South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [20]
She wore her red hair down her back in a hundred little braids threaded with beads and bells that clacked and jingled every time she moved, and today she had on a low-cut peasant blouse and blue jeans covered with patches. She looked good, despite having lost track of Greyson, and it was impossible to believe he wouldn’t turn Up someplace completely mundane, Unharmed and unalarmed.
“We were just over at the Trackside, I stopped by to say hey to Roscoe and Annie. Grey was playing with their Andrea right behind me on the floor, and then I turned around and he was gone. Oh my God, Paul, where is he?”
“Slow down, take a breath. How long’s he been gone?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I noticed it was too quiet, you know? I looked everywhere, we looked everywhere, Roscoe checked all over the buildings and Annie and me went calling and calling and he’s just nowhere. Paul, what if he’s hurt?”
“I’m sure he’s okay. Maybe he’s just playing a game, doesn’t realize how he’ll scare you,” Paul said, but despite himself he felt a niggle of concern.
Gladys Hansen came in just then. “My word, Madeline, what is taking so long? Arbutus is all stove Up from sitting in the car, we’ve got to get home. This was supposed to be a simple trip to Crosscut, all I wanted to do was go pay my taxes. You’d think—”
“Greyson’s gone missing,” Paul said, cutting in.
“Missing. How?”
“We don’t know. Wandered off, maybe. Or maybe he’s just playing around.”
Gladys pursed her lips and flicked a look at Randi that was easy to read. Of course Randi had let her child vanish, she couldn’t do anything else, no Use beating your head against a wall about it. Things were what they were, Gladys Hansen knew that.
Madeline Stone, meanwhile, looked pale. “I’ve just got to pay for the gas I pumped,” she said. “We’ll get Arbutus right home.”
Gladys stared at her. “There’s a child missing, for Lord’s sake, we’re not just getting in the car and driving home, where is your brain?”
“No, Gladys, I can’t—”
“I’ll get Butte, and we’ll wait with you at the tavern, Randi. If that’s the last place you saw him, it’s where he’ll turn Up.” Gladys took Randi in tow and headed out the door. Paul expected Madeline to follow but she didn’t. She just stood there looking ill.
“What a mess,” he said, trying to think what to do.
Lily had been on the phone. “I called John Fitzgerald, had him get the word out in town. He’s on his way, and he sent a call out on the pager.”
Paul ran a hand through his hair. Mostly he felt annoyed. Greyson was fine. This was a wild-goose chase and he was going to be late, he should just leave the hunt to the search crew. But that impulse left him with a mild, hopeless distaste for himself. “Where is that kid? I can’t believe he’d wander off, and surely Randi would’ve noticed if somebody came in and took him.”
“There hasn’t been anybody around today out of the ordinary. Emil was my only customer, besides you. He came in an hour or more ago.”
“Maybe I’ll look outside, see if I can see anything Roscoe didn’t.”
Lily nodded. “I’ll stay by the phone. Just in case.”
Madeline hadn’t said a word; she seemed extremely rattled. “You want to come with me?” Paul asked. “Two heads are better than one, maybe.”
She bit her lip, then said, “All right.”
“So I heard you’re from Chicago,” he said as she followed him across the yard. He felt very conscious of his limp. He had resigned himself to it, long ago, but he always assumed people wondered about it when they first met him. Madeline Stone seemed off in another world, however. He started to think she wouldn’t answer but after a moment she said, “Yes.”
“Nice to see the old girls home. They can’t have liked it down there much.”
“No.”
“It’s a different world down there, that’s for sure.”
“That’s true.”
Paul gave Up on the chitchat. They walked