Montana Hero (22 page)

As his heart rate slowed to normal and a little more oxygen returned to his brain, he looked around Kat’s abode. Her lair. Spare, stylish and modern. He tended toward comfortable and homey with a few antiques thrown in when he was decorating a place. Poking around flea markets and antique stores was one of his favorite pastimes. History lent an air of permanence he probably craved at a subliminal level.

He started to get up to take a closer look at the family portraits on the wall closest to the hallway when Kat’s phone flashed and chittered. He spotted it on the dark mahogany coffee table. The face of a woman he didn’t know provided the caller ID. If it had been a man, he would have looked the other way, but, instead, he picked it up and hit the green arrow.

“Hello? Sorry. Kat’s in the shower. Do you need me to get her?”

“What? Who are—never mind. I’m so confused. I just got home and listened to a message Kat left on my machine. Unless it’s really old—and I don’t think it is—she seems to think Brady is here and he isn’t.”

“You’re Kat’s neighbor, right? The one who has a son Brady’s age?”

“Yeah. Robby’s with his dad this weekend. I tried his dad’s number to see if Brady was with them, but I just can’t believe that. Jeff isn’t that good with his own kid let alone someone else’s.”

Flynn’s instincts and training went on high alert. “You’ve been gone all day and haven’t seen Brady?”

“Right. No, wait. That’s not true. I saw him walking toward the bus stop when I was backing out of the parking lot this morning.”

Flynn frowned. “The school bus stop? This is Saturday.”

“That’s what I thought, but I figured he might have some extra-curricular activities. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m a little worried. Can you have Kat call me back?”

“Right away.”

He ended the call and walked toward the closed door at the end of the hallway. On his way past the first doorway, he glanced in. Brady’s room. Fairly picked up. Bed neatly made. Bookcases filled with actual books. A tablet rested on his desk, and a decent-sized TV that appeared hooked up to two game controls was attached to the wall opposite two beanbag chairs. No obvious clues jumped out at him.

The bad feeling in his gut intensified.

He knocked once and opened the door. “Kat?” She’d just finished snapping her bra so her arms were stretched behind her back and her chest was thrust forward.
Man, there’s a sight I’d never get tired of seeing.
He put the thought away when he spotted her frown.

“There’s a problem,” he said, holding out her phone. “Brady isn’t with your neighbor.”

“What? Of course, he is. I…I have a picture of him and Robby.”

She grabbed the phone and jabbed at it a couple of swipes then handed it back to him. “See the time stamp? Eleven-eleven.”

He saw the selfie of two boys acting like young boys—tongues out, goofy faces. He tried to feel relieved but the concern in her neighbor’s voice lingered. “Then he had your permission to go somewhere with Robby and his dad?”

She ran a hand through her wet hair. “What? No. They’re playing in Robby’s room. Right now. As we speak.”

He shook his head. “No. They’re not. Robby is with his dad. The last time Robby’s mom saw Brady he was walking toward the bus stop.”

All the color in her beautiful face drained away and she sank to the end of the bed. “That can’t be. We talked. He said he was having fun, but his battery was dying and he forgot his charger. He…” She looked at him, her eyes slightly out of focus as she tried to remember everything that happened and in what order. “Where? Why would he…? I have to find him.”

She jumped to her feet but would have crumpled to the floor if Flynn hadn’t been there to catch her. He pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her wet head. “I’ll start making calls. You get dressed. Walking shoes. Layers. There’s a storm moving in.” He turned to leave but paused to ask, “Is it okay if I check his room?”

“Of course.”

“Is his tablet password protected?”

“No. The iPad is mine. He uses it for school projects. He has an iPod Touch. He can send messages but he doesn’t have a phone line. I didn’t think he’d need it since I’m the only person he knows with a phone.”

“Does it have a locator app?”

“I…I don’t know.” She looked like she might be sick.

“Katherine, focus on the now. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. We’ll find him.”

She took a deep breath and nodded before racing to her closet. Flynn turned and hurried to her son’s room. He needed to follow his own advice.

He switched on the iPad and waited the few seconds it took to load. This was an older generation. He knew because Tucker always had to have the best and the newest, and Flynn often inherited his buddy’s castoffs. He quickly searched the most recent entries.

“Oh, crap.”

“What? What did you find?” Kat asked, hurrying toward him as she pulled on the Remember The Alamo T-shirt he remembered from their first night together.

“A letter to you. He’s doing this to get his grandfather’s attention.”

“Where is he?”

The bad feeling in Flynn’s gut turned to lead. “He’s in the mountains, playing hide and seek. We’re it.”

“He what?” Kat cried, flying to his side. “How could he get to the mountains? Surely he couldn’t walk all that way. Someone would have noticed a little boy on the road, wouldn’t they?” Her eyes went huge with panic. “What if someone picked him up? And…”

Flynn grabbed her by both shoulders. “No. That didn’t happen. Brady is a smart kid.”
Maybe too smart for his own good.
“My brother used to do this all the time. He’d take off and return hours later—just when Mom was on the phone calling out a search party. He’d shrug off her worry by saying, ‘I knew where I was.’ Brady knows where he is. Try texting him.”

Her hands were shaking too badly to enter the letters so Flynn typed:
Where are you?
Short and sweet.

He didn’t expect an immediate reply, but since he had the phone in his hands, he looked to see if she had the Find My iPhone app. Hope flared when an image of her second phone came up, but the spinning wheel never stopped spinning. He didn’t know what that meant. Was Brady out of range or was his battery dead?

“Keep trying. Cell service is sketchy up there at best. But Brady may have turned off the phone to conserve power. Unless the storm hits sooner than predicted, we’ve got a couple of hours of light. If we don’t find him before the storm, he’s going to be one miserable little kid, unless he’s got a waterproof tent and sleeping bag. Hopefully, this is going to get old fast and he’ll contact you to come and get him.”

“Do you think so? My son can be very stubborn.”

Why did that not surprise him? “Does he have a sleeping bag?”

She nodded. “Just a regular kid’s one. Not the kind…” She looked toward the dull gray sky outside her son’s window. Tears flooded her eyes and her voice cracked. “It…it’s in his closet.”

Flynn pulled her tight to his chest and let her cry. He’d consoled others over the years who had lost loved ones, but this was the first time the fear felt personal. His chest tightened and his throat closed, but he forced himself to be the calm, efficient rescuer she needed.

After a minute, he pulled back and handed her a tissue from a box beside Brady’s bed. “Okay. No more tears until we find him. I need you to shift from mom-mode to search-and-rescue mode. Can you do that for me? For Brady?”

She nodded tentatively as she blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

“Good. Look around and make a list of what you think he took with him. If we have an idea how well prepared he is, we’ll have a better grasp on how well he’ll handle the weather.” He ran a hand through is hair. “What we really need is a clue to where he went.”

Kat started with the drawers of the dresser beside the desk. “His heavy sweater is gone. And his black hoodie.”

She reached for a piece of paper to make a list.

“Oh.”

Flynn looked up from the tablet where he was checking past text messages. “What?”

She turned toward him, hand extended. The white paper shook, revealing how well she was trying to hide her panic. “Maybe this will help.”

He looked at the flier and stifled a groan. The other night at dinner Justin had mentioned his plan to recruit high school kids to help with some of the grunt work at the zip line. At the time, Flynn called it a brilliant idea. Of course, he’d pictured high school students, not fifth graders.

“I’m going to hire a local church bus to pick up willing workers along the regular school route as if they were going to school,” Justin had said. “Smart, huh?”

Flynn pointed to the list of bus stops. “That explains why your neighbor saw Brady headed to the bus stop.”

Kat peered over his shoulder. “But how could he get on the bus? He’s just a kid.”

“Who is tall for his age and knows how to communicate with adults,” Flynn said. “He also knows Tucker. I could see him playing the ‘Hey, I’m-a-friend-of-Tucker’s card’, can’t you?”

She nodded, reluctantly.

“Since he’s been to the area, he probably felt comfortable using the zip line grounds as a starting point. Unfortunately, Tucker picked this location for a reason—the change in elevation will make for some exciting runs.”

Flynn knew the peaks and gullies also meant searching for a small boy who could have set out in any direction would be difficult—to say the least.

“Finish making that list while I call this in so we can get our teams mobilized.”

“Teams? Plural?”

He nodded. “Weather permitting, we’re going to need horses, ATVs, and air support. Everything we’ve got.” She swallowed hard but nodded. “At least, the zip line gives us a built-in staging area with a generator, sanitation and some cell service.”

He picked up his phone and left the room. The facts weren’t good. At some level, Kat knew how bad this looked, but Brady’s mom didn’t need to hear him say that even with a starting point, this search was going to be the proverbial needle in a haystack covering twenty or thirty square miles of rugged wilderness.

*

In the three
hours that followed the painful shock of learning her son was gone, Kat did the impossible—her job. She mobilized the Search and Rescue team and set up a command center, coordinating with all the parties involved. Janet was in the office when Kat and Flynn arrived—in separate cars.

Kat had had to convince Flynn she wasn’t too upset to drive, but since he knew he’d be taking off for the mountain and had no way of knowing when he’d be back, he’d agreed to follow her in.

“I’m so sorry, Kat,” Janet said. “But don’t worry. We’ll find your boy safe and sound. It’s what we do.”

Kat wanted to believe that with all her heart, but the mother in her felt every bit of fear clawing at her mind like a wild animal, which could be hunting her son at this very moment. She isolated the image and stuffed it out of sight.

Focus. Focus on what we can do. For Brady’s sake.

She’d used the hands-free device in her car to call Greg to tell him their son was missing.

“Holy crap. He took off on his own to get the attention of his supposed grandfather? That’s messed up, Kat. When you find him—and I have to believe you will, you need to take a serious look at what you’re doing and why? Maybe it’s time for you to move back home. I could try spending more quality time with him.”

“Not the right time for this argument, Greg. This is about Brady, not you. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Should I fly up there?”

“No. By the time you find a flight, we should have him back home. Brady’s smart. He may not think like other kids, but he’s resourceful. Like I told Flynn, he’s the kind of kid who would leave cookie crumbs for searchers. We just have to find them.”

“Who’s Flynn?”

My lover. The forever man I can’t have because I don’t have a forever.

“My boss. He’s on the mountain leading the search.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. “I hope he’s good.”

“The best. I have to go. I’m at the office and I’ll be manning the phones. We’re hoping to get a couple of planes in the air before nightfall.” She brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “The weather report has a storm moving this way. If you want to help…pray for our son.” Her throat tightened making it too hard to speak. “’Bye.”

“The pilots are here,” Janet said drawing Kat’s attention back to the present. “Do you have the aerial maps ready?”

Both of Flynn’s close friends, Justin and Tucker, had jumped into rescue mode the minute Flynn called them. Justin, who was still on the job site, finishing up some details, went through the consent forms and time cards of the young volunteers. Sure enough, Brady’s name was in the pile.

When Justin tracked down the driver of the bus who had already returned from dropping off kids at their respective stops, the guy confirmed he’d questioned the kid who was significantly smaller than the jocks he’d picked up earlier.

“The kid said he was a friend of Tucker’s. I figured he was Tucker’s girlfriend’s son or something.”

Justin had faxed over the site map he had of the zip line and adventure course layout, as well as a Forest Service topo map of the surrounding area. Kat had circled a relatively small search zone in red that Tucker, who arrived at the office on crutches about ten minutes after she got there, had calculated as the distance a typical ten-year-old could cover in the lapsed time based on the bus’s arrival on the construction site.