I thanked them and left. I hadn’t walked more than twenty feet down the sidewalk, though, before the door opened behind me.
I glanced back over my shoulder, saw the redheaded girl coming up, her hoodie pulled up over her beanie-covered head, her red and black bangs still hanging half-way across her eyes.
“Miss?” she asked.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her.
She held what looked like a business card in one hand. She came to a stop a few feet from me, a nervous look on her face. “Hey, I know this is weird,” she said, offering the card to me, “but I kind of do IT work for a local security agency. They might be able to help, if you’re interested.”
I took the card and glanced down at it. “Frost Security? Sorry, I don’t have an office building or a mall or anything that needs guarding.”
Lacy shook her head. “No, these guys—they’re not like that. They do insurance fraud investigation, bodyguard duties. They’re really something else, you should check them out.”
I sighed. “Lacy, right?”
She nodded, smiling. “Right.”
“Look, Lacy. I appreciate the tip, but I’m probably going to have to pass. I’m running on a real tight budget, and I only have so much money to spare running after my sister.”
She frowned. “Well, if you need anything computer-wise, give that number a call, okay? Tell the receptionist, Gen, that you met me with Andy and she’ll get you in touch.”
I smiled in gratitude and her smile grew alongside mine. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” I stuffed the Frost Security business card into my hip pocket, right alongside my sister’s postcard. I nodded to her and turned around, headed off toward the diner. I’d never been too great at saying goodbyes. Learned that with Pops.
“Good luck!” Lacy called after me as I headed down to Dixie’s.
“Thanks.”
I walked down the block, thinking about all the different places in this town I was going to have to hit. It looked like even the Curious Turtle back there was opening a gift shop. What other places would have postcard stands? I groaned as the list in my head began to grow. Gas stations, restaurants, hardware stores? Shit.
Not for the first time, I thought about what had possessed me to come out here and do this. As I was lying in bed last night, using a good chunk of my rapidly dwindling cash reserve, I’d considered the idea that maybe I should have just stayed home. If I’d done that, I could have saved up a little more money, maybe come out here during the spring thaw when I could find a camping spot at night. Camping wasn’t anything new to me. Far from it. Neither was rock climbing, horseback riding, rafting, any of it. That had been my career since I was a teenager, helping run different tours over the last six or seven years.
When Pops got sick, though, I had to cut back. And when Eve left, I had to quit.
I still had money, though. Just not as much as I would have liked for this kind of trip. Especially since my Pops’ old truck had given up the ghost just after he died, joining him in the hereafter.
My stomach grumbled as I came to a stop in front of Dixie’s. A patron, a little old woman that looked hard and lean, opened the front door and released the enticing smell of bacon, eggs, and hash browns. My mouth began to water.
First things first, I decided, I needed to eat some breakfast. My minuscule budget could handle that, at least. I pushed inside the small, crowded diner and looked around.
Dixie’s was packed to the gills. Full booths lined the windows in front, and the counter was packed by men wearing flannel and sensible work boots. Yep, this was a local place all right. I was from a town that could have just been called Enchanted Rock, New Mexico, and even I felt a little out of place here. There was no telling how tourists would have felt. Despite my out-of-town status, though, no one seemed to care. I got a glance from one old man, over his shoulder from the counter, but his eyes just slid right over me like I’d been living there for years.
“Take a seat, honey,” one of the waitresses behind the counter called, “we’ll try to get you in soon as we can.”
My stomach growled again at her words. “Sure,” I called back and turned around to find one of the seats she’d mentioned. If I didn’t get any food in me soon, I was pretty sure my stomach would go after my kidneys when I wasn’t paying attention.
“Uh, excuse me? Miss?” asked a deep voice from beside me.
I turned, eyebrows raised.
A lean, good-looking guy I must not have seen when I’d first glanced around the diner was seated at one of the nearby booths all by himself. Something about the way he sat, the way his shoulders were set, or how his chin was lowered, told me he was as out of place as I was. He looked at me with dancing green eyes.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
He gestured at the spot across from him. “I don’t normally do this, but I’ve got a free spot here at my booth.”
I cocked my head to the side. “What?”
“Look, I’m still waiting on food, but you’re more than welcome to sit with me.”
I just looked at him. Even if he looked like he had no business wearing that flannel shirt of his, or a beard that heavy, he didn’t look like a bad guy. Gruff, maybe. And, I don’t know, something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Nothing about him screamed Stranger Danger, though.
“Ask any of the waitresses here, I’m not a bad guy. Except Barbara.” He grinned. “She’s a liar.”
I laughed despite myself. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was so hungry or I just hadn’t had more than the one cup of motel room coffee, but my stomach began to flutter a little the more I looked into those emerald eyes of his. “Yeah, sure, okay.”
He gave me an even, white-toothed smile as I took a seat across from him at his booth. “Oh, and don’t ask Doreen, either.”
I grinned. “Lots of liars in these parts, then?”
“Just the ones who know me. And I take it you’re new to town?”
“Just passing through, actually. How’d you guess?”
“Well, The Rock’s a small place. We tend to step on each other’s toes out here.”
The waitress, Barbara from the nametag on her apron, came up and took my order of coffee. I ordered bacon, eggs, and a biscuit without even looking at the menu.
“Can I get chili on the eggs, too?” I asked.
Barbara gave me a sad smile. “Sorry, honey, fresh out. You want orange juice or something to go with it?”
A vision of dollars fluttering from my nearly empty wallet entered my mind and I shook my head. “No, I’m good.”
The waitress left to go put in my order, and I turned my attention back to my dining partner. “Something tells me you’re not from around here, either.”
He nodded as he took a sip of his black coffee. He set it down. “You are correct, madam. I am not.”
When he didn’t say where he was from, I just gave him a sideways look. “Not going to tell me?”
He shook his head. “No fun in that. You tell me.”
“Well, why don’t you guess where I’m from first? Doesn’t that seem fair?”
He raised an eyebrow and sat back in his seat a little, settling into it. He stroked a finger over his bearded chin in contemplation. “I’m going to say somewhere with deserts. New Mexico?”
I sat back in my seat and gave him a look. “How’d you know that?”
“Magic.”
I laughed. “No, seriously. How’d you do that?”
“Would you believe luck?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, okay. It’s your tan. Yours is natural, but most tanned people who show up here this time of year have had theirs sprayed on. And I’m an expert in both. Your lips aren’t chapped, either, which means you stay hydrated all the time, even during winter.”
Fair enough on both counts.
“And you tried to order chili on your eggs. Pretty New Mexican thing to do.”
“Not even in Colorado?”
&nb
sp; He shook his head. “Not even here.”
As I looked at his eyes, the way they shifted, and again at the way he set his shoulders and how he kept glancing to the front door, I realized what I’d been missing. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
I frowned a bit. Pops had hated cops. He’d been an anarchist, one of those guys who came out of the DIY and hardcore punk rock scenes on the east coast. Half the reason he’d moved out to New Mexico had been to start a commune with our mom and a couple buddies from his old band. Neither of his friends had stuck around. Guess the idea of living off the land was better than the truth of living off the land. Going to sleep exhausted at the end of the night, waking up early. And doing it seven days a week, no vacations.
“Cop, huh?”
He chuckled and took a sip of coffee. “Ex, actually. Off the force for a couple years now. Guess I still look like one, though.”
My instinct was to get up from the table and leave. I’d never had anything but problems with cops growing up, mainly because of who my pops was. They were always convinced he was growing pot on his land or cooking meth, or doing God knew what. The way they acted, he was Pablo Escobar or something. Too bad for them, he was just another farmer with a neck tattoo trying to make a go of it.
“Uh-huh,” I said, fighting the urge to flee.
“And I was homicide, anyways. They didn’t pay me to care about anything but catching murderers.”
“Right.”
“Don’t like cops, do you?”
“Oh, you must have been a detective.”
He grinned and shrugged. “Got it in one.”
“Homicide, huh? Were you in one of the big cities, then?”
“Los Angeles.”
“From a desert too, huh?”
He grinned. “At least we still got the Pacific, though. New Mexico has what? Mesas?” Our waitress came back over and set my coffee in front of me.
“Food out in a minute, Jake.”
“Thanks.” He turned his attention back to me. “So what brings you to town? Skiing, boarding? Got fresh snow up at the resorts.”
I shook my head. “My sister. Came looking for her.”
That got his attention. He carefully set his coffee down in front of him. “She in trouble or something?”
“Actually,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my phone and the postcard, “I couldn’t tell you.” I slid the piece of mail across the table to him. “So, Eve, my sister, she mailed this to me from here a few months back.”
He took the postcard from me, flipped it over, and looked at the postmark. “Yeah, it’s from around here.” He glanced down at the words and looked back up at me. “Trouble at home?”
I shook my head. “Not anymore. It was my pops. He, uh, had lung cancer. He passed, though.”
He frowned. “Sorry for your loss. Lost mine a while back.”
“Well, hopefully I can find my sister. Gonna punt her right in the cooch soon as I see her, of course.”
He laughed, loud enough that most of the people in the diner turned to look our direction, sending me shrinking into my side of the booth. He kept chuckling, though, even wiping a tear from his eye as I took a sip of coffee.
Finally, he came to his senses. He stuck his hand at me across the table. “Jacob Wayne. You can call me Jake.”
I took his hand, nodding. Something happened, though, when we touched. Something I hadn’t expected.
His hands were rougher than I thought they would be from a guy that looked so out of place, for a guy from LA of all places. I always figured them to be either gangsters, movie stars, or interior designers. This Jake, though, he had a strength to him. And a warmth. Like he actually, genuinely cared.
“And you are?” he finally asked, smiling a little.
I shook my head as I released his hand. “Sorry. Elise Moon. Nice to meet you.”
“A pleasure.” He took another sip of coffee. “Got a picture of Eve? Maybe I saw her around when she passed through.”
“Sure.” I pulled my phone out, found the picture, and held it out for him. He leaned forward and looked at it for a long moment like he was going through a database of people in his head. He took long enough that I thought he might actually recognize her.
But, finally, he shook his head. “No, sorry.” He paused briefly. “But I’ve got friends in town, some guys I work with, we do kind of private security stuff. We might be able to show the picture around. Why don’t you text it to me, see what I can do?”
“Frost Security?”
“How’d you know that?” He looked surprised.
“I met your computer girl down at the post office on the other side of the stop sign. She gave me a business card.”
Barbara returned just then with two breakfast plates. His was stacked like a buffet platter with two orders of toast, a steak, four eggs, and a side of sausage. I looked in disbelief from my small plate to his huge one.
“Don’t judge, Elise. I’m a growing boy.”
I nodded. “Jesus.”
He reached over and grabbed the Louisiana hot sauce from the condiments caddie and started to slather it on his eggs. “Tell me about Eve. Tell me what you know about her, where you guys are from, where she might be.”
I blinked, found my utensils, and grabbed a forkful of egg. “Look, like I told Lacy before, I can’t afford to hire you guys.”
“I understand. But not everything I do has to be with the company. At least let me help you look around town. There are a few bars here, places like that with people who might know something.”
I sighed. “Okay. Where should I start?”
“Just tell me about her. Tell me what you know.” He gestured to the food on his plate. “You got time.”
Chapter Three – Jake
Elise Moon. There was just something about the way her name sounded in my head. It was almost magical. And those hazel eyes, the way they saw right through my bullshit. One look at her, at the little scar on her chin, at her high cheekbones and lean face, I knew she was tough. An outsider. Her beanie contained most of her curls, kept them out of her face, and I began to picture what she looked like with her curls loose and cascading like a thick waterfall.
And, God, the way she smelled. I could pick out all the different scents from all the different plants still on her jacket. Even the sun, the sand.
Too bad she didn’t like cops.
Or, rather, good thing I wasn’t a cop anymore.
I wondered how she felt about veterans, though.
More importantly, though, I was worried about Eve. A young woman like that, raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico could find herself in a lot of trouble in the wide world. Believe me, I’d seen it. Trafficking, prostitution, drugs, abusive boyfriends. It wasn’t that women belonged at home under the protection of their fathers or anything, but it was just that some people who go out into the world craving experiences and adventure tend to find exactly what they want, but the bad kind.
And, believe me, I’d found experiences and adventures. They were the things I still tried to forget when I went to sleep at night.
Nobody deserved to make a mistake that would last their entire life. Maybe, just maybe, I could help Elise pull her little sister out of a bad decision before something happened and made everything worse.
We spent the next half hour or so going through the story of Eve. A genesis of sorts, where she recounted everything from the beginning. “Then, when she was fifteen, we caught her trying to run off with her boyfriend. That was just after Mom died in the accident.”
“Been a runner all her life, I guess?”
She shrugged and stuck a forkful of eggs in her mouth. She’d covered the whole thing in salsa, and some of the pureed tomato dropped fell and splattered on the plate.
“What kind of things is she interested in? Drugs? Alcohol? Problems with the law?”
“Drinking, mostly. Not bad, but Pops was a drinker. And, no, no
record or anything.”
“How old?”
“Just turned twenty-one a little while ago.”
“We’ve got The Elk, The Nugget, and one or two other places she might have wandered into while she was here. They don’t open till later, though. We can check in there when they open.” I sawed through my steak and stuck a piece in my mouth after dragging it through some butter.
She just stared at me. “You’re really serious about helping me? Trying to get into my pants, or what?”
I frowned. “Look, I get that you don’t like cops. But cops in small towns are different from cops in big cities. Big cities, we know there’s nothing we can stop. We can just punish it afterwards. This, though…”
“You think she might be in trouble?”
“Didn’t say that. What I was going to say is that I think we may be able to reconnect you with your sister. We do handle missing person cases every now and then. If she’s still in Colorado, I may be able to help you find her.”
She shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that, Jake. We just met.”
“Second time you’ve run across someone from our agency, right? Think of it as fate. As the spirits guiding us together or some other new age crap.”
Elise smirked. “Mom was into all that. Chakras and the Zodiac. Pops hated it.”
“What about you?” I asked between bites.
“Don’t know, to be honest. I mean, I want to say something bigger is out there. Like, maybe it would be nice to know that everything happens for a reason. That there is something like fate.”
I smiled a little, thinking about the fact that I’d been a wolf less than twelve hours earlier, stalking through the pines under cover of the Colorado night.
“Sometimes, it would just make things more bearable.”
Memories of the bodies I’d found, the men I’d never caught. Memories of the man in the alley, his knees spreading that random woman’s legs. The taste of his blood filled my mouth and I nodded as I took a sip of coffee to clear the coppery flavor from my taste buds. “Believe me, I know. There’s too much senseless everything out there. Which is why I want to help. Gives me a sense of accomplishment to know I can push back and have the world make a little more sense.”
Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 52