Page 10 of Forever Finds Us
Something about seeing her decked out in all her weapons again made adrenaline zing through my bloodstream like a very bad idea.
“No, sir,” the man answered. Roxanne’s partner extended his hand and we shook. “Deputy Dan Draven.”
“Brand Lee.” I motioned to Tab. “This is my office manager, Tabitha Ketterman.”
“Ma’am,” Deputy Dan said in a stiff greeting.
“Nice to meet you,” Tab said. “Wish it were under better circumstances.”
Dan nodded.
I addressed Roxanne and handed her a key. “That’s the master key for cabin five. We asked around at the reception. No one has seen Natalie this afternoon. Abey texted a picture she took yesterday to show the guests, but no one recognized her. We did a quick search of the empty cabins, and I knocked on the occupied cabins’ doors, too, and asked anyone available, but no luck.”
“Thank you,” Roxanne said, and she took the key from my hand. She smiled but there was a determination etched in her eyes, different than I’d seen from her before. She was taking Natalie’s disappearance very seriously. “Have you been inside?”
“No. We looked in the windows, but we didn’t touch anything, and we didn’t see anybody inside. If this turns out to be somethin’ more than a kid who got lost in the mountains, my sister will have my head if I mess up her crime scene.”
“Stand back, please,” Dan said as Roxanne slipped on a pair of thin, black gloves she’d had in her pants pocket and inserted the key in the front door’s lock. Her right hand went to rest on the gun at her hip. She flipped the catch on her holster with her thumb so the weapon would be accessible if she needed it.
“Whoa. It’s really that serious?” Tab whispered to me, leaning closer, but Dan heard her and answered.
“We don’t know the circumstances, ma’am, so until we do, it is that serious. Yes.”
Tab slipped her arm through mine and leaned against me, watching the deputies, and a little hum sounded in her throat. Seriously? She was into this short, brusque deputy, Dan? But I supposed I couldn’t talk. The uniform on Roxanne was doing things to me too.
But we were here for way more important reasons, so we waited like that, listening to the deputies clear the cabin’s rooms, until a couple minutes later, they exited and stood on the porch.
“Empty,” Roxanne said.
“That’s not good, right?” I asked.
“It’s not bad,” she answered. “We were just hopin’ Natalie had caught a ride with someone and maybe they’d dropped her off here. It sure would be nice to be able to call her parents and tell ’em we found her safe and sound.”
Tab let out a little whimper. “What can we do?”
“Just be on the lookout, ma’am,” Dan said. “If you see the girl, call us immediately.”
Roxanne’s eyes darted from my face to Tab’s, then they brushed quickly over Tab’s arm still holding onto mine.
It wasn’t normal for my employee to be so informal, but technically, she was my plus-one at my brother’s wedding, and we’d kind of been thrown into uncharted territory with the move and the changing business, but there were zero romantic feelings between the two of us. Tab was more like a little sister to me.
“Do you have a card or somethin’ with your number?” I asked Roxanne.
Roxanne shook her head, but Dan nodded and slipped Tab a card from his pocket with the local sheriff’s logo printed on it. “Both our numbers are on there. We’ll let you know if there’s anything further,” he said.
“Sure. Thanks.” I smiled at Roxanne, and she gave a curt nod and one more glance at Tab’s hand on my arm, then they left.
“You got a thing for Deputy Dan?” I asked my friend as we watched them drive away.
“What!” Tab said, astounded I’d put her on the spot like that. She smacked my forearm playfully. “Are we talking about boys and girls now? And for your information, I was just admiring his professionalism.”
That earned my office manager a snort from me as we headed past the cabins to the trail that would lead us back to the party by the lake. But she was right that since she’d come to work at Lee Construction, we hadn’t been the kind of coworkers or friends that talked about our dates or love interests. Like I’d said, things were changing, and I didn’t hate it.
“Is that okay?” I asked. “If you’re not comfortable, please let me know.”
Tab laughed. “Boss, we’re friends, aren’t we? Isn’t that what friends do? So tell me.” She squeezed my forearm. “What about you? Could you be any more obvious you were into Officer Fitts?”
“I was just admirin’ her work attire.” It felt nice to relate to my friend and poke fun at each other. Why had it taken me moving back home to relax enough to joke with her?
