Page 9 of Forever Finds Us
“Teton County Search and Rescue,” Frank said. “Carey just got to Jenny Lake. He’s ready to call in dogs, but it’ll take a while for the handlers to get ’em there. They were loaned out to Idaho state the last few days for a homicide case. And then the Jenny Lake Ranger team has just clocked in.”
“How long’s she been missin’?” I asked.
“Four hours.”
“Four hours?!” Abey shook her head in exasperation. “Why the hell’d they wait so long to call us in?”
“The dad went searchin’ on his own, thought he could find her. Mom stayed put with the little ones, and then it took ’em a while to make it back to the ranger station on the other side of the lake. Cell service has been cuttin’ in and out today.”
“Damn,” Dan said. “It’ll be night soon. Not good.”
“Okay,” I offered, “then if they’ve got the search covered up there, what can we do down here?”
My job, the sheriff’s station, my co-workers, these were all safe spaces for me. I was confident on the job. Helping people was what I’d been born to do, but the other parts of my life lacked the same assuredness. Maybe that was why I was still single.
Why couldn’t life come with a set of instructions like a bookcase from Ikea? Of course, I didn’t speak Swedish and wouldn’t be able to read them, but at least they provided pictures: insert man here, part A goes into part B and repeat with remaining screws in holes.
“Carey wants us to investigate.” Frank tapped the top of his computer screen sitting on his pristinely organized desk, indicating that he’d already done some preliminary searching. “The dad spent some time in jail before he had kids. It was a weed charge, so I don’t expect anything to come of it. It’s just a precaution. The guy hasn’t had any run-ins with police in twenty years, but just to cover our bases.” He looked right at Abey. “They’re stayin’ out at your family’s place in one of the rental cabins.”
“Wait. You said the mom’s name is Angie?” She went totally still, a look of horror dawning on her face. “This is the Manning family? Natalie’s the missin’ hiker?”
Frank nodded.
“We had breakfast with them yesterday. Little Cody and Jamison helped us pick carrots from the garden after.” Abey pulled out her phone. “I’m callin’ Bax. Shit. They’re still at the reception.” She paused. “But maybe Devo or Brand will pick up. I can send them to the Mannings’ cabin. Maybe Natalie caught a ride down the mountain and went back there.” She punched her screen a few times, and as her call connected, she walked back to her office.
“Dan and I can scope out the cabin. Let me just get changed,” I said, and I hurried to the locker room to get my back-up uniform.
When I was dressed and mostly professionally presentable, I walked back to the bullpen on bare feet with my boring, black flats dangling from my fingers. My socks and boots were in my truck parked out back. Dan’s eyes zeroed in on my toes. Ew. Did he have some kind of foot fetish I hadn’t been aware of the last two years we’d worked together?
“C’mon then,” I said, trying not to gag. “Let’s get goin’.
Chapter Four
Brand
I only met the Mannings once, yesterday at breakfast.
My whole family had gathered for lemon and berry crêpes and bacon at the picnic tables outside Abey’s house, since it was the closest residence to the cabin the Mannings had rented, and their twin eight-year-old boys helped harvest vegetables from Abey’s and Devo’s garden afterward. Little Stuey followed after them with sticky fingers, trying to be a big boy too, and so many memories of his dad rushed through my head.
Stuey was just like Dixon had been when he was a little boy, inquisitive and enigmatic, and the sadness I felt when I thought about how that had all been stripped away from him when he was older made me sick to my stomach.
None of my family could understand why Dixon had given Stuey to Bax and Bea, but I did. Just like me, Dixon was trying hard as hell not to turn out like our father. He was trying to protect Stu from his failures and bad habits.
The missing girl, the Mannings’ daughter, Natalie, had taken the opportunity to utilize the strong Wi-Fi signal at breakfast and had spent the entire meal on her phone.
They seemed like a nice family. The dad, Xavier, was a warehouse supervisor for a beer distribution company out of Nebraska, and the mom, Angie, if I remembered correctly, was a dental hygienist. The kids had a long weekend off from school. It was fall break, so Xavier and Angie had dragged them to the Tetons for some family bonding, fishing and hiking.
But now, that bright, happy breakfast filled with laughter and smiles seemed tainted in my memory as Tabitha and I met Deputy Roxanne and her partner at cabin five, also known as Cowboy Court. Athena had insisted on naming each cabin with ridiculous monikers like Wilder West, Mini-Moose Lodge, and my favorite, Teton Taj. Cabin five, Cowboy Court, was a mid-sized rental, bigger than cabin one but much smaller and half the square footage of cabin ten, Teton Taj.
“Hello again,” I said, trying not to notice the tight fit of Roxanne’s uniform as she stepped from her truck. She looked pretty amazing in her dress at the wedding earlier, long legs flowing from the thigh-length skirt. But damn, the way her uniform hugged those thighs had me imagining slipping my hand between them.
Shit.
“So, no one’s heard from Natalie?” I asked, trying to steer my brain back to rational thoughts while a shorter, fit man exited the passenger side of Roxanne’s truck and anchored his hands over his hips.
Along with his uniform, he wore a Teton County ball cap, and a pair of Ray-Bans hung from his vest pocket. All the usual law enforcement tools had been clipped to his belt: small flashlight, pepper spray, Taser, and handcuffs, and his nametag was clearly displayed above his right vest pocket. A holstered black handgun had been strapped around his thigh, and a metal sheriff’s department star shone over his left pocket.
Roxanne was dressed similarly, and the difference in the deputies’ heights was almost comical, but in my view only made Roxanne that much more stunning. I’d met her three times now, and each time, she was more beautiful than the time before.
