Dorothy gave an eye roll. “You have no idea. This is my sixth daytime sitter in five months that’s proven unreliable.” She grimaced. “That’s what happens when your resources are limited.”
“I imagine.” She nodded toward the coffeepot. “You want a cup?”
“Me? Oh, no! I mean, yes, I’d love some, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I have a lot to get done this morning.” She put the child down again. “Thanks for letting me clean up in here.”
“Sure. No problem.”
Daisy made a beeline for the table.
“No!” Dorothy reprimanded her.
Megan instantly lifted the map out of reach and found herself smiling at the cherub’s devilish expression.
Meg folded the map and placed it out of reach, then took a notepad out instead, turning it to a clean page before reaching for markers.
“You go on ahead and do what you need to do,” Megan said to Dorothy. “Daisy and I are just going to do a little drawing.”
10
FOLLOWING A TEN-MINUTE DRIVE, Dari climbed out of the passenger’s side of the rented SUV with little difficulty despite his temporary cast and took in the scene around him. Jason had driven them to the sheriff’s office. He fought a frown. He’d hoped he’d get to see some search duty.
The small Florida town was flat and green and flush with thick forests, a far cry from Colorado Springs. Dari’s mind was alive with possibilities of where someone might hide the body of a young girl so she might never be found again.
Even though he had on a standard-issue khaki T-shirt and pants, he might as well have been wearing a fur coat. He was used to the heat, but this wasn’t just hot, it was suffocating, even this early in the morning.
Jason came to stand next to him and leaned against the SUV. He lit up a cigarette.
Dari reached for it. “Since when did you take up smoking again?”
His friend moved his hand away. “Since when did you become a nag?”
Dari shifted his weight off his cast, thinking he should have taken his cane out of the car. “I thought you gave them up a couple of years ago after your last tour.”
Jason exhaled and flicked the ash off the end of the smoke. “So did I.”
Dari remembered clearly because his friend had been hell to live with during the two-month period of the on-again, off-again battle. He’d make it for a week and then buy a pack that would turn into ten before going cold turkey for another week.
“Is this case that trying?”
Jason squinted at him in the hazy early-morning sunlight. “It’s not exactly a walk in the forest.”
Dari leaned against the car as well, putting the sheriff’s office in view. It was little more than a small, squat building that could have been mistaken for an insurance agent or attorney’s office.
“That’s what I was hoping to do today,” he said, not wanting to go inside that building.
“What? Walk in the forest?”
“Yeah.”
“With a gimp leg?”
“With a gimp leg.”
“You’d only hold me up.”
“Oh, yeah? Try me.”
Jason pushed off the car and turned his back on the building. “Trust me, I’ve had my fill of slogging through these swamps. If there was something to be found, we would have found it already.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe not. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know yet.” Dari grinned. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
Jason chuckled and shook his head. “I should have known better than to ask.”
“Hey, you know I’m more a man of action. Put me on field duty any day.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Nah, you were always good at working either angle. Actually, from what I’ve seen over the past year, I think you may have missed your calling. You could have done something to land yourself on the Forbes list.”
“Good God, why in the hell would I want to do that?”
“Money, of course. And chicks.”
“Money I could always use. But I’ve never had any trouble in the chick department.”
“Speaking of which…anything interesting down here?”
Jason squinted at him but didn’t say anything.
This time Dari laughed. “It’s not like you to play coy. Don’t tell me you went and found discretion.”
“It is the better part of valor.”
“Never where you’re concerned. I usually get the details whether I want them or not.”
A sheriff’s vehicle pulled up into the lot beside them.
“So, are we planning to go in or just hang out here all day?” Dari asked.
“Get your cane.”
“Why?”
Jason gave him a long look.
Dari opened the door and took it out.
“Hey, Savage,” the uniformed officer called out as he headed in their direction. “Sheriff.”
The two men shook hands, said something obvious about the oppressive heat and then Jason turned toward Dari.
“Sheriff Harry Brown, I’d like you to meet one of my partners at Lazarus Security, Darius Folsom.”
Dari shook the man’s hand, noticing the way he looked him over.
Jason added, “Dari’s just back from Afghanistan. IED action. Injury leave.”
The sheriff’s brows hiked up on his forehead. “Rally? Which branch?”
Dari told him.
The other man hiked up his pants. “I’m a Marine myself. And my son’s over there now. Kandahar.”
“Tough duty,” Dari said.
“You bet your ass.”
They talked for a few moments more and then the sheriff said, “It’s getting hot as Hades out here.
What’s say we go inside? I’ve got some info you guys might be able to use.”
Jason winked at Dari as they followed the other man across the lot toward the building. If he didn’t know better, he’d say his buddy had set up everything from the word go, from hanging outside at the SUV, to bringing Dari along for the ride, down to the cane he’d asked him to get. And as such, he’d gotten offered information rather than begging for some he’d likely never get.
Dari shook his head. Jason had definitely missed his calling.
UNFORTUNATELY, AN HOUR of small talk had yielded them little more than they already had judging by Jason’s disappointed expression. Dari followed him back outside after accepting another cup of coffee the sheriff brewed himself from beans he chose and ground.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Dari said, “I take it he didn’t give you anything we can use.”
“You take right.” Jason let out a long breath, not any happier than Dari at being caught inside—no matter how air-conditioned—wasting precious time. “I already knew the other volunteer search teams had turned up nothing and had been suspended until some of this blasted water dries up. As for the mother and her possible involvement…well, it’s little more than glorified gossip at this point without any solid evidence.”
They got into the SUV and Jason started it up, blasting the air.
“Do you think they have it?” Dari asked.
“What, solid evidence?” Jason shook his head. “If they did, they would have arrested her already. Or at least pulled her in for official questioning.”
“What do Linc and the FBI have to say?”
“Unfortunately much the same as you heard in there. They’ve already pulled teams back to Quantico.”
“So essentially, we’re the only ones still actively working the case at this point.”
“That’d be about right.”
“On our own dime.”
“Yep. Unless we turn something up.”
“Is there any talk about cutting our own losses and going home?”
“You mean turn tail and run?”
Dari grinned at the saying.
“Not a word. Yet.” He glanced at his watch. “I figure we have a good week before we run out of options. Until then…”
“We keep spinning our wheels.”
Jason squinted at him. “We keep trying to find the girl. Hopefully alive.”
Dari considered him silently. He was mildly surprised his friend held out hope Finley might still be alive. Jason Savage had never been the hopeful type. It was reality and odds all the way. And the odds in this particular case said that if the girl was lost or had been abandoned somewhere, she’d have been dead a few days ago, just from dehydration and exposure to the elements alone.
If someone still had her…well, then they wouldn’t be finding her in any forests. And while Amber Alerts were still being aired, and tips called in and followed up on, it wasn’t part of the Lazarus team’s job.
A cell phone buzzed.
He checked his, then watched as Jason answered his own.
“Hey,” he said simply.
Dari settled back in the seat, scanning the trees on either side of the road.
“We’ll meet you there.”
He disconnected.
“What is it?” Dari asked.
“That was Megan. Our team found the girl’s bike….”
MEGAN HAD BEEN ON the scene for five minutes before Jason and Dari arrived.
The radio call had come in while she was busy with Daisy. He was simple and to the point: “Got it.”
Team #2 had been assigned to retrace their steps from the first day, only a few yards to the east. An hour in, they literally stumbled across a girl’s pink bicycle mostly submerged under a foot of murky standing rainwater, one handlebar bearing a white-and-pink plastic tassel attached to the end.
Due to forensics concerns, they left the bike where it was, not touching it beyond the initial lift to verify it was what they thought it was and to take photos.
Now they all stood at the tree line waiting for the sheriff’s office and FBI forensics team to show up.
“Is it hers?” Jason asked, coming to stand next to Megan.
She relayed the news to the other team. “It looks like it,” she said. “Do you think I should pull the other team?”
He appeared to think for a moment. “No. This may be a decoy and the girl was never even in these woods. Tell them to push on. Maybe it will give them added incentive now we’ve finally found something concrete.”
Megan grimaced. “You mean like the fact that we know the girl and her bike weren’t beamed up by aliens?”
“Something like that.”
She passed on the command and then refastened the radio to her belt.
“Sheriff on his way?” Jason asked.
She nodded. “As is the FBI forensics team. I pulled everyone out of this area until they’re finished.”
She looked beyond him to where Dari stood at the edge of the forest looking inside. He appeared…oddly detached somehow.
Jason asked, “What’s the ID on the bike?”
“Same make, color, tassels. Oh, and the plate has her name on it.”
“Finley’s not a common name.”
“No, it’s not.”
They shared a look.
If the girl went missing in here, chances were…
She shivered despite the heat. Changing the subject, she asked, “How is he?” She nodded toward Dari.
“Who? Oh, Dari? Good. He’s got the sheriff eating out of his hand.”
She smiled. “He’s good at that.”
“Yes, but don’t tell him, he’ll only call you a liar.”
She laughed and then looked to find Dari watching, his gaze moving from her to Jason and back again.
The smile instantly left her face.
He knows…
She wasn’t sure where the thought came from, or what she should do about it. But she was suddenly very certain that he knew there was something going on between her and Jason.
Correction: there had been something between them.