Page 52 of Her Hidden Smile

Chapter Twelve

I got out my cell phone.

I needed help.

Fast.

“Hey, Renzo. How are you doing?” Simon asked as he answered his phone.

“Not good. I’m over at Millie Randolph’s place. She called into Little Grandma at Down Home that she was injured.” I looked at my watch. “An hour-and-twenty-five-minutes ago. She said she was in her orchard, then she stopped talking. I just searched her orchard. She’s not here. I need to track her. I’m a fair hand at it, but two people are better than one.”

“Got it. I’ll be right there. I’ll call when I get there.”

“Appreciate it.”

I was positive she wasn’t in the orchard, but where did she go from there? I stood at the spot where I had started and looked at the first column of trees. There were peach trees, Macintosh apples, Pink Ladies, Granny Smith apples and pear trees. Some trees were blossoming. Would she have been picking flowers?

If she had been, then she would have brought them back to her house, and then she would have told Little Grandma that she was at her house. I’d already called the Down Home Café and confirmed with the woman that Millie had definitely said the orchard. So, since she wasn’t there, she had to be somewhere close, or the orchard was her starting off point.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

I could feel my heart beating faster, and all I wanted to do was run around the orchard again and again, yelling her name until she answered.

Calm, Drakos.

I tried to think what my brother Jase would do. I knew he and his team were on a mission. He’d already sent the family a group text that he’d be out of touch for a while, and that we should look in on Bonnie and the kids. If he hadn’t sent that text, I would have been calling him for advice. It was the reason I called Simon; he used to be a SEAL like my brother.

I looked down the row of trees again.

“Dumbass! You’re a fucking dumbass!” I shouted as I ran to my truck. Seriously, Jase would kick my ass if he were here.

I needed to look at each tree around the perimeter of the orchard and see if there was any kind of sign that she had left the orchard and which way she went. I jumped into my truck bed and opened up my toolbox, grabbing my heavy-duty flashlight. It might be two o’clock in the afternoon, but the shade of the trees made it too dark to look for clues.

I ran back to the first peach tree and started my search. I was on the fifteenth peach tree going north when Simon called out. I stopped what I was doing and stood up straight. I looked down the line of trees and saw Simon looking my way. There was another man beside him. They looked to be about the same size, but I could tell Simon by his silver hair.

“We’re here.”

“Who’s we?” I yelled as they ran toward me.

“My partner, Roan Thatcher. He’s a good tracker. What have we got?”

“I’ve been through the orchard pretty damn thoroughly. Right now I’m checking each tree on the perimeter to see if I can find any indication of where she might have wandered off.”

Both Roan and Simon nodded. “That sounds good,” Roan said.

“I’m taking the east side, south to north,” I told them.

“We’ll take east to west, and south to north on the west side. You should meet up with us on the north side of the orchard.”

“Sounds good,” I replied. “Take flashlights. It’s dark under the trees.”

“Understood.”

I stepped back under the peach tree where I had left off. It wasn’t until I had rounded the corner and was on the third tree that I found something. It was a peach pit with some of the flesh still on it. When I picked it up, it was still wet. Millie must have just eaten the peach. When I looked closer, I could see where she had sat down against the tree. I called Simon’s cell phone.

“I found where she rested,” I said before he could say anything.

“That’s good. Are you along the north side?”