out her cell phone and hit the record button. “I’m taping this, okay? Just in case you mention something that winds up being important to us. All right by you?”
“Happy to do it,” he answered. His gaze had wandered over to the table where he said the girls had been sitting. “Damn it, Kelly, they’re so young and were just having fun. Haven’t heard that much giggling since my own school days.”
Then he paused and looked at her. “I didn’t pay close attention, though. I wish I had. I’m sorry. We were busy. All they were doing was sitting and drinking cola. Oh, yeah, and they ordered a BLT to share. That was it. I didn’t see anything wrong so I wasn’t staring.”
She nodded. “I understand. Anything at all catch your attention? Did one of them dance with anyone?”
He scratched his head and closed his eyes, pondering. “Dance? I think I saw two of them dance together. Line dancing. Nobody feels awkward if they don’t have a partner, you know?”
“I know. So that was it?”
“Maybe not,” he said after another minute. “They’re pretty. I saw some guys wander by to talk with them, but they didn’t stay.” His eyes popped open and met hers intently. “My opinion, if you want it...”
“Everything you’ve got.”
“Those girls weren’t looking for trouble of any kind. Now, I’ve had people their age in here before, skating the line of being unwise. Trying to get someone to buy them a beer, wanting to dance with anything in pants. It happens. These girls were different. It was like they were having a private party and everything else was background.”
Kelly tipped her head a little. “Unusual?”
“For that age. I was impressed. Must have good mamas.”
Kelly wouldn’t know about that. Turning, she saw Bugle sitting patiently upright beside the table Rusty had pointed out. Yup, they’d been there.
“Seek,” she told him again. Then the trail became more winding. It wandered out onto the dance floor, approached the bar, headed down the hall to the ladies’ room, then back to the table. “Find,” she urged him, envisioning the evening the three girls had spent here.
He lowered his head and wound up at the front door. They’d left.
She looked again at Rusty. “So...nothing concerned you. You didn’t feel like getting out your baseball bat?” She’d seen him swing that thing once. It put a quick end to most arguments.
“I wish I could tell you something. Nothing got me concerned enough to really pay attention. Nothing raised my hackles. But I’ll keep thinking on it. Dang, those poor girls. If the car was in the ditch I don’t suppose they ran away.”
“They didn’t get far if they wanted to.” Reluctantly, she turned off the recorder and slipped the photos back into the envelope. Then she passed him her business card, needlessly since he certainly knew her and how to call the department. It just made her feel like she was actually doing something. “In case,” she said.
“In case,” he agreed. “Can I post some photos?”
“They should be on everyone’s cell phone soon, but if you want some copies to put up, I’ll let the office know.”
He nodded slowly. “Maybe someone saw something I didn’t. I’ll tell everyone to check their phones tonight.”
“And I’ll get you some posters. It’s early days yet, Rusty.”
“Forty-eight hours, isn’t that what they say?”
Her nod was short, wishing she could deny it.
“You never know,” Rusty called after her as if to be reassuring. “They could be somewhere safe.”
“Sure. Thanks for your help. Someone else might come round.” Because they were all going to get dizzy running in circles trying to find these young ladies. Every step would be retraced a hundred times.
Damn!
Day 1.5
Al Carstairs stood by the roadside as the crowd grew around the yellow police tape. Nobody was wanted inside that sacred circle yet except the crime scene techs.
The ground beside the road, apart from being winter-hard and covered with bits of sprayed gravel, wasn’t going to yield much, he thought. Even the grass in the ditch, long since in winter hibernation, could present only broken stalks.
But nothing was going to be overlooked. If they could find any sign the girls had been picked up, or if they’d wandered off into the night, they had to locate it.
For his own part, he stepped back and began to walk along the pavement. Not even rubber skid marks to indicate the girls had tried to stop in a hurry, or swerved to avoid something.
Squatting, safely within the orange cones around which light traffic was being directed by cops wearing bright yellow vests, he scanned every inch of pavement.
He couldn’t imagine why the driver hadn’t tried to stop. Ice? Possible, but then the shoulder should have been torn up by the locked tires.
Something wasn’t right. Then it struck him.
He stood and wondered whom he should talk to. Then he saw Kelly Noveno’s SUV headed his way. Kelly. She was a smart one, and he trusted her judgment. He knew damn near everyone in the sheriff’s office, but not in the same the way he knew Kelly. His animal control job often brought them together because of Bugle. Yeah, there were others he trusted as much or more, but none of them were out here right now.
How could a car go off the road without the driver trying to stop it? How could someone abscond with three high school girls? Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose couldn’t have blinked more brightly in his mind.
Kelly pulled over, inside the cones, then climbed out and approached him. “Nothing?” she asked, waving at the crime techs.
“Not from them yet. Kelly...I had a nuts idea. Tell me I’m crazy and I’ll shut up.”
She tilted her head. A tall woman, she didn’t have to look up very high to meet his gaze. Dark snapping eyes. Full of vigor.
She nodded slowly. “Talk to me, Al. So far I’m coming up dry. Rusty thought they were the most well-behaved teens he’d ever had in his tavern, not even remotely looking for trouble. He said they seemed to be having a private party among the three of them.”
Al nodded, but felt anxiety running along his nerve endings. So the girls hadn’t been looking for trouble. That didn’t mean they hadn’t found it. It just meant it had been harder to find.
“What are you thinking?” Kelly pushed.
“No skid marks.”
“Black ice.”
He
