Born To Be Wild by Patricia Rosemoor Read Free Book Online

Lucy’s room to finish dressing. His cell phone rang. He checked the ID and saw it was Seth. His gut tightened as he answered.
    “What is it? Have you heard something?”
    “No. I was just trying to figure out what might have happened to Lucy,” Seth said. “Or who. Do you have any idea about who might have taken her?”
    “We don’t even know for certain that she was taken.” Micah kept his voice low. “Who knows what’s been going on here or at school. Lucy might have taken off. Maybe she’ll show up on her own today.” He could only hope.
    “Did Isabel say something to make you think that?”
    “No, not at all. She has no clue. But you know how it is when you’re young. Things get exaggerated in your mind.”
    “Yeah, well, we ought to start thinking about who might have reason to take her.”
    “If someone took her, it could be random,” Micah said.
    “Or not. I’m just saying.”
    He was saying exactly what Micah had been trying to avoid considering. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We don’t know how this is going to play out talking to the kids at the school. Maybe we’ll learn something useful.”
    “Gramps is taking it badly,” Seth said. “He keeps saying this is his and Hector’s fault.”
    If not for the feud, he and Isabel would have gotten married and made a home for their daughter on Wild Ranch, far from Santa Fe. Lucy would have been going to a different school altogether. Never would have gotten in that accident. Never would have disappeared. But he couldn’t start thinking that way.
    Since he knew how crazy their grandfather was about Lucy, Micah said, “Try to talk him down, would you?”
    “I’ll do that. And you call when you know something.”
    “I will,” Micah promised, hanging up and going back to the kitchen. “I’m ready to go,” he told Isabel.
    She was just putting away her cell. “Detective Ochoa is good with our talking to the kids, but he wants to be kept informed if we learn anything at all.”
    “Of course.”
    With that settled, it was off to Lucy’s school.
    They rode in tense silence. Micah was certain Isabel knew, just as he did, that the first forty-eight hours were crucial in finding a missing child. And they were almost to the halfway point. He refused to put words to the knowledge, as if words could make the worst-case scenario come true. He couldn’t think about Seth’s call, either. His suggestion that they might know who took Lucy. Only positive thoughts , he told himself. Positive words. He needed them badly, and so did Isabel.
    “It looks like we’re not the first ones here,” she said as he pulled into the school lot where a few other vehicles were already parked.
    “Janitorial staff?”
    She sighed in agreement.
    He parked and they waited. The silence between them grew thick, as did the air in his chest. He could hardly breathe for waiting.
    “Tell me something positive about our girl,” he asked, hoping a distraction might help. “Something about her that I don’t know. She doesn’t share much with me the way she used to when she was little.”
    He suspected Lucy blamed him for the big divide between her parents. Which, indeed, was at least partly his fault.
    “The last few months she’s been worried that she’s not…not enough.”
    “Not enough? In what way?”
    “In every way. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not talented enough.”
    “She’s beautiful and she’s an A student, and her photography is nearly as good as yours was when you and I…” Micah let the rest of that trail off, lest the conversation take a turn that made them both uncomfortable.
    “I’ve tried telling her all that.”
    “You should have told me. Then I could have reassured her, too.”
    “She’s eleven. Nothing would reassure her, not even her father.”
    “But I should have known about it so I could make that choice.”
    “Yes” was all she said.
    If Isabel had more on her mind, it would have to wait. The first bus was