Lost. Helen Myers R.

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      2

      5:03 p.m.

      Jared Morgan dropped the previous day’s reports on day clerk and dispatcher Norma Headly’s desk. “Let Curtis handle them if you want. I’m out of here. See you in the morning.”

      “Just a second, Chief. I have Garth Powers on line one. He says there’s something out at the high school that you’d better see.”

      Jared waited for more information, but Norma didn’t elaborate. “Does he want me to play twenty questions? What’s up?”

      “I asked. He won’t say. He’s concerned someone will hear and start a scare ‘again.’ Those were his exact words,” she added with emphasis.

      Jared didn’t like the sound of that. There weren’t many things that would prompt the ex-jock-turned-administrator to call for outside help. It would have to be more than a hastily tossed-away reefer or a racial situation that had gone beyond the name-calling stage. A firearm brought to school? All possible these days, but none of those things would make Garth so secretive, and that had the hairs on the back of Jared’s neck rising. He could have done without the inflection on again.

      “Tell him I’m on my way to pick up my car. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Slipping on his cowboy hat and sunglasses, he exited the white-brick building, resigned that the cold beer he was looking forward to at the house would have to wait a while longer.

      Split Creek’s police station was located on the northeast corner of Main and Dogwood, in a three-streetlight downtown. The community itself was one of the more resilient in Wood County, but that was hardly due to brilliance in city planning or any law enforcement. Situated between Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana, and nestled in the heart of the photogenic Pineywoods, it also lay in the fork created by Big Blackberry Creek that eventually fed into the Red River on the east, and Little Blackberry that emptied into the Sabine River on the west. In other words, the town transformed itself into a virtual island during spring’s and autumn’s heavy rains. Hardly impressive strategy by anyone’s standards, but the addition of bridges over the years had improved the situation somewhat.

      It was the residents, however, who made the rustic, visually quaint community stand out. They were an odd assortment of old-fashioned eccentrics, economic progressives, religious conservatives and creative liberals. That strange brew could make things percolate during political elections, and passions didn’t quiet down much during high school football or basketball season, either; nor when the competition was on for spring and autumn tourist traffic. But so far, the only blood shed was from the occasional bruised nose on the playing field…or when a picnic involved one beer or wine cooler too many.

      Well, almost, Jared thought with a pang of sadness.

      Overseeing this motley group had been his responsibility for almost five years. He’d been a member of the department for nine. Like many East Texans, his ancestors had emigrated here from the deep South—Georgia, in his case. For the first half of his life, he’d bounced around the Lone Star State as his father dealt with transfers with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Later there followed a stint in the marines and, finally, a last year down in Austin to finish getting his college degree, before returning here to move into the family home. The unexpected death of his parents had precipitated that. Now thirty-five, he was all that remained of his side of the Texas Morgans.

      He often thought things should have turned out much differently, but it would be dangerous to dwell on that. It was Garth’s call that had triggered the reminder, had triggered too many memories. He didn’t need that.

      Only as he crossed Main Street and approached Ramey’s did it become easier to push away his gloomy thoughts, thanks to the sight of Michaele Ramey bending to pick up something from the concrete floor in the garage.

      Damn, he thought. For a slip of a thing, she could snag his attention faster than a bored bull could pick up the scent of forbidden heifers in a distant pasture.

      “Hold that pose, Ramey,” he drawled as he drew nearer, “and you’ll cause a traffic pileup out here the likes of which Split Creek’s never seen before.”

      Michaele glanced over her shoulder, her expression showing she was anything but impressed with his humor. “Just once I’d like to see you come and go without making a sexual innuendo.”

      “It’s a free country—I suppose you have a right to dream.” He grinned to hide the more complicated emotions she stirred in him. “How’s my car?”

      “Not much better than your line of bull. I swear, Morgan, you’re СКАЧАТЬ