Missing In Conard County. Rachel Lee

yearbook editors haven’t organized much of this file. I don’t know how they’ll get it finished in time to print it and put copies in students’ hands by the end of the school year. Heck, some items aren’t even in the total file yet, but in separate pieces.”

      Sarah leaned back in her chair. It was old and groaned as it tipped backward. “Coffee,” she said as if it were the answer to everything.

      “Want me to run across the street?”

      Sarah cocked a dark eyebrow at her and smiled. “Trying to escape?”

      Kelly half shrugged, feeling rueful. “I’d like to avoid the parents. Guess I can’t.”

      “All of us should be that lucky. You still need a target. They’re bringing them.”

      Kelly didn’t even try to argue. Yeah, Bugle could pick up the girls’ scents from the car, but they’d be much stronger on items of clothing. “Stay,” she ordered Bugle. He waited, still as a piece of statuary, while Kelly stood. “How do you like your coffee?”

      “Black. Thanks.”

      “No problem.” The coffee bar was against the back wall, a huge urn that simmered all day long. The coffee was famously awful, but it carried a caffeine charge. What amused her, however, was that just in the time she’d worked here, she’d watched the addition of about seven types of antacids to the table behind the foam cups.

      Velma, the dispatcher who had been with the department since the dinosaurs had roamed the earth, still smoked at her desk despite the no-smoking sign right over her head and made the coffee. No one ever complained. But now there was that row of antacids. Velma ignored it.

      Kelly smothered a smile at the incongruities but poured Sarah her coffee. She’d like some herself, but she’d wait until she could get something that wouldn’t hit her stomach like battery acid.

      Sarah thanked her as she returned and handed over the coffee. Then she rubbed her neck once and returned to scanning the images on her screen. “It would help,” she said quietly, “if all these photos were labeled by name. Or sorted by class.”

      “Still early days, huh?”

      “For the yearbook, evidently.”

      Just then the front door opened and a blast of cold air could be felt all the way across the room. Kelly immediately recognized Allan Carstairs, the county’s animal control officer. Although he was loosely attached to the sheriff’s department, he seldom wore a uniform. Today a dark blue down parka with a hood covered him to below his narrow hips—funny that she could see those hips in her mind’s eye—above jeans. Thermal long johns, she guessed. A staple for everyone during parts of the year. Like the insulated winter boots on his feet.

      She watched him ease his way through the room, pausing to talk to some of the gathered deputies. At last he approached the spot where she sat with Bugle and Sarah.

      “How’s it going?”

      “I guess we’re going to see,” she answered.

      He nodded, his expression grim. Sharp angles defined his face, giving him a firm look that rarely vanished, even when he smiled. Gray eyes met hers, but right now the gray looked more like ice. It wasn’t a warm color.

      “Which three girls?” he asked.

      Sarah spoke. “Jane Beauvoir, Mary Lou Ostend and Chantal Reston.”

      Kelly felt her heart squeeze. Jane had been the only one she’d met, but still. So young. So entitled to a future.

      “Hell,” said Al. “Chantal volunteered with me last summer.”

      “We need to get the rest of the K-9 units in here,” Gage suddenly called from the hallway that led to his office in the back. “Where the hell is Cadel Marcus? Jack Hart? What kind of search can we run without the dogs?”

      “A sloppy one,” Kelly muttered. Bugle eyed her quizzically.

      Impatience grew in Kelly. She wanted to get on with it, find out if the girls had been seen at the roadhouse last night. If so, there might be a clue about who had picked them up. Or might have. At this point, however, it had clearly been no simple offer of a ride home.

      The door opened again, this time for longer and letting in more icy air as the fathers of the three girls arrived. Randy Beauvoir entered first, followed by Kevin Ostend and Luis Reston. Kelly knew all three of them by sight, but only vaguely as she’d never had any business with them or their families.

      She rose to her feet just as Gage reappeared and greeted the three men. They looked tense, worried, even a touch fearful. “Come back to the conference room,” Gage said. “You’ve got the pictures? The clothing?”

      The men nodded and Gage turned. “Kelly?”

      “Coming.”

      Velma’s scratchy voice suddenly penetrated the murmur of quiet voices. “Boss? Connie Parish says they need some help with crowd control. Word is getting around and folks are gathering near where the car was found to start their own searches.”

      Gage cussed. “Send ten men out there before they trample any evidence. Get ten volunteers. I got some business here first, then I’ll go out there, too.”

      “I’ll go,” said Al Carstairs. He might be the animal control officer, but he had the physical stature to be intimidating, and the military bearing to go with it.

      Velma looked around. “Nine more?”

      Before she could see who went, Kelly and Bugle were being ushered into the conference room. In the relative quiet once the door closed behind them, the room filled with a different atmosphere. Fear. Worry. Even some anger. These fathers were like rifles that didn’t know where to point.

      “We’re helping with the search,” Randy Beauvoir said.

      “I never thought you wouldn’t. But I need Deputy Noveno here to give Bugle his target scents, and I want pictures of your daughters to go out with her, and with damn near everyone else. We’re going to digitize the photos. They’ll be on every cell phone in the county, okay? And TV, as well. But first things first.”

      A SHORT WHILE LATER, after a quick stop at Maude’s diner to get a tall, hot latte, with her truck heater blasting, Kelly and Bugle headed east out of town with evidence bags holding part of the girls’ clothing and photocopies of the full-size portraits. Even as she was driving she heard her cell phone ding, and figured it was probably the digital photos with background info.

      It was beginning to hit her. She’d found the vehicle that had been carrying the girls only last night. Shouldn’t some instinct have kicked in? Made her look inside the car, study the ground around for signs of a scuffle? Anything?

      But the scene hadn’t struck her that way. Once she knew the occupants were gone, that even their purses had vanished, there seemed to be nothing to worry about. No one injured, because if they had been they would have been on their way to the hospital and her radio should have been crackling with information.

      It had been quiet, dark. People misjudged and went into ditches all the time, especially on cold nights where even a small patch of black ice could cause loss of control. She hadn’t seen or felt any ice, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been there when the car ran off the road.

      But without any damage to the car or any obvious sign of foul play, there was really nothing she could do except get the vehicle towed when she couldn’t get ahold of the owner.

      Randy Beauvoir and his wife had been in Laramie for the weekend. They’d come home midday today, Randy had told her and the sheriff. They’d received Kelly’s voice mail but hadn’t immediately worried. No messages suggested the girl was in trouble. Probably at a friend’s house for the night, as discussed. They’d get the car out of impound later.

      But then Chantal’s family had phoned, and the dominoes started tumbling. The girls weren’t at one of their houses.