Stone Bridges Read online

  “They’re playing dinosaurs. Did you slip on your way to fetch them?”

  “I heard them yelling.”

  Adrienne felt a coolness inside her. “The boys? Were they caught up in their game?”

  “Scared. Adrienne...”

  “Hell, Maggie.” It was Adam Sloan, leaping down the path to his sister-in-law. He dropped on one knee, taking her by the arm, steadying her. “Ouch. What happened?”

  Her pain-racked eyes widened with unmistakable fear. “Adam. The boys. They’re gone.”

  He looked up at Adrienne, his own eyes narrowed, mission-focused. “What’s going on?”

  “I just got here. I was in town. When I left, Aidan and Tyler and their friend Owen were playing behind the shed. When I got back, I heard Maggie and found her here. She says she heard the boys yelling.”

  Adam gave a curt nod and shifted back to Maggie. “The boys took off on you?”

  “I thought they were getting carried away with their dinosaur game. I came out to give them a two-minute warning that we were going to head home.” Her voice cracked. She lowered her blood-smeared hand, revealing a swelling, two-inch gash on her right temple. “They were gone. I called them but they didn’t answer. I was running back to the house to grab my phone and call Brandon.”

  “You tripped?” Adam asked.

  “I must have. I went flying and hit my head on a rock or something. I don’t think I blacked out. Then Adrienne got here.” Maggie started to get up, flailing her non-bloody hand, but Adam held her steady. “I’m okay, Adam. I need to find the boys.”

  “Whoa. You’re not going anywhere. Where’s Brandon?”

  “He’s working in town.”

  She tried to get up again but faltered, and Adam sat her back down on the mulched path. “You need to stay put and see to that head. Adrienne will help. I’ll get in touch with Brandon and whoever else we need. We’ll find the boys.”

  “I can’t just sit here and do nothing...”

  “Someone needs to be here if they come back.” Adam got to his feet and touched Adrienne’s shoulder. “Tend to Maggie, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded and ran down the path. He was already on his phone as he disappeared behind the shed where the three boys had set up their dinosaurs. Adrienne figured he’d call in whatever cavalry he felt was needed. He was a local. Family. He had everyone’s number.

  She helped Maggie up, reassuring her as she got her feet under her. She had on wide-legged linen pants, a loose top and flip-flops, not great for charging through a garden. Blood dripped onto her shirt. “We’ll get some ice for that cut,” Adrienne said.

  “I’m fine, Adrienne. Help find the boys.”

  “I don’t know the woods. I’ll just be underfoot, and imagine if I end up lost—”

  “You’d never hear the end of it.” Maggie attempted a smile. “I don’t know why they took off. I need to check where they were playing again. I was focused on them not being there—I didn’t notice anything else. Maybe I missed something.”

  “Maggie...”

  She raised her chin, a stubborn look in her turquoise eyes even with blood dripping down the side of her face. “I can go on my own.”

  “There’s no need.” Adrienne put out her hand. “I’ll go with you.”

  Two

  Maggie stared at a dozen dinosaur figures scattered on the stone wall. “What were those boys thinking? Where are they?” She spoke in a halting whisper. She’d allowed Adrienne to fetch a napkin from the kitchen and pressed it against the gash on her temple. Blood seeped through the light blue fabric. She didn’t seem to notice. “I have to find them.”

  Adrienne picked up a green dinosaur as if it could tell her something. “Adam’s looking for them.” She kept her voice calm, not wanting to upset Maggie further. “I’m sure he has more help on the way.”

  “I can’t wait around and do nothing.” She adjusted the napkin. In addition to the gash, she’d suffered a bloody scrape that extended from her left wrist bone to her elbow. She’d winced with every step. She had to be bruised. “It looks as if the boys were having an epic dinosaur battle. Then what? Why did they scream?”

  “Maybe they got carried away and took their battle into the woods. Can you tell if any dinosaurs are missing?”

  “I have no idea.” Maggie shifted and stared out at the fields and woods. “Tyler and Aidan think they know their way around back here better than they do. Little Owen doesn’t know his way around at all.”

  Adrienne returned the dinosaur to its perch on the stone wall. “The boys haven’t been gone long,” she said gently.

  “It gets dark earlier these days.” Maggie turned back to the array of fierce-looking dinosaurs and scanned them as if somehow they held answers—or at least clues—to the whereabouts of the three boys. She swayed slightly. “My head...”

  Adrienne touched her elbow, ready to grab hold of her if needed. “We should go back to the house, Maggie.”

  “Yeah.” She managed a wan smile. “No one needs me collapsing in the woods.”

  Adrienne had learned last winter that Maggie—and a lot of people in Knights Bridge—didn’t mince words. “Can you make it back to the house? Do you need an ambulance? We can sit here on the stone wall in the shade if you have any doubts.”

  “I’ll be fine. I won’t pass out or anything. If I hadn’t tripped...” She trailed off, no hint of a smile now, her skin ashen—probably from both pain and fear. “I’m trying not to freak out. You didn’t see anyone out here, did you?”

  “Just Adam.” Adrienne noticed some kind of animal droppings next to a small pine tree. “Deer?”

  “Moose scat,” Maggie said. “It looks fresh. I didn’t see a moose out here today. Did you?”

  “No. Have the boys seen a moose before?”

  “Not that I know of. Maybe with Brandon. Aidan and Tyler, anyway. I don’t know about Owen.”

  “Maybe a moose came tromping through here and startled them.”

  Maggie didn’t look convinced. “You’d think three boys playing dinosaurs would be noisy enough a moose would take a different route.”

  “But if he didn’t hear them until he was practically on top of them—”

  “They’d be startled, but they know what to do if they encounter a moose.”

  “Get out of the way?”

  “Depends. You don’t want a moose to feel threatened by your presence.”

  Adrienne could hear Adam calling for the boys. That meant he hadn’t had any luck finding them. She turned to Maggie, who’d obviously drawn the same conclusion. “Why don’t we go back to the house, Maggie? Get some ice on your injuries. You might not be feeling all of them now because of the adrenaline rush.”

  “Adam won’t waste time. I’m sure he’s called for all hands on deck.”

  They returned to the garden, but Maggie stopped near where she’d tripped. “What is it?” Adrienne asked her.

  Her turquoise eyes showed her pain now. And her determination, her fear for her sons and their friend. “I can make it back to the house on my own. Don’t worry about me, Adrienne. You go on and help find those boys.”

  “I will—once someone gets here to see to you. Don’t waste your energy arguing with me, Maggie. I’m very stubborn once I’ve made up my mind.”

  “You’ll fit right in around here, especially among the Sloans.”

  It was a valiant attempt at humor. “I’m an only child,” Adrienne said. “I can’t imagine having five siblings. The Sloans are all construction workers and first responders. I know wine and now I’m learning innkeeping.”

  “And they’re small-town New England and you’re big-city California.”

  “And a nomad,” Adrienne added.

  The distraction worked to get them closer to the terrace, but Maggie’s lower lip trembled an
d she blinked back tears. She was struggling emotionally, forcing herself to be brave. The boys running into the woods after a moose spooked them was probably the least frightening of the possibilities racing through her mind. Adrienne had glanced around the area behind the shed for signs of adult footprints but she hadn’t noticed any.

  She shook off that thought. How could anyone snatch three boys without creating a ruckus?

  Of course, the boys had yelled.

  “Maggie! Adrienne!” Olivia McCaffrey waved to them from the terrace. “What’s going on?”

  Maggie was steadier on her feet, but blood had soaked through the napkin and dripped down her neck. When they reached the terrace, Olivia paled at the sight of her friend. “Adam texted Dylan and me. He said you were hurt, but—”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Olivia’s expression was skeptical but she made no comment. She was red-faced, breathing hard, her dark hair pulled back and matted with sweat. She wore a casual blue-knit dress and placed a palm on her rounded abdomen. She and Dylan were expecting their first baby, a girl, in November. “I walked down the road—I didn’t see the boys. Dylan’s checking outside at the house and barn and then taking the back way here. Come on, Maggie. Sit. The Sloans and half the town are descending. They’ll find the boys.”

  Maggie sank onto a chair at a round wood table. “It’s supposed to rain tonight. It’ll get chilly. The boys don’t even have water bottles with them. I haven’t told Clare and Logan yet—I can’t...” She sucked in a breath. “First time in ages they get away on their own for a day, and I lose Owen.”

  “You didn’t lose anyone,” Olivia said. “Don’t borrow trouble, okay?”

  Adrienne had met Clare and Logan Farrell but didn’t know them well. Clare had taken over for Phoebe O’Dunn at the local library. Widowed with a young son, she’d met Logan, an ER doctor, not long after she arrived in Knights Bridge last fall. Vic had told Adrienne about the couple’s whirlwind romance. He liked to pretend he wasn’t part of the town but somehow managed to keep tabs on all the juicy gossip.

  Olivia frowned at her longtime friend. “You look like hell, Maggie.”

  “I feel worse.”

  “I imagine so. Come on. Let me take a look at the cut.”

  Adrienne fetched the inn’s first-aid kit off a shelf in the mudroom. She hadn’t thought of it when she’d run inside and grabbed the napkin. The kit was fully stocked and up to date. She set it on the terrace table and opened it.

  Olivia took out a packet containing a sterile bandage. She grimaced as Maggie lowered the bloody napkin. “You know you’re going to need—”

  “Stitches,” Maggie said. “I know.”

  “Try to stay calm.” Olivia tore open the package. “The boys can handle themselves in the woods.”

  Maggie looked marginally reassured. “I want to get out there and look for them.”

  “I know you do, Maggie,” Olivia said, pulling out the bandage.

  Adrienne dug out small scissors and a roll of first-aid tape. She snipped several lengths of tape while Olivia placed the bandage over the cut and Maggie automatically held it in place. “I keep worrying someone grabbed them.”

  Olivia shook her head. “No. We’re not going there. We have zero reason to think that.”

  “What if—”

  “Maggie, please don’t do this to yourself.”

  She nodded but said nothing. Olivia took the bits of tape from Adrienne and applied them to the bandage to hold it in place. She and Maggie had been friends forever and obviously trusted each other and knew what to say, how to say it, what to do.

  “What about the scrape?” Olivia asked.

  Maggie glanced at her forearm and shrugged. “Stings. It’s fine.”

  “Bruises?”

  “A million, at least. Or maybe I’ve turned into one giant bruise.” She gulped in a breath. “Olivia...”

  Before she could respond, Justin and Samantha Sloan came out to the terrace from the mudroom. Adrienne didn’t know them well, but he was the second-eldest Sloan, a carpenter and volunteer firefighter, and Samantha was a pirate expert and high-end treasure hunter. They went straight to Maggie. “Brandon’s right behind us,” Justin said. “Eric and Christopher are five minutes out.”

  Maggie nodded dully. Adrienne knew Eric and Christopher Sloan even without consulting Vic’s Knights Bridge cheat sheet. Eric, the eldest of the six siblings, was a town police officer, and Christopher, the youngest of the brothers, was a full-time firefighter. The youngest Sloan altogether—the sole sister, Heather—was spending a year in London with her new husband, a Knights Bridge native and US Diplomatic Security agent, thanks to Vic’s mentorship. Adrienne had befriended Heather and Brody when they were still in Knights Bridge last winter, falling in love with each other, as it turned out.

  “The boys can’t have gotten far, Maggie,” Justin said. “We’ll find them.”

  “Best to sound the alarm right away,” Samantha added. She wasn’t one to panic. “They could turn up looking for food any minute, but you don’t want to take any chances.”

  Maggie sniffled, blood already seeping through her bandage. “I called the boys. I don’t know if they heard me. They were yelling like crazy. Why didn’t they respond? Then it got so quiet...”

  Justin placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Look after yourself. We’ll find them.”

  She raised her chin, a purple bruise forming on her jaw. “Do you think they decided to hike up Carriage Hill?”

  “Did they express an interest in doing that?” Samantha asked.

  “Tyler and Aidan told Brandon they wanted to. He said he’d take them. Maybe they got it in their heads to go on their own.”

  “We’ll check for any sign they headed in that direction,” Justin said. “Hang in there, Maggie.”

  He and Samantha took the same route Maggie had to the shed. She watched them, stoic. “I have no reason to panic. I know I don’t.” She smiled feebly at Adrienne. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Olivia, who’d slipped inside, returned to the terrace with a mug of hot tea that she set in front of Maggie. “It’s peppermint tea from the garden. It’ll do you good.”

  Maggie thanked her and leaned over the mug, breathing in the steam. Adrienne could smell the mint from where she stood—she was too restless to sit. Olivia offered to make her tea, too, but Adrienne shook her head and pointed vaguely at the garden. “I want to take a good look behind the shed and in the woods back there. Maybe I’ll find something that might be useful.” She attempted a smile. “Besides moose droppings.”

  “If you see a moose, let him go on his way if possible,” Olivia said. “If he sees you and reacts, tries to confront you, get out of his way. Run. Don’t stand your ground or try to scare him off.”

  “Run,” Adrienne repeated and smiled. “That works for me.”

  “It’s rutting season,” Maggie added. “Male moose can be aggressive this time of year.”

  “Then it’s good the boys cleared out if a moose surprised them,” Olivia said. She finally sat at the table, looking tired and concerned but not as out of breath and upset as she had at first.

  Maggie’s color was a bit better as she sipped the tea. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

  Adrienne started off the terrace. “I’ll text you if I find anything and I’m out of shouting distance.”

  “Keep in mind cell service is spotty to nonexistent in places out there,” Olivia said.

  “Good to know. I promise not to get lost.”

  The last thing she needed was a Sloan search party looking for her.

  * * *

  The air was still and warm, without a hint of a breeze when Adrienne eased behind the shed. And it was quiet. Justin and Samantha had disappeared, perhaps out across the fields. A few birds twittered in the trees but Adrienne heard n
o other sounds. No young boys whispering in the trees, caught up in their imaginary world, or returning with an uncle, an aunt, a neighbor, laughing, oblivious to their mother’s fall, her fears.

  Adrienne stood straight, eyeing the moose droppings. She didn’t know the land back here. She hadn’t grown up in Knights Bridge, hadn’t been playing dinosaurs—couldn’t rely on guesswork to figure out what had prompted Tyler, Aidan and Owen to yell and run off.

  If that was what they’d done.

  Where could they be?

  She stepped past the droppings, pushing her way through ferns. She’d never been in New England during warm weather. She thought about ticks, mosquitoes, spiders. Snakes. Even if it wasn’t poisonous, she’d rather not surprise a snake. In general, she didn’t want to come across slithery things. A moose or a deer struck her as more manageable. Just get out of the way versus flicking it off or having it crawl up her leg.

  She groaned to herself. Just stop.

  She came to a dirt trail she hadn’t realized was back here. It followed an old stone wall, perpendicular to the one where the boys had set up their dinosaurs. She had no idea where it led but suspected it eventually would take her into the abutting Quabbin wilderness, and perhaps to the reservoir’s pristine waters. She planned to study maps of the area and take a few hikes herself before the cold weather. She wanted to be able to provide guests with tips, but she had a number of locals who’d be willing to step in. Maggie, Olivia, any of the Sloans.

  As she walked a few yards onto the trail, she warned herself not to make any assumptions about where it led. Various trails spiderwebbed through the woods and fields, leading not only to Quabbin but across the fields to Carriage Hill, up to the McCaffreys’ place, back to the inn. It would be easy for three young boys to get turned around out here, especially if they were scared.

  Adrienne didn’t know what route Adam had taken. She didn’t hear him or anyone else calling the boys. As the trail descended slightly away from the stone wall, she noticed prints in a patch of soft dirt. She squatted down for a closer look. She could see the distinct outline of some kind of sneaker or running shoe by an exposed tree root. She stood straight, careful not to step on the print. It was small—a child’s shoe? She looked around but didn’t see other prints.