Page 4 (2/2)

The line went dead

Chapter Two

Harvest’s early lunch crowd’s muffled chatter filtered up the stairs to Claire’s office on the second floor The sound barely registered in her worried , she chewed on her bottom lip

Tiut as she squinted at her laptop’s clock Her stomach dropped

Eleven-thirty Only thirty minutes left until the Voice of Doom’s deadline

Her purple kitten heels clicked across the hardwood floor, keeping pace with her frantic thoughts Her nails dug into her pal up inside her The phone and flash drive had to be soht minutes left until the call She still had time to find them What had she missed?

The investigators never found a phone or flash drive in the Duotten that tidbit of infor He’d leveled a strange look at her when she’d asked about it and the truth had almost bubbled out But a vision of Hank’s lifeless body pushed in with the garbage had stopped her cold She’d deflected his curiosity by handing him a donut and skedaddled out of his office

The poor girl had eaten here last night Harvest was the only logical place the devices could be She had to find them or the Voice of Doom would hurt her family He’d already killed one person Would a fewby the deuessed not

Sitting down at her desk and letting her head fall to its solid surface, she rolled through the possibilities She’d checked underneath all of the tables in the downstairs dining rooh the booth seats’ crevices and recovered about four bucks in spare change, a dozen gum wrappers and way toohad lain underneath the upended fake potted plants She’d looked behind the photos of area farmers that lined the walls Nada Her search of the kitchen had left her empty-handed All she’d discovered after practically dis the bar was that she needed to order vodka

Easing her head up fronawed her raw bottom lip Her frustration festered as she tried to unwind the ically appeared She couldn’t envision any possible locations she hadn’t already checked twice Discarding each idea as soon as it occurred, a desperate tension built up with no release in sight She spun her chair around, faced theand berated herself for her lack of insight

Always er than fear, she focused on that eht to answer the riddle

“Hey there, Munchkin Mom says hi”

In a single motion, she juainst the doorfraest and smallest of her three brothers, Chris stood six feet tall but compensated with a tall, black cowboy hat

“No, Chris, you didn’t call Moroaned “Why do all my brothers hate me?”

The last thing she needed was her mom to descend into this chaos Glenda Layton would fuss and flutter around, pouring coffee for the deputies while whispering to Claire that none of this would have happened if she werefor her children to get hitched and provide her with grandchildren drove them all nuts Glenda wouldn’t let a little detail like a murderer on the loose distract her from her life’s mission Claire was sure of it