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

the
playground, the kids raced for the equipment and Frannie took a seat on a park
bench anchored at the side of the sandy area. Her brain was lurching from
question to accusation ; from anger to agitation to
anxiety. How to handle the ranger’s suspicions? How to keep the kids safe? How
to help find the Trats girl? The answer to the last question would solve the
others as well, she realized.
    She turned from watching
Sabet and Joe as she realized someone else had taken a seat on the bench. It
was the young mother Frannie and Sabet had passed on the road the night
before—the one with the toddler girl who stopped to examine every speck
in the road. This time she had an older boy with her.
    “I’m going on the slide,
Mom,” the boy said and headed to the equipment.
    Frannie smiled at her. “You
don’t have your inspector along today.”
    “My inspector? Oh, Alice. She
is pretty curious, isn’t she? She’s napping so I left her with my husband. Are
those your grandchildren?”
    Frannie nodded. “They’re
diehard campers and love to come with us. They can certainly wear us out,
though. My name’s Frannie, by the way.” Camping was much like kindergarten in
that first names were sufficient for most discourses.
    “Tammy. Lots to do here,
though,” the woman said. “Did they get to hear the storyteller last night?”
    “Yeah, he was great. We went
on a bike ride this morning to Limestone City and he was performing at a flea
market there, too.”
    “We had heard him before. He
gave a program at Trevor’s school last spring.” Tammy nodded toward the boy
going head first down the slide on his stomach. Fortunately, the tackiness of
the slide prevented him from going very fast and landing face first in the sand
at the bottom.
    “Where are you from?” Frannie
asked.
    “Tennyson. It’s a part of RST
Consolidated.”
    “Sure—you’ve had some
pretty good girls’ softball teams, right?” Jane Ann and Mickey’s daughters had
played a lot of softball in high school.
    “State champions two years
ago,” Tammy said proudly. Frannie was not surprised at Tammy’s proprietary
attitude even though her children were not of the age to play sports yet; small
towns rose and fell on the fortunes of their athletic teams. “Anyway, I think
that Mr. Reid is going to be doing another program tonight.”
    “Really? That’s good to
know,” Frannie replied. The conversation turned to the good and bad points of
various campgrounds they had both visited.
    Then Tammy said, “Isn’t it
awful about that little girl gone missing? She must be lost—I can’t
imagine a kidnapper here—but I’m sure her parents must be frantic!”
    “Well, I hope she just turns
out to be lost and they find her soon, but meanwhile we can’t be too careful,”
Frannie said, thinking at the same time that the accusations against Larry must
not have spread through the campground yet.
    Just then, Joe came running
up, his sister right behind him. “Gran! Can we have some of them ice cream
bars?”
    “ Those ice cream bars,” Sabet corrected him.
    “That’s what I said!”
    Frannie cut off Sabet’s
retort. “What ice cream bars?”
    “The ones in the freezer,
Gran! You know which ones. We saw ‘em.”
    Frannie smiled and stood.
“You guys are too crafty for me. That does sound good. It was nice to meet you, Tammy. Have a good weekend.”
    “You, too,” Tammy replied and
Frannie certainly hoped so. As they walked down the main road toward their
loop, a sheriff’s car turned into the same road. They followed the car, and by
the time they reached the campsite, the sheriff was out of the car and talking
to Larry.
    “Frannie, this is Sheriff
Bonnaman. Sheriff, this is my wife, Frannie.”
    The sheriff, an
averaged-sized man with glasses and thinning red hair, nodded and did not offer
his hand. He did not look belligerent but was certainly all business.
    “Have they found her?”
Frannie blurted.
    “No,” the sheriff said, “but
it’s a