Jarod's Heart (King Brothers Stories #2) (27 page)

They’d also set up a corn maze for the majority of the trick-or-treaters who would enter at one end, get lost a little bit inside, and finally arrive at the end, where they held their bags out and yelled “Trick or treat!” upon completion. Charlie and a couple of his friends were in charge of the maze.

Jarod and Josh got haunted castle duty—not Jarod’s favorite. The haunted castle was geared toward the older kids and younger teens who liked to get the tar scared out of them. Thankfully, his mother forbade any kind of gore, allowing only jumping out at kids in the dark, tapping them on the shoulder when they least expected it, and chasing them down the dark passageways, which were right up Josh’s alley.

Jarod just thought it made everything more chaotic, playing on his last nerve.

After getting Jessica dressed in her Cinderella costume, complete with tiara and blonde wig, Lauren sought him out for his inspection.

“Bibby bobby boo, Jar’d!”

“And what is your name, princess?”

“I’m me!” Jessica laughed.

“Is that you, Darlin’? I didn’t recognize you with all that blonde hair.”

“That’s cuz Cinna-rella has yellow hair. And I’m Cinna-rella t’night,” she informed him.

“Oh yeah? Well, but did you know that you are my princess every day?” Jarod bent down on one knee to give her a hug without knocking off her yellow hair.

Jessica hugged him with little arms tight around his neck.

Lauren’s look of admiration fueled the ardor Jarod felt toward her, but, in light of the crowded surroundings, he pulled himself together.

“You’re good with her, you know that right?” Lauren said quietly.

“I…” He didn’t know how to respond to her praise. He merely shrugged and kissed her nose. “Thanks for saying so.”

“I wanna see Char-lee in the corn. Will ya come with us, Jar’d?” Jessica had one hand on her hip, the other bent with a plastic pumpkin in the crook of her elbow.

“Daddy has to stay at the castle, sweet pea, but I’ll take you,” Lauren assured her.

“Okay,” she pouted, a tiny lip sticking out and her shoulders drooping.

“Charlie has candy,” Lauren sing-songed.

“Oh!” Jessica said, doing her happy dance.

“Are you all right? You look like you just sucked on a lemon,” Lauren quietly chuckled to Jarod.

“I just hate Halloween.”

“I didn’t know that.” She seemed so surprised that he had to kiss her again.

“Take care of my princess while I get back to scaring the kids.”

“Ten-four, Sheriff.” She gave him a sarcastic salute before taking Jessica’s hand and leading her to the corn maze.

“Sassy,” he muttered.

As his eyes followed their progress across the yard to the maze, Derek and Brad landed in his field of vision. They were having an argument not far from the parking lot. He scanned the rest of the area and found Debbie Lawlor lingering near Camille and some other women from church, but there was no sign of their son, Aiden.

Maybe he was in the castle or maze? More often than not, teens didn’t want to be seen with their parents, so it was possible that the boy had entered the maze or the castle.

Thinking of the castle, he remembered that he needed to get back in there to help Josh. The screams were getting louder, and God only knew what his brother was up to.

Rolling his eyes heavenward in a plea for sanity, Jarod went back into the castle to get busy scaring the kids.

“YOU KNOW, YOUR
face is scaring the kids more than anything I can do in this castle.”

“Kiss off, Josh.”

It had been two hours, and Jarod’s last nerve had been picked at, tossed to the ground, and stomped on. He didn’t need Josh’s smart-ass remarks goading him into another fight.

“I’m just saying that you need to loosen up. What is with you, anyway?”

Jarod sighed. Taking in Josh’s concerned expression, Jarod admitted, “I’m fine, really. I just think I need to switch with someone. Think Charlie would want in on the castle this year?”

Josh smiled, “Yeah, probably. He’s getting ornery enough for it.”

Jarod relaxed. Finally, he could get out of here and find his wife and daughter. “I’ll go tell him.”

“And leave me here unsupervised? Are you sure you want to do that?” Josh laughed and clapped him on the shoulder as Jarod walked away.

Taking a deep breath of the cool air, he sought out his wife first. Not spotting the two right away, he quickly made his way to the corn maze, stopping every four or five steps to greet members of the community who wanted to wish him a happy Halloween or discuss problems in their neighborhoods. He couldn’t just blow them off, so by the time he made it to Charlie, he was more than irritated.

“We’re switching. Where’s Lauren?” he asked gruffly.

Charlie just laughed his bad mood off. “Okay, and I have no clue. What happened to your costume, Grumpy?”

Jarod’s first reaction was to snap, but this was Charlie, who unfortunately was taking more and more after Josh. Jarod immediately smiled and shook his head at himself for his bad mood. “Sorry, kid. I just need a break. Do you mind switching with me?”

“Not at all. Actually, Josh is over in the castle, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” Charlie grinned evilly and whistled to two of his buddies from school. When he had their attention, he said, “He’s alone. Let’s go.” The trio started laughing.

“Should I worry about my little brother?”

“Not any more than you usually do, Jarod,” Charlie said with a laugh, and they took off toward the castle and the unsuspecting Josh.

Picking up the candy bowl where Charlie had set it on the ground, Jarod began handing out candy to the kids filing out of the maze. From this spot, he could see most of the yard. There were still quite a few people there, but Lauren and Jessica were nowhere in sight.

Getting a prickly feeling, he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed Lauren’s cell. No answer. Then he dialed Jason’s.

“Yo,” Jason answered.

Without preamble, Jarod asked, “Have you seen my girls?” From his vantage point, he could see Jason looking around the grounds, then he leaned in to Julie, who shook her head and served another piece of pie.

“No, Jarod, I haven’t, and neither has Julie. Do you think they went back inside the house? Maybe Jessica had another episode?”

That was Jarod’s thought, too. He needed to find them but couldn’t leave his candy post.

“Can you send Dad over here? Charlie left me at the maze alone.”

“Sure thing.” Jason hung up, and Jarod watched as his brother approached James with their request. James immediately got up and headed for the corn maze. Relieved, Jarod put the candy bowl down, not wanting to wait another second to look for his girls.

He entered the house and called out to them, but there was no answer. He checked the Room of Doom, thinking Lauren may have needed more supplies, but upon inspection from the doorway, the room was empty.

He launched himself up the stairs, thinking Jessica may have gotten tired and needed to rest.

“Lauren? Jessica?”

The bedroom was empty. He dialed Lauren’s number again. He heard her cell phone ringing from the bathroom. He found it happily dancing on the counter. Putting his hands on his hips, he wondered where they had gotten to and decided to seek out his mother.

She knows everything.

Once he was outside again, he found Camille by the crafting tables with the little kids. Jessica had to be there.

“Mom, have you seen Jessica and Lauren?” He cringed at the quaver in his voice.

Turning in surprise, she assessed his harried expression and immediately went on alert. “No,” she shook her head. “I thought they were with you?” she asked.

Truly beginning to panic, Jarod said, “No, I haven’t seen them since they went to the corn maze a couple of hours ago. When’s the last time you saw either of them?”

Neighbors were beginning to listen in on their conversation, and a few even began telling them when they’d seen his girls last.

Word was beginning to spread that Lauren and Jessica were missing, and soon their neighbors were all involved in the search. Josh closed down the castle while Charlie and his friends searched the fields. Josh was easy to spot, as his hair was now a glittery shade of pink. Jarod did a double take before getting back to the search.

The minutes ticked slowly by, making Jarod think all kinds of crazy things. Twenty minutes passed before Dane approached him in a rush, followed by the rest of the King family.

“I’ve got a couple of kids saying they saw Jessica following a boy to the parking lot.”

“What?” Jarod almost yelled. “Who? What boy?”

Dane put his arms up in a “calm down” gesture and continued, “By all accounts, the description fits Aiden Lawlor.”

Charlie said, “I knew he was up to something. He was acting weird when he got here.”

“What do you mean?” Jarod asked.

Charlie shrugged. “He’s been quiet since he got busted last month. But tonight he wouldn’t even say hello or anything. He didn’t go in the maze or the haunted house. He just kept looking around like he’d lost something.”

Charlie’s best friend, Marko, spoke up. “I saw him go in the house, though. I thought he was using the bathroom.”

“He was in the main house? Not the portable outhouses we brought in?” James asked.

“Yes sir,” Mark said.

“Why do you think he was using the bathroom in the house?” Jarod asked.

Marko shrugged. “Well, I had just heard Lauren explaining to Jessica that there wouldn’t be a line in the house. I figured Aiden had overheard that there was no line and snuck into the house to use one of yours.”

Dane spoke to the crowd. “Has anyone seen Aiden?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Jarod’s heartbeat sped up.

“How about Derek and Debbie?”

Again, no answer.

Dane leaned into Jarod’s ear. “Your deputy was pretty worked up with Derek earlier. Have you seen him lately?”

Jarod’s blood turned to ice. “No, but I witnessed the argument as well.”

Dane’s phone buzzed. He quickly looked at the screen and excused himself from the group to return a call. Before Jarod lost all semblance of calm, Dane was back and addressing Jarod’s father, which really chapped Jarod’s hide.

“GPS is up. They’re heading south on 95. They’ve got a good hour’s lead on us,” Dane announced.

“Who is? Dad, what’s going on?” Jarod was livid.

But James ignored him. To Dane he asked, “Why did it take so long to locate her?” He was just as furious as Jarod.

“The bug in the tiara just went live, along with the one in her tennis shoe. They’re both moving in the same direction, so we know she’s wearing both. No telling what the signal problem was, sir.” Dane looked distraught.

“What the hell is going on?” Jarod repeated, having had enough of their subterfuge.

James sighed. “I made sure that if something happened to Jessica, we would be able to find her. I had Dane place GPS implants in her shoes, her toys, her tiara…in case something like this happened.”

Jarod stared his father down before he turned and ran for his Raptor. An hour was a long time to make up, but he’d break every traffic law there was to catch up.

As he shoved his keys in the ignition, Jason and Josh slid into the cab. He glared at both of them.

“We’re still deputized, remember?” was Jason’s only explanation, reminding Jarod that he’d deputized them during the Billy debacle. He wasn’t sure if their deputized status would stand when he crossed county lines. He didn’t care, though. Deep down, he was happy to have their support.

With a nod of his head, Jarod tore out of the parking lot. He knew that his father and Dane wouldn’t be too far behind, Dane doing whatever it was that Dane does. Jarod would calm down a little before he let Jason fill him in on what other “security” measures their father had put in place behind his back. And Jason would know, too, because James told him everything.

Right now, the only thing that mattered to Jarod was getting his wife and child back. They were his only focus, and by God, if one hair on either of their heads was damaged, there would be hell to pay.