Chad was already on the phone calling for Judith and the forensics kit.  “Don’t touch anything.  Go downstairs and check out the library, bookcases, and kitchen.  See if you notice anything different.  Try to watch where you’re going.”

Her voice sounded very small.  “Chad, why?”

This he hadn’t expected.  A feisty girl like Willow should be angry, livid.  She shouldn’t be whimpering as though someone called her a dirty name.

“You’re fine.  We’re fine.  We’ll get them.  Just go check the house.”

In Chad’s defense, he thought she’d snap out of it once she started working.  Willow, on the other hand, went into semi-shock.  Chad, taking stock of the room, didn’t hear when the backdoor opened and was still going through upstairs rooms to take notes before Judith arrived.  “Chad?”

“Up here.  The mess is concentrated in Kari’s room but there’s a bit in the spare and craft-” He pointed to the rooms as Judith topped the stairs.  “Where’s Willow?”

“I thought she was up here with you?”

“She didn’t answer the door?”

Judith shook her head.  “But to be fair, I didn’t really knock.  Just a couple of raps and came on in.  Chief is coming.  He’s still spooked from the Plagiarist case.”

“Willow?” Chad called but heard nothing.  “I bet she went to check her animals.  I’ll be back in a minute to help.”

Chad’s feet thundered down the stairs.  He shoved his arms in his jacket pocket and burst through the back door.  “Willow!”

Silence.  Even Saige was nowhere.  The barn was bare, the chickens roosting, and he heard nothing that hinted at her location.  He called.  The wind was slowly picking up and it tossed her name around the yard and back into his own ears.

“Come on Chad!  Think.  Where would she go if she felt scared and violated?  This isn’t rocket science!  Where-” He groaned.  “Oh no!  Lord, please no.”

He sprinted down the driveway, his lungs complaining at the cold icy air.  As he reached the post directly across from the large oak tree, he tried to find Willow but saw nothing.  Though his instinct was to turn back and get a flashlight, anything to help, he knew she must be at the grave.  With a deep breath and a prayer, he hopped the fence and walked as slowly and straight as he could until he reached the tree.

Saige bounded to his side and licked him.  “Where is she girl?”

The dog whimpered and returned to the headstones several feet away.  Chad almost tripped over Willow’s legs.  “Hey, hey.”

Without hesitation, Chad pulled her into his arms and held her rocking her and assuring her that all was well.  “We’ll find them.  We’ll protect you.”

“The doors were locked,” she whimpered through chattering teeth.

Chad’s EMT training went into overdrive.  He picked her up and started carrying her across the field toward the house.  “Put me down!”

“Will you walk?”

“Yes.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why,” he began patiently, “would you walk out here in the freezing cold and curl up with your mother without telling anyone where you were going?”

“Because I wanted my Mother!  I didn’t do it because I chose to be difficult!”

“Keep up the anger,” Chad encouraged irritatingly.  “We need it to keep you warm.  You’ve been chilled twice tonight.”

“I know the symptoms of hypothermia and I’m not even close Chad.”

They burst into the kitchen startling Judith just seconds before the headlights from the Chief’s car approached.  “She’s fine.  Just out for a midnight stroll in the lack of moonlight.”

Chief Varney knocked confidently and opened the door.  “Miss Finley?  May I come in?”

The tone turned businesslike as the three officers did their job.  Willow overheard phrases like “dust for prints,” “evidence bag”, and “list of people with access” and wondered why nothing could be nice and simple as it used to be.  She answered all questions thrown at her until the police were satisfied with her answers.  The only people with a key to the Finley Farm were Chad, Willow, and Caleb Allen and all three of them had spent the night away from the farm and in one another’s company.

“Solari,” Willow said dejectedly.  “She was here just the other day.  Maybe she found a way to pick the lock or something.

Chad looked at the chief and asked, “Key mold maybe?”

“Not likely but possibly I guess.  We’ll send Joe out to question them in the morning.”

“Can I go to bed?  I’m tired.”  Willow’s voice sounded almost petulant.

“Chad, you’re off duty but if you stay here I’ll give you until two tomorrow instead of ten.”

“You don’t have to do that Chief,” Chad insisted.  “I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.”

“But I want you here until at least two and back again by six.  At least until we check out these Solaris, Bill Franklin, and that reporter fellow… Belier?”

“Yessir.”

Chad found Willow folding her clothes and putting them away.  He re-hung the jeans, replaced books, and helped clear her bed.  As she grabbed her pajamas, Chad loaded the stove and lit a fire.  “I think I’ll ask Judith to bring me an air mattress.  The search was concentrated in your room so I’m going to leave that until morning.  Maybe in daylight we’ll see it better.”

Willow emerged from the bathroom wearing paisley flannel pajamas and braiding her hair.  “I could have turned on the lights.  I didn’t think of it.”

“That’s ok.  We’ll look again in the morning.”

“Where will you sleep?”

Chad stared at the hallway and then at her floor.  “I’d sleep out here but you’d probably trip over me if you got up in the night so I’ll sleep at the foot of your bed.”

“You’ll get your cold feet on me.”

Laughing, Chad shook his head.  “No, on the floor you nut.”

“How uncomfortable!”

She didn’t like the idea.  It seemed rude.  “You can sleep in my bed-”

“No!”

“-and I’ll take the couch,” she finished shaking her head.  “I’m not completely without understanding of social norms.  Unmarried people don’t share beds.  I get that.  But you can’t sleep on the floor and I can sleep on the couch.”

“I will sleep on the floor and you will not sleep on the couch.  I’d have to sleep on the floor in the living room if you moved down there so can we just quit arguing, I’ll go get my sleeping bag from the truck, and-”

“Why do you have a sleeping bag in the truck?”

“I keep one in there this time of year.  It gets cold fast and if I’m ever in an accident or my truck breaks down, I want to be warm until the tow truck arrives.”

“Smart.”

“Took you long enough to figure that out,” he chided as he jogged downstairs.

His first snore woke her up.  She listened fascinated to the nasal orchestrations until sleep finally overcame her.  “Now I understand why mom called it ’sawing logs’” she thought as she drifted to asleep.

***

At four-twenty, Chad barreled down Willow’s driveway.  Her phone rang incessantly and he shouted at her all the way.  Willow rounded the corner of her house, feed can in hand, and stared at him dumfounded as he raced toward her.  “What is wrong?”

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I-” she patted her pockets, looked confused for a moment, and then remembered.

“Oh, yeah.  I thought I heard it ring when I was filling the water trough so I tried to answer it but I dropped it in the trough.  I haven’t fished it out yet.”

Relieved, Chad grabbed her shoulders and shook them slightly before wrapping her in a bear hug.  “You scared me.”

“I’m fine.  Really, but your phone is ringing.”

With a grin that told her they weren’t done with the conversation, Chad answered the phone.  She waited a moment but the protests of her chickens sent her across the yard to the chicken coop.  “There you guys go.  Get in there.  It’s nice and warm in there.”  Willow talked to the birds as they climbed the ramp to the coop, plugged in the oil heater, and returned the bucket to the barn.

“Come on Willow,” Chad called.  “The Chief has a suspect at the station.”

“I can’t.  I have to milk Ditto.”

“Start the water and then go change.  You have mud on your jeans.  I’ll go milk her.”

By ten after five, Chad led Willow into the station where Caleb Allen sat looking miserable.  Another boy sat slumped and handcuffed in a chair next to Joe’s desk.  “Ryder, your parents are coming.”

“Let ‘em come.  They’ll just bail me out again.”

“We have your fingerprint on the key Ryder.  It was in your possession.”

“Means nothing to me.”

A professional looking couple burst into the police station demanding to know what was happening and why Ryder was in custody.  It took an hour to sort out the details but eventually Ryder Hudson was forced to admit that he’d stolen the key from Caleb.

“I read the article about her,” Ryder confessed.  “I thought someone like that might-”

“Stop Ryder.  Wait until Renee gets here.” Mr. Hudson demanded.

As Willow turned to leave the station, Caleb Allen stepped in front of her.  “I’m sorry.  It’s all my fault.  I knew he wasn’t trustworthy.  I shouldn’t have mentioned that I had the key.  I just wasn’t thinking.”

“No harm done.  Not really.  I hope you’ll be available again soon.  I might need to take a trip to the city in early January.  I’ve been thinking I might stay over.”

Pride filled Chad’s heart.  He knew Willow had considered going to the grand opening of Boho Deux.  He also knew she’d decided against it.  Her request was nothing more than a way to ensure Caleb that she didn’t blame him for the situation.

In a room bathed in incandescent light, Chad and Willow cleaned the mess created by Ryder Hudson in his search for stashes of cash.  “He pictured you like some old miser with money hidden under your mattress, in between book pages and stuff like that.”

“Fortunately he wasn’t destructive.  Reorganizing these papers will take hours but they’re still here.  I’ve heard of thieves getting angry and vindictive when they don’t find what they want.”

“Well, Ryder is on his way.  That kid needs boundaries, less ready cash, and parents who don’t rely on a quiet safe town as a babysitter to keep their bored and rejected kid out of trouble.”

“I thought Joe worked with kids to prevent that.”

Chad sighed.  “He can only do what the kid will cooperate with.  Ryder knows that this move was a last ditch effort to keep him out of trouble and out of their hair and he resents it.”

Willow sat cross-legged on her mother’s bed sorting papers.  “You know, when he’s done being in trouble for breaking in, see if he wants a job.  He can help me assemble the greenhouse.”

“Why would you hire someone who tried to steal from you?”

“You said it,” she explained.  “He wants something to fill his time, he wanted money for something, and maybe if someone invests some time in him he won’t feel the need to call attention to himself.”

“Wow.”

“Whatever.”

***

Page by page, Steven Solari made his way through the city papers.  His eyes scanned every article with the precision of a diamond cutter and the speed of a racecar driver.  His eyes seemed to cling instinctively to any words that might be of interest to him and he circled them all.

The Fairbury paper captured his interest immediately.  The bottom quarter of the front page was devoted to a story of juvenile breaking and entry.  Smoothing the paper, he read every detail carefully and smiled to himself as he read Willow’s quoted remarks.  Wanda, the receptionist, stepped into the room, saw his expression, and stepped back out again.  She hated that look.