“Was that intentional?” She patted each head as she counted to herself.
“No. I didn’t realize it until Gennie pointed it out to me a few months ago.”
She turned to face me, her flashlight pointed down. “Eleven.”
Shaking my head, I jogged toward the kennel. The last one had to be asleep. Too old and too tired to bother with a late-night circus. I opened the door, fully expecting to find another dog.
The kennel was empty.
A breath whooshed out of me. If she took a dog, it was because she needed a friend. Or a protector.
Or both.
I closed the kennel door, saying, “Eleven.”
“We’ll check out the goat pen,” Shay said with more calm than anyone could possibly possess in this situation.
We didn’t speak as we bumped along the trail toward the goat enclosure. This part of the farm was darker than most others, closed in by a tall stand of trees and the natural slope of the land. The goats were less enthusiastic about us visiting and only glared with their round eyes as we counted heads, finding them all accounted for and no sign of Gennie. I didn’t even see any pint-sized shoe prints in the damp soil leading into the pen.
“Let’s think like Gennie,” Shay said when we were back in the four-wheeler. “She leaves the house because—”
“Because she thought I wasn’t coming back,” I said.
“She knows you’d always come back.”
I shook my head as I drove toward the farm stand. I doubted she was up there but I had to see for myself. “Any time I’ve ever tried to leave her with a sitter at night, she’s panicked. I should’ve known she wasn’t ready for this.” Before Shay could argue, I added, “When we get inside, you search the shop and back room. I’ll take the second floor.”
As we drove Shay called Gennie’s name and shone her light on the dense line of apple trees. In the distance, we could hear other search parties and see the beams of other flashlights. There were sirens too, and the glow of floodlights brightened the night sky.
If something happened to this kid, I’d never recover. I knew that as deeply as I knew anything. And I’d never be able to look my sister in the eye again.
When we pulled up to the back door of the farm stand, I dropped my keys twice before getting the door open. Shay covered my hand with hers, saying, “We are going to find her.”
I nodded because I didn’t trust myself to speak. We went our separate directions, Shay ducking into the back room while I climbed the stairs. Gennie rarely came up here though she was always fascinated by the fact our marketing manager worked out of a portion of her mom’s childhood bedroom. She didn’t care much about the portion we’d carved out to make a storage closet.
I checked each of the offices, all the closets, and the bathroom. Gennie wasn’t here.
Jogging downstairs, I found Shay waiting for me, her hands on her hips and her gaze determined. “We have to think like Gennie,” she said again. “She’s not going to run away just to wander the farm. She has a destination in mind and I don’t think it has anything to do with the animals.”
“Then where the fuck would she go?”
“What if she went tomyfarm?”
“Your—what? No. As I’ve explained to you before, this hill is dangerous at night. And what would she want with Twin Tulip? It’s empty and she knows that. Why would she go there?”
“I don’t know,” Shay admitted. “But it’s one place we haven’t considered and I think she knows we wouldn’t look there right away.”
My gaze glued to Shay, I reached for my radio. “What’s the update from the dairy?”
Wheatie responded immediately. “We’re combing the pastures now. No sign of her in the barn or pavilion.”
Shay twisted her fingers around the chain at her throat. The bandage at her wrist caught my attention as she said, “I have a feeling about this. We need to go down the hill.”
I ran a hand over my mouth. Into the radio, I said, “We’re going to check out Twin Tulip. Keep me updated.”
“You got it,” Wheatie said.
We headed straight for Old Windmill Hill Road, quiet as we coasted down the steep incline. “Where should we go first?” I asked.
