“We’ll discuss it after I talk to your aunt.” She crossed to the desk and picked up the phone. “Hi, Cat. It’s Jessy. What did you need?”
“It’s Uncle Culley,” Cat said in reply. “I haven’t seen him in—it’s been more than a day and a half now. He’s probably fine, but I’m worried about him. I was wondering if you could—”
Guessing at the request, Jessy said, “I’ll pass the word to keep a lookout for him.”
“Thanks. He’ll probably show up, but . . .” Cat left the sentence unfinished.
“I know.”
“That’s all I wanted,” Cat said. “I’ll let you go ahead and start making your calls.”
In the background came Tara’s voice, “Aren’t you going to ask her about the note?” she demanded. “For heaven’s sake, Cat, you know she took it.”
Tension raced along her nerve ends. “Was that Tara?” Jessy asked, certain of the answer.
“Yes.” But there was a hesitancy in Cat’s reply.
“She mentioned a note. What was that about?” Unconsciously she held her breath, little alarms going off in her mind.
“That note you found, the one Dad had written, I’ve misplaced it,” Cat explained. “But that’s the least of my worries right now. Make your calls, and let me know if anyone has seen him.”
“I will,” Jessy promised and held down the cradle’s disconnect button.
“How ’bout s’ghetti, Mom?” Trey suggested.
“Let Mom make a couple calls first. Then we’ll talk about it.”
Ignoring Trey’s exaggerated sigh and roll of the eyes, Jessy phoned her father first and passed on Cat’s request. “Will you start spreading the word?” After receiving an affirmative response, she hung up.
“One more call,” she told Trey and dialed the feedlot. One of the ranch hands answered. “Kirby. It’s Jessy Calder.”
“Yeah, Jessy. What do you need?”
“I spoke to Cat a few minutes ago. O’Rourke has come up missing.”
“Are you putting together a search party? Finding him could be a tall order. There’s no telling where his wanderings might have taken him.”
“She doesn’t plan to organize a search yet. For the time being she just wants everyone to keep an eye out.”
“We can do that.”
“Thanks. Is Laredo still there?”
“He’s getting ready to leave. I’ll see if he’s gone yet.”
Seconds after he laid the phone down, Jessy heard a piercing whistle, followed by a shout telling Laredo he was wanted on the phone. There was a brief mumble of voices. Then Laredo came on the line.
“Did Kirby tell you about Culley?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. There’s more. It may not mean anything.” Yet Jessy had an uneasy feeling that it did. “The note with all those jottings about the feedlot that Chase wrote—I just found out it’s missing. Right now Cat says she misplaced it, but Tara is trying to convince her I took it.”
“Wonderful,” he murmured dryly as Trey scrambled over to the window.
“Somebody’s here, Mom,” he announced.
“I wanted to let you know about that,” she said into the phone. “Trey tells me we have company, so I’d better go.” She glanced out the window to identify the caller and tensed a little at the sight of Monte’s vehicle parked in front of The Homestead. “It’s Markham.”