Page 1 of Together We Rot

CHAPTER ONE

WIL

“It doesn’t count as evidence if you were stalking them, Wil.”

Sheriff Vrees has been kicking up a storm since I waltzed through the door, but he lets out another groan for good measure. We’ve got a weekly ritual, the two of us. I’ve spent the last year digging into his ribs like a thorn, looming over my mother’s missing person case, and he’s spent the last year looking into early retirement.

“You can’t solve crimes by committing your own,” he says flatly. Every day, I parade into the Pine Point police station with new clues; he dismisses them, and then we duke it out for fifteen minutes. Today, we’ve made it to the second minute of our scheduled banter.

I slap my hand on the counter. He’s lucky there’s a barrier between us. I’d love nothing more than to leap over it some days and throttle him. “So you admit what happened was a crime?”

His co-workers don’t bat an eye behind him. They’re used to this song and dance. They’re also too busy not doing their jobs: chatting among themselves, wadding papers to toss into faraway cans, slurping coffee, and snacking on doughnuts. Overly stereotypical crap. Anything to egg me on, I guess.

One of them is fiddling with the radio and playing tinny Christmas music over the warbled speakers. I don’t care how much Michael Bublé plays or how hard the snow falls beyond the glass windows—I’m not in a holly-jolly mood. There’s a limit to my patience and we’re at the end of it. My mood today is best described as five seconds away from physically assaulting an officer.

“For the last time, Ms.Greene, there is no sign of foul play.” His fingers lock together, the way they always do when he’s absolutely livid, just barely keeping his shit together. I’ve done a number on him in a matter of twelve months: Weathered eyes, black hair streaked through with gray, a family of premature wrinkles carved into his skin. “We’ve looked into your mother’s case. Tirelessly. Endlessly. All signs point to your mother leaving town voluntarily.”

Behind him, the wall is a boring wash of pale yellow. It bleeds together with the rest of the office. With him. Muted and dull and unremarkable, Sheriff Vrees is about as bland as they come. He’s a lukewarm TV dinner or a mindless Saturday afternoon, the kind you spend with your eyes glazed over and the local news playing quietly in the background.

He’s shown more emotion in the last couple months than he ever has in his life. He should thank me for that.

I tap a nail-bitten finger on my photo. How I got the evidence shouldn’t matter. “I’ve also been looking into it, Mark. Tirelessly. Endlessly. And look what I’ve found.”

The photo I took shows the beloved local preacher—the one seemingly as untouchable as God himself—in the woods beyond his house. Shadows dampen the image, soaking the details of the scene into a blurry haze. Despite this, there’s enough moonlight to carve the unmistakable silhouette of him with his hands around a hare’s throat. Pastor Clarke had snapped it in two and the blood is staining the ice red.

Sheriff Vrees’s eyes glaze over the image for a measly second. “I don’t get it.”

I scoff. “A man sacrificing an animal out in the woods isn’t weird to you?”

“Sacrificing? Pfft. With that logic, everyone in the UP is in a cult.” To prove his point that ritualistic animal sacrifice is a popular pastime in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Vrees nods toward the photos on his desk. Next to a portrait of his pregnant wife is a hunting shot. Vrees with a ruddy red nose, standing in front of a deer stand and grinning proudly beside an animal carcass.

“Twelve-pointer,” he says, humming to himself.

“What a beast,” Officer Mathers calls from his computer. He’s not even looking into anything important on the screen. The bastard’s playing a round of solitaire. And losing, at that.

My patience was limited to begin with, but it’s long gone now. “Whatever,” I gripe, “this is only one of the things I’ve shown you. I was posting again on my forum and—”

“The Nancy Drew gene really runs in your family, huh?” Vrees has a good long laugh at that.

My fists ball tight at my sides. “My mother isn’t just some amateur detective, okay? She’s a journalist. Was a journalist. Had a whole degree before she moved here and became a school counselor—I don’t have to explain this shit to you. It’s none of your business.”

Vrees’s scowl disappears under his mustache. “I don’t care what you or TrueCrimeLover420 has to say, Wil. We’ve been through this a million times before. Case closed.”

“Yes, we have, and each and every time, you never stop to actually listen to me.” I go to snatch my photo back, but Vrees is quicker. He yanks it out of reach and rips my work apart with heartless efficiency.

“What the hell?”

His skin ripples with frustration. “I sympathize with you—believe me, kid, I do—but your mom’s case is as good as closed. She skipped town. You and your dad don’t deserve that, but life’s like that.” He sips his coffee like we’re talking about the weather, not his own ineptitude and my missing mother. “Now it’s time to stop playing Sherlock and leave the Clarke family alone. They’re good people. Served this town well.”

I’d hardly call them good people. Mom hadn’t been missing for more than two days when Mrs.Clarke knocked on our door. “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother, Wilhelmina,” she’d crooned, so sickly sweet, it could rot my teeth out. Her eyes were splotches of spilled ink and her smile was full of brilliant white teeth. “Send my regards to your father. Our whole congregation is praying they find her soon.” And when she’d reached out to hold my hand, I could’ve sworn my mother’s bracelet jangled from her wrist.

Vrees pinches the bridge of his nose. “For as much as you’ve been harassing them, they should be the ones filing a complaint. Instead, they’re helping free your dad from that money-pit motel.”

“Money-pit motel” being code for our family home and the only piece of my mother I have left. “Free my dad” meaning steal the place out from under us and flatten it into a parking lot. Anything to run us out of town. Vrees isn’t the only one sick of me at this point. I’ll never forget the way Mr.Clarke had stiffened when I’d shouted down the street at his back. The hellfire in his eyes when he turned to face me. “Watch yourself, Miss Greene.”

There’s only so many times you can poke a bear before it finally shows its teeth. But I won’t let anyone scare me off. I’ve got teeth of my own.

My fist slams hard enough on the desk to send every head flying up. “And I’ve told you a million times too. I’m never giving up on her. Unlike you, I actually care.”

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