Page 60 of Shelter for Tanna

“Was that you on the porch of her home on Tuesday night? Threatening her and her kids?”

“We wasn’t gonna hurt nobody, man. We just wanted to know where the car was, that’s all,” Wayne mumbled.

“Uh-huh. You show up at somebody’s house in the dark with a gun, yelling and banging on the door, and she’s supposed to know you’re not going to hurt her? You two…” Kip stopped and shook his head for a second. “So where is she now? What have you done with her?”

“We ain’t done nothin’ with her! She run away! Through the woods! We chased her for a bit, but goll-dang it, she’s purty fast for a fat girl,” Wayne said and smirked.

“You little son of a?” Those hand grabbed Braden’s arms again and held him tight. Two minutes with them, just two minutes. That’s all he needed and he’d kill them both with his bare hands.

Kip stared them down. “So your statement is that she ran off the road and then jumped out of the cab of the truck and ran away?”

“Yes, sir.” Beau’s hands were shaking. “Then we took everythin’ we could from the truck and got the hell outta there.”

“Shut up, Beau!” Wayne yelled.

Ted had rejoined the fray. “They’re telling the truth about that. The truck’s been stripped clean. Not a piece of rigging, not a wire, not a ratchet. They totally emptied it.”

“Get them out of here before I turn this firefighter loose on them,” Kip ordered, and the two officers put the guys in the backs of their cruisers and drove away. Braden watched them go, a ball of misery roiling in his stomach.

“Now we’ve got a search to perform,” Ted stated. “Let’s get everybody together and get started. It’s going to get dark soon, what with all this rain, and we won’t be able to go far. We’ll have to resume it in the morning. They’re calling for some really bad weather tonight.”

“But Ted, she’s already been out here for at least?”

“I know. But we can’t risk personnel to search out here in the rain and the dark. It’s too dangerous.”

Too dangerous. It was too dangerous for strong, well-trained men to search, but his girl was out there somewhere alone, possibly injured. It had been well over twenty-four hours since she’d left Charlie’s office.

Time was running out.

Chapter 10

It was getting dark again?totally dark. And Tanna had an idea. It wasn’t the best, but it was something.

Carefully so as not to drop it, she took off her rain slicker and draped it across the rock. Then she took off her heavy coat. The cold from the sinkhole had already started to seep into her bones, but she ignored it and pulled the pink shirt off until it was wadded up around her neck. After that, the coat went back on, and the slicker. When she was finished with that, she pulled the shirt over her head and held it.

Across the hole she’d found a stick, and she’d broken it until it was long enough to reach from one of her wrists to the other if her hands were extended even with her shoulders. She threaded the shirt carefully onto the stick through the sleeves and knotted both cuffs to hold it in. It wasn’t the greatest job, but it would do.

There was no room in her muddy prison, so she’d have to throw it like a javelin, and she was hopeful that she still had enough strength in her arms to lob it out of the hole. Stepping back as far as she could against the side of the sinkhole, she aimed at the opening and threw the stick and shirt as hard as she could.

Instead of landing outside, it fell back into the hole, and before she could catch it, it dropped into the muddy water. Tanna sighed in frustration as she untied the cuffs of the sleeves, then took the shirt off and wrung it out. It wasn’t as bright as it had been, but it was still brighter than the leaves outside the hole. After she’d put it back on the stick, she moved a little to the left of where she’d originally been standing and let it fly, then listened.

“Yes!” she exclaimed out loud. It had worked! Maybe they could find her if they could see the shirt. They wouldn’t be looking in the dark, but when it got light again, surely they’d look for her. Had they found her truck? It wasn’t easy to spot down that embankment, and she sat back down on the rock and rested.

Her arms and legs had grown heavy and she was cold. Rain continued to pour down outside, and the water had risen yet another inch. She was still in no danger, but she knew if it rose too much, there’d be nowhere for her to go. The rock was too slick to stand on. Tanna sat there, trying to stay hopeful, but it was getting harder. She was beyond exhausted.

After a while, she started to nod off.All my life I’ve heard how peaceful a death by hypothermia is. Looks like I may get a chance to find out.She could feel the temperature dropping, and then she heard thunder. Soon, it was pitch black down there and the wind was howling. It was surprisingly soothing, and she listened to it whistle in the trees as she leaned back and let her chin drop to her chest. As she drifted away, she wondered if she’d ever wake up.

She dreamed, and in her dream, she was wearing a white dress and carrying flowers. Her gaze turned to the altar and, sure enough, the man standing there was Braden, flanked by Max and Daniel. Her mom and dad were there, sitting on the front pew, and they were healthy and whole, her brother sitting right beside them, his face bathed in happiness.

It was a fleeting moment of subconscious joy, and it would likely be her last.

* * *

When Braden arrived at the site the next morning, he was shocked. People were everywhere, taking flyers and chatting while a food truck served them coffee. “What the hell is going on here?” he barely choked out as he stepped up into the tent.

Kip clapped a hand on his shoulder. “They’ve all shown up to help. We’ll do a grid search today and see what we find. They’re getting instructions from the manager of emergency services on how to conduct it, and then they’ll get started.”

Braden was speechless. All those people had shown up to help Tanna? That was pretty damn amazing. Someone waved from across the way, and he recognized her. It was DebbieFarmer. She’d grown up next door to him, and she was a teacher at the school. Of course! She was probably Max or Daniel’s teacher! The minister from his parents’ church, ReverendYates, was there too with his wife. In the crowd were dozens of faces he knew, people who’d lived in BowlingGreen all their lives, and they all wanted to help. He was standing there, looking on in awe, when he heard a commanding voice behind him. “Sitz. Bleib.”

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