Page 58 of Into the Dark, We Go
"Good friend, then?" he pressed.
I held his gaze steadily. "He was my boyfriend’s friend."
"Not yours?"
A commotion erupted outside the room. A man swore in a low, grumpy rumble, and then something hit the ground with a loud thud. A knock on the door followed instantly, and a woman peeked her head in without waiting for a response.
"We’ve got a two-four-five comin’ in. Two males, aggressive. We need to separate them, and we need this room cleared."
The Sheriff cursed under his breath and stood up. "Follow me, Miss Foster."
He escorted me down the corridor, staying close behind, which made my skin prickle. I preferred him leading the way, rather than feeling his eyes on my back. He opened the door, and I stepped into a modest office, likely his own.
Unlike the sterile interrogation room, this space had a more lived-in feel, with beige walls, a small window, and memorabilia on the walls that tried to make the place look welcoming. Despite the effort, it lacked a personal touch. All the decorations were strictly professional: badges, framed certificates, and photos of local landmarks or the Sheriff shaking hands with various people I didn’t recognize.
His desk, in contrast to everything else in the building, looked expensive, made of solid wood, heavy and sturdy. It felt completely out of place. Across from it, on a small brown loveseat, June sat with her arms folded.
"Sit over there and don’t you dare get up or move," the Sheriff instructed.
"I gotta use the bathroom!" June blurted, but he’d already left, slamming the door behind him. "Fine, I’ll pee on your desk."
I was so glad to see her safe and sound, and in her usual snappy mood, that I immediately grew more at ease with the entire situation.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "I am so sorry I dragged you into this."
"Are you kidding? If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have found?—"
I shushed her with a warning look, then shook my head, begging her not to say another word. I wasn’t sure if the Sheriff had cameras or recording equipment hidden in his office.
"Yeah, finding a dead body was pretty traumatic," I said, emphasizing every word so she’d understand we needed to keep the other thing to ourselves.
I sat next to her and whispered, "You didn’t say anything, did you?"
"Of course not!" She sounded offended. I tried to squeeze her hand in apology, but she wiggled out of my grip and went straight to the Sheriff’s desk.
"What are you doing?" I whispered. "You’re not really going to pee on it, are you?"
"I’m just checking what this creep is up to."
"What if he has cameras or surveillance here?"
"So what? We didn’t do anything wrong."
"Apart from getting into his personal stuff, you mean?"
June shuffled all the papers and folders on the table. I got up and started arranging them back to their original state. Then she tried the drawers. The upper one was locked.
"Do you see a key anywhere?"
"No." I didn’t bother to look.
She opened the other two drawers. One was filled with receipts, and another had a little calendar on top of some folders. The calendar had a date circled: October 1. A little over a week away. No other notes or dates were highlighted. She picked it up. "You think he has a date or something? Ew, who would go out with him?"
I grimaced.
We waited a little longer, and at one point, a woman came by to escort us to the bathroom. She was polite but distant and didn’t answer any of our questions about how long we’d be kept, where the Sheriff was, or what was going on. We weren’t even sure if we were officially being detained.
Eventually, the Sheriff’s office held no more secrets. We counted every crack in the wall and got bored. June was reading some files on local criminal activities to entertain herself, but soon gave up on that too. We dozed off on the small couch, leaning on each other.
