Not Quite Forever (Not Quite #4)(72)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“I stocked the car the day after we got here.”

“You thought this would happen?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t.”

For a woman who claimed to be tired hours ago, JoAnne sat with wide-opened eyes and fear all over her face.

“I have food back here, too. Not a lot, but enough for a couple of days.”

“We can’t survive out here that long. We’ll freeze.”

Dakota avoided panic by focusing on the positive. “We won’t freeze. And someone will come looking for us before morning.”

“Oh, God.”

Dakota climbed over the seats and killed the engine.

“What are you doing?”

“Saving gas. Put your coat on, your gloves, wrap up in the blanket. Jump in the backseat. Try and get some sleep.”

Dakota bundled into her ski hat and gloves and closed her coat around her tight. Then she reached for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I just need to pee, JoAnne. Your grandchild has been kicking my bladder for two hours.”

Dakota left the lights of the car on as she stepped out. Snow fell quietly; the fresh scent of the air would have been welcome from the porch of the Eddy home. She watched as her breath made the air fog with each exhale. She didn’t move far from the car and proceeded to freeze her butt off as she emptied her bladder.

She barely zipped her pants before rushing back to the car and climbing inside. “Shit, that’s cold,” she said the moment the door slammed behind her.

JoAnne handed her the second blanket.

Several minutes passed, and Dakota switched off the lights of the car. The silence grew as the temperature in the car fell.

“We’re going to be OK,” she told Walt’s mother.

“Of course we are.”

Good, that fight would help as the hours ticked by.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The plows went all the way to the Eddy house.

Nothing.

No one.

By two in the morning, the police were looking, but an official search wouldn’t happen until morning. Dakota and JoAnne weren’t the only missing people caught in the storm.

The roads farther up from his childhood home became impassible with the exception of plows, and even then, they were waiting for daylight and a break in the weather to get ahead of the snow.

He couldn’t sit, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Dakota on the side of the road, or worse, down the side of the mountain. What if they’d gotten into an accident? Were they hurt?

Larry made his way to the hospital, leaving Brenda at home to catch any possible phone call there.

At least his father rested comfortably, none the wiser.

Running on caffeine, Walt watched the sky lighten, but the snow kept coming.

With chains on his four-wheel-drive truck, Larry drove the two of them to the police station, where they were met with a lobby full of bundled residents and several sheriffs trying to calm and address each one.

When Walt met the whites of the clerks’ eyes, he forced his attention on her.

“We have every officer out at this time, Dr. Eddy. We have a description of your mother’s car. We’re looking.”

“Where are you looking?”

The phone rang, distracting her again.

Walt turned around.

Larry nodded toward the door. “C’mon. We’ll look.”

The plows had been through to his parents’ turnoff, but the road to the house was covered in over a foot of snow. They’d been told that an officer had knocked on the door, but there was no evidence of a car passing.

That scared Walt even more.

Larry inched the truck to the house.

Inside was dead silent, the red light on the answering machine blinked.

He heard his own calls, felt his panic all over again with each one.

Walt grabbed the throws from off the backs of the sofas, piled a bag full of water and ready-to-eat food, and shoved them into Larry’s truck.

“They could have missed the turnoff at night.”

“Hard to believe Mom would have missed it.”

“Unless she’d fallen asleep and Dakota missed it.”

Walt agreed with Larry, and they headed farther up the mountain. The snow was even thicker, and the falling rate would give them another six inches before noon.

They made it to a blockade, indicating that the plows hadn’t gone through in some time.

Each hour that passed killed part of Walt’s soul. He called Brenda every thirty minutes only to learn that she’d heard nothing.

Some of the chaos at the police station had mellowed when they returned there just after noon.

Panic moved to anger and Walt made sure he had the attention of as many officers as he could.

When the clerk started in with the we’re looking spiel, Walt lost it.

He slammed his hand on the counter. “My pregnant fiancée and my mother are out there. My father is recovering from heart surgery. We’re looking isn’t good enough!”

Finally, a sergeant came forward. “I’m Sergeant Mills. Let me show you where we’re directing our search.”

A map in a back room had colored stickpins dotting all over it. “We’ve been patrolling the main road, searched the road leading to your parents’ home. The electricity is out all over the west side of the mountain, and we’ve been all over that area helping residents get out, or get in.”

Walt studied the map, pointed above the turnoff. “The road is closed up here, when did that happen?”

“After midnight.”

“Has anyone been up there since? We didn’t get through.”

“The plows are going through within the hour. If your family missed their turn, there is another one a quarter mile up. Could they have taken that?”

“Anything is possible.”

Walt ran a hand through his hair.

“I know you’re frustrated. We’re using every resource right now. All emergency vehicles are out in the storm. Power is out everywhere, people have been stranded in cars overnight. We’re hoping the snow slows down before sunset. If not, then first thing in the morning we’ll start again, get a bird in the air and see if we can find them from above.”

Walt thought of Trent, his resources. “How many choppers do you have?”

“Two.”

“I can get more.”

“We might not need them.”

Might wasn’t good enough.

He put a phone call in to his friend.

Both Dakota and JoAnne huddled in the front of the car when they turned on the car to heat it up. The sun might have been up, but the temperature was still bitter cold. Dakota had managed maybe an hour of sleep in the night. JoAnne did marginally better.