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I’d lose. But if I was lucky, I’d make the Montgomery men lose too, in a stalemate.
After a five-minute wait at the stop sign, we were on the road. The conversation had fallen into silence, and Kaity turned up the radio. She was a nice enough girl, but I wasn’t as close with her as I was with Erin. I did appreciate the fact that she didn’t trust or like Gareth, though. She was smarter than Erin in that respect.
We got to the sheriff’s station in a few minutes. Driving there, go figure, was a lot quicker than walking while not knowing where the hell you were going. The station was in what everyone called downtown Eastcreek—which wasn’t really downtown when you compared it to the big city. It was a small piece of the main road that had a few mom-and-pop diners, along with the local post office, a small fire station, and the sheriff’s outpost. There was hardly any parking; any visitor parking had to be done directly off the street, in small, non-marked spots.
Yeah, not really a downtown at all.
Cherith and Angelina rode together, and they waited in their car for us. When Kaity pulled up next to them, they got out. Neither of them looked particularly brave; they both appeared as though they were going to be sick.
“Okay,” Angelina said, running a hand through her fun-colored hair, “so how are we doing this?”
“I guess we march in and demand to see the sheriff,” Kaity said. All eyes turned to me, as if I held the answers to it all. “Maybe you should go in, first, since you’re his niece… sort of.” The others nodded along with her, agreeing. They all wanted me to go in and take the lead.
Fine. I guess I could.
Holding my head high, I marched to the doors of the station. In I went, followed shortly by the others. The same receptionist, a middle-aged woman who wore her true age a lot less gracefully than my mom, sat behind a desk on the left side, right as you walked in. She looked up at us and gave us a warm smile.
“Hello, girls. What can I do for you today?”
It was Kaity who spoke, “Is Sheriff Jones in? We’d like to talk to him.”
She nodded once, getting to her feet. She was a stout woman. Today she wore a flowery ensemble that looked like it’d been peeled off a set of hospital chairs. “Sure. Let me take you back to him.” She gestured for us to follow her, and it was like deja vu.
The very same walk I’d taken when I’d first gone to see the head sheriff in the beginning of the week, when I’d had no idea it was Rick and not some other stranger. Rick, the guy who’d taken my first kiss in a semi-drunk moment.
Yeah, I still couldn’t believe my luck with that one.
The receptionist knocked on Rick’s closed door, and when he told her she could come in, she opened the door and took a step inside, saying, “Rick, some girls are here to talk to you.” She motioned for us to come in. Kaity, Angelina, and Cherith walked in, and I was unhurried in joining them.
Rick sat behind his desk, doing some paperwork, but when he saw me enter, he set his pen down and said, “Thank you, Stacey.” Stacey nodded once and left, gently closing the door behind her as she went. He sat back in his leather chair, dividing his stare between the four of us as best he could—but in the end, he lingered on me the most. “What can I do for you four?”
Kaity and the others glanced at me, as if wordlessly telling me to get on with it. I heaved a sigh before stepping in the front of the group and saying, “Erin hasn’t been at school all week. She’s not responding to any texts or calls—”
“I swung by her house a few times too,” Kaity spoke, interrupting me. “No one was home. All of her socials haven’t been updated in about a week, same with her parents. We think something’s wrong.”
Rick’s green eyes bore into me, and I could tell he wondered whether I put the girls up to this. “Maybe they went on a vacation.”
“No,” Kaity spoke with a single shake of her head. “If they were going anywhere, Erin would’ve gotten her schoolwork ahead of time, and if she was sick, she would’ve had me go to her teachers and bring everything home to her. Something’s wrong, Sheriff.”
Angelina added, “We want you to do a home check… or something.”
“I can’t just do a home check all because you four think something’s wrong,” Rick was slow to say. “I need evidence of something. If I started busting into people’s houses all willy-nilly, everyone would be up in arms at the commissioner meetings every month, and I’d never hear the end of it.”
It was the normally quiet Cherith who asked, “What if we called in a tip? Then you’d have to check it out.” She pulled out her phone, as if she was ready to call in a tip right now, if that’s what it would take.
Rick must’ve sensed we weren’t going to give up, because he leaned forward and rubbed both hands on his face as he groaned. The gesture drew all focus to the tattoo on his right hand. “Fine, all right? Fine.” He folded his hands, staring at us—but still, mainly at me. “After work I’ll swing by as a friend and have a look. I will not be breaking into their house unless I see something clearly wrong.”
“Thank you,” Kaity said, and the others followed suit. I was the only one who didn’t say a word.
“Now, if you three will excuse us, I’d like to have a word with Miss Dent,” Rick said, flashing the other girls a warm smile.
I had the feeling I knew what he wanted to talk about, and I wanted to leave with the others, but the others were quick to say okay and shuffle out of the room, one by one. Rick got up to walk them out, and once they were out in the hall, he shut the door and turned toward me. Whatever warmth he radiated before had vanished now, and he stepped closer to me, shooting me a frown.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his voice low. He stood directly before me, so close I could smell him: the scent of earth, of pine needles and nature. It was the same scent I’d noticed at the wedding, and it was the opposite of a bad smell.
“This wasn’t my idea,” I whispered back, folding my arms over my chest. Not a tight stance; still had to be wary of my left wrist. “The others wanted to come here. They’re all worried too. It’s not just me anymore.” The way his green eyes bore into me made my chest tight, but I persevered and asked, “Has Gareth ever… you know, done a whole family before?”
Rick glanced over his shoulder, at his door, as if checking to make sure it was still closed and we were still alone. “No.” His voice came out a bare whisper, “Something like that takes too much planning to get it done right. He’s always been more… opportunistic, rash.”
