I sucked in breath.

He was right. There was nothing we could do after midnight on a Friday night. I had work the next day and we had to face my family tomorrow night.

This was supposed to be a dinner for Mom, Dad, Chace and me. Then Liza found out about it (Dad and his big mouth). Now she and Boyd and her kids were coming and it was a pre-birthday bash for her son, Jarot.

Don’t ask me about the name Jarot. I told her he’d be teased and called “carrot” and he was. She loved the name and she was Liza, when she loved something she was perfectly willing to pitch numerous fits to get it. So Boyd gave in mostly to shut her up. Luckily, he gave in after demanding the right to name their second kid. His name was Robert. Suffice it to say, Robbie didn’t get teased on the playground.

Then again, Robbie was a bruiser.

Jarot played with Legos all the fraking time and Liza, Boyd and Dad were convinced, with the stuff he built, that he was going to be an architect.

He was almost nine.

Robbie had been sent home from school three times for punching kids in the nose.

He was six.

No one said what they thought Robbie was going to be mostly because the optimistic choice was the next Great White Hope in the boxing ring. But the practical one was he was going to be a drug dealer’s enforcer.

“Oh, all right,” I gave in on a mutter then settled back in.

Chace’s hand at my cheek sifted back through my hair before it fell away and his hand at my spine went back to drifting.

I relaxed.

“We’ll find him, Faye.”

It was quiet but it was a promise.

I pressed closer.

He knew I was worried and he didn’t like it.

But I knew he was worried too. Although I didn’t want him to be, I liked that he was for a kid he didn’t know.

“Okay, honey.”

“Sleep,” he urged.

“Okay.”

“’Night baby.”

“’Night, Chace.”

His hand quit drifting and his arm gave me another squeeze then his hand went back to drifting.

As it moved, my mind quit drifting and my eyes closed.

Then I did as Chace urged. Tucked close to him, I slept.

Chapter Twelve

Family

Faye’s fidgeting beside him in his truck caught his attention so Chace reached out a hand and tagged hers. He linked their fingers and pulled their hands to his thigh.

They were on their way to her parents’ house and she was anxious. This was, she told him when he gently pressed it out of her, not because she was worried about what they would think of him. But what he would think of them.

“They’re a little um… nutty,” she’d said.

“There’s good nutty and bad nutty. My guess is they’re good nutty,” he’d replied.

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.