Read Online The Blue Coyote (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 2) by Karen Musser Nortman - Free Book Online

the child could have
gotten lost so quickly in broad daylight. Larry squelched most of the talk in
Sabet’s hearing and moved to add wood to the fire.
    Frannie looked around at her
friends and tried to ignore the hole in her stomach. The accusations and
suspicions brought back a hammer of memories of the previous Fourth of July
weekend when the campground hostess was murdered at Bat Cave State Park. Surely
the Trats girl would be found soon having just wandered off. But...she thought
about her uneasiness around the single men in the road crew and the
conversation she overheard while waiting in the truck. They had seemed awfully
interested in the kids at the campground and the flea market, but then lots of
people liked kids. It was the times that made everyone suspicious.
    Mickey had picked up his
guitar and was strumming it softly. Jane Ann was on her phone—probably to
one of her daughters. Nancy was getting an explanation from Joe about his
marshmallow gun. A peaceful scene but a disturbing current
underneath.
    Ranger Sommers returned from
the Trats’ campsite, looking grim. Frannie could imagine the demands being made
of her.
    “Mrs. Shoemaker, would you
ride over to the tent loop with me and point out the woman you saw talking to
the Trats girl?”
    Frannie nodded, noticing that
Sommers was deliberately excluding Larry. She climbed into the passenger seat
of the DNR pickup while the ranger took the wheel and expertly backed the truck
into an empty campsite across the road, completing a neat three point turn, and
slowly headed to the tent loop. Frannie pointed out the small tent and the
woman sitting, still reading, by the fire.
    The ranger got out of the
truck, and since she hadn’t been instructed not to, Frannie followed. The
ranger introduced herself.
    “Ma’am, a little while ago, a
young girl on a bike talked to you in the road?”
    The woman, middle-aged with
too-black helmet hair, closed her book and stood up, tugging her pink
embroidered sweatshirt over ample hips clad in matching pink sweat pants.
    “Why, yes. She was afraid of
a man in one of the campsites. She wanted me to go with her to report it.”
    “Who were you going to report
to?” Sommers tilted her head slightly and crossed her arms.
    “Well, we were going to find
you, but when we passed the host site, the woman was outside so we talked to
her. She said she would take care of it.”
    “Where did the little girl go
then, do you know?”
    “She had to go to the
restroom so I took her. On our way back, she wanted to take a short cut through
the woods to her campsite. Why? Did something happen?”
    “We don’t know. She has
disappeared. She may just be lost.”
    The woman’s mouth dropped
open and she brought up one hand to cover it. “Oh, no! I guess I shouldn’t have
let her go by herself, but we could see their trailer through the
trees—it wasn’t that far. She was going to have her parents go get her
bike.” She paused and rubbed her forehead, then looked at them in shock. “I
don’t know who the man was that was bothering her—back there somewhere.”
She pointed toward the loop Frannie and Larry were on.
    “All right, I know the path
you mean. We’ll start our search there. What is your name, and where are you
from?”
    “Maddie Sloan. I live in
Omaha. I’m on my way to visit my son in Indianapolis. I can’t believe
this—I feel terrible.”
    “Are you camping alone, Ms.
Sloan?”
    “Yes.”
    The ranger walked over to the
post and checked the site registration and dates.
    “You plan to camp here until
tomorrow?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you come right back here
after you left the little girl?”
    “Oh, yes. I laid down in my
tent for a while but I’ve been here the whole time.”
    “How long ago was that?”
    “About an hour and fifteen
minutes, I think.”
    Precise, thought Frannie.
    “Okay,” said the ranger.
“Please stay here in the park in case we have more questions.”
    The woman nodded. “I sure
hope you