Page 30 of Crosshairs

Joy. She might as well be asking the trees questions. She searched her memory for the name Linc had called him. Oh yeah ... Ainsley smiled. “He indicated you heard something Tuesday night, Colton.”

He flinched when she said his name. “How...?” Then he frowned. “Oh yeah. I told that other ranger, and then I made the mistake of telling my dad. He said I probably imagined it.”

Sounded like the dad wasn’t very supportive of the kid. Then again, maybe he had reason not to be. “Mind telling me what you saw and heard?”

Another shrug that she took for a yes.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to record our conversation. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

It’d been a risk asking, and she breathed easier when he didn’t object. Ainsley took out her cell phone and laid it on the table, wishing she hadn’t left her electronic tablet in the truck—she’d gotten in the habit of using one instead of the small notebook she was stuck with today.

Colton repeated basically what Linc had told her, which made her think he was telling the truth. Liars often weren’t able to repeat a story accurately. “So, you knew her from school?” When he nodded, she asked, “Did you talk to her?”

The boy’s mouth twitched before he shook his head. A twitch she wouldn’t have seen if she hadn’t been watching him closely. “Look, you won’t be in trouble if you two talked.”

“But we didn’t!”

Yet he wouldn’t look at her. Was he lying or was he afraid of something? “What happened here Tuesday night? You want to tell me, I can see that,” she said, softening her voice.

Colton rubbed his face. “You won’t tell my dad?”

What was it with the boy’s father? “Why wouldn’t he want you to tell the truth?”

“You’d have to know my dad, and you don’t want to do that.” His hands curled into fists. “If I tell you, will you leave before he gets back?”

Did she want to promise that? “I’ll leave, but I’m not telling you I won’t return.”

“I don’t care if you come back. I won’t be here.”

“Your parents are leaving?”

“No. I’m leaving. I can’t take living with my dad anymore.”

“Where will you go?”

“Not sure, but I saw this flyer, and it said I could make twenty dollars an hour, no experience necessary.”

Ainsley didn’t like the sound of that. “Doing what?”

“I called and the man who answered said I’d be doing landscaping. He said I could make 160 to 200 bucks a day. He’s going to pick me up at Port Gibson later today.”

She thought of the cases of human trafficking that had come across her desk. Traffickers promising not just teenagers but older people good jobs and then paying them practically nothing. Ainsley wanted to warn him, but first she needed his information. “Tell me about Hannah.”

He clasped his hands together. “You’re right. I saw her Monday night with a boy about my age. They were on a motorbike and then they had a fight, and he left. She didn’t have a way home.”

The words rushed from him almost in one sentence. “So, you did talk to her.”

He barely nodded.

“Was he her boyfriend?”

“It looked like it.”

“Does this boyfriend have a name?”

“Kingston. Drew Kingston. He’s a big jock around school.”

And Colton wasn’t. “Why do you think they camehere? Rocky Springs is fifty miles from Natchez.”

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