Susan read it, her lips going white as she pressed them together so hard. "I need to go talk to Angie."

Julie reached out and grabbed her by the arm. "Susan, you can't. She's not there."

Chapter 31.

Susan ran up the stairs to the room Angie and Whitney shared, certain that Julie was wrong. Angie had just been in the bathroom, or maybe she'd been behind the closet door looking for something to wear tomorrow. She jerked open the door, certain she would find out it had all been a mistake.

Angie's pastel quilt was tucked around the edges, unwrinkled and untouched. Susan walked over to the closet, pulled open the door, and found two rows of long skirts and simple blouses, a couple pairs of shoes, but no other sign of her daughter. The search of the upstairs bathroom proved just as fruitless.

"Angie!" Susan called down the upstairs hallway. "Angela Leigh Reynolds, you answer me right now!"

Nothing but silence.

Susan ran to the window and looked out, knowing full well where her daughter was. Sure enough, the "security" car was parked out front. Security. Ha, what a laugh. As she ran down the stairs two at a time, she vowed to herself to make certain that young man was not only fired, he was sent back to the other side of the country as quickly as possible.

"What's wrong, Aunt Susan?" Whitney's voice trailed behind her, but Susan didn't bother to even acknowledge it. She ran through the kitchen, across the screened porch, and was almost to the car by the time the screen door slapped shut behind her. She jerked open the door. "Just what do you-"

"Huh?" The young woman behind the wheel blinked up at Susan. "What's wrong?"

Susan glared down at her. "How long have you been out here?"

"Just a couple of minutes. Why, what's wrong?"

"Have you seen my-"

Susan thought about what Kendra had said about the crew finding out about the whole Angie-Chris thing. She simply looked at the girl and said, "We thought we heard the sound of people walking around out here. Did you see anyone? Hear anything?"

"No. I haven't seen anyone at all."

Of course she hadn't, because Angie was long gone. "Never mind, then."

By now, Julie and the kids had come outside and were heading toward her. Susan walked toward them, more specifically, toward Whitney. "Where are they?" she managed to whisper through clenched teeth.

"Who is *they'?" Whitney looked around, appearing to be confused.

Susan knew better. "Don't give me that. I know you know about that boy from the production crew. She's not here, she's obviously somewhere with him. Where are they?"

Whitney held up both hands, palms facing the sky. "I have no idea."

"He helps take care of the animals and the barn," Brian offered. "Maybe she went down there." It was the first useful information of the night.

Julie said, "Brian, Whitney, why don't the two of you go down to the observatory and see if she's down there? I'm going to the barn with Susan."

The kids took off jogging toward the tree line while Julie and Susan hurried toward the barn. Susan pulled one of the flashlights off the shelf and shone it all around. "Angie. Angie."

There was no answer. Soon, the sound of the kids' footsteps came racing toward them. "The observatory is empty," Whitney huffed. "But we ran into Jeff, one of the other production a.s.sistants. We asked him if he knew where Chris was. He told us that he'd driven into town about a half hour ago."

Susan looked at Julie. "I'm going to have to tell the crew. I'm not going to let her leave like this and not go after her. I don't care if it does cost me this job." She started toward the shack, but Julie grabbed her arm and jerked her back.

"Wait."

"No, Julie! My daughter is out there. I can't just-"

"I have a better idea," Julie said, her voice low and firm. She held tight to Susan's arm. "Get Gary to take you. He lives in that little cottage just over the hill. He wouldn't tell anyone."

Gary.

He was her best hope for a solution to this problem. She knew Julie was right. But the thought of asking for his help, of admitting to him how out of control she was of her own daughter, embarra.s.sed her. No, humiliated her. But what other choice did she have? If being humiliated was what it took to salvage the wreck of the current situation, then so be it.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Julie asked.

Susan considered for a moment before answering. "No. I think it's best if I go alone. Can I ask a favor of all of you? Would you please go back into the house and act like nothing is going on? I don't want the crew to get wind of this if I can help it."

"Sure. We'll do whatever you need us to do to help. Won't we?" Julie looked at her kids, who were already nodding.

"You got it, Aunt Susan. Come on, Team Little Boy-I'll take you on in a rematch."

"Without the other half of Team Girly-Girl here, you don't stand a chance." The two of them were shoving each other playfully up the steps.

Julie reached over and hugged her. "I'll do anything I can to help you. Just know I'll be praying that you'll find her, and that you'll know just what to say."

"Thanks." Susan started toward Gary's house, already formulating in her mind the things she would tell Angie when she caught up with her. She started pondering privileges that she might take away, but there were so few of them in this place already that none came readily to mind.

She approached the little cabin, thankful to see that the lights were still on. The combination of fear for her daughter and embarra.s.sment at her failures seemed to hit her with full force as she walked up the steps to the front porch. By the time she reached up to knock, she couldn't see her hand because of the tears flooding her eyes. This only increased her mortification, but this was no time for pride. She knocked and waited.

She heard the approaching footsteps and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. The effort was futile; the torrent simply replaced anything she'd wiped aside.

Gary opened the door and immediately stepped out on the porch beside her, his hand on her left shoulder, his face very near hers. "Susan, what's wrong?"

Susan tried hard to swallow sobs that shook her whole body, but she'd lost almost every ounce of fight. It took what little was left simply to say two words: "Angie's gone."

"Gone where?"

Susan took a great pull of air and stilled herself. "Into town, I think. With that Chris kid."

"Does Kendra know?"

Susan shook her head. "No."

"My truck is around back. We can use that."

"Th-thank you." She followed him, hating herself for the weakling that she'd become.

The truck was old, and even in the dark it looked rusty. The pa.s.senger door squeaked as he opened it for her. He held out his hand and helped her inside; then in a flash he was in the driver's seat and starting the engine. "We'll go out the back way so that no one sees you in the truck."

She nodded and wiped her face again. By now, she was beginning to regain some semblance of control. "I'm sorry to be babbling like this. I don't usually do things like that."

"I know." He reached over and squeezed her hand. "I know." He left his hand on hers for another second, then returned both hands to the wheel. "Do you have any idea where they might be?"

"One of the guys on the crew told Whitney that Chris had taken the car, saying he was going into town for a while. That's all I know."

"So you're not even sure that she's with him?"

"I'm sure." She paused long enough to gather her thoughts into a somewhat coherent answer. "She got a letter from home that upset her. The next thing I knew, she'd crawled out her window. I'm sure she was looking for someone to talk to." As she made the statement, it stung all the more. Teenager or not, what could possibly possess her to pick some weird teenage boy to talk to about something like this?

"Well, town isn't all that big. We'll drive down the main strip and see if we see any sign of them. Chris drives an old black Jeep. Help me keep an eye out for it."

Gary's truck lumbered over the country lanes, and Susan watched the side of the road, just in case Angie was. .h.i.tchhiking. Soon enough they'd reach the four-lane that comprised the major part of the city area. Several strip malls lined the street, and in almost all the parking lots, kids could be seen sitting on the hoods of cars, on the tailgates of trucks, and otherwise just loitering around. So many kids wasting so much time.

"They could be anywhere." She shook her head, realizing the futility of even attempting to come after her. "How are we ever going to find them?"

"You could just go home and wait for her to show back up, but I know that's not exactly your style."

"You can say that again." Susan looked at every car they pa.s.sed as desperation began to get the best of her. "For all we know, they might even be back at the house right now. It's not like we have phones to get in touch with each other. Not until this moment have I fully understood the importance of modern conveniences."

"At least you're not out searching with a horse and buggy."

Susan would have laughed at this at some other time, in some other circ.u.mstances, but tonight, nothing was funny. "It's crazy for us to be wasting our time out here. Maybe I should go back, tell Kendra everything. I'm sure they could use their resources to find them."

"I guess this turned out to be a real rumspringa for you, huh?"

"Rumspringa. That's right! What else was it they were talking about doing this week? Going to the movies? McDonald's?"

"I'm with you." Gary turned the truck into the parking lot of the local movie theater. It was mostly full, and they drove up and down the four rows searching for the black Jeep. There was nothing.

"McDonald's is just down the road, and it's on our way back to the house. We can check there and then head back if that's what you think we should do."

"It's definitely not what I want to do, but I don't know that there's a better choice."

They turned into the McDonald's parking lot, then circled around the back to look at the other side. As they rounded the back corner, Susan continued to survey every single parked vehicle. There was a particularly large pickup truck, jacked way off of its oversized wheels. She was just shaking her head at the absurdity of it when she saw what was parked on the other side of it.

A black Jeep with California plates.

"Stop!" She jerked open the door and jumped from the truck before Gary could bring it to a full stop. She didn't have time to wait for things like that. She needed answers. Now.

Julie's favorite rocking chair-usually a place of comfort and peace-jerked and squeaked as her legs refused to be still. No amount of effort could calm her nerves enough to stop them from pistoning up and down. She focused on the fabric in her lap, trying her hardest to make straight st.i.tches. She found this all but impossible under the circ.u.mstances.

"King me." Brian's voice lacked its usual in-your-face tone when he was beating Whitney at a game of checkers. They were both doing the same thing she was, going through the motions.

Whitney put a black checker on Brian's new king without a single bit of smack talk. She glanced up at Julie, shook her head once, then looked back down. Julie tried to focus on her quilt again.

"Knock, knock." Kendra breezed into the room and looked around. "My, my, aren't you all up late tonight? Where are Susan and Angie?"

Julie glanced toward the kids and found Whitney's gaze firmly planted on the game board. Brian did look at her, studying her like he would one of his astronomy books.

"To tell you the truth"-Julie looked from the kids to Kendra-"I'm not sure where they are."

"What do you mean?"

"They, uh, they needed to have a private conversation, so they've gone out somewhere. I have no idea where they are." Julie had carefully worded what she said so that nothing was actually untrue, but if taken for what it implied, it would hopefully steer Kendra away from what was happening.

"All right." She walked to the edge of the living room as if verifying that Susan and Angie truly weren't there. Once she'd established this to her satisfaction, she said, "Well, that's okay. It was you I wanted to speak with anyway. Privately, if you don't mind."

Oh no. The crew must have seen enough to figure out what was going on. Julie didn't want to be the one to break the news that would wreck everything. "Okay." She stood slowly and followed Kendra from the room. When she reached the doorway to the kitchen, she chanced a glance backward.

Whitney and Brian were both staring after her. Whitney opened her eyes wide for just a split second, conveying her panic. Julie turned around and followed Kendra outside.

"Let's go talk in the shack, if you don't mind."

Julie didn't respond, she just followed, her mind frantically searching for ways to defuse this situation. Nothing short of lying came to mind. The important thing was going to be to limit the amount of information given and not volunteer anything Kendra didn't already know. She likely didn't know Gary was involved, and there was no reason to get him in trouble for being willing to help. She walked into the office and took a seat, vowing to keep as silent as possible.

"So I'm guessing that you must be quite curious about how these episodes are being received by our viewers."

Julie just stared, the words having almost no meaning. Episodes?

She shook her head, relieved to talk about something other than what she'd expected. "I really am interested. It's Susan's deal, as far as all that goes, but I can't help but wonder how it's all working."

"We've been polling our audiences, and we've gotten some pretty interesting results."

"Really? Like what?"

"The ratings for this series have been the highest we've seen in a long time."

"That's great news!" And it truly was. Success in this show would give Susan one less thing to worry about, and at this point she had plenty. "I know Susan will be really thrilled to hear this."

Stupid. Why did she bring Susan's name up in the conversation? Now Kendra was going to want to go find her and share the news.

"Y-es," Kendra said, though her voice was hesitant. She glanced down at a graph on her desk. "Yes and no. See, the thing is, everyone is enjoying watching the simple life and your families as you struggle to live it. But the interesting thing that we've found is, the viewers appear to be more sympathetic to you than to Susan. By quite a lot."

"I don't understand."

"We didn't really, either, so we called in more polls. It seems that most women identify more with someone like you. Someone who struggles with the day-to-day life of being a mother and housekeeper, especially in such trying circ.u.mstances. They seem to think Susan is a bit too perfect and a bit too cold."

"Oh." Julie wasn't certain what she was supposed to do with this information, but Kendra was looking at her expectantly. "So I'm not clear on why you're telling me this. Am I supposed to help soften Susan or something? I'm not really sure how to do that."

"Julie, we went into this knowing that this series had the potential to become a regular feature on the Lisa Lee show. We've been looking at all this data, and we believe that it will work. But here's the thing, I want you to be our star, not Susan."

"What?" The full weight of the burden of a missing niece, and Susan's career dreams being perhaps taken away pressed against Julie so hard that she couldn't breathe. "No, this is Susan's dream. She needs this."

"And we need to do what is best for our show. And what works best for a television show is connecting viewers with people whom they care about. That equals ratings."

"I can't believe Lisa would consider doing this. I thought she genuinely liked Susan."