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“I’m aware of that, but I’m not sure she’d have a gun around a child who’s disabled. If she’s smart enough to survive out there, she’s smarter than that.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that one. Okay, keep me up to date, if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind a bit. Catch ya later.” As he hung up the phone, Shaw wondered what he’d find down in the woods. What if they were dead? What if she’d gone down there and killed the girls and then herself? That would be a mess, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d come upon something like that. It happened far more often than most people knew.

After he’d cleaned up everything from breakfast and rinsed out his mug, he climbed into the truck, then climbed back down. His dad’s sledgehammer was sitting right inside the doorway of the shed, so he grabbed it, dropped it into the bed of the truck, and slid in behind the steering wheel again. He could hear it banging just a little as the truck bumped down the driveway. At the end, he turned left and headed toward his parents’ house. He’d intended to take the damn thing back three weeks earlier and kept forgetting.

As soon as he got there, he grabbed the sledgehammer and took it straight to the garage to hang it in the spot where his dad kept it. Then he let himself in the back door and called out, “Anybody home?”

“Shaw?”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s me. I brought back Dad’s sledgehammer.”

A male voice called out, “You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t need it right now.”

“I kept forgetting. I figured if I remembered, I’d better do it right then.” Following the sound of the voice, he stepped into the living room to find his dad in a tee and shorts, reading the newspaper.

“That’s what happens to you in your old age,” JohnnyHarrison said with a smile as he looked up over the newspaper at his youngest son. “You get old and forgetful.”

“Hey, speak for yourself, old man.” Shaw grabbed a toss pillow from the recliner and lobbed it at his dad.

“Hey, you’re gonna mess up my newspaper! You know, that thing I pay a fortune for that’s not worth a damn the next day?”

“You should watch TV like the rest of us.” Shaw plopped down in the recliner. “You guys going to the picnic this weekend?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure we are. Your mom wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” Leslie said as she hustled into the room. “I can’t help it if I like socializing.”

“Eh. Socializing. You mean gossiping?” Johnny asked, and Shaw grinned, listening to his parents’ banter.

Leslie scowled. “Socializing. You know, Mr.Antisocial.”

“I’ll have you know, I socialize plenty.”

“Yeah, at the diner with the other old codgers.”

“Now I’m a codger?” Johnny barked, and Shaw was laughing so hard that he couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, but you’re a cute old codger.” As Leslie passed him with a basket of laundry, she leaned over and kissed Johnny on the cheek.

“Cute. Bah. Crazy woman. So what are you up to today, son?”

Shaw managed to quell his laughter. “I’m going out to the resort park. Got something going on out there.”

“Meth lab?”

“Nah. I don’t think so.” He wanted to tell his dad, but he knew better. It was no time to get caught up in JohnnyHarrison’s extensive knowledge of detective work from criminal thriller novels.

“Well, okay then. Good luck with that.” And Johnny went back to his paper.

“Hey, do you know a deputy sheriff named AaronFriedman?”

Johnny paused in thought. “Friedman. Hey, honey, a deputy named Friedman. Where do I know that name?”

“That’s the one whose wife and little girl were kidnapped by that guy who killed that social worker,” Leslie called back.

Shaw was shocked. How had he forgotten that? “Oh! Yeah! I remember. And the guy killed his ex-wife in the process, right?”