Page 80 of One Last Chance

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“You said I was a better kisser.”

“Yeah, I dunno.”

He leaned forward. “Need more proof?”

“Keep your proof away from me. I have work to do.” She wadded up her napkins, got up, and dropped them into the trash, along with the wet wipe and empty coffee cup. “I’m going to talk to the sheriff. You coming with me?”

“Sure. Then I need to duck into Bowie Mountain Gear and pick up radios for Moose. He ordered some after I dunked ours in the Cook Inlet.” He shot his wadded bag into a nearby basket, then followed her across the street to the sheriff’s office.

It hadn’t changed since she’d last visited. A long, ranch-style building with a front porch that creaked as she walked inside, the sheriff’s office might have been a house in ages past, although the inside had been gutted for a reception area and chairs. A dividing counter separated the waiting room from a small administrative area. Behind it, windows protected the back offices. The place smelled of age, old coffee, and overwork, indicated by the worn vinyl chairs and the cluttered Wanted board.

No wonder Deke hadn’t gotten anywhere with the investigation. They needed help.

So different from the high-tech offices back home. She worked downtown in the Minneapolis city hall building, built in the 1800s with the green copper roof, rose stone, and the breath of generations of investigators, including her mentors, Eve and Rembrandt Stone, and the old chief of investigations, John Booker. But the place had undergone an overhaul over the past few years, with smartboards in every conference room, electronic whiteboards to cast investigations onto a big screen, and two screens at every desk, connected to high-speed internet. She barely left her cubicle when caught in an investigation, knitting together leads, creating profiles, and rewatching surveillance videos and interviews.

So maybe her hands-on sleuthing needed some resharpening.

She waved a hand to Deke as she came in. He had looked up from his computer and now came out of his office. “Flynn. How are you?”

“Better.”

“Still limping.”

“Swelling’s down. Nothing broken.”

He pointed to her bruised head, the healing cut. “How’s the noggin?”

“Still working. Enough to wonder if the Midnight Sun Killer might be a seasonal tourist. All the murders happened in the spring—late June, early July. Right during tourist season.”

He motioned her back to his office, met Axel’s hand. “Saw the latest episode last night. The blizzard on the mountain. Rough. The father took it badly.”

“Anyone would. Her fiancé had to be sedated,” Axel said.

She got that too. Maybe it was easier to live with the hope that Kennedy was still alive. Although, since yesterday, the feeling had started to loosen its hold.

How could Kennedy walk away from a man who loved her?

Flynn glanced at Axel, leaning against the wall of Deke’s office with his arms folded, and shook the thought away.Reasons. Good reasons.

And she wanted to find them.

Deke sat down at his desk. “Seasonal visitors. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“I’m wondering how we’d get a list of the yearly campers at the RV park. I have no jurisdiction here, but you could ask for it, as a matter of your investigation. You might not even need a subpoena—it’s not private information.”

“I could do that. And we have a good relationship with the park owners. We run a patrol through the park once a day, just to keep trouble down.”

“Lots of seventy-year-old rabble-rousers?” Axel smiled.

“You’d be surprised. Most are great folks, but people get up here, out of the lower forty-eight, and the midnight sun does something to them. Turns on the serotonin, revives their youth. We have more accidents from the over-sixty crowd than the risk-loving youth. Usually in over their heads with a four-wheeler or a river raft or even a hike that they can’t get back from and, most often, a barbeque pit out of control.”

“Thanks, Deke. How soon can you get the list?”

“I’ll call over in a bit.”

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