Missing in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  This was not at all the competent deputy he’d come to know over the last few years. Not that he knew her very well. They hadn’t become fast friends, just acquaintances. But he knew her well enough to realize she was in a place she’d never gone before, at least not in her job. That was saying something because he had a good idea of some of the things she’d seen and dealt with. Law enforcement was the pointy end of the stick in a lot of ways, first responders like firefighters and EMTs. Nightmares that clung.

  “Sit if you can,” he said quietly. “Get a blanket. I’ll start the coffee and build up the fire again. You look like an icicle.”

  Indeed she did. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she’d been standing out in the cold for the last hour.

  She needed warmth, maybe food, something to help with the shock.

  “I’m not crazy,” she said, standing her ground.

  “I don’t think you are. But let’s take care of your immediate physical needs...and frankly mine...before we talk.”

  At last she settled into her armchair. Bugle unfolded himself and came to place his head on her thigh. Since she’d ignored his other suggestion, Al grabbed the afghan off the back of the chair and tossed it over her, careful not to cover Bugle’s head. Kelly’s hand dug into the dog’s neck as if she were hanging on for dear life.

  Her coffeemaker was about the same as his, so stacking it and starting it came automatically, with one difference. He made this coffee strong. Then he nosed into her refrigerator and found a frozen raspberry Danish on a plastic tray. He popped that into the microwave for a quick thaw. Sugar was a good antidote to shock.

  It didn’t seem like something she’d ordinarily eat, however. But then, what did he know? She had friends who probably came over on weekends. Most people did. Even him, the isolationist misanthrope. Sort of.

  At last he got a mug of coffee into her hands, watching them shake a bit, but not enough to spill it. “Want a piece of Danish?”

  “Not yet,” she murmured.

  There was an embroidered stool stuck in one corner, maybe for use as an ottoman. He had no idea, but he had use for it now. He pulled it over until he sat right in front of her with his own coffee.

  “Feel any better?”

  She gave an almost invisible nod of her head.

  “Ready to talk?”

  She chewed her lower lip until he feared that she might make it bleed. “I can’t explain.”

  “Then don’t,” he said gently. “Just give me the facts of what happened. You don’t need to explain them to me.”

  Long seconds passed before she tried to speak again. “It’s nuts.”

  “Don’t dismiss it. Just tell me.”

  She squeezed her eyes closed. “I was sound asleep. I woke up suddenly and it was like...like this tidal wave of despair, maybe anguish...it just filled me. And then I noticed Bugle had come to full alert and he made this groan... Oh, God, I hope I never hear him make that sound again. It was heartrending. Then he put his head on me and he whimpered.”

  She drew a long, shaky breath. “That’s when I knew. Thought I knew. Hell, I don’t know. I was absolutely certain that one of those girls had just died.”

  “I guess Bugle was, too.”

  She opened her eyes and looked down at her dog. Her real partner. “Yeah,” she whispered. “He felt something.”

  Al rose, then returned with two small plates, each holding a piece of Danish and a fork. “Use your fingers if you want.” He set it on her lap and Bugle sniffed at it but left it alone. A well-trained animal.

  “The thing is,” Kelly said, her voice still thin and a bit cracked, “I can’t go to work with this. I can’t even tell Gage. He might believe me, but what good would it do? We’ve still got to look for those missing women.”

  “I agree.”

  “I also don’t need half the department whispering that I’m losing my marbles if someone overhears me. But damn,” she said, her voice nearly a cry, “what can I do? I’ve got to do something. What if he’s going to kill again? Or what if I imagined all this? The stress since the disappearance...”

  He reached out and covered her hand with his. Even as she used her fingers to try to hold on to the plate he’d practically forced on her, he could feel her tremors. And the ice that seemed to be running through her veins.

  “Eat. Drink your coffee. You’re half the way into shock.”

  “From a feeling?” She looked utterly dubious.

  “From a feeling. That’s all it takes sometimes.” He knew that intimately from his time at war. Shock could occur from an unexpected emotional blow. She’d had one, regardless of what it was based on.

  She managed to swallow half the coffee. He went to get her another cup while she picked at the Danish.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She was gathering her strength again. He could hear it in her voice.

  “I’m not sure you can do anything,” he answered, hoping he sounded reassuring.

  “I hope it’s not true. I hope I just imagined it because I’ve been so worried.”

  “We can hope,” he agreed. He was glad to see her drink more coffee and eat a larger piece of Danish. He swallowed his own drink and felt his stomach burn in response. She wasn’t the only one who was upset. Usually his stomach was cast iron.

  “I must have imagined it,” she said a little while later.

  “Is Bugle into imagining things?” he asked.

  Her head jerked a little as she looked at him. “He might have been responding to me. To my feeling.”

  “It’s possible. I’m going to tell you a story, if you’re up to it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be up to it?”

  “Because it doesn’t have a happy ending. You’re not the first or only person to get feelings like this. They aren’t always accurate, but when they are...”

  She hesitated, nibbled another piece of Danish. “This was for church on Sunday,” she said absently. Then, “Okay, tell me your story.”

  “Long time ago, a couple of kids I was in high school with went on a family camping trip. The oldest two were avid kayakers. They loved white water. Anyway, the daughter was helping her mother cook dinner when she suddenly looked at her mom and said, ‘If I don’t go home tonight, I’ll never go home.’”

  Kelly drew a sharp breath.

  “Mom talked her into a better mood, my friend seemed to forget all about it...but the next day she and her brother went kayaking together, they overturned and both of them were lost. So what do you make of what she said to her mom?”

  “I know I wouldn’t want to live with it,” Kelly said, her entire face drooping. “Oh, God, that’s awful.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard a story like that. So maybe I’m less skeptical than most. I’ve sure heard some stories about people who knew that someone in their family had died before they got the news. It happens. I can’t explain it, but I don’t dismiss it. However, in light of the fact that we have no concrete evidence, it won’t hurt us to go on hoping your feeling was wrong.”

  “No, but right now that feels awfully hard.”

  “I’m sure.” It felt hard to him, too. What if one of those missing girls had died? Why? What was the abductor trying to accomplish? To satisfy some ugly need to inflict pain and death? Why three girls, anyway? Seemed like that would make everything more complicated. One you could handle. Three all at once? Difficult.

  “I’m sorry,” she said unexpectedly.

  “For what?” He couldn’t imagine.

  “For waking you in the middle of the night over something like this. I just couldn’t stand to be alone, and I knew if I called one of my friends from the department they might wonder if I’d lost it.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m glad you called, actually.” He offered a smile. “And as you
can see, I don’t think you’ve lost it.” He rose again, stretching muscles that somehow hadn’t quite made the transition from bed to being upright, and went to get himself some more coffee. “I get called in the middle of the night often enough. People get worried when their pets go missing in weather like this. I don’t mind.”

  He had settled again on the ottoman in front of her before she spoke again. “So you’re a one-man animal rescue team?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly the animals haven’t gone that far and by the time I show up they’re looking to be warm again. Easy enough to find. Although there was one black Lab who didn’t give a damn how cold or wet it was. To him, playing keep-away was a big game. I’ll never forget that huge grin he’d give me as he pranced out of reach.”

  She was smiling faintly, a good sign.

  “That dog developed quite a reputation in his neighborhood. Jasper. Lots of folks recognized him and got a kick out of him.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You never ran into him? I’m sure he was here during your time.”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  He wondered how circumscribed her life was. Maybe nearly as bad as his own? Nose-to-the-grindstone serious? Of course, he was sure she wasn’t the only person in the area who’d never gotten to know Jasper. For most people, if they’d seen that dog he’d have been nothing but a black streak passing by.

  The fire was burning behind him, just a small one, but a cheerful sound. However, it was the only cheerful thing in this room. He could feel the cold, as if it had seeped in from the night outside, but it wasn’t that kind of cold.

  It was the inky coldness of death. There had been times when it had been his nearly constant companion. Now this.

  God, he hoped she was mistaken, that the chill he felt had merely arisen from her description of her experience, but he feared it had not. If one of those girls had died, it hadn’t been an accident. It had been murder. All that did was make him worry even more about the other two, and worry had already been doing a damn good job of peaking the longer they remained missing.

  She’d utterly lost interest in the Danish and coffee he’d given her, so he took them to the kitchen.

  “Rest if you can,” he told her. “Morning will come soon enough.”

  He moved the stool back and took the chair near hers, watching her as she stared into the fire, kneading Bugle’s neck, her expression both dark and fearful.

  At last, however, her eyelids drooped and sleep found her. As soon as it did, Bugle burrowed in a little closer and closed his eyes.

  Dog and man kept watch through the silent, terrifying hours of darkness.

  A little while later, she stirred and spoke drowsily. “You were in the military, right?”

  “Marines.”

  “How’d you get here, Al? Just because you grew up here?”

  But he didn’t think that was the story she wanted the answer to. She wanted something more intimate. Deeper. Not superficial answers. Clearly she needed something from him, but what? He couldn’t imagine, so he hesitated, maybe too long because she withdrew her question.

  “None of my business,” she said without opening her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “No need. I was just wondering how to answer. The facts are simple. I was wounded. Considered unfit for duty. Medically retired. Nothing all that great there. Me and thousands of other troops.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed, and her eyes fluttered open a bit to look at him. “Sad.”

  “It’s the risk you take when you sign up,” he said flatly. So true. Except who in the hell really knew what they were signing up for? That was the great secret until you were in the middle of it.

  “Anyway, after a while I realized I wasn’t dealing well with people. Too angry. Like a firecracker with a short fuse. Animals... Well, they’re a whole different story. Being around them is soothing. Uncomplicated for the most part.”

  “Even minks?”

  That drew a quiet laugh from him. “They’re predictable, anyway. With time my fuse is getting longer. I guess I’m finally coming home.”

  He’d never phrased it that way before, but he could see from her expression that had struck her. She ought to be sleeping but here she was pondering his past and his overwhelmingly philosophical statements. Oorah. Good job, Al.

  Chapter Seven

  Day 6

  Reluctantly, the world resumed its normal course. The search was beginning to taper off. People needed to get back to regular work. The sheriff couldn’t afford to keep such a huge manhunt going, and after five days it had become obvious that wherever the girls were, they needed more detective work than traipsing across the countryside.

  The families were beside themselves, of course. From the next room, Kelly could hear the sheriff explaining that all they were doing now was shifting focus.

  “We’ll still be looking but we’re not going to find them out in the open,” he explained. “We’ve covered every inch of more than a thousand square miles with our helicopters and quite a bit of the ground on foot. Everybody’s been helping and everybody’s on high alert for any sign of your daughters. Those girls have either left the county or are indoors somewhere.”

  “So what do we do now?” Kate Beauvoir demanded. “We can’t give up!”

  “I didn’t say we’re giving up,” Gage said patiently. Kindly. “We’re shifting focus to other methods that we believe will be more useful. The girls clearly didn’t run away across open ground. They weren’t left out there. So now we concentrate our efforts at a different level. Someone took them and we need to get some clues as to who.”

  Then the conference room door closed, and the conversation became private. Still haunted by her dream or premonition from two nights before, Kelly was grateful not to hear any more.

  The office was too small to offer each deputy his or her own desk, so they shared them, using them as necessary when they were on shift or just coming off and needing to tidy up paperwork. Kelly’s share of a desk sat near a window looking out at the courthouse square. The computer that filled a large part of it was an older model, serviceable but needing replacement. A small tray pulled out on one side to provide extra writing space as needed. Creating a sort of wall behind her were three overstuffed filing cabinets. Insofar as possible, records were being retired and placed on microfiche in the basement of the courthouse, but there was still enough paper to jam every drawer.

  She had a list of names in front of her, names gleaned from Rusty and his staff, and a few other people who had come forward. The names of those who had been seen at the tavern the night the young women disappeared.

  Going through them, she tried to design the most efficient route for herself. Today, she and Bugle were going to knock on doors and ask questions. It was always possible that someone had seen something that might have been suspicious.

  Yeah, this was the next level of detective work. Shoe leather.

  She heard a door open and instinctively looked up to see the families of the girls leaving. The women all had puffy, red eyes. The men weren’t looking much better. Not a one of them seemed happy about the changes.

  She couldn’t really blame them, she thought as she dragged her eyes down to the paper in front of her. Of course they wanted everyone out there looking. The problem with that was at this point the returns were seriously diminishing. It was a virtual certainty that none of those girls was lying out in the open. Nor had the choppers picked up any sign of disturbed ground.

  That meant they were inside somewhere or they were in another county, and Gage had already flashed alerts to every agency within a thousand or more miles. Those girls’ photos were going to be burned into the minds of every law enforcement officer in three or more states. Two FBI agents were on their way in from the nearest field office, not that they’d be much help.

  Hadn’t the mention of the FBI helped the
parents a little? Kelly simply couldn’t put herself in their shoes. She had no idea how they were assessing all of this, whether FBI agents seemed like they would help.

  Even the FBI needed evidence.

  Rapping her pen tip on the paper in front of her, Kelly studied it while she listened to the front door close behind the agonized parents. God, she wished she had something to offer them. That anyone here could offer them hope.

  But right now hope was fading, and even the parents must realize that. Too long. Too damn long. Even a ransom note would have provided a thread to cling to. But not even that.

  Which meant the abductor was up to absolutely no good. None. And that was a whole new level of terrifying.

  Much as she tried not to imagine things, she still suffered from the same imagination as everyone else. She’d read enough stories about what had been done to young women who’d been kidnapped and held, sometimes for years on end. Right now those news stories seemed very close emotionally, very personal.

  She pulled out her satellite phone and used the GPS to enter all the addresses she wanted to visit today. Sometimes this county seemed empty, but when you looked at going door-to-door, it grew huge.

  When she’d entered the last address, she scanned the map and made the best judgments she could for which order to visit the outlying ranches. The likelihood that anyone had seen anything out there was slender, but on the other hand, those were people who, if they had noticed something unusual, would have paid attention. In town, too many people passed through because of the state highway. Roads out by the ranches were an entirely different story.

  Satisfied she’d done the best she could, she folded the list and put it in her inside pocket. Then she buttoned up for the cold day and picked up her tablet. Bugle was already moving impatiently. He’d been wanting to get on the road for hours.

  Even after all this time and five years here, not to mention Laramie, the first step out the door into the frigid air always felt as if it stole her breath. Once upon a time, as a pup, Bugle had been fascinated by the clouds of steam that came out of his nostrils, but he’d long since learned to ignore it.