“Jimmy Connors was working the register at his dad’s shop a few months ago when two men who claimed to be dealers approached, sweet-talked the little dumbass, and started feeding him designer party drugs that he was encouraged to then share as free samples with his friends. They called themselves Fred and Ricky.”
Several quiet laughs rippled through the crowd.
“I know.” Ghost arched an eloquent brow and continued. “He fenced a bunch of expensive shit for free for a while, and then Fred and Ricky wanted their money. He of course didn’t have it, so the threats started. The usual stuff: we’ll kill you, we’ll kill your family, yada yada. The party he had was him trying to collect money from the friends he’d given samples to, but they’re all dumb kids, and they have no money, so that was a bust.
“So Fred and Ricky came up with a creative solution. They’d consider his debt paid if he could gin up a buncha anti-Dog sentiment at school and around town. He and his friends were the ones doing the graffiti down at Bell Bar. And, despite the fact that he’s a stupid little shit who thinks drugs are free, he was smart enough to try and link us to that missing girl: Allie Henderson. Carter said he was telling kids at school that he had photos.” He tilted his head in invitation, and a little jolt – that Carter didn’t want to call excitement – moved through him in response to being looked to like this, at church.
“Yeah.” He sat up straighter, cleared his throat. “My contact said he was bragging about having photos of Allie on our property. That’s what he was doing here last night: taking pics so he could edit her into them.”
“Your contact?” Dublin asked, frowning. “Who’s that?”
“Uh. The varsity quarterback. I’m sort of coaching him.”
That earned him more than a few surprised looks.
Walsh said, “But that brings us to the matter of the girl herself. Connors says that his friend Ricky went chasing after her down at the mill, came back empty-handed, and said he’d taken care of it.”
Ratchet pulled out a glossy photo and laid it in the center of the table. “My guy at the lab was able to confirm DNA on the shirt Reese found behind the mill. Hair and sweat were a match for Allie Henderson, with no blood, or semen.”
“Small favors,” Hound muttered.
“Vince said his people would go back over the area with a fine-tooth comb, but we didn’t find any freshly-overturned dirt out there. If she’s buried there, it’s back in the trees somewhere,” Ghost said.
“Eden thinks she was taken,” Fox said. “That there was another vehicle waiting down the road, out of sight, and this Ricky person subdued her, got her inside it, and that she’s still alive, penned up somewhere like those girls in Texas.”
“Could be,” Ghost said. To the table: “We’re looking for three people, now. Allie, and Fred and Ricky. Let’s get to it, boys.”
~*~
It was Saturday, and there were still shifts to be worked at all the Dartmoor shops, but Ghost divided them up into pairs so they could work, and hunt, in shifts. Carter was supposed to start at the shop, with Mercy, and then Aidan and Tango would relieve them at lunch. There was a faint buzzing under his skin; not anticipation, but something like it. Mercy had accused him of – no, congratulated him on –stepping uplast night. He felt newly invested; invigorated and ready to set down his wrench, get on his bike, and godo something.
He was wrapping the pipes on a custom job when he heard a car pull up. Cars came and went constantly, so he didn’t think anything of it until Mercy called, “Hey, QB,” from the next bay. “There’s a pretty girl outside, and I don’t think she’s here to see me.” A teasing note in his voice.
Leah. That was his first thought, flashing like lightning inside his mind. Frompretty girlhe leaped straight toLeah; to her wide grin, and her laughing eyes, and the easy way she could tease and comfort all in one breath.
Then he remembered last night, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.
He stood slowly, reaching for a rag to towel his hands. It seemed weeks ago instead of hours, that moment in Cook’s Coffee when she’d told him no. So much had happened since then, to distract and excite and concern him, but suddenly he was back in the coffeeshop, dinner turning to lead in his gut, while she gave him that pitying look and said he wasn’t serious, that he didn’t want her.
He took his time walking out to the door, telling himself it was probably Jazz instead. If she offered him a shoulder to cry on, he wasn’t sure he had the strength to tell her no at this point.
But it was Leah, standing in the bright morning sunlight, in heels, and a skirt, and a yellow shirt printed all over with pineapples. Her sunglasses had yellow rims, and her hair was in a shiny black ponytail that gleamed like polished jet. His heart gave a little bump, and he took a measured breath. It was okay. He could do this; could be adult enough to have a polite conversation with the girl who’d turned him down.
“Hey.”
Her smile was slow, and small – and doubtful, he thought. Cautious. “Hey.”
A dozen questions bubbled up his throat, and died on his tongue, forcefully bitten back. He’d been the one to go out on the limb last night, and had it hacked out from under him. It was her turn now. She’d come, for whatever reason, and even if it was childish, he didn’t want to make it easy on her.
The seconds stretched on – then he saw the subtle movement of her throat as she swallowed. She reached to push her sunglasses up onto her head, and it was easier then to see the worry in her expression, pressed into the little line of tension between her brows. “I know you’re busy, and you probably don’t want to anyway, but I wondered if we could talk for a minute.”
Yes. Hope sparked, a tiny kernel of it. But he dashed it; hadn’t life taught him not to hope? He didn’t get what he wanted, not ever.
He said, “I’m on the clock.”
“Nah,” Mercy said, appearing on the other side of a tool chest, massive arms draped over it, wrench in one hand. “We’re dead around here. Go take ten minutes and talk to the lady.” His grin was half-encouraging and half-suggestive, and Carter wanted to hit him, as stupid as that would be. He envisioned breaking his knuckles on Mercy’s jaw, and Mercy laughing and saying something about a fly landing on him.
He sighed. “Sure,” he told Leah, and walked out to join her.
