Lois Kleckner, cheeks and nose bright red, huddled to the side in a parka. She spotted him and came running.

“Awful glad to have you here, Brick,” she said, wringing her hands.

“We’ll bring him back, Lois. We’ll find him,” he promised.

“Listen. Remi Ford was visiting when I realized Ben wasn’t in the bedroom. She went after him.”

His fingers tightened on the reins. “How long ago?” he demanded.

“Maybe ten minutes?”

The trouble that woman could get into in ten minutes was immeasurable.

“She took the snowmobile out before everyone else got here. I tried to get her to stay put until everyone else got here, but you know Remi.”

“I know Remi,” he agreed through the tightness in his throat. “What was she wearing?” He hoped to God the woman had at least remembered to put on fucking pants before charging out into a snowstorm.

“Bright yellow coat. Sweatpants. Fuzzy hat,” Lois said, waving a hand around her own head. “One of the skis on the Cat is a little loose. I haven’t had time to get it into the shop. I’m worried it might give her some trouble—”

“We’ll find them both,” he promised her.

“Brick.”

He rode over to where Chief Ford was checking radios and cordoning off sectors on the map.

“Chief.”

“I just checked my voicemails. Had one from Remi.” Her tone was neutral as always. Darlene was a rock at all times. But he saw the flash of worry in her green eyes. “Said she was going out looking for Ben.”

He nodded. “Mrs. Kleckner just told me.”

“She’s not answering her phone now,” Darlene told him.

His fingers flexed on the reins. He needed to be out there now. Searching. Remi hadn’t been through a winter on Mackinac in a long time. Long enough to forget how quickly weather conditions could change. How Mother Nature could take things from bad to worse on a whim.

“I’m gonna head out now. It looks like she followed his tracks onto the trail, so I’ll see if I can come in from the other end, just in case Ben wandered into the neighborhood at the end of the switchback.”

Darlene gave a brisk nod and handed him a portable radio. “Bring her back in one piece.”

“Will do.”

He didn’t wait for the briefing or the assignments, simply nudged his mount into a trot as fat flakes of snow began to fall.

He was a cop. He’d dealt with missing people. With medical emergencies. With accidents. None of this was new. But the fact that it was Remi out there, not answering her fucking phone? Something worse than the cold was creeping into his gut. Fear.

Remi was out there somewhere. And she wasn’t answering her phone. He dialed again and listened impatiently as it rang through to voicemail.

Brick gave Cleetus a kick behind the ribs and urged his horse faster. With no sign of any recent traffic, he headed up the hill and picked up Remi’s trail from an offshoot.