Missing in Conard County Read online

  Kelly laughed. “I’m sure some could.”

  “Oh, yeah, but not all of them. I got the feeling it was a thing to do if you played a woodwind. Anyway, my folks didn’t mind it, so who was I to get annoyed?”

  “What made you leave?”

  “Did you know you can die of a broken heart? For real?”

  She turned on her stool until she faced him directly. He seemed preoccupied with reaching for another piece of pie. “Al?”

  “It’s true,” he said, his tone changing, growing a bit sorrowful. “Dad took a road trip to Denver to get some supplies. Unfortunately, he was mugged and killed for fifty dollars and a credit card.”

  Kelly’s breath snagged and her chest tightened, aching for him.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “Mom died two days later. Broken heart syndrome, they called it. It had a fancier name, of course, since it was discovered by some Japanese doctors, but whatever. Her heart stopped beating right, and she thought the pain was grief and...too late. She was gone.”

  Kelly instinctively reached out to grip his forearm. “I am so sorry, Al. So, so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.” At last he turned his head and gave her a faint smile. His eyes were dry. “Still hurts a bit, but it was a long time ago. After I recovered from the shock and two funerals, I put the shop up for sale and went looking for the Marine recruiter. I needed to get out of this town.”

  She squeezed his arm, then let go. “I can imagine.”

  He shrugged slightly. “I turned tail, but at the time I was glad I did. Boot camp gave me a whole lot of ways to focus on something else and expend a bunch of anger.”

  To her it sounded like one rational solution to an overwhelming loss. Somehow she couldn’t imagine him trying to run his parents’ store after that, and feeling angry every time someone tossed aside a half-dozen reeds before finding the perfect one. He might have let them know what he thought.

  That drew a quiet sound of amusement from her.

  “What?” he asked, digging into a second piece of the pie.

  “I was just imagining you dealing with the students who tossed aside reeds after all you went through.”

  That brought the smile back to his face. “It sure wouldn’t have been pretty. For a while there I was one angry young man.”

  “Understandably. I was pretty angry after my mom died, but it wasn’t as if there was anything she could have done. She had a particularly aggressive form of cancer. Oh, well.” Thoughts kept getting dark, probably because of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  Her mind kept wanting to wander out into the icy darkness outside, but she couldn’t let it. What was she going to do? Race out into the night and run wildly around?

  No, she had to wait for morning, for the briefing, for all the details that had been undoubtedly gathered today by various teams. Wait and hope for a major clue.

  God, she hated this! She squeezed her eyes closed and battled all the feelings about what those young women might be experiencing, trying to put them away into a box until there was something she could actually act on.

  “You care.”

  Al’s voice reached into her dark thoughts and she opened her eyes. “Don’t you?” she asked almost truculently.

  “Very much. Thing is, being in the military I eventually learned to put things away until I had to deal with them. Once you’ve made your plans, done your end of it, there’s nothing more except to wait for the fallout. If you can’t sleep, if you’re gnawing holes in your own stomach, it doesn’t change a damn thing.”

  She knew he was right but didn’t know how to get to that pinnacle of detachment. It wasn’t as if she’d ever had to deal with anything like this in her policing career. “I deal with accidents, robberies, even a rare murder...not abductions, Al. It’s different.”

  “Of course it’s different. Worse, maybe, because at this point we can’t even be sure those girls were abducted. Maybe they did hitch a ride, get dropped off at someplace closer to home and just never made it because of the weather.”

  She sat up a little straighter. “That’s possible.” Then she started crashing again. “There’s still the fact that they went off the road without even braking.”

  “Maybe we’ll find out otherwise. Those crime scene techs could pull a needle out of a haystack. Let’s wait for the morning briefing. We could well learn something hopeful.”

  He was right, of course. That didn’t change the ugly, dark roiling inside her. Finally she gave up on her pie and covered the pan with the slightly crumpled aluminum foil. “You take this with you when you go,” she said. “It’s more temptation than I can stand and I need it like poison.”

  His gaze grew inscrutable. “Okay,” he said after a few beats. “Are you going to be okay, Kelly? Seriously? You want me to sleep on your floor? Or you want to come to my place?”

  His words made her acutely aware that she wasn’t behaving professionally. This was a case, like any other she had worked. It was always tougher when the victims were young, but you had to wade through it. Do the job. Not let it overwhelm you. She was in danger of drowning, not a usual state of affairs for her. She prided herself on being a good cop, not a mess of tangled emotions.

  “This is really getting to me,” she admitted. “More than things usually do. But I’ve got to deal, Al. I can’t use you as a crutch, no matter how kind your offer is. Call it my learning curve. Especially if I want to stay in law enforcement.”

  He nodded slowly. “It’s learnable. This is just a rough case. Rougher than usual.”

  She fixed her gaze on him again, turning outward from her inner turmoil. “I can’t imagine what you’ve had to deal with. You were in combat, right?”

  “Unfortunately. You make contact once or twice, and you learn how useful a shell can be. You just can’t afford to brood about it. The next mess will always come. All you can do is maintain optimal readiness. Consider this your first contact.”

  “But I’ve done other things...” She paused. “There was this crash of a light plane. I was among the first responders and...” Again she paused, squeezing her eyes shut. “You’ve seen it. It was more than a year before I could deal with raw chicken or spaghetti.”

  “I know.”

  She opened her eyes. “I’ve moved past it. Mostly. But you’re right. This is so different it might as well be first contact for me. So I just have to push through.”

  “Take something to help you sleep. Got any melatonin?”

  “That stuff is a natural hormone, right?”

  “The same thing the body makes. I use it once in a while when memory starts bugging me. Best part of it is I can wake up and one coffee makes me alert again. No hangover.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Right then her insides and emotions felt as if they’d been thrown in a blender. But she had to get through it. Tomorrow was another day, and she wanted to be able to help. To be useful in whatever way she was needed. “Thanks, Al. You’ve been great.”

  He glanced at the digital clock on her microwave. “I should go. We both need some sleep and I do have a few animals I need to check on.”

  She wanted to keep him longer but knew that clinging wasn’t going to fix a damn thing. She needed to find her objectivity and put this case into the realm of other cases, a problem to be solved. There was always a possibility this would turn out well. Heck, they might get a call in the middle of the night telling them the girls had turned up at some outlying farmhouse.

  As Al was leaving, he paused at the door, pie in hand, then surprised her by wrapping one arm around her and hugging her tightly for a brief few seconds. “You’re strong,” he said. “You’ll make it.”

  She wished she were as confident.

  As she latched the door behind him, it struck her that she was being terribly self-indulgent, giving in to useless feelings and a
llowing them to run her.

  She needed to be thinking, using her brain or sleeping. Either one would be more useful and less selfish.

  When at last she curled up in bed, Bugle stretched alongside her, closer than usual, as if he felt her distress. With her hand digging into his ruff, she closed her eyes and finally, finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Five

  Day 3

  Once again the sheriff’s office was crammed with deputies and city police, and plenty of other people waited outside, wondering where the search would head today.

  Because they were going to search. Even as the first, very faint light of dawn began to appear in the east, the helicopters could be heard taking to the air again, to hunt with their spotlights until daylight aided them, cabin crews alert for any movement, or any color outside the norm.

  Today they had more information about the missing, however.

  “All right,” Gage said, rapping on one of the desks for silence. “Micah here is going to fill you in.”

  Micah Parish, of clear Cherokee ancestry, had been with the office since the days when Gage had first arrived in town. At first he had been greeted with old prejudices, but over the years he had knit himself into the fabric of the community.

  “All right,” he said, lifting a whiteboard and placing it on an easel. The photographs of the three missing young women stared back at them. “You know these are the young ladies we need to find. We learned something from the parents about what they might be wearing, so keep alert for colors of bright pink, royal blue and, unfortunately, light green. That won’t stick out very well. But look for colors that don’t belong out there at this time of year.”

  Murmurs and nods went around the room.

  “You’ll need to inform the civilians who are searching with us. Given our search area today, we’ll have one deputy leading each group of searchers. We can divvy it up before you depart.

  “As for other things, the enemies these young women might have...need I tell you that nobody has an enemy?”

  A quiet laugh rolled around the room. Dark humor. The kind that kept cops, firefighters and soldiers sane.

  Micah nodded in response. “We’re going to be talking to some of their friends today, other kids at school. We may learn that there are a few people who actually don’t like them, or that they’ve had a run-in with someone. Kelly?”

  She raised her hand so he could find her in the crowd. “Sir?”

  “I want you and Connie to do the interviews at school today. The principal is agreeable and will give you a private room. Kelly, I know Bugle is suited to other tasks but his presence may keep the atmosphere more relaxing for the students, okay?”

  “Okay, Micah.” She could see his point, and much as her body wanted to be outdoors moving, and much as she was sure that Bugle would prefer that, she knew he was probably right. Bugle always drew interested attention.

  * * *

  AS THE FINAL bell rang for the day and students started piling out of the high school for buses and their own cars, Connie and Kelly sat back at the table they’d been using in a private room facing laptops and notebooks.

  Kelly sighed.

  Connie stretched and nearly groaned. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Kelly laughed. “You’re not that old. Don’t make me feel bad.”

  “You know how I met my husband, Ethan?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Before my time.”

  “Well, he’s Micah Parish’s son.”

  That snagged Kelly’s interest. She twisted on the folding chair that could have done with a pillow and looked at Connie. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wondered because of the name but nobody ever told me.”

  “Well, that was an interesting story. Micah didn’t know about him because his mother hadn’t told him, so one day Ethan shows up at Micah’s ranch with the news. But that wasn’t the point of me bringing it up. I brought it up because years ago, when my daughter was about seven, I thought she was kidnapped.”

  “Oh my God,” Kelly breathed.

  “Ethan tracked her, believe it or not. We’d had days of this awful tension because a stranger had approached her on her way home from school. Deputies were crawling every street, parents were warned not to let their children walk home alone... The drill. You know it. Then my daughter disappeared during the night out her bedroom window. The thing was, Ethan’s background in the military gave him the skills to track her. We found her up at the old mining camp...and the man who had taken her was her father, my ex. He’d just gotten out of prison.”

  “You must have gone through hell.” Kelly couldn’t begin to imagine it.

  “I did. But it didn’t last long and it turned out all right.” Connie’s mouth compressed, then she said, “It’s not looking good, Kelly. Almost forty-eight hours now. The window’s closing.”

  “I know. But it’s not immutable.” She needed to believe that. She had to believe that. Out in the fading afternoon light, dozens, if not hundreds, of people were hunting the countryside, knocking on every door, looking for any sign at all of the three girls. At some point they couldn’t keep the search going at this level. Even with all the volunteers, there would come a time when they’d have to give up looking and start hoping for some other kind of clue.

  How could three girls just vanish into the night like this?

  Because someone had taken them.

  She looked at Connie. “We need to start thinking about whether there’s anyone around here who might be capable of this abduction.”

  “We’re already thinking about that,” Connie reminded her. “We just spent all day asking a bunch of high school students if they’d seen anything odd, if these girls had mentioned being afraid of someone or something, if anyone disliked them enough to want to hurt them. We’re already doing it, Kelly.”

  “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

  “Especially when we haven’t learned anything that feels useful. Yet.” Connie sighed and closed her laptop. “I need to get home, make dinner for the kids and Ethan, assuming he comes in from the search. I’m going to spend an awful lot of time thinking about what we heard today. You?”

  “I’m not going to be able to think about anything else. Maybe somewhere in this shower of love is a needle.”

  Connie laughed wearily. “Exactly. It was creepy, if you ask me. Kids this age always have some gripes about one another. This sounded like a wake.”

  No one speaks ill of the dead.

  “Yeah, it did. And that bothers me, Connie.”

  “Why?” Connie’s gaze grew sharp.

  “Because you’d expect people this young to be convinced these girls were going to show up. Instead they seem to have given up. Why?”

  “Maybe because it’s so damn cold out there they know no one could survive for long.”

  “Maybe.” But Kelly had trouble believing it. “And maybe I’m overreacting. They’re probably all scared about this and just as confused as anyone.”

  Connie nodded and stood, pulling her uniform parka on. “I’ll pass all this non-news along to the sheriff on my way home. The students all have our cards. If they think of something, or suddenly want to open up about anything, they know how to reach us.” She smiled wanly. “They’ll probably call you. Bugle was a hit.”

  Indeed he had been. He’d even preened a bit, if a dog could preen. Kelly suspected he’d have been happy to stay even longer to enjoy all the pets and praise that had come his way.

  But the fun part was over.

  “Work,” she said.

  He needed to hear no more. He stretched and got ready to move. His tail even wagged a bit. He truly enjoyed working.

  Which was more than she could say that particular day.

  On the way home, she stopped at the diner to pick up dinner. On impulse, she bought e
nough for two and hoped that Al might be inclined to stop by when the search ended. She told herself it was a silly hope, but she needed something to look forward to, even if she was imagining it.

  All this time, Al had never shown any interest in her. Well, occasionally she thought she caught a spark of heat in his gaze, but if so he masked it quickly. Probably she was imagining that, too.

  She shook her head at herself as she carried home enough food for an army. No involvement, she reminded herself. She’d seen it happen, when two people in the same department got close, then broke up. The subsequent situation was often uncomfortable for everyone, and sometimes it could grow ugly.

  Nope, none of that.

  She fed Bugle, who’d lacked only food during the day because she had a special water bottle for him that opened to provide a tray for him to lap out of. No, he’d never go thirsty as long as she could refill that bottle.

  He didn’t seem especially hungry, however. He left nearly half his kibble in his bowl, causing her to wonder if she should heat some more chicken livers for him. But no, she didn’t want him to expect that every day. It didn’t take long for him to create a habit.

  A hot shower helped ease some of the tension from her, especially her shoulders and neck, then she dressed in flannel pajamas and a bathrobe, wrapping her hair in a towel. As she emerged into the main part of the little house, she eyed the fireplace. The logs had long since burned out, but she wondered if she should make another fire just for herself.

  She certainly needed something cheery after today. On the other hand, burning the wood for her own entertainment seemed wasteful and not especially good for the environment. Last night had been a true splurge but it had been so enjoyable.

  The towel damp-dried her short bob quickly, so she went to hang it over a rack and run a bush through her hair. How many kids had they interviewed that day? She’d lost count at some point, although she could check it on her computer or her notepad, where each of them had been dutifully noted by name and age.