Dan made a slow, complete turn, carefully scanning the deepening shadows as far as he could see from that point. “No.”
Kinley’s phone vibrated in her hand and she let out a little sigh of relief. “Maybe they’ve found him. Hello?”
“We can’t find him anywhere in the inn.” Bonnie sounded genuinely alarmed. “People are still looking in every closet and cranny where he could be hiding, but nothing so far. Everyone in the inn is joining the hunt. We’re going to start searching the grounds now.”
Shaking her head in answer to Dan’s unspoken question, Kinley closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think where the boy could have gone. She pictured the hiking trail entrance at the back of the property, framed by cascading wisteria and marked with a sign the boy was too young to read. There was a side path to the trail from Logan’s cottage. The trail wasn’t lit; surely the boy wouldn’t have gone off in the woods in the dark? “Maybe you should call Logan. Should we contact the authorities?”
“One of the wedding guests staying with us is a retired sheriff’s deputy. He said we should make a thorough search of the inn and the immediate grounds first and then call.”
“Okay. Dan and I are going to carry the search farther out. We’ll start down the trail, beginning at Logan’s. Have someone look from the trailhead there in the garden. Stay in touch.”
As she disconnected the call and started to direct Dan toward the path, she heard a rattle from the gate. She and Dan both looked around in time to see the dog push hard against the gate latch with his nose and one paw. Before either of them could react, the gate was open and the dog shot past them, his black-and-brown body disappearing into the darkening woods.
“Crap!” Kinley dashed after the dog, silently cursing herself for wearing a dress today. Underbrush scratched her bare legs as she plunged into the woods on the narrow path, but at least she’d had the sense to wear comfortable shoes when she’d left her house that morning. “Ninja! Grayson!” she called out.
Staying right behind her, Dan released an ear-piercingly sharp whistle. “Ninja!” he shouted.
Kinley turned on her flashlight. Beneath the canopy of trees, it was hard to see more than a couple of feet ahead. She didn’t want to think of young Grayson possibly wandering around the woods in the darkness. He could fall in a hole or off a ledge, encounter less-than-friendly wildlife, or tumble into the spring-swollen creek that ran down the hillside not far from the inn. “Grayson! Ninja!”
Her phone buzzed again, raising her hopes, but it was only Bonnie reporting that there was still no sign. Search teams had been sent down the road toward the cafe, and were organizing into grids to cover as much ground as possible. The authorities had been contacted, and a search-and-rescue team was being dispatched.
“We’ll keep looking out here,” Kinley said grimly. She called the boy’s name again after disconnecting, taking only a moment to listen fruitlessly for an answer before pushing on.
A sharp stick scraped her right calf and she gasped in pain. Dan caught her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m wishing I’d worn pants.” She pushed her hair from her face with the hand holding her phone, aiming her flashlight ahead with the other.
Dan pointed his light down at her leg. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a scratch. I’m really worried about Grayson, Dan. If he wandered off the trail, he could be in trouble. There are several places he could fall, and there’s a creek that’s deeper than usual because of all that rain we had earlier this month. It runs downhill, pretty swift in spots.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll find him.”
“Do you think Ninja is looking for him? Or is with him now?”
“I think that’s a good guess. He sure seemed to have a goal when he lit out of there.”
Kinley turned to shout into the woods. “Ninja! Grayson!”
She held her breath as she listened for a response, sensed Dan doing the same. All they heard were other voices calling out the boy’s name from the direction of the inn and the hiking trail.
“Does the dog ever bark?” Dan asked, moving with her when she started walking again, hoping she was still going in the direction the dog had run.
“If he does, I’ve never heard him. Only that funny sound he makes. Grayson!”
“At least we know how he’s been getting out of the fence. The dog is smarter than you’ve all given him credit for.”
“I hope so,” she said sincerely, praying Ninja was taking care of the child even now.
As comfortable as they were, her shoes were not made for tramping through the woods. She stepped carefully as she regularly called out the boy’s and the dog’s names, but when a loose stone rolled beneath the smooth sole of one of her shoes, she went down hard. A choked cry escaped her when pain shot through her, but she gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet with Dan’s help.
“Are you hurt?” he asked urgently, holding her forearms.
She pushed the pain aside. “No. We’re getting close to the creek, Dan. If he fell in…”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders to give her a bracing hug. “We’ll find him, Kinley.”
She leaned against him for one weak-kneed moment, both of them looking around the now-dark woods, trying to decide which way one curious little boy might have gone. They weren’t on the hiking trail, though they could hear voices calling from that direction, so there was no clear path for them to follow. The ground beneath the trees was covered with leaves and needles and clusters of spiky brush. Kinley and her siblings had played in these woods as children and she knew how easy it was to get lost in them. She and Dan were plunging blindly through the trees, with no clear direction, no plan of action. And even wors