"Well, it's good that you know better."
"Gage, I wish you wouldn't make this hard. We got this thing covered, all right? Right now she's a Jane Doe. Maybe she was a runaway. Maybe she was abducted. Maybe she's even a local, but nobody's come forward. It'll come out in time, trust me. We have a deal?"
Gage looked at his crossword. He'd stopped trusting cops a long time ago. He'd stopped trusting pretty much everyone—not that he ever really did. There was a faint flicker of curiosity in the back of his mind, but he wasn't going to let it turn into anything. Not now. Not after so much time. How long had it been? Five years? He wouldn't even know where to begin.
"I don't see any reason to get involved," he said. "I'm not a private investigator any more. I'm just a guy who does crosswords. That's my whole purpose in life—doing crosswords. I've probably done thousands of them. I'll probably do thousands more."
Quinn laughed. Gage, not smiling, looked at him.
"I wasn't joking," he said.
~continued~
To read the rest of
The Gray and Guilty Sea,
please visit your favorite
online retailer.
Or find out more at
www.scottwilliamcarter.com/garrison-gage/
The Ghost, the Girl, and the Gold Page 31