Callie Shaw waited a little impatiently beside her chosen tree, wondering how long it was going to take her boyfriend to return with one of the Colsons to cut it down so they could go back home.  She shivered slightly as a brisk wind blew through the trees and she zipped her coat up even higher to ward off the chill and made sure her hat covered her ears. 

As more time passed Callie began to wonder what happened.  Were the Colsons that backed-up?  Wouldn’t Frank have come back before now to tell her there was a wait?  She sighed and looked at her tree again before heading back down the path to find her wayward boyfriend.  Her brown eyes were alert for the signs of Frank’s dark blue parka and dark blue ski cap. 

Making it back to the van she saw that it was open to the elements and she looked around, not seeing Frank anywhere. 

“Callie!” Ernie Colson called out to her.  She turned toward him and motioned him closer.  “Hey, where’d Frank go?  I was going to go cut your tree down.”

“He’s supposed to be here waiting for you,” Callie said with a frown.  “He got the van ready.”

“Maybe he went back to you and you missed each other,” Ernie suggested.  “Let’s go take a look, shall we?”

Callie nodded fervently and followed Ernie back into the tree farm.  They wandered down several pathways, calling out Frank’s name, to no avail.  Ernie went back to the trailer that sat to one side of the farm and opened the door, calling out his brother, Jimmy’s, name.

Jimmy Colson, several inches taller than his brother and twice as heavy, stepped out from warming himself in the trailer.  The smaller Ernie motioned to Callie and then Frank’s van.

“You seen Frank Hardy?” Ernie asked.  “He was waiting for me to cut a tree for him and he’s disappeared.”

Jimmy shook his head.  “Not seen him,” he said bluntly.  “Not since he spoke to you while we were loading that ten-footer on that car.  We better look around.”

Callie shivered slightly, chilled to the bone and worried.  She forgot about her tree in her anxiety to find her boyfriend.  The nauseous feeling in her stomach was not due to illness but worry. 

Frank has to be okay, she thought.  He has to be okay.  He’s just...looking around while waiting.  Maybe he lost track of time.  That’s easy to do here.

Instead of waiting, however, Callie pulled her cell phone from her pocket and hit one of the speed dial numbers.

“Hardys,” Joe’s cheery tones sounded over the phone.  In the background Callie could hear someone singing “He’s Mr. White Christmas, he’s Mr. Snow…”  Callie rolled her eyes as she realized Joe was watching one of the Christmas cartoons.

“Joe, this is Callie,” Callie paused for a moment, fighting back the urge to cry. 

“Hi, Cal,” Joe continued in his jolly tones.  “’Sup?  You and Frank get lost or something?”

“We didn’t get lost,” Callie exploded.  “Frank’s lost.  I mean, I – we can’t find him.  I found my tree and he went to get one of the Colsons.  He was waiting one minute and gone the next.  Nobody has seen anything.  We’ve been looking through the farm but he’s not answering and it’s so cold out here.  What do we do?  Should I call the police?”

“Just hold on a second, Callie.”  No longer cheerful, Joe now sounded businesslike.  “Hold on, okay?  Let me get my dad’s car, I’ll come out there and meet you.  I’ll make a few phone calls.  Have you tried Frank’s cell yet?”

“No!” Callie blushed slightly, feeling suddenly ashamed.  “It didn’t occur to me.  Let me hang up and do that now—”

“No, hold on,” Joe said.  “I’ll just use my cell phone.  Wait a sec, okay?”

Callie sighed but she waited for several very long moments until she heard Joe’s voice again.

“No answer and it rang twice before going into voice mail, like someone turned it off all of a sudden.  NOW we’re going to call the police.  I’ll call Con Riley, you just stay put.  Are you going to be okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah,” Callie whispered.  She tried again.  “Yes, I’ll be fine.  I’ll continue looking here.  Thanks, Joe.”

Joe hung up and Callie felt alone again, despite the presence of the Colson brothers.  She wandered away from them, heading down more of the aisles of trees, looking for any signs of her boyfriend.  It was growing dark, though and getting harder to see even with the occasional light along the path.  She finally turned back and went to the van to wait, worry-laden with fear. 

The police arrived first, their blue and red twirling lights breaking the darkness.  Callie approached them and was relieved to see two people she recognized – Sergeant Con Riley and his partner, Devon Davenport.  Riley led the way to where Callie stood.

“Callie?” Riley touched her shoulder carefully.  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened,” Callie said.  “I was tree-shopping and I found one.  Frank went to get someone to cut it down for us and he disappeared.  I found the van wide open, like he had gotten it ready for us to load the tree but he never came back and when I went to find him I couldn’t.”

Riley glanced over at his partner and nodded.  “We’ll do another look here; in the meantime I’ll call the station and see if we can’t get more help out here.  We can’t declare him missing, officially, for 24 hours but we can at least look.  Why don’t you climb into the car or the van and get warm, Ms. Shaw?  You looking frozen.”

Callie shook her head vehemently.  “I can’t,” she said.  “I want to help find Frank.  He has to be here somewhere!”

“Sarge,” Davenport called from where he stood by the Hardys’ van.  “I see something.  Come here, please.”

Riley walked over to his partner and knelt down beside where Davenport was shining his flashlight.  They were by the back door of Frank’s van, looking down at a set of tires that crossed behind.

“Here,” Davenport, motioning to something on the frozen ground.  “Are those his car keys?”

Riley shrugged.  “I think so.”

Davenport used a pen from his pocket to pick up the keys and he laid them on the bumper of the van as Riley asked Callie to come over.  Callie identified the keys as Frank’s.

“Those are his,” she whispered.  “What happened?”

“No way of telling, unless he dropped them by accident and didn’t notice,” Davenport explained.  “Still, it seems suspicious.  Let’s take a thorough look around.”

**

Joe, his stomach somewhere near the level of his throat, pulled into the parking lot of the tree farm several minutes later and ran over to where Callie still stood by the van.  His brother’s girlfriend looked pale and washed out in her fuzzy white snow jacket and Joe touched her chilly cheek with one finger.

“Callie, get in my car,” he ordered softly.  “You’re frozen solid.  You’ll get sick and Frank won’t want that.  I’ll go see if I can’t lend a hand with finding him.  You just stay here, okay?”

Callie shook her head but didn’t make any effort to move beyond that. 

“We’ll find him,” Joe tried to sound confident though he was probably as worried as she.  “You need to get warm.  Go on now, get in the car.”

Callie nodded and went over to the still warm car as Joe turned toward the farm itself.  He saw flashlights in the distance and heard voices calling his brother’s name.  He jogged over to the closest light and found Con Riley.

“Fraaaank!” the name rang out in the distance.  “Frank Hardy!”

“Joe,” Con said when he saw the younger Hardy boy.  “Didn’t I tell you to stay home?”

“Yeah, and we all know how well I listen,” Joe said.  “This is Frank we’re talking about.  You know I wasn’t going to stay put.”

Con sighed and nodded.  He knew that all right.   Joe pulled out his own flashlight – it was more a penlight than anything else but it gave him a little light. 

“I’ll take another path.  Holler if you find him,” Joe said.

The blonde-haired Hardy moved away from the officer and went searching, panning his small light in all directions around the path and calling his brother’s name as he went.  He wasn’t sure how long he looked before he heard his own name and Riley ordering him back to the entrance to the farm. 

“I think it’s safe to say he’s not here,” Riley said softly, reluctantly.  Joe fought the urge to scream.  “Where’s your dad this week?”

“Florida, looking for that missing girl,” Joe said.  “I’d better give him a call and let him know what’s happened.  Can one of you drive the van to my house?  I’m going to drive Callie home.”

Davenport volunteered and Joe tossed the officer his extra set of keys.

“Joe?” Callie asked as they were on their way to her house.

“Yeah?” Joe asked.

“Do you think…do you think Frank’s okay?” she asked softly, fretfully.

“I don’t know, Cal,” Joe answered a few moments later.  “I don’t know…”