“Faye and me’ll be there in twenty,” Chace told him immediately.

“Right,” Deck replied.

“Do me another favor. Call the Station. Get someone up to that shed. Follow that blood trail. I wanna know where he was comin’ from, he got caught in that trap. I want them to follow his footprints in the show. We haven’t had snow since last week. They’ll show where he went and where he came from. Leads to anything of interest, they don’t approach. They tell me. Once I get Faye in my truck, I’ll call myself to confirm your communication. But I want them on the move now.”

“Right,” Deck repeated.

Chace started moving back to the dining room while he muttered, “Thanks, Deck.”

“No thanks, brother. Shoulda gone back to the homeless guy days ago.”

Chace stopped in the kitchen and said firmly, “You didn’t. But you found him. Now, he’s getting help.”

Deck was silent a moment then, “Yeah.”

“See you in twenty,” Chace stated.

“Later, brother,” Deck murmured.

“Later,” Chace replied then disconnected.

He sucked in breath.

Then he moved to the wide opening that led to the dining room and all eyes came to him.

He only had eyes for Faye.

“Faye, baby, I need to talk to you a second,” he called gently.

She only had eyes for him too and hers were wide and scared.

He watched her face pale and her lips form the silent word, “Malachi.”

But it was Silas who spoke out loud.

“Everything okay, son?”

Chace tore his gaze from Faye and looked to her father.

“No.”

At his word, Faye shoved back her chair and rushed around the table.

When she got close, he caught her hand and moved with her to the family room. He heard murmurings from the other room but he was focused.

When they stopped in the family room, Silas, Boyd and Sondra were with them.

He ignored that and moved into Faye. Lifting a hand to slide the hair off her shoulder, he then curled it around her neck and dipped his face close.

“Deck found Malachi. He’s been injured. It’s not good. They’re takin’ him to County now so we need to go, baby.”

“I’ll get our coats,” she replied immediately, broke from him and ran to the stairs.

“I’ll come with,” Silas announced.

Chace looked to the man. “It’s not –”

“I’ll come with,” Silas reiterated, holding Chace’s eyes a second then he turned to his wife.

Before he could speak, she gave him what he, their daughters and their grandson needed.

“Jarot will get his cake then I’ll be there,” she whispered.

Silas nodded then followed his daughter.

“You need anything, man?” Boyd asked and Chace shook his head.

“We’ll call, we do,” he muttered.

Boyd nodded.

Liza showed at the opening to the room. “Is everything okay?”

Boyd moved to her, murmuring, “Later, babe, let’s get back to our boys.”

Chace watched Liza look searchingly at her husband but she made not a peep as she followed him out of the family room through the kitchen toward the dining room. Boyd slid his arm around his wife’s shoulders, Liza reciprocating with one around his waist.

Sondra moved to Chace, lifted a hand, curled it around his bicep and squeezed while peering into his eyes, her ear dipped to her shoulder, her eyes warm and worried.

Faye ran into the room both carrying his coat and yanking her hair out of the collar of hers.

She came to a rocking halt, offered his coat to him and whispered, “Let’s go, honey.”

He nodded, took his coat, turned to Sondra and said quietly, “Dinner was great, sorry to cut it short.”

She gave his bicep another squeeze before she let him go and whispered, “Drive safe. Call us if there’s news. I’ll see you in a while.”

He nodded again, shrugged on his coat while Faye gave her mother a hug. Then he took her hand, guided her to the stairs and held her hand tight when it seemed she was trying to fight against sprinting to the car.

They got in, got on the road and Silas’s Wrangler headlights were in his rearview mirror when he took her hand, linked their fingers and pressed them to his thigh.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

“Okay, Chace.”

“He’ll be all right.”

“Okay, honey.”

His fingers gave hers a squeeze.

Hers squeezed back.

Then he let her go and reached for his phone.

After he called the Station and confirmed his orders, Chace broke the speed limit on the way to the hospital.

Chapter Thirteen

Sweet

“Sweet.”

Deck spoke so quietly, Chace could barely hear him over the crunching snow.

Chace didn’t process the word because his mind was consumed.

It was consumed with the fact that they’d been walking through the dark wood at the bottom of the eastern hills that flanked town and they’d been doing it for ten minutes. The last five, they’d steadily been moving uphill.

Since leaving Sioux Street, the eastern most street that edged the town, they’d had nothing but trees, rock, snow and bitter cold.

It wasn’t fun for him, a fit man in his thirties. The idea of Malachi making this trek to get what he might need from town filled him with unrest. Or more than he already had. He knew the kid was hiding but finding his spot in the middle of nowhere filled with snow, cold and wild animals, some of which were dangerous, took it to a different level.

Chace’s mind was also consumed with what he left at the hospital.

When Chace, Faye and Silas arrived, they were working on Malachi with urgency and they weren’t allowed to see him.

He flashed his badge and asked for reports when they had them and this got them a visit from an ER nurse five minutes later. She’d made the visit to garner information about Malachi, such as possible allergies to medicines and why he was in the state he was. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell her jack about medicines but at least they were able to fill in some of the blanks about the state he was in.

Before she left, she’d explained they were concerned about malnutrition, dehydration and infection, not in that order. They’d lucked out and found a vein and were pumping him with fluids and antibiotics, warming him up and cleaning his wounds to assess the extent of damage.

By the time Chace left with Deck to meet the officers at the shed, have a look at it and its surroundings himself, Sondra had arrived and a doctor had come to make his report.