LITMIR.BIZ

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Carstairs stood by the roadside as the crowd grew around the yellow police tape. Nobody was wanted inside that sacred circle yet except the crime scene techs.

      The ground beside the road, apart from being winter-hard and covered with bits of sprayed gravel, wasn’t going to yield much, he thought. Even the grass in the ditch, long since in winter hibernation, could present only broken stalks.

      But nothing was going to be overlooked. If they could find any sign the girls had been picked up, or if they’d wandered off into the night, they had to locate it.

      For his own part, he stepped back and began to walk along the pavement. Not even rubber skid marks to indicate the girls had tried to stop in a hurry, or swerved to avoid something.

      Squatting, safely within the orange cones around which light traffic was being directed by cops wearing bright yellow vests, he scanned every inch of pavement.

      He couldn’t imagine why the driver hadn’t tried to stop. Ice? Possible, but then the shoulder should have been torn up by the locked tires.

      Something wasn’t right. Then it struck him.

      He stood and wondered whom he should talk to. Then he saw Kelly Noveno’s SUV headed his way. Kelly. She was a smart one, and he trusted her judgment. He knew damn near everyone in the sheriff’s office, but not in the same the way he knew Kelly. His animal control job often brought them together because of Bugle. Yeah, there were others he trusted as much or more, but none of them were out here right now.

      How could a car go off the road without the driver trying to stop it? How could someone abscond with three high school girls? Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose couldn’t have blinked more brightly in his mind.

      Kelly pulled over, inside the cones, then climbed out and approached him. “Nothing?” she asked, waving at the crime techs.

      “Not from them yet. Kelly...I had a nuts idea. Tell me I’m crazy and I’ll shut up.”

      She tilted her head. A tall woman, she didn’t have to look up very high to meet his gaze. Dark snapping eyes. Full of vigor.

      She nodded slowly. “Talk to me, Al. So far I’m coming up dry. Rusty thought they were the most well-behaved teens he’d ever had in his tavern, not even remotely looking for trouble. He said they seemed to be having a private party among the three of them.”

      Al nodded, but felt anxiety running along his nerve endings. So the girls hadn’t been looking for trouble. That didn’t mean they hadn’t found it. It just meant it had been harder to find.

      “What are you thinking?” Kelly pushed.

      “No skid marks.”

      “Black ice.”

      He shook his head. “They still would have braked, and if they’d been braking to try to avoid going in the ditch or to avoid an obstacle, the shoulder would be torn up. Frozen as it is, it would have shown some tire marks. So they didn’t brake.”

      He saw realization dawning on her face. “You’re suggesting they weren’t conscious? At least the driver?” Then she paused and swore. “Rusty said some guys passed their table briefly and chatted with them.”

      “Enough time,” he answered.

      She nodded, her expression growing even grimmer. She squatted to take a look at the pavement for herself, then straightened to study the shoulder once again. “Okay, I’m heading back to the tavern. Maybe Rusty knows who some of those guys were.”

      “I’m coming with you.”

      Animal control was part of the sheriff’s department, but Al wasn’t a standard deputy. It wasn’t exactly pro forma for him to go along on an investigation, but everyone else was busy at the moment, and Kelly thought extra brains could always be useful.

      “Let’s go.”

      Despite the traffic hang-up around the scene, they got through quickly and were soon whizzing toward Rusty’s. Bugle, in his backseat cage, knew Al so didn’t seem disturbed by the addition of another person.

      “It makes sense,” Kelly said, although she didn’t want to believe it.

      “That someone could have drugged them? It’s a wild hair, Kelly. It just popped into my head and wouldn’t let go.”

      “I get it, but it still makes sense. Some guys stopped by their table to talk. And frankly, Al, considering these were young women out on a holiday weekend for some fun, they left Rusty’s awfully early. I found the abandoned car just before eleven. When you were that age, did you call it a night that early?”

      “No,” he admitted. “Never.”

      “Exactly. No one was waiting for them, it was New Year’s, all the parties would have been the night before. It’s entirely possible that someone slipped something into their drinks and when they started to feel odd they decided to go home.”

      And that was crossing a lot of bridges with very little evidence, she thought. But it did make sense. She had to at least find out what guys were talking to them, if Rusty knew. Then she could interview them to see what more she could learn.

      “Anyway,” she said more to herself than him, “I didn’t think of trying to track these guys down when Rusty mentioned them because he made it seem like it was all brief and in passing. I think I ought to kick my own butt. I should have gotten suspicious right then.”

      “Cut yourself some slack,” Al said. “Three girls together at a table. A lot of men would stop by, get the brush-off and move on. Normal behavior. Nothing to stand out.”

      “Except the girls are missing.” She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, and when she turned into Rusty’s parking lot she sprayed gravel.

      She climbed out, leaving Bugle in the car with a cracked window and the heater on. Ten minutes. If this took longer, she’d come out and get her dog.

      She slammed the SUV door emphatically, glanced at the watch on her wrist and marched toward the door, hardly aware that Al was on her heels.

      Just then she was feeling awfully stupid. Stupid, and cold as the night nipped at her cheeks and the wind tossed her hair. She hoped the missing young women were safe and warm.

      But she seriously doubted they were.

      A COUPLE OF people had evidently showed up for work. A woman of about forty, wearing a leather fringed skirt, was making her way around the tables, lighting the hurricane lanterns. A younger man used a push broom on the dance floor, clearing off any remains of last night’s revels.

      “Already?” Rusty said, arching a brow as he pushed a spout into the top of a whiskey bottle.

      “Some thoughts occurred,” Kelly said. “Al?”

      Rusty looked at him. “I know you. The animal control guy. What’s up?”

      Al unzipped his jacket halfway. Rusty didn’t keep the place overwarm, but warm enough that winter gear could be suffocating. “Al Carstairs. I’ve got just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

      “You looking for these girls, too? I’m not surprised. Half the county will be out there tomorrow. Wish it wasn’t so late right now. So, what can I do you for?”

      “There’s a chance the girls, or at least the driver, were unconscious when they went off the road.”

      Rusty straightened until he was stiff. He looked toward the table where the young women had been sitting just the night before. “Yeah?” he said hoarsely.

      “Not sure,” Kelly hastened to say. “Just an idea we’re looking into.”

      Rusty nodded. He turned his attention again to Al. “What do you want to know?”

      “You said some men stopped by their table. Do you remember who?”

      Kelly had turned on her cell

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