“Go home, honey. Stay close to the phone,” Silas replied.
“I want to look too,” she told him.
“And he needs someone at home if he has to make his way there,” Silas returned gently.
She nodded.
“Baby, you go with Sondra,” Bubba said quietly to Krys and Krystal, her eyes on Sondra, nodded as well.
“Chace,” Faye’s voice was trembling and her hand in his tightened so tight, it drew pain, “we have to go.”
Chace nodded down into her pale face, he looked to Silas and he ordered, “Let’s go.”
And with a glance through their friends, they left.
* * * * *
“What you got?” Chace said into his phone as he moved through the slush, mud and over the wet rock of the thawing wood, hearing Faye moving five feet behind him at his right flank, Deck moving through the wet brush ten feet in front of him slightly to his left.
“At the shed, no Malachi,” Silas answered in his ear.
“Sit on it, Silas,” Chace ordered.
“Been sittin’ on it forty-five minutes, Chace,” Silas retorted.
“Sit on it longer,” Chace returned.
“Rather be lookin’,” Silas fired back.
“He approaches that shed, he’ll need someone there he can trust,” Chace informed him.
“That could be Faye,” Silas shot back.
“Who’re we talkin’ about?” Chace asked shortly.
He got silence for moment then, “Damn it.”
Silas knew Faye would no sooner sit at a shed and not be looking for Malachi then Chace would. Or, apparently, Silas wanted to do.
“Got you wrapped around her finger,” Silas muttered in his ear cantankerously.
“You want that another way?” Chace asked, tiring of the conversation.
“Take your point.” Silas kept muttering.
“Are we done?” Chace asked.
“Find him, son,” Silas whispered then disconnected.
Chace shoved the phone in his back pocket and kept moving through the wood along the sheer cliff face. He saw Deck’s light cutting the night in front of him as well as Faye’s behind him. They walked in silence, following Deck’s lead. In the last weeks, Deck had been out there at least a dozen times, combing the area north to south, climbing the rock face, following wildlife trails that led nowhere, finding nothing but getting the lay of the land. They’d been at it nearly an hour and were well north of town, beyond the town limits, moving slowly upwards. If they walked another half hour and shifted west, they’d be on Tate Jackson’s front deck.
They hadn’t even picked up tracks.
“We’re getting far away, Chace,” Faye called, her voice tight.
Fear and concern.
“Keep lookin’, honey,” Chace replied.