I rubbed my upper arms against the brisk wind in a vain attempt to stay warm. Where were they? I walked around in a small circle to keep my blood flowing and pulled out my cell phone.

No calls. No texts.

Which could mean something, or it could mean nothing. There were many areas of Tonedagana County that didn’t have cell phone coverage. Maybe the bookmobile had broken down in one of those areas. Or maybe they’d hit a deer. Or maybe . . .

“Don’t worry,” I said out loud, and immediately ignored my own advice. At a quarter past, I started texting Julia and Hunter.

Nothing.

At half past, I started calling them.

Still nothing.

At an hour late I called the central dispatch line at the sheriff’s office. Both fortunately and unfortunately, the dispatchers hadn’t heard a thing. They kindly said they’d keep an ear out and would let me know if a call about the bookmobile came in.

“Thanks,” I said, “much appreciated.”

I called Graydon, and just as we were planning the route of our search and rescue, I heard the unmistakable noise of the vehicle I’d been driving for years. “They’re back,” I said, trying to see through its windshield. “And it looks like . . . yes, I see both Julia and Hunter. They’re smiling and waving, so everything must be okay.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Graydon said. “Let me know what happened.”

“Will do.” Then, before I lost my courage, I added, “Say, I know you can’t talk about a closed board meeting, but is there anything you can tell me?”

“Uh, sorry? What was that?” he asked. “You’re cutting out on me. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

Huh. So my boss was a worse liar than I was. Good to know.

I slid my phone back into my coat pocket after glancing at the time, which was ticking away.

“Minnie, I am so sorry!” Julia piled out of the bookmobile. “We should have let you know how late we were going to be, but you know there’s no cell reception in the valley. This family who’s up at their summer cabin because their power is out downstate hiked to the bookmobile stop, and it started raining buckets just as they were leaving.”

“It’s my fault,” Hunter said. “I told them we’d be happy to drive them to their house.”

Julia nodded. “But it didn’t have a landline. And they were so thankful they made us stay and eat cookies, and fed Eddie special treats, and then the kids wanted to put on a thank-you puppet show and both our phones were out of power and I couldn’t find the cable to charge them and—”