Page 69 of Fatal Thrill
“I get it, and I’d be sending protection for you as well if you didn’t have an entire team of friends watching out for you. Although, looks like most of them are going withme.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jaya wrapped an arm through Jon’s. “This is all the protection Ineed.”
He winked and turned on his heel. “Come on, Mr. Bells and Agent Claiborne. We’ve got work todo.”
They left and Jaya and Jon found a quiet place in a waiting room, Miles and Charlotte following. Jaya went to work filling out the admission form, but found there were more blanks than she caredfor.
Jon huddled with Miles in the corner, cooking up some kind of plan. Jaya wasn’t sure she was going to care for thateither.
When she’d filled in as much as she could, she returned the form to the nurse’s station. Miles and Charlotte departed to find a vending machine. Outside, the rain continued to come down and Jaya could see ice forming on the sidewalk androad.
She folded her arms over her chest and rubbed them through the jacket. Jon came up behind her and put his arms around her. “How are youdoing?”
“I keep thinking this situation can’t get worse, and then it does.” She turned within the circle of his arms and looked up at him. “Tell me about your dad and this ThiefRiver.”
He led her over to the chairs and sat beside her, his hands locked together in his lap. “Before my parents divorced, we lived about twenty miles south of the river. My best friend, Isaiah, went missing one summer. We were twelve. The local cops didn’t take it seriously since he was Native, you know? They joked about him being on a vision quest or that he’d run away. I knew he would never do that, especially without his dog, Deke. He loved thatdog.”
“Whathappened?”
“Cops didn’t believe he’d been kidnapped, so I went searching forhim.”
“Did you findhim?”
“Took Deke and we found evidence in the woods of a struggle. Isaiah’s keychain was there with his house key. When I told the police, they blew it off, so I called theFBI.”
“No way! Good foryou.”
“Yeah, I lucked out and got connected to a guy named Strickland. Told him everything and, surprisingly, he didn’t shut me down, even when I gave my opinion about what the cops should be doing. He came out, met me and Deke where I’d found the keychain, and then talked to my mom and dad. Mom didn’t want me looking for Isaiah, but Dad gave his permission. He agreed that Isaiah had to be in those woods. Someone had kidnapped him. So Strickland and I took Deke and started combing the area. Went all up and down that damned river for twoweeks.”
“And?”
“Never found him. My dad never said as much, but he was almost disappointed. Like it was some damned test orsomething.”
Jaya felt his pain. Twelve years old, best friend kidnapped, the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his father couldn’t offersupport.
“It haunted me for years,” Jon continued. His voice grew softer, his mind far away. “Not being able to find Isaiah sort of took a chunk out of me, but Strickland believed in me. Told me I had skills and to think about a search and rescue career when I got older. I told my dad and he just laughed. Told me I sucked as a Lakota warrior and there was no way the white man would ever accept me into theirworld.”
She grasped his hands. “Strickland was right and your dad was wrong. You’ve rescued a lot of people in your career, haven’tyou?”
“I did search and rescue for several organizations while I was in college. With my mom running a dog sanctuary, I had access to a lot of good tracking dogs. I learned how to train them and got certified. One time, I ended up helping the Feds in that same spot—Thief River. A kid had wandered off from a family of campers. We found the kid and something else aswell.”
“What?”
“The cave that lost kid wandered into had…bones.”
“Oh no.Isaiah?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, his face tight. “He was killed and his body was left there, and he wasn’t the only one—there were multiple kids whose bodies had been left torot.”
Her stomach flipped. “Oh, Jon, I’m sosorry.”
“If I’d found that cave when I was twelve, maybe I could have saved my friend. Maybe some of those other kids aswell.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what a serial killerdid.”
He didn’t seem to agree. “I started tracking theasshole.”
“Good. I hope you found him and shot hisass.”
