Page 48 of Her Boss

“But not all of them. Is that right, Sheriff?” Keenan asked, setting down his mug on the bare, scarred steel of the interview room table.

Ford shrugged. “Sure, is it theoretically possible that the past is present again here in our town? Yes, young women have disappeared at or near Promontory Park before.” He paused, watching us both intently. “But there just isn’t much to go on. Occam’s razor says… it ends up as a runaway.”

Which was true. Any decent cop with a few years on the job would have said the same.

Keenan leveled a cool look at the sheriff. “But what do you think, Ford?”

The sheriff winced. “The problem with hunches is they’re right just about as often as a coin flip. Which doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in them. Do I have a hunch we’re looking at something… more? Yes, I do. But hunches aren’t enough. I’d need more than that.”

I laid a hand flat on the cold tabletop. “I’m not sure why I’m here then. Sounds like you’ve got things handled, Sheriff.”

“Not so fast,” Ford said, taking a seat in one of the chairs opposite us. “We’ve had problems of late here in town. Conflict. My own woman, Falon… there was an attempted kidnapping of her.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. I watched him closely though. Cops never said—or did—anything without a purpose to it.

“Luckily, she’s fine, and I’m positive I know the perp on that case.” Ford looked down a moment, as if weighing whether or not to proceed. “Here’s the issue. It might be related—Falon’s attempted abduction and Ms. Madras’ disappearance. Nothing solid, of course… but it smells.”

“Let’s talk, ah, hypothetically here, Sheriff, since we don’t have much to work with at present.” I was quickly concluding this was likely a wasted trip—lurid scenery notwithstanding—but I proposed it anyway. “Say the Madras disappearance isn’t the first one. What if you get a second, and a third, and a fourth?”

Ford’s jaw clenched. “Then I’d say it’s hard not to conclude it’s… happening again.”

“And if you determined that, what would come next?”

Ford glanced over at Keenan. “We’d need some help. It’s just me and two deputies out here.”

“Ah,” I said. “State patrol, then? Feds?”

Ford grunted. “Fuck, no.”

“So, in that event… then I might be of assistance?”

“We’d need help. But not your help.”

“Jesus, Ford,” Keenan said. “At least hear him out. What’s that gonna hurt?”

“Okay,” the lawman said, a sneer just beginning to curl his upper lip. “How would you help, Mr. Trafford? What would you suggest? Hypothetically, of course.”

I paused a heartbeat, knowing full well that the sheriff wasn’t going to like what I was about to say. But when it came to life, what one liked and what one had to accept were two different things.

Life didn’t seem to favor happy endings. Perhaps they were too neat, too clean? I’d lived long enough to know the cold, hard truth of that.

And a man had to see the world for how it really was, rather than fixating on some idealized, naïve construct of ‘good’ or ‘fair.’

Life didn’t give a shit about fair. Life wasn’t logical; half the time it made no sense at all.

There was nothing to do but accept it.

No matter how bitter that particular pill might be to swallow.

“I think I know someone who might be able to help. Someone who knows this area well, who could point you in the right direction.” I hesitated, noting Ford’s scowl, then plunged on. “Someone with intimate knowledge of this part of the state. These forests, in fact.”

“There isn’t a soul in this town who knows this countryside better than Ford,” Keenan said laconically, then sipping from his cup again.

“Only one.”

Keenan’s brow lifted.

“Landon.”

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