Page 75 of Midnight Ride

Max and Sarge whined in the back seat and I lowered their windows.

“Yeah, it was Taber. I can hardly think at all, I’m so freaked out with Tammy gone. Nothing seems real without her, Virge. I don’t think I’ll stay sane if we don’t get her back.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Harlan? Of course you’ll stay fuckin sane.”

“I think you could be wrong.”

“Do you think Dad is going to be pissed at us when he gets up and finds us goners?”

“Yep. He will be. That’s a guarantee.”

“Shit. Think he’ll come after us?”

“Yep. That’s also a guarantee, Virge. He might call us first and yell and curse at us on the phone for a half hour, but then he’ll head our way.”

“I’d rather take the phone call,” said Virgil, then he laughed. “Dad can’t reach us over the phone.”

Taber. Alberta.

Once we got to Taber, Alberta, I remembered being there on the last trip, and it was easy to find the trailer park.

“Cops were here, Virge. The trailer is sealed with yellow tape.”

“We going inside to look around?” asked Virge.

“Hell yeah. We didn’t drive all this way for nothing.”

Virge smiled as he opened the door of the truck to let the dogs out. “Let’s see if the cops left the back door open for us.”

We tried the back door, and the cops didn’t leave it open. The back door was sealed with yellow tape too. Never without my pick set, it didn’t take me more than a minute to get us inside.

“Look at this fuckin mess. A forensic team printed this entire trailer. Canada cops got more money than we fuckin do, Virge.”

“Hope Tam didn’t leave her fingerprints on anything.”

“She’s too smart to leave her prints, bro.”

Virge and I went room by room and I figured it was a waste of time after the techs had run the trailer, but they missed something, and Virge came up with it.

He found Tammy’s purse in a garbage bag under the sink. Nothing in it. No wallet and no phone. Just the leather bag with her initials on it.

“Huh. Nothing. Fuckin nothing to help us.”

“Give the dogs a minute to sniff around and see if they come up with anything we missed.”

I lit up a smoke while Max and Sarge ran from room to room looking for Tammy. They knew she’d been here. They were far from stupid.

Max barked and Virge and I ran down the hall to the smallest room to see what the dog had found. Max was pawing at something under the cot.

Virge dropped to his knees to look under the bed and pulled out pink undies.

I ran next door to the bathroom and puked.

When I could breathe again, I said, “Okay, we’re done here. If there was any kind of clue, the techs took it. Dad will have to ask the Taber police department for a copy of their report.”

“Where to next?” asked Virge.

“Not sure. Let’s have a smoke and think about it.”

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