Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Matt scratches his jaw, a rare serious expression taking over his face. “I hope you find her. She’s a good kid. Comes here a lot. Always orders the sweet potato fries.” He heads back inside, leaving me to stare at the mostly vacant lot.
“What are you thinking?” Clara’s arms are crossed over her chest as she assesses with me. Of all my officers, she’s the sharpest.
“Based on what Isla uncovered, Holly left here with her friends around nine to check out a house party on Maple Drive.” Which tracks with her being gone when I left. They probably took off after I yelled at them. “But they came back at midnight. Holly said she was meeting a guy here.”
“They say who?” Samir jumps in.
I shake my head. “Just that he was older, and she’d be in big trouble if anyone found out. They hung out back here for a while. There were a couple of young truckers parked overnight, and they started talking to them. They gave them alcohol and weed. The other girls headed home, but Holly said she was staying. They couldn’t get her to leave.”
“So, they left her here?” Samir frowns. “Isn’t there a code against that?”
“They’re sixteen years old. They had curfews.” There are so many things I could say, but all we need are facts that might help us find Holly. “They said one of the truck drivers seemed really interested in her.”
Clara’s eyes flash with understanding. “What time was Holly supposed to be home?”
“Noon today, and she told her mother she was sleeping over at my house last night.”
She checks her watch. “We’re almost fifteen hours since anyone’s seen her.”
I take slow, measured steps, regarding tread marks left in the dirt. “And possibly seven or eight hours since that trucker left this morning.” The transport trucks usually roll out at dawn.
“The lot was empty this morning when I started shift,” Samir confirms.
That puts this driver potentially as far north as near Thunder Bay, deep into the US, or all the way in Montreal by now. That’s a lot of ground to cover.
And a lot of places to dump a body.
I push that grim thought aside. We’re not there yet.
I survey the area again. And curse. That busted camera above the door would have provided us with so much valuable information. It would have shown us Holly. I’m not seeing much in the way of lighting back here. I’ll bet this corner is dark.
“She’s Isla’s best friend, right? You know her. Is this a thing with her? Would she jump in with some truck driver and take off for a joyride?” Samir asks, and I know what he’s really asking: Is Holly a habitual runaway? Because if she were, we might wait before we declare a missing person.
“No. Holly’s a lot of things, but a runaway who abandons her phone is not one of them.” I pause, and then add, “She’s a Whitley.”
Clara’s lips twist with understanding. She’s been at this station long enough to know how Brad will react to this.
A glint of gold catches my attention. I close in and stoop to inspect the chunky tube-hoop earring. It’s relatively clean, not sullied by dust and rain. “Holly was wearing hoops exactly like these last night.” And now one lies in the dirt. Perhaps it just fell out. These backings can be finicky. Isla’s lost several.
Or perhaps this earring came off in a struggle.
My heart sinks as I meet my platoon sergeant’s worried expression, as the pieces are quickly falling into place to paint an ominous picture.
“You want to make the call?” she asks calmly.
“Get everyone who’s available to the station. And shut this place down. We can’t have any more people coming here.” It’s a potential crime scene.
With a growing sense of dread, I dig out my phone.
Chapter 19
Logan
The herd moves in unison, following Jon and Thomas in the UTV, Jon driving while Thomas baits them with protein range cubes, all in an effort to move them to another pasture.
“Always thought they were majestic creatures, since the first time I laid eyes on them, before I knew anything about bison.” My father muses as he leans against the fence post. “Such smart animals. You can see it in their eyes. If they let you get close to them.”
“Haven’t since I’ve been back.” A cow and her calf were at a water trough about sixty feet from me while I was mending a fence. Their tails started twitching and then they bolted.
“They don’t want us around. They do their own thing. We’re just bystanders, here to make sure they have enough land to roam and food to graze on.”
I know all this. I knew it as a kid, when the herd was a fraction of this, but I let my father prattle on because we’re having a real conversation for the first time in forever and it has nothing to do with the Murphys or Jay.