Nothing would stop Drew Evans from protecting what he owns.
Chapter 15
Charlie
TheElypolicestationreeks of mold, glazed donuts, and cheap instant coffee. The floors covered by a carpet that should have been replaced decades ago. It's a putrid sage green tainted by half a century’s footsteps. I shift in the chair, waiting for the hefty police chief to get off his phone.
He clicks down the phone, trying to end the call while his greasy fingers work against him. A few crumbles of the remaining donut tumble down his protruding gut.
“Well, Mr. Evans—”
“Charlie, please call me Charlie, sir,” I say with a tad of haste.
“Alright Charlie, good news is that we have located the vehicle.”
“And the bad news?” My heart flutters like a chickadee’s, ears desperate to hear his next words.
“No sign of coach’s son, Austin,” he rumbles, licking his grayed mustache.
“Well, are you going to send a search party in this morning?”
“About that, park rangers are pretty pissed that three of their wolves were shot down last night, they figure it could be poachers or something of that sort.” The chief wiggles in his chair, slightly shaking his computer monitor in the process. “Until we can be surethere aren’t any maniacs running out there with guns, ready to pop off our noggins, I can’t condone sending bodies in.”
“So you are just going to sit here, drinking coffee and stuffing your face with donuts, while Austin, is out there surrounded by timberwolves?”
“Yep, thanks for spelling it out for me.” He nods his head, looking down at a stack of papers on his desk.
“Unbelievable.” I mutter under my breath.
“Listen Charlie, thousands of people go into the Boundary Waters every year and a lot of them get lost for a bit. That’s part of the adventure. Their thrill that they are trying to get. We can’t send a search party of folks in on a whim, especially when there’s no evidence of foul play.”
My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “You haven’t met Austin, he would never go in these woods alone, my brother would tear him apart with his teeth.”
“Okay Charlie, I think you might be getting a bit hysterical. Why don’t you take a breather, go back to Minneapolis, and give me a call in a week or so if your boyfriend hasn’t showed up. That would be more of an appropriate timeline to allocate some resources for his search.”
I snag the business card out of his nubby fingers and march my way out on that putrid carpet. Did he really call me a bit hysterical? No wonder people don’t trust the police. They won’t touch a crime until it’s served in front of them on a silver platter with glazed pastries.
I’m sure if it was one of their own, they’d be out there with the hounds and choppers searching every bloody mile of that forest. But the moment it’s a homosexual, they brush it off.
My feet take me back to the Land Rover, I can’t go in those woods myself, not with wolves roaming around. They’d tear me apart and swallow me whole.
I bang my head on the steering wheel, leather reeking of aged sweat, should I call Austin’s dad? Let him know how his son is lost in the woods… let him know that it’s my fault that he made it up this far. That I wasn’t watching him closely enough.
No better not… Not yet.
Then my phone buzzes —
Fucktwat:Don’t worry about Austin, I made sure he’s safe. Nice and cozy around my arms.
Me:Mate you better not…
Fucktwat:Or what? Oh yeah that’s what I thought. See you around town baby brother. Don’t worry Lover Boy will be taken care of in my flat. Toodles.
The blood vessels in my brain dilate, ready to burst from an aneurysm. The audacity of Drew—thinking he can swoop in, brainwash my boyfriend, turn him into another one of his poisoned conquests?
Not a bloody chance.
I rev the engine, the Land Rover roaring to life. My foot crushes the pedal, tires spitting gravel as I swerve onto the main road. An old woman in her little beetle blasts her horn as I cut her off, but I don’t glance back. There’s no time to waste.
