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“Not since the Howard search?”
When Walters’s eyes meet hers again, all trace of casual concern is gone. They’re sharp in his tired, pale face, and Meg doesn’t needreminding that when it comes to an investigation, Walters misses little.He’s always missed little.Suddenly it’s abundantly clear to her why he’s chatting with her on a porch while what is possibly the most demanding search of his career is carrying on all around them. She hasn’t worked side by side with this man for over a decade without gaining a decent grasp of how his job works. Not to mention her ringside seat for the duration of the Howard search, and the months of inquiries that followed. Theyears,she amends, if she counts her annual petition for an active reworking of the case.
Looking down into her lap, she folds the map and the bulletin of the Matheson boys in half, then into quarters, pressing the creases sharply between her fingers. She folds them again, into eighths, and when she finally feels contained she looks back up. She’s glad to hear her voice is steady.
“Is this a conversation, Sheriff, or an interrogation?”
“Does thisfeellike an interrogation?” Walters looks surprised. Or feigns surprise? Meg’s not so sure.
“It feels like a lot of questions, that’s all,” she answers carefully. They’re facing away from the center of the property, but she can still hear the occasional calls of the deputies as they walk back and forth across the grounds. She doesn’t want to ask, but she has to know. “Are you considering Silas to be a person of interest?”
Walters’s look borders on incredulous. He reminds her of Danny in this moment. “Megan. You know perfectly well how these things work. Until a search for a minor ends one way or another and can be definitively ruled just that, the parents are always watched closely. That’s all we’re doing here. Watching.”
And watching other people, too. Like friends.
Walters isn’t finished. “I don’t have to tell you this is big, Meg. The twenty-four-hour mark is breathing down my neck, we don’t have so much as a scrap of a trail, and we’re lacking the manpower to cover the amount of ground we need to—hell, you can see the gaps yourself.”He gestures with a stab at Marble Peak on her folded search map, the ink smudged by dirt. “Unofficially? Within the hour I’ll be calling in Washoe County for ground reinforcements, maybe even Sacramento.” He pauses only long enough to gather breath. “Which is why I’m asking you, as a member of my department, to provide me with any insight you may have.”
“Like what?” Her answer’s too quick, her voice rising an octave to join the steady wail of the wind leaning into the trunks of the ponderosa.
“Like what the hell we’re doing right back where we all started!”
The statement hits Meg like a second blast of the cold air blowing down from the ridge. It’s bending the tips of the trees in a low bow as Walters penetrates whatever semblance of self-possession remains to her.
“Like why I’m talking to the same people I questioned at the start of my tenure as sheriff,” he continues, “during the only other search of my career that got this big, this fast.”
He stands abruptly, the grind of the wooden chair legs into the deck reaching the soles of Meg’s feet through her search boots. She’s hyperaware of everything now: the pine needles swaying in their struggle against the sky, the damp cold seeping into her fingers, the way her toes press painfully to the front of her boots when she rises hastily alongside him.
“Sheriff—”
He halts her with one hand in the air. “Silas Matheson was at the center of everything then as well,” he says. “I can’t ignore that, Meg. A case withanothermissing person? Just a kid who—”
“We wereallkids, then. All of us!” Meg can’t believe she’s shouting back at Walters, of all people, but she is. She must. She won’t apologize.
Walters doesn’t seem to be waiting for that. “Yes,” he agrees softly, looking back out toward the forest. His inability to meet her gaze suggests victory to Meg, even while it saddens her. “Forgive me,” he adds. “It’s all just such horrible déjà vu.”
“Surely even more so for Silas, with his own flesh and blood out there,” she presses, lowering her voice to match his tone. For a moment she wonders if he’s heard her.
“Perhaps,” he acknowledges. He looks at her long and hard, and she forces herself to hold eye contact. Something about defending Silas has strengthened her.
“And yet,” Walters says, “you’rethe one escaping the staging area. Was it something he said?”
Meg brushes a tendril of hair from her face in order to continue looking Walters in the eye. She’s not a kid anymore. She won’t be running from this, at least any farther than the lodge grounds. “No.”
Walters sighs, then nods, taking a step toward the stairs. He looks up briefly at the sky, and Meg follows his gaze to eye the metallic sheet of gray that’s settled just above them. “I’m calling in the helo,” he says abruptly.
“Today?” It’s only midafternoon, but the cloud cover is thick enough for her to already feel the daylight waning. Surely a fog will settle into the lower elevations before nightfall, if not an outright rain- or snowstorm.
“Today,” Walters confirms, then pauses. “If you’re still looking to get away from it all, I’ll recommend you to Santos as spotter.”
She stares at the sky for another moment, then back at him. It’s a peace offering, but she’d like to reject it. She’d like to prove to him that she’s perfectly comfortable with her role as just another ground pounder in this search, and that escape from the slow grind of stress that’s eating her alive is the last thing on her mind.
She can’t. “You’ll consider adding the Lakes Loop to the flight plan?”
Walters grunts an affirmative.
“Then I’ll be ready,” she tells him, then turns quickly from the lodge.
So much for holding her ground.
