Page 69

Dante flashed his badge. “FBI. Can we ask you a few questions?”

The man looked at Dante then at his badge with a furrowed brow. He probably had questions as to why the FBI was there so quickly for a small-town missing person case, why the agents in question looked like biker vagrants, and where the police were.

All valid questions.

Luckily, he didn’t ask those questions. He just asked one.

“Have you found him?”

It was a knife to the stomach to hear both the dread and the conviction in his question. He was already partially grieving his son, knowing the stats were not on his side. They never were for good people, which my instincts told me he was. A good person. A good father.

“No.” Dante was quick to reply. “We’re here to ask a couple more questions.”

His father’s face fell, but he stepped aside, his shoulders sagging.

The mother wrung her hands. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

She motioned to the kitchen, where there was a small coffee alcove full of syrups, kitschy signs, and a Keurig.

“No—”

“We’d love one,” Dante interrupted me.

I scowled at him. “I don’t drink Keurig,” I hissed under my breath.

“Their son is missing, she needs something to control, you’ll drink the fucking coffee,” Dante whispered back with an authority and steel that was uncharacteristic of him and not hot at all.

Not hot at all, I reminded my uterus.

Though my first instinct was to hurl snark back at him, we couldn’t on account of the nearness of the father, whose name I had already forgotten.

I couldn’t allow myself to remember their names. I already saw their faces in my nightmares. Both the ones I saved and the ones I didn’t.

“Please, sit,” the father gestured to the small, tidy corner of the open-plan house that served as the living room. Evidence lay everywhere of a well-loved child. Toys, pictures, books—a lot of those. I tended to warm to a family who prioritized books in their parenting repertoire.

“We’re incredibly sorry that you’re going through this.” Dante sounded genuine, his words soft and compassionate.

I definitely didn’t find that hot, but again, my body seemed to disagree.

“Thank you,” the father replied quietly, fists clenched at his sides.

“We are putting all the resources at our disposal into finding your son,” Dante continued, sounding surprisingly trustworthy.

The father frowned. “And you’re the FBI?”

Dante nodded. “I’m in town on an unrelated case, but I paused that investigation to lend a hand in finding Jackson.”

Again, I was shocked that Dante remembered the kid’s name. You didn’t need to know the particulars of the victims to catch the monsters. At least that was the way I preferred it.

“He didn’t run away,” a sharp voice came from behind us.

The mother, holding two steaming mugs and a determined expression. Gone was the grieving woman; this was a warrior, ready to go to battle for her son. I respected that. Appreciated the fierce love painting her expression.

“We know he didn’t,” I told her, regretfully taking the mug of hot dirt water passing as coffee.

She held my eyes, assessing, taking my measure. It was a strangely powerful stare that surprised and impressed me.

“Are you FBI too?” she asked me, sitting beside her husband, who threaded his fingers into hers in a simple gesture of comfort.