause she was all alone. I don’t think Dad knows about it.”
“Sounds different,” Drake said.
What was Tracey doing? Creating videos for social media? Was that where she was making her money? But if so, why go away from home in the afternoons when she could record them there, and did that have anything to do with Gentry murdering women?
“She got mad if any of us went up there.” Willow chewed on her lower lip. “I didn’t like it when she got mad. I had to keep Sadie and Logan busy so they wouldn’t bother her.”
Drake got mad all over again for this poor kid. Eight years old and forced to be the adult in the family. Still, it was probably better than getting split up from her siblings and being placed in foster care. And once Gentry was behind bars, with their mother missing and the father a serial killer, social services would likely petition for parental rights and make the children available for adoption. Likely individual adoptions as Natalie had said, and as an older kid, Willow would have an even harder time of finding a forever family than her siblings.
His gut cramped at the thought of the kids’ future and especially of them being split up. They would have a tough road ahead, and he wanted to hug this little munchkin. But the investigator in him took hold. Were the videos a lead they needed to follow? He would have Erik look into it.
Natalie came down the stairs and went to Logan, smiling at Erik, who flashed her one of his cute grins that had girls falling all over him. He had such an easygoing personality and could talk to anyone, anywhere. With that smile and his outgoing personality and Drake’s more introverted tendencies in high school, Erik often won over girls who Drake wanted to date. Until Kennedy Walker moved to town when they were seniors. The love of Erik’s life, he’d said, but then they’d broken up in college. To this day, he’d never said why, but he came out with a broken heart, and Erik hadn’t had a serious relationship since then.
Holding Logan’s hand, Natalie walked toward him.
“Okay, Willow,” Natalie said. “Time for you and Logan to join Sadie for bed.”
“I wanna go home,” Willow said, her right eyebrow arched just like in a photo Drake had seen of her father.
“I’m sorry, you can’t.” Natalie’s sympathetic tone didn’t have any impact on Willow’s expression. “Your dad’s not there.”
Willow jutted out her chin. “But you could stay with us at our house, right?”
Natalie looked like she didn’t know how to respond.
“You don’t like my cabin?” Drake asked, exaggerating an offended look.
Willow crossed her arms. “There’s nothing fun to do around here.”
“Sure there is. I do plenty of fun things. Like hunting and fishing.”
Willow wrinkled her cute button nose. “Yuk.”
Drake knew she would like fishing if she gave it a chance. At least most kids did. “Have you ever been fishing?”
“You havta use worms.” She shuddered. “Gross.”
“I rarely use worms.” Drake stood. “Tell you what. When my brothers and I get done with our current job, I’ll take you fishing, and I promise you’ll love it so much you’ll want to go again.”
“Really?” Her eyes brightened. “You’ll take me?”
“Sure thing.” He held out his hand. “But now it’s time for bed.”
She slid her small hand into his. For a moment he just stared at the two of them together. Was there anything more important than helping a young child become a fully functioning and successful adult? To make sure they knew Jesus? To teach them to be God’s ambassadors on earth?
Drake tugged Willow to her feet and she held on tightly to his hand. “Can you tuck me in tonight?”
He tried not to look shocked at her request. “Sure. Run up and get your pjs on, and I’ll be right up.”
“But be quiet,” Natalie said. “You don’t want to wake Sadie. Can you go with her too, Logan?”
“I’ll help him.” Willow took his hand and raced up the stairs, his pudgy little legs working hard to keep up.
Drake turned to look at Natalie. She gave him a broad smile. He had no idea why, but he would bask in it for as long as he could.
“You’ve made a friend in Willow,” she said.
“The kid has wormed her way into my heart,” he replied.
And so have you.
But that was something he wasn’t going to say. Ever. Right?