Two of a Kind (Fool's Gold #11)

Fortunately, the only person who came into the caves was Heidi Stryker. She used the caves to age her goat cheese. But according to Reese, she only checked every couple of days, and the space she used was on the other side of the opening. To avoid her, they’d gone north instead of south at the fork.

Reese rolled onto his back and grabbed a fruit snack. He opened the package and tore off a strip. “How much trouble are we going to be in, you think?”

“Tons,” Carter said, watching the small red dot moving on the screen. “You heard the police scanner. Half the town has turned out to look for us.”

“Wicked!”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Carter reminded his friend. “You could have stayed home.”

“And let you have all the fun? No way. Plus, once you get Gideon and Felicia married, I’ll know you’re staying around permanently. High school in two years, my friend. Then we get all the girls.”

They bumped fists, then wiggled their fingers.

* * *

THE SEARCH PARTIES all started from Pyrite Park. A member of CDS was part of every team. Consuelo had joined them, giving them one more professional to help the townspeople. Gideon didn’t know what to think about the sheer number of people who had turned out to aid in the search. Even Eddie and Gladys had come along to find the boys.

People he didn’t know kept coming up to him and patting him on the back as they promised they would find the missing kids. He felt numb—almost disconnected. The attention was uncomfortable but necessary, he reminded himself. They had to get Carter back.

He couldn’t figure out why the kid had done it. Sure, there’d been some adjustments, but he would have sworn things had been going okay. Carter knew Gideon was his father and that he wasn’t going anywhere. Felicia made everything feel like a family event. What more did Carter want?

“We’re going to walk a grid,” Police Chief Barns said through a megaphone. “There are a few outlying areas we want to check, as well. Up the road by Gideon’s house. Justice, you take your team there. Also, the summer camp. Consuelo, can you go there? Make sure a parent with a kid in the camp is on the team.”

Gideon paced, waiting for them to be assigned. He kept having the nagging sense of missing something. That the why of it all was right in front of him, if only he could see it.

“You should go check out the caves by the Castle Ranch,” Mayor Marsha told Felicia. “If I were a boy, that’s where I’d go.”

“Caves?” Felicia’s voice rose in pitch. “That sounds dangerous.”

“These are shallow. Heidi uses them to age her cheese, but only a few. They’re safe enough—we had lots of people in them last year for...” She pressed her lips together. “That’s not important. You two go ahead. I’ll tell Alice.”

“I’ll come, too,” Kent said grimly.

Gideon grabbed Felicia’s hand and pulled her to his truck. “That’s as good a place to start as any.” He needed to be moving, doing. Standing around accomplished nothing.

“I don’t want a random search,” Felicia said. “It’s late and I want to find him.”

While it wasn’t exactly cold in late August, there was still a slight chill in the air. What if Carter was scared? What if something had happened to him? What if he was hurt?

Gideon shook off the questions. He hadn’t been in the field in years, but he knew the drill. Stay focused. Felicia might have the brains in the operation but he had the experience.

“How can anyone survive this?” she asked, sliding into the passenger side and closing the door. “The not knowing. It’s horrible.”

“I’m telling you, a shed is the answer.”

Kent slammed the rear door. “I can tell you Reese isn’t going to see the light of day until he’s thirty-five.”

They drove out to the ranch.

When they got there, several people were waiting for them. Rafe Stryker had already collected flashlights. Heidi, his wife, showed them some rudimentary maps of the caves, done years ago.

“This is where I store my cheese,” she said, pointing. “I was just there this morning.”

“Carter hadn’t run away then,” Gideon told her. “He was at the festival.”

“See how the path splits,” Rafe told them. He traced the line on the map. “Heidi only goes south. There’s a whole maze of trails heading north. If the boys are in the caves, that’s where we’ll find them.”

Shane, Rafe’s brother, joined them. They walked past a barn and what Heidi identified as the goat house, then headed toward the opening to the caves. Everyone turned on their lights. Three minutes later, they reached the divide in the path. Heidi and Rafe went first.

“This way,” Heidi said. “I spent some time in these caves last summer. There were cave paintings.” She paused. “That doesn’t matter. This way.”

Felicia moved next to Gideon. He took her hand. She squeezed his fingers, and they walked forward.

After a few hundred feet, he heard something.

“Quiet,” he instructed.

“I heard it, too,” Felicia murmured.

Their group went silent. In the distance was faint music.

“That way,” he said, pointing to a path that veered to the left.