Rock Harbor Series - 01 - Without a Trace by Colleen Coble Read Free Book Online

mother.”
    Bree chuckled and followed Naomi into the parlor. “You may not be so thrilled when you hear what I’ve come to tell you.”
    “Mom just put out some tea and cookies. Come tell us all about it.”
    Bree followed Naomi into the parlor.
    “Bree, dear, I was just thinking about you.” Martha smoothed her flowered skirt and leaned over to pour the tea. “You look like you could use something to drink.”
    Bree plopped onto the sofa and curled one denim-clad leg under the other. “You two are my sanity. Oops.” She fished around under her and pulled out a book. “This has to be yours.” She handed it to Naomi.
    “I was wondering where I put that one,” Naomi said with a surreptitious glance at her mother. She’d managed to hide the book she’d been reading in the office from her mother, but not this one.
    “I don’t know why you tote a book everywhere you go; you’re always losing them. I could stock a library with the books you’ve lost.” Bree took the cup of tea with a smile of thanks. “I have a summons from the mayor,” she said with a dramatic flourish of her hand.
    Naomi wrinkled her nose. “The poodle has issued a decree?”
    “Girls, that isn’t respectful,” Martha murmured.
    Naomi felt a shaft of shame. But Hilary got under her skin in the worst way. She bossed Bree around, and Bree let her. Naomi didn’t understand the hold Hilary seemed to have on her friend. She pushed away her unspoken censure of Bree, who had been through so much. It was no wonder she craved peace at any cost.
    “What for?” Naomi asked.
    “Hilary’s reelection campaign kickoff dinner is tonight. Mason’s too, of course, but since he coasts on Hilary’s coattails, his campaign isimmaterial as far as she’s concerned. I thought maybe I could evade an order to appear, but my luck ran out. So did yours.” She looked over her teacup at Naomi and raised an eyebrow for effect. “She wants us to come so she can show off yesterday’s successful search like her latest trophy.” Bree took another cookie and bit into it.
    Naomi groaned. “Not a dinner party! Anything but that!”
    Martha smiled, her eyes lighting with pleasure. “That means a fancy dress, Naomi dear.”
    Bree grinned. “I’m afraid your mom is right, Naomi. It’s pull-out-all-the-stops, knock-’em-dead time.”
    Naomi fell back against the couch in an exaggerated posture of despair. “And here I thought you were my friend.”
    “Hey, that’s what friends are for,” Bree said with a trace of smugness. “For that and chocolate-chip cookies.” She took another bite of cookie and grinned.
    Bree studied the large topographic map that decorated the wall in the lighthouse’s spare room. She needed to get an updated copy. This one had some inaccuracies. She was almost done with sector fifteen, which was smack in the middle of the southern half of the Kitchigami Wilderness. Should she move east or west? Or keep pushing north? The Rock River Gorge wilderness lay east of sector fifteen. She hadn’t even begun to search there. The monumental size of her task felt almost suffocating.
    Saturday was not normally her preference for a search day. Hunters and fishermen were out in force on weekends, and they tended to try to engage her in conversation when their paths crossed hers. But October’s Indian summer wouldn’t last long, and she needed to take advantage of every hour.
    Though she knew she should spend the day preparing for Hilary’s party, she decided to finish sector fifteen, on the west side of the gorge.She pulled her backpack and rescue vest out of the spare room’s closet, found her cell phone, and headed for the woods.
    Six hours later, the only thing she’d accomplished was closing the door on sector fifteen. No sign of a crash anywhere.
    Weariness gripped her as she drove home. A party was the last thing she felt like attending. Driving up Negaunee Street, the light tower of her lighthouse seemed illuminated from within by the