15. Dilemma 3

At Laura's House

Unfortunately, the family was never prepared for the trauma of the missing children that day. They had their dinner quite well but were distressed afterward.

“Where could they be at this moment?” Madeline asked bitterly.

“It baffles me, too,” Laura stated and looked at her worried father's face.

“Have you called their numbers?” He asked.

“Let me do that, now,” she promised and dialed Gerald's number. They waited anxiously while it rang. Afterward, it timed out.

“What is the meaning of this? Why are they not picking up their calls?” Madeline asked.

“Could they have gone to Rakaia?” Her father asked and they focused on him.

“What will take them there, Dad? When they were looking for Tim's corpse”

“Maybe to see their old friends.”

Rakaia was their native town and it was seated close to the southern banks of the Rakaia River on the Canterbury Plains. That was the river Tim fell into after Gen. McDonald shot him.

“It is possible. What do we do?” Madeline asked.

“Tim wou