She gave him a cute but dubious look and went on.
“And loud.”
Chace didn’t reply.
“And opinionated,” she continued.
Chace just grinned at her.
“And in your business,” she carried on.
Chace’s arms, already around her, tightened and his grin got bigger.
“I’m kind of the black sheep. I mean, they all read but none of them are shy, um… at all,” she kept going.
“You love them?” Chace had asked. When he got her nod he finished quietly on a squeeze of his arms, “Then I will too.”
This served to calm her and earn him a smile.
But about a minute ago, his assurance wore off.
Once they got there, she’d settle in and be okay.
As for Chace, he wasn’t worried. Getting the invitation to dinner from Silas Goodknight after he came for his visit and the reason he came for that visit, Chace figured he did something of which Silas approved.
As for the other Goodknights, Faye liked him and he reckoned that was all he needed. If they were good people and they loved Faye, both of which he knew was true, they’d either look deep to see what Faye saw in him or they’d bury their feelings so it wouldn’t distress her. Of what he already knew about them around town and from Faye’s talk, he already knew he liked them.
Therefore, he wasn’t driving to dinner concerned about how the dinner would go.
No, he had a variety of other things weighing on his mind.
The first was Malachi.
As far as they could find, the kid didn’t exist.
This came from Chace checking Colorado Vital Records and finding nothing on a Malachi of their Malachi’s approximate age being born in the State of Colorado. It also came from Chace contacting local and not so local schools. Chace, Frank and Deck pulled favors with folks they knew and looked into the school systems in and around Aspen, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Montrose and even as far away as Denver. Although several Malachis were enrolled, none of them matched their Malachi’s age.
Chace, Deck, Frank and other officers asked around town to see if anyone not only had seen Malachi recently but also if they’d seen him before. Except for a few folks reporting they thought they might have, it was nothing concrete and, outside of maybe noticing him, they had no more.
It wasn’t surprising that he was good at being invisible.
It was surprising that it appeared he didn’t exist at all.
Chace could see him roaming but not very far. In that day and age, folks didn’t pick up kids and give them a ride without having concerns, asking questions and usually reporting it or straight up taking the kid to the authorities. So although Chace could see him making his way to Carnal from another town, even another county, he couldn’t imagine he got there from Denver much less another state.
He’d set an intern on it and there was no one of his name or matching his description on the missing person’s database.
This and his disappearance did not bode well. Even if Faye and Chace freaked the kid out with Faye standing by the return bin on Monday or he’d made them sitting in the truck, the kid had to eat and they’d backed off. Faye kept his stash outside by the return bin even when they weren’t watching. She’d also posted a laminated note on the side of the library asking anyone who discovered the bags to leave them for Malachi.
They’d been left for Malachi. She left the library half an hour before and reported to him they were there. For the last week, every time they came back in the morning, they were still there.
This left plenty of time for him to sneak to the library when he knew they weren’t watching.
It could be he’d noticed or heard somehow that Deck was on his trail. But since Deck hadn’t even picked up a scent and the kid made no connections with anyone but Faye, Chace couldn’t fathom how.
The kid was nine or ten and as far as Chace knew didn’t have superpowers or the capacity for clairvoyance. He was in survival mode and would take chances in order at the very least to eat.
The longer he remained gone, the more Chace’s, and Faye’s, concern escalated.