A night of little sleep, and I knew what I had to do. The captain would be furious, but I had no choice. I couldn’t continue looking for some creep dispatching expensive bulls while the boy remained missing. At the break of light that Friday morning, I was dressed and drinking black coffee on the back porch, deciding how best to handle the situation. The rising sun crept up from behind the trees and cast a rosy glow, and I retreated to the kitchen for a second cup and one of Mom’s cranberry muffins.
As I slathered on a thin layer of butter, I turned on the television. The hurricane remained stalled over the warm Gulf waters, two days from land, and the storm’s projected path had veered even farther north. Chances were yet again multiplying that Juanita would come ashore near Galveston. I watched the prediction of the storm’s path, and I could think of only one thing: in two days, all of Houston would close down. We were running out of time. We had to find Joey, and we had to find him soon.
“Our best guess is that Hurricane Juanita will make land somewhere between Freeport and Galveston either late Saturday or very early Sunday morning,” explained the TV weatherman. “We’re an ticipating a mandatory evacuation of all coastal and low-lying areas to begin early this afternoon.”
Looking out the window as I sipped my coffee, I saw Frieda carrying the horses’ morning oats into the stable. Upstairs, Maggie could be heard walking to the bathroom, and the creaking of the old boards on the steps announced Mom before she entered the room. Her white curls stood at attention, flat on one side, as they did most mornings before she brushed them, and her bathrobe gaped open, showing off her favorite cotton nightgown scattered with small yellow daisies.
“Good morning, dear. Nice of you to make the coffee. That’s unusual,” she observed with a concerned glance. Mom’s like that—she seems to be able to home in quickly when something is bothering me, even at my age. “Why up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. Then, to change the subject, I gestured toward the television. “Looks like this could be bad.”
“The hurricane?”
“The hurricane. They’re going to start evacuations this afternoon,” I said. I thought about how prepared Mom was already, how she’d started so early, before the storm was projected to hit Houston. That was unusual for her. Mom was conscientious, true, but not that conscientious. “How did you know the hurricane would turn and head in our direction?”
“I’ve seen my share of hurricanes, and it just looked like it would to me. I suspected that we were in for it,” she said, the creases between her eyes deepening as she frowned. “Some of it is, I’ve just had this feeling lately, kind of a premonition, that all wasn’t well, that something bad might happen. Then when that darn hurricane popped up in the Gulf, I started to think maybe that was it.”
“So you’ve become clairvoyant?” I teased.
She thought about that and appeared to enjoy the prospect. “Could be. Maybe I’ll open a booth at the church festival next month: Nora the fortune-teller. For a dollar, I’ll predict the future.” She laughed softly, then her mood changed again, and she was suddenly quieter. At first she said nothing; then: “Sarah, I’m scared. I don’t know why, but I am. The storm bothers me more than it should.”
“I am, too,” I admitted. “A hurricane this size, we’d be fools not to be concerned. But we’ve both lived through storms before, Mom. We’ve been careful, done our best, and we’ve been okay. My guess is that we’ll survive this one, too.”
That didn’t seem to settle her doubts. “Logically, I know you’re right. We’re far enough from the Gulf to escape the worst,” Mom said, looking as uncertain as when our conversation began. “But that part of me where the premonition’s in charge, that part’s still worried.”
“I know,” I said. Just then I heard Joey Warner’s name, and I turned back to the TV, a finger across my mouth. “Shush. I need to hear this.”
On the television, the hurricane coverage ended and footage played from the candlelight vigil the night before, including images of Ginny Farris chasing me to the parking lot. “This Texas Ranger, Lieutenant Sarah Armstrong,” Ginny said to the cameras, “has been harassing us. That’s why she was here tonight, instead of looking for our grandson.”
I groaned.
“That’s not good,” Mom remarked.
“No,” I said, thinking about how the captain was going to react to my face and name on the news. Rangers have as one of our edicts that we work in the background, avoid the press. For the past couple of years, that was one part of the job where I’d failed. “That’s not good.”
Meanwhile, the local anchor pitched an upcoming segment: “This morning from Houston, Crystal Warner, the missing boy’s mother, and her parents are on the Today show. Stay tuned to find out why they say local law enforcement and the FBI are botching the investigation into the boy’s disappearance.”
“That’s not true,” I said to Mom, waiting impatiently for the commercial break to end.
“I told you that mother seems odd to me, Sarah,” Mom offered, watching the television, distracted momentarily from her hurricane worries. “There’s something not right with that young woman.”
Minutes later, Crystal and her parents appeared on the screen, with a graphic of the Houston skyline behind them. “The police made their minds up that I was involved right away, and I’m the only one they’re investigating,” said Crystal, perched with her parents on stools at the Houston NBC affiliate, talking through a hookup to the Today show’s reporter, a dark-haired, middle-aged man with a slight overbite. “I talked to that FBI guy and that Texas Ranger. I even took a lie detector test. I did everything they asked, but I don’t think they’re following clue one.”
“So, Mrs. Warner, you’re saying that this is a rush to judgment?” the reporter asked.
“Yes, it is,” her father answered. “Lieutenant Sarah Armstrong, the Texas Ranger on the case, even showed up at the candlelight vigil last night, watching the people who came to support my family instead of going out looking for our grandson.”
The Today show reporter looked skeptical. “But shouldn’t law enforcement investigate all possibilities, especially the parents?” he asked. “Doesn’t that make sense, since statistically most children know their abductors and the vast majority are family members?”
“That’s fine, but Crystal cooperated and told that ranger everything she knows. Danny and I have talked to detectives, too,” Ginny Farris said, clacking her tongue in irritation. “They don’t have any evidence we’re involved, so they need to leave us alone. Instead of wasting time on us, they should find out who took Joey and bring him home.”
“One last thing, Mrs. Warner. You took a lie detector test, as you mentioned. Did you pass it? We’re hearing you didn’t,” the reporter said.
I was surprised that someone had leaked the information but at the same time grateful Crystal wasn’t getting away with acting like the persecuted victim. She hesitated, looked at her parents, and then flushed, angry.
“I, well, it’s all junk science,” she blurted out. “They won’t even let lie detector results in a courtroom.”
With that, the Today show broke away for a commercial, and I was left thinking about Crystal Warner. She wouldn’t like what I had in mind.