*
Main Street was lined with folks dressed in red, white, and blue, some waving flags as the high school marching band strutted past playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” In some spots, the crowd was three deep, and people were jammed up around rolling carts with vendors selling hot dogs, lemonade, ice cream, and popcorn. They had taken a spot at the heart of Main Street, where a wooden walkway lined the shopfronts—a throwback to the old western frontier towns. The swarms of people and activity seemed to thrill Penny, though Ruth couldn’t help but suspiciously eye every man who crossed their path or bumped into them.
Is it you?
Are you the one?
It would be too easy to slip into paranoia, so she forced herself to remain objective. Nothing was going to happen to Penny or her in the light of day in front of the entire town. Safety in numbers.
But she sensed that he was here, watching, calculating.
Is it you? she wondered as Rafe Dillinger, decked out in full cowboy gear and a black Stetson, rode down the street waving at the crowd. His sunglasses covered his eyes, but she got the distinct impression he was staring at her, hating her.
Bone-achingly tired, Ruth took a deep breath and pulled Penny’s clasped hand to her breast.
After the cowboys and cowgirls came a few trick riders from the rodeo, and the crowd gasped and applauded as Scott Massey seemed to slide off his horse headfirst, then turned his body and flipped back into the saddle. The trick-rider had a huge smile for the crowd, but his gaze seemed to catch Ruth, holding her in his sights as if he knew her.
He fit her memory of her attacker too. As she watched, he leaned down to a woman who was standing at the front of the crowd and clasped her hand. She tilted her head upward, and he managed to slide sideways and kiss her on the lips while still in the saddle, which elicited claps and hoots from the crowd.
Someone yelled, “That how you always kiss your wife, Massey?”
“Always,” he called back, grinning.
“Mom, your hand is all sweaty,” Penny said, extracting her own hand and wiping it on her shorts. “Do we have to hold hands?”
Forever and ever, Ruth thought. “Just stay close,” she said as an ice cream vendor wheeled a cart close behind them. They had to press into the family in front of them to make room.
“Mom, can I please get a Popsicle? It’s so hot, and they have cherry.”
The red-hot sun dead overhead was unrelenting, and the close crowd made the street seem airless and oppressed. “That sounds great.” She paid for two Popsicles and handed one to Penny. Hoping that the cool treat might chase some of the numbing exhaustion from her mind, Ruth worked on the Popsicle as she watched a handful of classic cars roll past. The sweet frozen treat eased the dryness in her throat, but it was gone too quickly.
“Mom . . . a little help, please?”
Ruth looked down and saw that Penny’s Popsicle had dripped all over her hands. “Let me get a napkin.” But the ice cream cart was long gone. Ruth glanced back toward the nearest store, Menlo’s Market, just a few yards away. “Come with me.”
“Noooo . . . I’m all sticky.”
“I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Mom.” Penny glared at her.
“Then stay right there.”
Quickly, she ducked into the nearly empty store. She felt an immediate surge of relief at the cool air as she headed straight to the checkout counter to explain her problem. The older woman with a crooked front tooth, Pearl, handed her two paper towels, and she scurried back out.
Ruth burst out the door onto the wooden walkway and started toward her daughter . . .
But Penny was not talking with the little toddlers who had been watching the parade in front of them or holding her sticky hands up in the air. She was not straggling behind the rest of the crowd or waiting by the door of the store. Ruth looked right and left, but her daughter was nowhere in sight.
She was gone.
Chapter 19
“Penny?” Ruth called, trying to still her racing heart, to quiet the deafening roar of fear. Why had she left her alone? What had she been thinking? Oh God! Oh God! All the stories of children who had been snatched away from their parents and never returned swirled in Ruth’s mind as she searched for her girl up and down the boardwalk in front of the market. Ruth had only been gone a minute, maybe two.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. Where was her girl?
“Have you seen my daughter?” Ruth asked the couple in front of her.
The woman turned around, baby on one hip, and shook her head. “The little girl with the red hair?”
“Yes!”
The mom shrugged. “She was just here.”
“She went off with some man,” said the husband, a well-muscled young man with a shiny, shaved head. “I think he was her uncle or something. He was giving her a hard time about dripping the Popsicle all over herself.”
Ruth’s heart stilled, but then a rush of relief. Her grandfather! “Was he tall with graying hair? Reverend McFerron?”
“I don’t know who that is, but he wasn’t gray. Younger than that.” He pointed down toward the Stallion Barbershop. “They went that way, across the street so’s she could wash up in the drinking fountain beside the horse trough.”
The fountain—of course.
Ruth turned in that direction, but she couldn’t see anything beyond the side street because of the food carts parked there and the people lined up around them. Her throat was dry, and perspiration dripped down her back as she hurried into the fray, bumping into people and cutting through lines. At one point she tripped on the edge of a stroller, banging her toe. She caught herself and hobbled on as a stern woman with a star-spangled T-shirt scolded her to take it easy.
There was no time to explain that her daughter was missing.
At last, she made it through the crowded side street and wove through the crowd on the wooden walkway. She had a rough idea where the fountain and trough were located, but she couldn’t make them out in the throng of people, some lined up to watch the parade, others moving down the street in a stream behind them.
“Penny?” She pushed her way toward the fountain, telling people she was looking for her daughter. They moved aside, responding to her distress, but when she spotted the fountain, Penny wasn’t there.
Fear welled in her throat as she turned away and appealed to the crowd. “I’m looking for my daughter, Penny. She’s eight, with bright red hair. Have you seen her?”
“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere,” an elderly man said, trying to reassure her.
No, she’s not! Ruth wanted to snap at him, but she held her tongue and fished her cell phone from her pocket. Time to call the sheriff.
She was unlocking her phone when she thought she heard a thin voice calling “Mom!” Scanning the crowd, she spotted her: a tiny square of red T-shirt, pale face, and a hand waving her over.