Page 30 of Bred Mate
“Thank you, big boy,” she grins.
“Alright,” I say. “Now tell me. Did you see a woman named Ellie? Brown eyes. Long dark hair.”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, boss. There’s no Ellie here.”
“She was picked up same time I was. I am guessing she was put in the cells same as I was.” I turn to the officer. “She has to be here.” But what if she’s not here? It occurs to me that maybe they never bought her here at all. Fuck.
“No record of her,” the cop says. “Sorry.”
“Sorry? That’s all you have to say?”
Aline has already left, because whoever she is, she’s smart. I am starting to get the kind of angry I can’t afford to be under these circumstances.
“You can lay a complaint with the district office,” the officer says.
“A woman is missing!”
“Are you sure? She might be back at home.”
“Her home has a fucking bulldozer through it, you prick.” Gray speaks with an English accent sometimes. And so do I when I’m around him, picking up words here and there from the little prince boy who got raised overseas until he was too old to take an axe to the face.
“Well, maybe she’s at a motel. You got a number you can call her on? I would say that there’s some chance you could file a missing person’s report, but without a full name all I’ve got is an idiot who thinks some woman came in here and probably ran out on him.”
Life was easier when I could just tear someone’s face off.
Gray grabs me by the arm and hauls me out of the station the same way I hauled him in. It’s better outside, but not by much. I feel like I’m abandoning Ellie, like she’s in there even though everybody is saying she’s not.
I turn to my brother.
“I can’t find her.”
Gray laughs.
“What the fuck do you find so funny?”
“You once found me in the middle of the Siberian tundra,” he reminds me. “We are trackers. Hunters. Stalkers. We’re going to find her. Don’t worry.”
I take a breath. He’s right. We are going to find her. I’m worried what is happening to her while I am not with her. I trust her to take care of herself, but we are outnumbered right now and clearly some political influence is being brought to bear.
“I’m going back in.”
Gray follows me in.
The officer looks up, entirely blank again, as if he’s never seen me before.
“We need the cameras. The station has to have them. She was brought in, same as the rest of them. I’d like to see the footage from last night, please.”
“Citizens aren’t entitled to camera footage, I’m sorry.”
“Alright, well. I’ll make a request.”
“And I’ll note that request.”
The officer pulls out some toilet paper roll from under the desk and makes a show of pretending to write on it.
“What the hell is going on? Why don’t you care about a missing woman?”
I hate that I’m even bothering to ask such an obvious question. They’re in on it. The company building the development in the forest has made her disappear. They’ve paid off the police, and nobody is going to acknowledge that she’s missing, let alone look for her.
