Page 5
“I can hear you.” Tom’s voice booms from somewhere down the hallway before he appears, moving with that unhurried stride he’s always had. His beard is more gray than brown now, and his face a little more lined, but his eyes are exactly the same—sharp, kind, and amused as they sweep over me, just like Sarah’s did. “You’re late.”
I glance at the clock and snort, knowing I’m actually ten minutes early. “And a good mornin’ to you, too,” I say.
He closes the distance between us and pulls me into a hug that smells like pine resin and aftershave. “I’m glad you’re here, kid. You made the right choice.”
I want to say something about how my first choice blew up in my face and how this feels more like triage than a plan, but I swallow down the bitterness.
New day, new life, Dawson.
“Yeah, I’m glad, too,” I say instead.
He claps me on the shoulder, then jerks his chin toward the door to the right. “Parker’s in the equipment room pretendin’ he knows his ass from a radio battery. You might as well rescue him before he breaks somethin’.”
At the mention of Parker, warmth spreads in my chest. I haven’t seen him in person in two years. He came to the city for a visit, and we both overdid it with beer and nostalgia, promising to keep in touch. We never did, and I blame that on myself. I know I was too caught up in my life in the city, and it made me push everyone I love away. Including the person who used to be my best friend. The idea of working with him is one of the few bright spots the last week hasn’t managed to taint.
I find him in the small equipment room off the main hall, standing with a coil of rope in his hand and a look of deep concentration on his face. He’s broader than he was in high school, shoulders filling out the green ranger shirt and making it strain a little across his back. His sandy hair is shorter on the sides now, though the front still flops into his eyes.
I lean against the doorway. “You know if you wrap that from the middle, you’ll end up with a knot you’ll hate in about a minute.”
He whips around before I’m even finished talking, the coil slipping out of his hands and landing on the floor with a thud. For a second, he just stares at me with wide eyes, then his mouth splits into a grin that hits me square in the chest.
“Holy shit, Luke,” he says, closing the distance in three long strides and pulling me into a hug that knocks the breath out of me. “You’re really here! I thought it was just some elaborate prank Tom was pullin’ to see if I’d cry at my desk.”
“No cryin’ yet, but the day’s still young,” I manage, laughing as I thump his back. When we step back, the easy familiarity slides into place as though we never lost it. “You workin’ here still feels illegal.”
He snorts. “Yeah, well, you bein’ my boss feels illegal,” he shoots back immediately, though there’s no resentment in his tone, just pride. “You know that means I have to respect you now, right?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Pretty sure that wasn’t in the job description.”
He chuckles and bends to scoop up the rope, wrapping it correctly this time as muscle memory kicks in instead of overthinking. “Tom said we’re headin’ over to meet the sheriff this mornin’. Apparently, you have to charm law enforcement as part of the initiation ritual.”
“Right after the blood sacrifice and secret handshake,” I say, but my stomach twinges because I know the sheriff’s office is where the missing persons reports are.
Parker must catch something on my face, because his eyes soften. “Hey,” he says, bumping his shoulder against mine. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, and this time it’s true enough that I don’t feel guilty for saying it. “Just tired. It was a long drive to get here.”
He studies me with that way he has, the one that saw through my bullshit when we were sixteen and hiding beer in the woods.
“Sheriff’s a good guy,” he says with a nod. “Bit intense about the whole missing persons situation, but I figured that’s in the manual somewhere. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
We walk to the sheriff’s office together, cutting across Main Street. Sweet Rivers hasn’t changed much since I left. The hardware store with the peeling sign is still on the corner. The diner across the street still has the same handwritten daily special board outside, with the same messy handwriting I remember advertising their all-day breakfasts.
A few new storefronts have opened—a yoga studio that makes me raise an eyebrow, and a coffee shop with succulents in the window—but the bones are the same.
The sheriff’s department is in the same squat building it’s always been; the flag out front flapping gently in the breeze. Inside, the receptionist is someone I vaguely remember from high school—older now, with tired eyes and a braid down her back. She waves us through when Parker tells her why we’re there.
Sheriff Reyes waits for us in his office, his door half open. He stands when we step in, tall and lean, probably in his late forties, if I had to guess. Dark hair cut close, and a face that’s seen more than small-town life usually hands you.
“Lucas Dawson,” he says, taking my hand. “Tom’s been singing your praises to anyone who’ll listen.”
“Sorry about that,” I cringe. “He tends to exaggerate.”
Reyes huffs a quiet sound that might be a laugh. “We’ll see. I’m glad we have someone who knows these woods. We’ve had more trouble the last few years than I’m comfortable with.”
He gestures for us to sit, then nods toward the wall behind us. When I turn my head to see what he’s showing us, all that earlier worry hits me in full force.
The bulletin board is bigger than I expected, spanning most of the wall. It’s covered in paper, photos, printouts, and maps, all overlapping. It looks chaotic at first glance, but resolves into grim order when you look closely.
