BIG SKY SECRETS 01: Final Exposure by Roxanne Rustand

bushes.
    From inside the house came the sounds of running footsteps. “Max? Max!”
    Swearing under his breath, the man raced for cover. He’d be back. He had to retrieve what he’d come after, or his life was as good as over.
    Settling into a steady jog, the man smiled to himself as he headed for the car he’d parked out of sight a good mile away.
    There’d be another day. He would succeed. And if anyone got in his way, it would be their own, very unfortunate mistake.

SIX
    E rin raced out to the porch after Jack.
    Max was huddled in the far corner behind the porch swing, arms wrapped around his knees and the stuffed animal, his eyes closed tight. Charlie was there, too, crowded next to him with his furry head resting on the boy’s shoulder.
    But oddly, after those terrified screams, the boy was silent—as if he’d taken himself into some other world.
    Jack knelt in front of him. “Hey, buddy. What happened? Did you fall?”
    The child was so still he might have been carved of marble.
    “Were you scared of something?” Jack turned and surveyed the empty porch. “What was it?”
    Again, no response.
    Erin walked around the perimeter of the porch and studied the surrounding property. Was that a darkshadow off in the distance, moving through the trees? Or just her imagination? Was it a deer?
    She looked to the north, but there were no customers parked in front of Millie’s, waiting for her to take down the Back In Ten Minutes sign and unlock the door.
    And there were no hikers or animals that she could clearly see in the surrounding stand of pines, though with the dense undergrowth, something smaller might be out there. A fox, or maybe a coyote.
    Bright September sunlight filtered through the trees. The air was crisp with the scent of pine. A fitful breeze toyed with the thick, powdery ribbon of dirt marking a trail that led off into the forest, raising small, swirling dust devils.
    A beautiful day, not a dreary one made for mist and shadows and bogeymen.
    “I don’t see anything, Jack,” she murmured as she came back to stand next to him.
    He rested a tentative, gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Here—want to come with me? We can sit on the swing and you can tell me why you’re scared, okay?”
    Charlie anxiously nudged the child’s face, looked up at Jack and whined, then paced in a tight circle and lifted his head to stare out at the pines.
    When Max still didn’t respond, Jack picked himup in his arms and moved to the swing, where he held the boy on his lap.
    “Did you see…a big deer?” Erin asked, sitting next to them. “Or a bear?”
    The boy gave Erin a silent, stricken look.
    “Hmm. What else could there be? Maybe a moose with bi-i-i-g antlers, like the one in the store?”
    Max shook his head, but just barely.
    “Someone walking on the trail?”
    Instead of snuggling into his uncle’s comforting embrace, Max looked as if he were afraid to trust Jack or anyone else. He kept his eyes riveted on her face.
    “You know,” she continued in a soothing voice, “I looked out there and didn’t see anything. But we do see hikers go by occasionally. The trail running behind your house goes on for many, many miles. Did someone come close to your house?”
    A faint nod.
    She gave him an encouraging smile. “Was it a lady?”
    “No,” he whispered, choking back a sob.
    “Fear of strangers, especially men, has been an issue since…that night.” Jack wrapped his arms around the child and met Erin’s gaze. “Sometimes he’s afraid, but no one is really there. The psychologist thinks it’s related to his terror when the EMTs came on the scene.”
    Erin nodded at his careful choice of words withinthe boy’s hearing, but the expression on Max’s face seemed too stark, too distressed, for this to be over anything imaginary.
    Could Barry have come here hoping to stir up trouble? Could he have sent Ollie?
    She bent down to try again. “Did the man say anything to you?”
    Max turned away from