Beneath Blackwater River Leslie Wolfe (me reader txt) 📖

The cashier took it and dropped it in the cash drawer without giving it a single look, then beckoned the next person in line and started scanning. The sequence of beeps resounded loudly in the almost-empty store. Elliot touched the brim of his hat in a gesture no one noticed, then headed for his SUV in the biting cold.

When his phone rang, his first thought was of Kay. One look at the screen showed Sheriff Logan’s name instead. He took the call and headed to his car.

“Sir,” he greeted the sheriff, unlocking his SUV and climbing behind the wheel. He started the engine and turned on the heat. The temperature was dropping rapidly and was forecast to dip below freezing that night. The thought of Kirsten ran through his mind. For a brief moment, he wondered if she was safe and warm for the night or was spending her nights on the street, like countless other runaway kids, shivering, hungry, and scared in some dark alley.

“Where are we with that girl?” the sheriff asked. “Any progress?”

“Some,” Elliot replied, careful to hide the disappointment from his voice. “I’ve managed to track her moves down to the Hilt exit.”

“And from there?”

“We, um, I don’t know. I’m talking to gas stations and long-haulers now. I’ll know more by morning. Some calls might start coming in on our tip line.”

“So, essentially, you have nothing,” the sheriff said. “Wrap it up and come back to the office tomorrow morning. I’ll reassign you.”

“I need more time,” Elliot said, anger starting to rile him up. The sheriff was giving up way too easily on that kid. “I might be able to—”

“Do you know how many kids went missing last year? Seventy thousand in California, three hundred and seventy in our county only. Most of them come back on their own when they realize it’s too cold outside or that mom’s cooking wasn’t all that bad. And some are never found.”

Elliot clenched his fist and slammed it into the steering wheel. Kirsten wasn’t some number. She was a scared girl running away from abuse.

“I need more time,” he said, keeping his tone low and apparently calm.

“Well, do you have any leads?” Although he knew the answer, Logan asked again as an argument to support his decision to end the investigation.

“Not at this time, but I hope to have something by lunch tomorrow. I need a few days. It’s not like we have a bunch of murders piling up unsolved, is it?” he asked, instantly regretting his question. The sheriff had the final say in work assignments, and it wasn’t his place to question his decisions. Ticking him off wasn’t going to help Kirsten’s case.

“Your colleague, Dr. Sharp, might disagree, but I’ll give you twenty-four hours. After that, we’ll just send your report to Oregon and let them sort it out.”

“I need more time,” he said, already pulling out of the gas station and heading south to the next one. “Twenty-four hours won’t be enough.”

“Bring me a lead, and we’ll talk about it.”

He ended the call before Elliot could acknowledge the order.

The sheriff was right. If the flyers and the gas station interviews didn’t generate a lead, he had no option but to give up on Kirsten. Her ride might’ve not stopped for gas anywhere before reaching San Francisco, and she might be forever gone.

He felt a chill and turned up the heat in the car, wondering about Kirsten again.

Where was she?

36Martha

The Harrelson residence was a ghastly sight in the dark, even after Kay had seen it in the daylight. But she didn’t care about the raccoon family who called the shed home, or any number of creatures that could’ve nested in the abandoned ranch; she was going to process the crime scene like it should’ve been processed fourteen years ago, hoping she’d find something, anything that was missed.

Ignoring the migraine that was starting to creep up on her, she tested the large flashlight, then climbed out of the SUV and popped the trunk. She had her old forensics kit with her; while she carried a badge, she’d never leave home without it. Dr. Whitmore had taught her how to put one together, during her first week on the job in San Francisco when she was a rookie. “It will save time, legwork, and lives, not necessarily in that order,” he’d said, and over the years he’d been proven right several times.

She opened the case and checked the contents. Fingerprint powder, brush, and slides, evidence pouches, luminol, UV light, a pair of yellow glasses to enhance her vision when she checked for bloodstains, and a variety of swabs and sample-collection tools that could come in handy at most crime scenes. Overkill for a compromised crime scene going back fourteen years, but she still wanted to give it a shot.

Closing the case, she carried it to the front door, then put the beam of her flashlight on the fiberboard that had been nailed over the jambs. The nails were rusted badly, and the board panel rattled when she grabbed it by the side and pulled.

Standing in the high beams of her Ford, she took out her keys and inserted the longest key on her chain right next to one of the nails, between the doorjamb and the board, then pulled, forcing the panel away. She repeated the move around the board for each nail, thankful that there weren’t that many. The wind had picked up with the promise of snow in the smells it carried over from the peaks of Mount Chester, chilling her to the bone and fueling her throbbing headache.

When the fiberboard panel fell to the ground, a cloud of dust rose, immediately whirling away in the wind. The musty smell of decay coming from the house was lingering, despite the strong gusts.

“Whoa,” she heard a woman’s voice behind her. Startled, she turned around, her hand on her weapon, squinting against the strong