Page 84 of That's Not My Name

Inside, we’re hit with a flurry of activity. Despite the quiet parking lot, this office is bustling. Uniformed officers are everywhere, passing around folders, answering phones, and pinning things to a big bulletin board in the back. A few people in suits with badges on their belts mill between them. Everyone’s talking at once, and I see Ben Hooper’s missing person flier in the middle of the bulletin board.

“What’s going on?” Autumn stage-whispers beside me.

“An old man went missing,” I say. “I saw a flier in the motel when I returned the key cards. They must be forming a search party.”

“See?” Max says. “Proof that some cops know how to actually investigate.”

Yeah, well. We’ll see about that. But the clear urgency in the room makes me feel a little better. Maybe this won’t be a disaster after all.

One of the uniformed officers spots us standing by the door andcomes to the front desk and leans on it. He’s tall, with short red hair and a matching mustache. “Can I help you kids with something?”

I freeze completely. He looks at me, maybe because I’m in the middle, and half a step closer than Max or Autumn, but it feels like he’s staring down a suspect. Like I’ve done something wrong just by walking in here. Like he knows who I am. Like he’s sure I’m guilty. Did he talk to Roane? Our phones are still off, so how would he know we’d end up here—

“Hello,” Autumn says, stepping up to the counter when I don’t speak. “We need to talk to someone about a missing person.”

“A missing person?” he says. “You mean Ben Hooper?”

She shakes her head and places Lola’s flier onto the counter. “No, our friend Lola. We have reason to believe she’s here in Alton, and we need to talk to someone about it.”

Redhead looks over his shoulder and scrubs his face with his hands. “Okay, well, things are a little hectic at the moment. Normally it’s not so busy in here but we have a local who’s gone missing as well. Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll be with you as soon as we can.”

He gestures to the bench to the right of the door. It’s a long wooden thing along the wall, big enough for the three of us to sit. The officer goes back to the group forming around the bulletin board and we wait.

Max’s knee starts bouncing the second his ass hits the bench. “This is good, right? I mean, they didn’t ask us to leave, so we’re still on track?”

Theoretically.

Autumn looks at me. “You okay?”

“Yup.”

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Max asks.

Turns out, over an hour. I lose count of how many times I look up at the clock on the wall, but I watch the minute hand tick around andaround, until it’s after nine, and my ass is well and truly numb against this unforgiving bench.

Max is slumped against the wall. Asleep. I swear he can pass out anywhere, and at a moment’s notice.

At least he’s not snoring.

Autumn’s abandoned the bench altogether, opting instead to pace across the entryway at a thousand steps per minute. She acts more anxious by the second, which is funny because the wait is having the opposite effect on me. My nerves slowly settle.

Finally, the group around the bulletin board separates, and everyone moves toward the door. Autumn slides against the opposite wall as about a dozen officers leave the building together, and only then do I notice they have different cities listed on their badges.

They called in officers from other towns to help look for Ben Hooper.

Roane never called in anyone outside his precinct to do shit unless someone made him. Preferred to keep everything “close to home.” Which as far as I can tell, loosely translates to “within my control.”

Officer Redhead is one of the only people left in the precinct.

He sets a stack of fliers that look identical to the ones at the motel on the counter. “Still here?”

I make a face. “Did you expect us not to be? You told us to wait.”

“I did. Don’t you have school?”

I say no at the same time Autumn says yes.

He looks between us. “Okay, where are you all from? You don’t look like local kids.”

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