Page 33 of A Future To Remember

The bartender’s face flushed, and he started to sweat. Meanwhile, I mentally worked through how I’d fight the guy if he came at me. I’d have to take off the sling and hand Eggy to Oscar, but I figured I could do that before the guy had fully made his way out from around the bar.

“I can call the sheriff,” he snapped.

I plucked the small bar menu out of the metal holder in the center of the table and began to look it over. “Give Wheaton my best.”

Oscar still stood near the door, undecided, but then he must’ve finally made up his mind because he moved over to the bar and began to talk quietly to the bartender. I pretended not to notice when a couple of twenties changed hands. He then came over to the table and sat down.

“What looks good?”

I sighed and handed him the menu. “No idea. I left my reading glasses in the truck.”

He put his knuckles to his mouth to tamp down a snicker, then cleared his throat and began to read the tiny print made for younger eyes. “Cheeseburger sound good to you?”

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

The bartender came over to the table and set down two bottles of Michelob Light, slamming mine a bit before he muttered, “That dog better not come out of his harness.”

I didn’t even spare him a glance—or correct him for calling the sling a harness—and he left after Oscar gave him our order.

“He’s gonna spit on your burger,” Oscar said.

I grunted. “I’m not leaving Eggy in the truck. It’s cold out.”

“I know. I told him what the deal was.”

I grunted again. “How much did it cost you?”

“Forty.”

I sighed, reaching into my back pocket to pull out my wallet. I then slid two twenties to Oscar. The least I could do. He was using up all his vacation time to be out here with me, investigating Abby’s disappearance, and he and Nikki—his fiancée—were getting married in a few weeks. I could only hope he had enough vacation time left to take her on a proper honeymoon.

While we waited for our order, Oscar and I went over the image on my smartphone of the note I’d found in Abby’s coat pocket. I’d sent the note and the baggie on to Salt Lake to be analyzed there. They’d match the blood on the note to Abby’s blood type first, then to her DNA just to be sure it was really her blood the lettering was written in.

It was a gut punch knowing she’d had to resort to using her own blood to scrawl out a message.

“It’s her writing?” Oscar asked as we stared at the photo on my phone.

I shrugged. “Probably. The lettering is more of a scrawl than script, but I recognize that A. She rounds out her A’s to look more like O’s.”

“I wonder what she used to write out the message.”

“Besides her blood?”

Oscar nodded.

“Maybe a twig.” I enlarged the photo on the screen with my fingers and studied the script. There was a block-like quality to the letters. My gaze drifted up to the ashtray on the table and a set of matches set next to them with the name of the bar on the lid. “A match,” I said.

“What’s that?” Oscar asked.

I reached for the matchbook. Flipping open the lid, I could see the matches lined up. I tore off one and held it over my phone. “A match. But not one of these flimsy cardboard ones. One made of wood.”

Oscar peered at the screen, then eagerly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see it now. Did she have matches on her at the time she went missing?”

I tried to think back to that day. I’d built the fire, but Abby knew—and liked—to build them as well. “She could’ve.”

Oscar merely nodded. “We gotta hope the techs can tell us how long the Tahoe was in the water,” he said next.

“That’d be a miracle.” Water often acts as both a preservative and cleanser. It would’ve washed away any fingerprints, blood, and DNA—other than what was preserved on the note in the baggie—but it also would’ve locked the Tahoe into a time machine, making it difficult if not impossible to pinpoint exactly when the vehicle went into the river given the frigid temperatures, where the oxidation on the metal frame would’ve slowed down.