Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 27069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Worry filled her as she checked her watch. People were due to arrive in just less than an hour and Spike wasn’t here yet. Nor were several of her special guests.
Shoot. She should have insisted that they fly into Billings yesterday. But Reverend Pat had wanted to attend the Easter Sunday service in Nowhere. He was no longer an active minister, but he still liked to help the new minister with his duties.
And by ‘help’ she meant that he liked to lecture him on the correct way to do things.
That’s why she’d decided to have her hunt on Monday instead of Easter Sunday. Her friends were staying for a whole week, much to Spike and Mr. Fluffy’s horror.
But they’d deal. For her, there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do.
Millie checked her phone again to see if there had been a delay in the flight coming in. But no, it said it landed forty minutes ago which should have given him plenty of time to get here.
Although she knew that getting her friends to do something was like herding cats. So perhaps Spike was just having trouble getting them all into his car.
Yep. That was it. That’s all that was wrong.
Nothing else.
It couldn’t be anything else.
They might have gone to the lawnmower store again. Mr. Spain could be awfully persuasive.
Except . . . why wasn’t Spike answering his phone?
A sob escaped her. Maybe he couldn’t hear it over Andrey’s loud voice. Or everyone having to yell at Mr. Spain because he couldn’t hear them.
God, she hoped so.
A ping on her phone told her someone was at the gate. Hope flooded her before she realized that Spike would just drive in.
She frowned as she saw a strange car at the gates. Spike would kill her if she let someone in who she didn’t know. It was a large car. Was it someone coming early to the hunt? But most people knew the code.
Then her gaze zeroed in on the person in the front passenger seat.
Was that . . . was it . . . Andrey?
But why would he be in a strange car?
The passenger door opened and Andrey stepped out. She immediately opened the gate remotely. What was going on?
Why wasn’t Spike driving them? Where was he?
A knot developed in her stomach and she rang Spike’s phone again as she made her way around to the front of the house.
It went to voicemail.
Where are you, Daddy?
The car had stopped and a stranger was opening the trunk.
“Hello!” she called out.
“Ahh, Millie!” Andrey cried, opening his arms wide. “We are here! Safe and sound.”
“Safe, yes,” Reverend Pat muttered as he climbed out of the back, then turned to help Mrs. Larsen.
Mr. and Mrs. Spain got out from the other side.
“But some of us are not so sound,” Reverend Pat added.
“Ahh, old man.” Andrey whacked Reverend Pat on his back. “Do not be so hard on yourself. Not all of us can be as good up here as me.” He tapped his head.
“That’s not what I meant,” Reverend Pat said. “You tried to get us here by hitchhiking.”
“What? What is wrong with that?” Andrey asked.
“Guys,” she said, trying to catch their attention. They could do this for hours if she let them.
And she needed to know what had happened.
“It’s dangerous,” Reverend Pat said, his face growing red. “We could have been killed.”
“Pfft,” Andrey said. “As if I would allow that to happen. I could kill this man forty ways with my bare hands. No problem.”
The driver paled.
“Wait. You hitchhiked here?” she asked.
That feeling of dread in her tummy grew.
Where. Was. Spike?
“No, we did not,” Reverend Pat said as the man finished emptying his trunk. “We got an Uber.”
“You guys know how to Uber?” she asked, temporarily distracted from her worries.
“Of course we know how to use Uber,” Mrs. Larsen said with a huff.
“So he’s an Uber driver.” She gestured to the man who was getting back into his car now that everyone was out.
“Yes, of course,” Reverend Pat said.
“We thought that Spike was picking us up,” Mrs. Spain said. “When he didn’t turn up, we decided that we better get our own way here.”
“You . . . what? He didn’t turn up?” Millie was going to pass out. She couldn’t . . . couldn’t . . .
“Millie? Millie!” Someone caught her, lowering her to the ground. She looked up into the concerned face of Reverend Pat, then behind to Andrey who’d caught her.
“Where . . . where is Spike?” she asked, her panic growing.
What happened? Something bad . . . she knew it had to be something bad. Or he’d have been at the airport. He’d be answering his phone.
Her phone started ringing.
Was it Spike?
“Where . . . where’s my phone? It’s ringing. It might be Spike.”
“It’s in your hand, dear,” Mrs. Spain said.
She stared down at her phone, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to make herself answer it.