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making her mouth go dry.
    If they could take photos of her with Emily outside her own home and sneak them into the preschool with cops parked nearby…
    She glanced at the note—instructions on where to put a hundred thousand dollars and threats to harm both her and Emily if she didn’t.
    Megan turned to Christa, interrupting her conversation with another mother. “Someone brought this inside and left it in Emily’s cubby. Who was it? When?”
    She handed the note to Christa, whose face paled as she read it. “You found this here ?”
    “It was in Emily’s cubby. Someone delivered it in person. Look—no stamps.” Megan showed Christa the envelope, amazed that she sounded so calm when inside she wanted to scream. “Come, Emily, sweet pea. We need to go.”
    She hurried Emily to the car and drove straight to the police station.
    # # #
    Nate piled slices of leftover roast beef on a hard roll, added mayonnaise, mustard, a slice of cheddar cheese, sliced tomato, avocado, lettuce, and a chopped jalapeño pepper, then took his sandwich and a bottle of Fat Tire to the table. He’d gotten the hay off the semi, storing some of it in the barn and loading some of it onto a truck so that it could be driven out to pasture. It had been hard work, making his arm, chest, and shoulder ache, but it had been satisfying, too. He’d worked up a sweat—and an appetite.
    He reached for the paper only to find his father had already cut it to pieces. The old man was a pack rat who clipped and saved news stories he found interesting. That was all fine and good, but it made it damned hard to read the paper unless Nate got to it first. At least the sports section was still intact.
    Nate read while he ate, wishing it was still baseball season. He was reading predictions for the Mile High Showdown—the annual contest between the CU Buffs and the CSU Rams—when the old man walked up to the table with a thick manila folder and dropped it on the table in front of Nate. “ This is why the name Marc Hunter sounded familiar to me.”
    “Are you still going on about that?” It had been almost a week, but the old man still refused to let it go.
    His dad sat, a mug of coffee in his hand. “I think you need to see it.”
    Nate took a bite of his sandwich, opened the folder—and almost choked.
    There on top of a pile of newspaper clippings sat a wanted poster with an image of Marc Hunter. His hair was down to his shoulders, and he was sporting a beard and mustache, but the man was unmistakably Megan’s brother. If visual proof hadn’t been enough, the name “Marc Hunter” was prominent on the poster—not far from the words “armed and dangerous.”
    Megan’s brother was an ex-con?
    Some part of Nate wanted to laugh.
    “This story broke about four years go. I followed it pretty closely because Hunter took that woman reporter hostage and fled into the mountains. They launched the biggest manhunt in the state’s history to try to bring him in and rescue her. The men and I checked outbuildings and campsites on our land regularly for a month, but found no sign of him. Turns out there was a lot more to the story than anyone knew. It seems Hunter and his sister have had a pretty tough time of it. It’s all there.”
    But Nate was already reading.
    He didn’t notice when his father stood and walked away.
    # # #
    Megan cut Emily’s bean burrito into bite-size pieces, put the carrot sticks on the plate beside it, and set the plate on the coffee table in Marc’s office, together with a plastic fork and napkin. “Thanks, Sophie. This is so much healthier than a hamburger from down the street. Can you thank Aunt Sophie for bringing us lunch, Emily?”
    “Thank you, Auntie Sophie,” Emily said in a small voice, smiling up at Sophie.
    Sophie bent down, planted a kiss on Emily’s head. “You’re welcome, baby doll.”
    Megan had so many reasons to be grateful to Sophie. Before Sophie had become Megan’s sister-in-law, she’d launched an