am, but—” Donovan began, but he never got a chance to finish.
Because at that moment, Bellamy grabbed Jonah’s arm, clutching it as if she was holding on to a lifeline. The zombie look on her face vanished, replaced by an animated expression that looked as if it was actually bordering on hysteria.
“You’ve got to find her,” Bellamy begged him with feeling.
“Her?” Jonah repeated, unsure of who the woman was referring to.
“Magnolia—Maggie—my sister,” Bellamy almost shouted before she was able to get herself under control. “Please,” she pleaded, still clutching his hand and squeezing it hard for emphasis. “She’s out there somewhere, maybe hurt, or—”
Bellamy couldn’t bring herself to utter the condemning word. It was just too frightening to give voice to. Instead, she repeated herself. “You have to find her and bring her back.”
After years of being estranged, Bellamy and her younger sister, Maggie, had finally cleared up the misunderstanding, centered around their parents, that had kept them apart all this time. Bellamy had thought that Maggie had turned her back on the family to marry well and run off, when the exact opposite turned out to be true. When they finally sat down to talk, the truth came out. Issues had been resolved to the point that Bellamy had asked Maggie to be her co–maid of honor, along with her best friend Rae Lemmon. Maggie had happily agreed.
And now this happened.
“You have to bring her back,” Bellamy insisted. “I can’t lose her!”
“Where did you last see her?” Jonah asked, trying to retrace Maggie’s steps.
Bellamy closed her eyes, trying to clear her head and summon the memory. It didn’t come at first.
“At the house.” Her eyes flew open. “The last time I saw her was at the house,” she exclaimed.
“But she’s not there.” Donovan spoke up. “We went there are soon as we could,” he explained to his brothers.
“Something awful’s happened to her, I just know it,” Bellamy declared, struggling to keep her tears back. “You have to—”
Still clutching his arm tightly, Bellamy was beginning to make his hand seriously numb. Even so, Jonah smiled reassuringly at his future sister-in-law.
“We will. We’ll find her, Bellamy. I promise,” he added. “But if I’m going to do that, I’m going to need the use of my arm,” he told her, looking pointedly down at her hand.
Bellamy followed his gaze, totally oblivious to the fact that she was holding on to him so tightly.
“Oh,” she cried, as surprised as he was that she was gripping his arm so hard. Belatedly, like a person waking up from a dream, she released her hold on him. Collecting herself, she asked, “You’ll let me know the second you’ve found her? One way or the other, you’ll let me know,” she begged.
“If they get the phone lines working, I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I find her,” Jonah told Donovan’s fiancée.
“As soon as we find her,” Dallas corrected. “We’re in this together, remember?” he reminded Jonah. “Don’t worry,” he told Bellamy. “Four sets of eyes are better than one.” And then he turned toward Jonah again because there was no denying that Jonah was the team leader. “Just in case your superhero radar is off,” he said, attempting to add just a little levity to what was a very dire situation.
“Spread out, guys,” Jonah ordered, ignoring Dallas for the time being. “Before we go running off, beating the bushes for any sign of Maggie, let’s find out if anyone here saw her or talked to her before this storm decided to redecorate the landscape. Plenty of people here to talk to,” he added, gesturing around at the people who occupied the rec center. Still more were filing in by the hour.
* * *
Jonah felt he was getting nowhere. Questioning resident after shaken resident, he was forced to detach himself, putting up a wall between himself and those who were so very desperate to share their story with someone. He hated being so impersonal but needed to keep a clear head if he wanted to be able to find Maggie.
And he did.
Not just to keep his promise to Bellamy, but because he felt a special connection when it came to the woman he’d been tasked with finding. He remembered Maggie Reeves all too well from school, even though he was five years older than she was. He’d been a gawky kid back then, skinny as a rail until he’d started working on his parents’ ranch in his teens. He’d filled out then, but Maggie, Maggie had been born beautiful and only grew more so as time went by. He remembered that she’d even won the coveted title of Miss Austin in a beauty pageant. There had been other accolades along the way. But that was before she had gotten married.
The marriage didn’t last, but he could have predicted that if anyone had asked. James Corgan might have been wealthy, but he was an amoral alley cat. All the money in the world couldn’t change that, Jonah thought as he continued questioning survivors. He never understood what Maggie had seen in James, but whatever it was, her vision cleared up soon enough and she had divorced him.
And now Maggie was out there somewhere, hopefully alive—
“Hey, Jonah, I found somebody who saw Maggie maybe an hour before the storm hit,” Forrest called out.
Jonah looked up to see his brother trying hard not to limp as he made his way over. The former detective had Rae Lemmon with him. Adrenaline raced through Jonah as he instantly crossed to the duo, meeting them more than halfway.
“You know where she went?” Jonah asked the young woman with Forrest.
“I think so. Maggie talked to me just before she left.” The petite brunette nodded, as if that added weight to what she was about to say. “She told me she was going to Live Oak Ranch.”
Jonah looked at Rae, puzzled. “Doesn’t that belong to her ex’s family?” he asked the woman. Maybe Rae had gotten her facts confused. “Why would she be going there?”
Rae raised her slim shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. Maggie said she was going there because she needed to uncover a secret.”
“A secret?” Jonah echoed, in the dark as much as ever. He glanced at Forrest, who just shook his head. He obviously didn’t have a clue, either. “What secret?” Jonah asked the paralegal.
“I don’t know,” Rae repeated helplessly. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. Maggie said she’d know more once she got there.” And then Rae remembered something. “She did say she had a map.”
“A map.” Jonah was beginning to feel like a parrot, just repeating things that made no sense. He felt as if he’d been swallowed up by the hurricane and was now being tossed around without rhyme or reason. “Why would she need a map?” he asked. “Maggie lived on Live Oak Ranch when she was married to James, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Rae answered. “But she took the map with her because she said she needed to pinpoint the biggest tree on the ranch.” Rae shrugged again, feeling frustrated and helpless. She pressed her lips together, silently upbraiding herself that she hadn’t made Maggie tell her more.
