I rubbed my chest.
Maisey dumped her bathroom items into her luggage, and we were out the door in a frenzied rush as we listened to Fallon.
“Teddy went down to the resort right away, thinking maybe Lewis had gone to the barn. But no one there had seen him. Mom called us after that, and we mobilized the staff. Parker has called in search and rescue, and everyone is assembling at the castle now.”
More of the messages on my phone were a slew of those alerts. SRFD wasn’t the first call for search and rescue, but if the terrain was rough, or more bodies were needed, we were pulled in.
“You have him on your Find Family app, right?” Fallon asked.
“Yes. You’re right. I didn’t even think.” Maisey swiped through the screens on her phone. “I don’t understand. He’s not there. His phone isn’t showing.”
Confusion bled in with her worry. My hand slid up her back, trying to comfort her, but she shrugged away from it as the elevator doors opened in the lobby.
“We’re leaving,” she told Fallon. “We’re heading to the parking lot. But it’ll take us an hourat least…” A sob escaped before she locked her emotions down. “We’re on our way.”
“I’m sorry, Maisey. I’m sorry to call you at all when I know last night was—” She cut herself off. “He might turn up before you even get here.”
“I hope… God, I hope he does.”
As they hung up, I handed off our room keys to the receptionist, and we ran for the revolving doors.
It was early yet, but the sun should have been out, baking the earth in the heat of summer. Instead, dark clouds greeted us. The pavement was wet, and the air was heavy with the scent of rain. A storm had blown in last night, and we hadn’t even noticed. We’d been too lost in the storm of our own making.
As we sprinted toward my SUV, lightning cracked in the distance, and a few seconds later, thunder boomed. Maisey startled, and I longed to soothe her, but instead, I reached past her to open the passenger door, and she dove in.
I flung our bags in the back and raced around to the driver’s side.
We were on the road, my foot heavy on the gas pedal, before she spoke again.
“He’s out in the rain…”
“We’ll find him, Maisey. I’m sure he just took a walk.”
She scoffed. “Dad doesn’t do nature willingly. That was all my mom. He only worked the farm at all to make her happy. And after she died, we’d needed the money, so he’d sold it all, but it was also because he couldn’t imagine doing it without her.”
My heart twisted for her and for Lewis. He’d lost the love of his life, and I now understood what that meant. I couldn’t respond over the pain that just the idea shot through me.
Her voice was rough and raw when she said, “If his memory is playingtricks again, he’ll be confused and disoriented by all the changes at the ranch.”
The ball in my stomach felt weighted with all the unhappy possibilities. The cliffs and rivers and caves on the Harrington property were dangerous to someone not in their right mind. Hell, they could be dangerous to someone simply not paying full attention to their surroundings.
Add in the storm, and things could get messy quickly.
When we were only a few minutes away from Swift Rivers, Fallon called again with another update. The staff hadn’t found him yet, but the canine unit Sheriff Wylee had requested had picked up a trail. It headed up into the hills instead of down to the ranch.
A horrible thought slithered through me as we drove through the steady downpour. Was this something worse than her dad having wandered off after another mental break? Was this whoever had been coming for Maisey, for us, coming for him?
My mouth went dry, remembering again the Sterno spread around Lewis’s kitchen. Maybe the attacks really had started there rather than with the note on Maisey’s truck. But I kept the idea to myself. Maisey didn’t need me to add more worries to the ones she already carried.
By the time we pulled up to the barn beyond the castle, Maisey was wrung so tight I thought she might shatter at a mere touch. I’d barely put the car in park before she was out and running toward the barn.
“Maisey!” I called out to her, but she didn’t stop.
I had to run flat-out to catch up with her. Usually, ranch hands and guests would have filled the space by this time of the morning, especially with the Fourth of July festivities looming tomorrow. Instead, the barn was eerily empty. The storm and the search had cleared it out.
Maisey opened a stall door as a crack of lightning filled the windows, turning the barn into a silver-toned mirage. The white light was immediately followed by another boom that shook the beams above us.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, grabbing her arm in an attempt to slow her down.