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  He rolls his eyes and gets to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” I snap. “You haven't finished your ice cream!”

  “I'm not hungry anymore!” he replies firmly. “I don't have time to sit around here in a bar all evening. I've got -”

  “Your perfect family to get home to?”

  “You don't know everything, Ms. Carter,” he continues, “so please... bear that in mind. You can't just come swooping in here, solving things like some kind of superhero. We don't need that. Now, if you don't mind, I really am out of here. Enjoy spending the rest of your evening alone in a bar, M'am.”

  With that, he turns to walk out.

  “I don't think so!” I reply, hurrying after him and just about managing to beat him to the door. “Excuse me, but I have somewhere to be as well.”

  “Another bar?”

  “As if.”

  I squeeze past and step outside. I can see the motel opposite, but I don't want to let this Malone asshole see that I'm simply going back to my room, so I stop for a moment and try to figure out where I could go instead. There's always the bar in the center of town, so I figure I might as well go and get a night-cap.

  “Which way are you going?” Malone asks.

  “This way,” I reply firmly, nodding toward town.

  “Great,” he says, “because I'm going the other way.”

  “See you around, then,” I reply, taking a step back. “Maybe.”

  He hesitates, before nodding slightly and turning to walk away.

  I open my mouth to yell at him, to tell him that he shouldn't ignore offers of help, but then I figure that there's no point. He seems pretty closed-minded, so I turn and start walking in the opposite direction. I know I shouldn't have let Malone get under my skin so quickly, but I feel as if he's standing in the way of this case getting resolved. Kimmy Duchette is out there somewhere, and so is whoever took her.

  Reaching the intersection, I realize that maybe I should just go back to my room and get some more work done. I look over my shoulder to make sure that Malone's out of sight, and then I scramble across a grass verge before scurrying across the road. Sure, there's a part of me that desperately wants a drink, but there's a stronger part of me that wants to find a lead that Malone missed. So as I reach the other side of the road and clamber through a surprisingly thick bush, I'm filled with the determination to put that SOB in his place.

  I try to sort my hair out as I march toward the motel, and then I reach into my pocket for my key as I reach the door to room number 109.

  And then I stop suddenly, startled by the sight of Sheriff Malone opening the door to room 110. And – once again – he doesn't exactly look pleased to see me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I'm just living here for a little while,” Malone says, as we sit on our adjacent little porches behind our rooms, overlooking the road, “so that my wife and I can... work through some things.”

  “She threw you out, huh?”

  “Not at all. We just... figured that we needed some time apart.”

  “And that's why you were in the bar, eating ice cream?”

  “It was a sundae and... Yes. That's why I was in the bar, eating ice cream.”

  I pause for a moment, watching the darkness all around us, and then I turn and peer at Malone again.

  “I saw you there last year too,” I remind him.

  “Yes, and -”

  “Have you been living in the motel for a year now?”

  “Of course not,” he replies, as if it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. He sniffs. “Just a month here, then a month there.”

  “Right,” I say, slightly surprised by this revelation. “So things are going real well at home, obviously.” As soon as I've said those words, I wince and turn to him. “I'm sorry,” I add, “that was really not a good thing to say to you. I didn't mean to be rude.”

  “You weren't rude,” he mutters. “You're right. It's... not ideal.”

  We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, each sipping from the bottles of beer that Malone apparently had stashed in his room. I was reluctant to accept one, but then I realize that this might be a good chance to try to be a slightly nicer person. Also, I was desperate for a cold drink.

  “You're right,” Malone says finally. “This whole investigation has been a failure, from start to finish.”

  “Don't be so tough on yourself,” I reply. “You're doing the best you can, with limited resources.”

  “What kind of asshole told you that?” he asks, turning to me and raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Isn't it what you said to me, a while back?”

  He mutters something to himself, and it's clear that he's not happy.

  “If there are no leads, there are no leads,” I tell him, before taking another sip of beer. “You need to find them before you can use them.”

  “But they're out there somewhere,” he replies, “they have to be. You were right earlier, no-one disappears without a trace, not in the twenty-first century. We're missing something.” He pauses, still watching the darkness. “She's out there somewhere,” he adds finally. “Alive or dead, she's out there. It's my job to find her, and a year later I've still failed.”

  I open my mouth to tell him that he's being too hard on himself, but then I hesitate for a few seconds. I mean, I don't want to be mean, but technically he has failed. Sure, he hasn't exactly been given a truckload of help, but I still find it hard to believe that he hasn't found a single useful clue. And I know that if I try to make him feel better, he'll just realize that I'm patronizing him.

  “There's always Thomas Roper, then,” I say eventually. “If he -”

  “Thomas Roper didn't take Kimmy,” he replies, cutting me off. “I talked to the man.”

  “Then what about the other girl, ten years ago? What about Esmee Waters?”

  “There's nothing to suggest that he was involved with that, either.”

  “Esmee lived in Rydell, right? That's not too far from here. And if you look at a map, Roper lives almost bang in the middle between the two towns.”

  “That's not proof, and you know it.”

  “But it's something,” I continue, “and that's better than the huge pile of nothings you're dealing with right now. Why not at least try to establish whether or not the two cases are linked? Forget about Roper for a moment, have you been in touch with the police in Rydell?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “And are there any similarities in the cases?”

  “No,” he replies. “Apart from the fact that they're unsolved. And the fact that Esmee Waters also seemed to vanish without a trace. They never had any leads there, either.”

  “I don't believe in that kind of coincidence,” I tell him.

  I wait, but he seems uncertain.

  “Give me one day,” I say finally.

  “One day for what?”

  “To help you,” I continue. He sighs, but I decide to ignore him. “I get it, you don't like me. And you don't like my profession. My former profession, whatever. But I might actually be able to help, if you at least give me a shot. It's not like one day is going to kill you. How about you take me to a few of the key sites? I've already been, of course, but it's possible that going with you might trigger something.”

  He finishes his bottle and gets to his feet, before turning and heading toward his door.

  “Please?” I continue. “I've come all this way, and I want to help. I want to prove that sometimes people like me can actually help.”

  “I'm turning in,” he replies. “Can I get you another beer before I do?”

  “I...” I watch him for a moment, and then I sigh. “No,” I say, “I think I want to take another look at the papers. I might see something I've missed.”

  “Good luck with that,” he says, and then he starts to slide the door shut, only to stop at the last moment. He pauses, and then he turns to me. “Meet me out front at seven in the morning,” he says finally. “
If you're late, I'll go without you.”

  “I won't be late,” I tell him.

  “It's just for one day.”

  “That's all I want.”

  “And it's mainly to shut you up.”

  “That's fine by me,” I reply. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “And it's to show you that we're opposites.” He jabs his own chest. “I'm a cop. I'm a good guy.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you're a news... person. Bad guy.”

  “We're both trying to find the truth,” I point out, bristling at his bluntness. “We're not really that different.”

  “But I'm doing it to help people,” he says. “You do it to make money.” He pauses. “Are you sure you don't want another beer?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.” He mumbles something to himself, and then he shuts the door and I hear the lock click into place.

  Getting up, head back into my own room. As I do so, however, I suddenly hear the sound of another bottle of beer being opened on the other side of Malone's door. For a moment I think of him all alone in there, drinking without any company, miles away from his family. I guess I could knock on the door and offer to have one more drink with him, just to keep him from getting too lonely, but at the same time he seems like a pretty solitary kind of guy. Plus, I don't want to risk annoying him too much tonight. After all, he could easily cancel his meeting with me tomorrow.

  Besides, he's still an asshole. I didn't particularly like being described as the 'bad guy' just then. It's not as if the police business is filled with angels. Muttering to myself about the unfairness of it all, I sit at the desk and open my laptop, and then I start going over the rough draft of my story about the disappearance of Kimmy Duchette. The story that's going to put me back on the map.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I still don't see why we had to use your car,” Malone mutters the following morning, as I drive us along the road that leads out of town. “This thing is a death trap.”

  “It's perfectly roadworthy,” I reply, before glancing at him and smiling. He's a little too tall for my slightly cramped car, so he's having to sit hunched. “Stop complaining.”

  Before he can reply, there's a distant rumble of thunder, and I turn just in time to see the first few spots of rain starting to fall against the windshield. Ordinarily I'd be all for turning back, but on this occasion I'm not going to give Malone the satisfaction. I just hope that the hole in my right sneaker doesn't become a problem. If we have to go far out into the forest after we leave the car, I might end up with trench-foot.

  Thunder rumbles again, and the sky ahead is pretty gray.

  ***

  “You're the one who wanted to come out here!” Malone shouts a short while later, struggling to be heard over the sound of rain pouring down all around us. “Not much to see, is there?”

  Huddled under my umbrella, I look out across the forest, and I have to admit that he has a point. I don't really know what I was expecting. I certainly didn't think that there'd be some massive, obvious clue that everyone else had missed. At the same time, I guess I was hoping for some inspiration. Instead, all I see is rain crashing down between the trees, and...

  Nope, that's it.

  Oh, except for my right foot, which is completely soaked thanks to that pesky hole. And then, as I'm about to turn away, I spot something moving beneath a pile of dead leaves.

  I step closer and crouch down, and then I use a damp stick to knock some of the leaves out of the way.

  “Gross,” I whisper, as I see that I've found some kind of dead animal. It's about the size of a dog, and most of the fur has rotted away to reveal maggots crawling through the ribs. There are a few patches of meat left on the bone, although after a moment I notice the dead, partially-eaten eyes on the head, and the half-open mouth with two rows of sharp teeth exposed.

  I've never really been this close to death before. Not in the natural world.

  “Over here,” Malone calls out suddenly, from somewhere out in the distance.

  I stare at the dead animal for a moment longer, and then I turn and hurry after Malone.

  “There's some kind of dead thing back there,” I tell him.

  “I don't doubt it.”

  “Shouldn't we do something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don't know. Shouldn't we move it?”

  “You can't be serious,” he replies. “Things die out here all the time. They just rot down into the soil.”

  “Like Kimmy Duchette?” I suggest. “And the other girl, Esmee Waters?”

  “It was here that we found the blood,” he explains, stopping and reaching out to tap a tree. “Not a lot, but enough for us to notice. We ran it through the system and didn't find anything.”

  “What system did you use?” I ask.

  “Well, our system. And a national one. The blood didn't come from anyone who had a record.”

  “But -”

  “And to answer your next question,” he adds, “no, we don't have Thomas Roper's blood on file. And we have no reason to ask him to provide a sample.”

  “What about those ancestry sites?” I ask.

  Immediately, I can tell that he has no idea what I'm talking about.

  “You know,” I continue, “those sites where you can submit your DNA and find out where your ancestors come from. Sometimes you can figure out a link through those.”

  “I've never heard of that,” he replies.

  “You should look into it,” I tell him.

  “Thanks for the tip,” he says, although it's clear that he's not particularly interested. “Listen, we searched this area extensively a year ago. There's nothing here. And even if we'd somehow managed to miss something, there were storms over the winter that would have washed it away.”

  Looking around, I can't help but realize that he's right. There really isn't anything to be gained from being out here, and I guess I'm just getting a little desperate. And then, just as I'm about to say that we should head back to the car, I notice another noise that I can just about hear over the sound of the rain. There's a rushing sound, like a raging river, but I don't see any sign of a river. I turn and look the other way, and for a moment I feel as if I'm losing my mind, as if there's the ghost of a river running right through this patch of land.

  “What is that?” I ask finally.

  “What's what?”

  “That sound.” I listen for a few more seconds. “Like... running water.”

  “You can hear that from here?” he replies. “I can't, not over the rain. But we're only about half a mile from the falls.”

  I turn to him. “What falls?”

  “Well, you might have noticed the name of the town,” he continues. “Ridge Falls? There's a small waterfall that -”

  “I want to see it,” I tell him.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” I shrug. “I might as well get a feel for the area. Which way is it?”

  “It's pouring out here,” he points out.

  “Exactly. We're already wet, so what difference does it make?”

  “If -”

  “Which way?”

  He hesitates, and then finally he nods to indicate that the waterfall is apparently behind me.

  Smiling, I turn and start trudging through the soaked forest. There's so much muddy water in my right sneaker now, I can feel the cold between my toes, and I'm starting to worry that trench-foot might actually be a danger. Still, I'm determined to at least figure out the area.

  Sure enough, after just a few minutes I start to hear a much louder rushing sound, and finally I find myself approaching a river that seems to cut straight through the forest. Stopping at the edge, I Look down and see that the water is running pretty fast, coursing between some nasty-looking jagged rocks. I turn to check that Malone is still keeping up with me, and then I follow the river until I finally reach the waterfall.

  Taking care on the wet rocks, I clamber as close to the edge
as I dare, and then I look down and see more rocks about fifty feet below. This is the first waterfall I've ever seen in real life, and for a moment I'm mesmerized by the sight of the water crashing down. I watch for a few more seconds, and then I turn to see that Malone has finally arrived.

  “Before you ask,” he says, “yes, we checked the river. I'm pretty sure that Kimmy didn't fall in and drown, and that she didn't go over the edge of this thing. It was the first place we looked.”

  “I never realized how much... stuff there is out here,” I tell him.

  “Stuff?”

  “The forest. The river. The waterfall. When I was here last year, I didn't really appreciate just how much land there is surrounding the town. How much space there is, that someone could disappear in.” I pause, realizing that I probably sound like a moron. “I guess,” I add finally, “I'm starting to understand how someone could vanish and maybe never be found.”

  “It doesn't happen often,” he replies.

  “But it happened to Kimmy Duchette,” I point out, suddenly very much aware of how different this place is to the city. “She really could be anywhere, couldn't she?”

  Maybe she just rotted away, into the ground beneath our feet, and now she's lost forever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “These are all the files we have on the Duchette case,” Malone says as he sets a pile of folders and notebooks on his desk. “I can't let you take them out of this room, but I can not notice while you're looking through them here.”

  “There's a lot,” I point out, still drying my hair with the towel that he brought through for me. “Have you guys never thought to digitize all this stuff?”

  “We're still a little old-fashioned in some ways,” he replies. “We have a system and it works. The guy who comes after me can modernize it all. I just hope that...”