The Girls She Left Behind (3 page)

“Oh, great.” From what she could tell so far, poverty in Maine boiled down, as it had anywhere she'd ever been, to people just doing what they could to keep a roof over their heads. Like those meth cooks, even; it was a filthy, dangerous, and basically depraved way to make a living, but there weren't many jobs around here and people had expenses to cover.

The warmth of Dylan's touch faded; another pang of longing pierced her before she banished that, too.
Dammit,
she thought,
why am I still so vulnerable to him?

But when she looked up incautiously into the full force of his crooked smile, she knew why and cursed herself for it. She'd said she would leave him; swore it, in fact, from the moment she'd learned that he was married.

Found out from his wife, actually, from whom he was neither separated nor in the process of getting divorced as he'd claimed. Dylan's wife, Sherry, had surprised them together, bursting in on them one awful night in Lizzie's apartment, and after that horrid revelation it was of course all over.

Devastated, she'd sworn off him for good. But then Sherry got sick suddenly, and went downhill fast; she'd died soon after he'd left the Boston PD to join the Maine State Police as a homicide cop.

“I don't suppose your little bird got a plate number?”

Now Lizzie was here in Maine, too, lured to the remote, rural northernmost part of the state by vague stories and an anonymously sent snapshot of a blond child who could be her niece, Nicki. Or not. She knew very well that it might not be.

Dylan looked wry. “Oh, yeah. Tag number, sure, he got their Social Security numbers, too,” he replied sarcastically.

Outside the front window the brief storm had passed; the northern Maine night turned spangled and sharp-edged. She stared out into it.

“No,” Dylan amended more gently when she didn't answer. “No ID, no real proof of anything at all, really. He said it was just that the kid was the same age as I'd told him we're looking for, blond and blue-eyed, and she didn't seem like she belonged with the adults that she was with. Just a feeling he got, he said.”

She glanced again at the now-silent scanner, wanting to hear for sure that the fire crews could finally stand down tonight even if by tomorrow all the sleet had evaporated, putting them back in tindery conditions once more.

And she wanted Tara Wylie to be home safe and sound with her mother.

“Where did he see her?” Lizzie asked, meaning Nicki.

If it was Nicki.

“Bangor,” Dylan answered. “I've been keeping an eye peeled, I put the word out so the patrol cars and so on know to give me a call if any of 'em notice anything. But with this…look, Lizzie, I only told you about it at all 'cause I promised I'd keep you in the loop.”

She nodded tiredly, knowing the cold-case drill as well as he did: sifting a lot of chaff in the hope of coming up with even a single grain of anything helpful. It was why she needed Dylan, who had plenty of contacts here in Maine; also, as he'd just proved again, he was the king of schmooze when it came to informants.

Outside, an old pickup truck loaded with firewood trundled past, followed by an even less-reputable-looking clunker whose fenders appeared to be held together by wide strips of silver duct tape, known locally as North Woods chrome.

A wave of discouragement hit her. “Maybe I should go back to Boston.”

There, she'd said it. The photograph of Nicki—
if
—had popped up out of nowhere months earlier, mailed to Dylan anonymously, without a return address. Seeing it, she hadn't known at once that in response she would quit the job she had coveted, put her beloved city apartment on the market, upend her whole life. All she'd worked for, all she'd ever wanted…

Not until she'd done it.
Blood calls to blood.
But if, as she now feared, the search was hopeless, then it had all been for nothing.

“What, and leave all this behind?” Dylan's gesture took in the whole room, its Sheetrock walls and auto-supply-store shelving as blandly generic as if it had come out of a box marked
CONTENTS: ONE CRUMMY OFFICE.

“And what about beautiful downtown Bearkill?” he added with a wave out at the desolate night, the fluorescent overhead lights in the supermarket across the street already snapping off one by one.

It was only 6
P.M.
“You'd miss it,” he said. “The culture, the exciting nightlife, and what about the glittering social scene?”

Most of the nightlife here consisted of wild animals: deer, moose, even bears. The only sign still lit outside was the one over the door of the corner tavern, Area 51; the glowing panel featured a big-eyed alien hoisting a tilted cocktail glass, its long, slim fingers weirdly articulated and its slit pupils peering expressionlessly.

“Don't make fun,” she retorted, her mood changing abruptly at his mocking tone.

Of the town, she meant, or its plus-or-minus eleven hundred citizens; ones she'd sworn to serve and protect when she became Bearkill's first resident liaison officer, charged with outreach activities for the Aroostook County Sheriff's Department. And despite her growing doubts about her decision, for now that oath still held, even if Area 51's idea of a good hors d'oeuvre was a pickled egg.

He eyed her, surprised at her tone. “Don't tell me you're getting hooked on the place? Gone native already?”

“Can it,” she snapped back, and was about to say more: that in Boston by this hour she'd be happily tucked into a downtown piano bar, a single-malt whiskey in front of her and a good dinner from some side-street ethnic establishment coming later.

Something spicy from the Szechuan place, she thought, or a plate of piroshki, the rich steamed pastry full of cabbage and egg. Instead, a pedestrian scuttled unexpectedly by outside the office window, glancing briefly in at them before hurrying on.

Pale-skinned and hollow-eyed, the woman wore a puffy winter jacket in shiny black and a red scarf tied under her chin. Black slacks that looked dressier than the jacket-and-babushka combo, heeled leather boots. Like Lizzie's. Or, not
exactly
like.

“Dylan, I have not even a little bit ‘gone native,' as you so pleasantly put it.” She glanced down at her own sleek Manolos: black, stack-heeled lace-ups she'd paid a small fortune for back in the city.

“Yes, I can see that,” Dylan replied admiringly, taking in the rest of her usual work outfit: slim black jeans, a white silk shirt, and a leather belt, brass-buckled.

She ignored his comment, regarding it as merely the standard Dylan Hudson brand of shameless flattery. If you let him, he could oil you up one side and down the other.

Her black leather jacket, tailored to fit her perfectly and as soft as chamois, hung next to Dylan's coat. Pulling it on
,
she looked around the office a final time.

“Grab that trash bag, will you?” She didn't want the office smelling like a take-out joint when her administrative assistant, Missy Brantwell, opened up in the morning.

He complied obediently, heading out the rear exit with the tied-shut black plastic sack. Now if she could just extricate herself efficiently from the parting dance they'd soon be doing out on the sidewalk—since it seemed that he had no suggestions to make on the missing teenager situation—she'd be home free.

Speaking of which, there was a large black-and-tan hound dog waiting for her there, one who needed food and a good long walk every evening, whatever the weather. And Dylan was not at all a fan of pitch-dark jaunts through half-frozen road slop.

Good, she thought as he came back in without the trash bag, she'd use Rascal as an excuse. But as she opened her mouth to tell him that the rest of her evening would be devoted to dog care, a pickup truck pulled up outside, a shiny red Ram 1500 with a heavy chain winch in the back and a magnetic sign on the door panel:

GREAT NORTH WOODS ANIMAL CARE, TREY WASHBURN, DVM.
No cute puppy or kitten illustrations adorned the sign. Trey was not that kind of veterinarian. His specialty was the kind of creature that could kill you by stepping on you: a longhorn steer, for instance, or a six-hundred-pound pig.

Dylan spied the truck. “Well, well, if it isn't our friend Farmer John.”

He did not sound friendly at all. But Lizzie hardly noticed, being fully occupied suddenly by the mental equivalent of a punch in the stomach. Now she knew what she'd forgotten.

Dylan eyed her acutely. “You've got a date with him, haven't you?”

“Yes, Dylan. I do. Or I did, anyway.” A dinner date, one that had completely slipped her mind.

Jumping down from the cab of his truck, the burly vet came in all smiles. But he stopped short when he saw Dylan.

“Hi.” Tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a fleece-lined denim jacket, tan Carharrt overalls, and leather work boots, the big man glanced from Lizzie to Dylan and back.

“Smells good in here.” The Thai food. With his thinning blond hair plastered back by the melting sleet and his round, pink face set in a determinedly amiable expression, Lizzie almost couldn't see the hurt in his blue eyes.

Almost.
“Trey, I'm so sorry, I just got very involved here earlier, and—”

Yeah, I can see that,
his face said. “Hey, no problem. I just stopped by to say that I'm going to be a while anyway. Got some cows at a ranch up the road not doing so well on a diet of trucked-in chow now that their pasture's dried out. So I promised the folks I'd come up after hours and take a look.”

If Dylan hadn't been there, Trey would have asked her to ride along, Lizzie knew, and she'd probably have accepted. Now, though, his gaze met hers communicatively:
What the hell are you still doing with this joker, anyway?

It was a good question, one that she'd also been known to ask herself. And she didn't have a decent answer for either one of them.

“Nice seeing you again,” Dylan said stiffly as Trey turned to go.

Damn,
she thought again as his sturdy frame bulked in the truck's dashboard glow. But she didn't know what she could have done differently about this and anyway it was too late, she knew, as Trey pulled away with his truck's big tires spewing slush.

Outside, Dylan walked with her to her vehicle, him clomping in his old-fashioned black rubber galoshes while she picked her way cautiously, not wanting to wreck her boots. The night's sleet-washed air tasted good, cleansed for the moment of the stench of burning, not like Boston, where the air was full of exhaust fumes year-round.

“Trey is not,” she said firmly, “a farmer.”

Dylan shrugged. “Hey, he works with farm animals. Goes home with manure on his boots. No difference.”

She beeped open the Blazer's doors, having not yet gotten out of the Boston habit of locking everything she couldn't nail shut. People around here left their cars running, keys hanging in the ignition, even, when they went into the store.

“He's been a good friend. I don't,” she added, glancing back at her office once more, “let him bad-mouth you, either.”

The office phone's light was still stubbornly not blinking.
Tara Wylie, where the hell are you?
Lizzie wondered.
And why do I have such a bad feeling about you?

“Sure,” Dylan replied skeptically, as down the block a small movement caught Lizzie's eye.

It was the woman who'd passed by her window minutes earlier, ducking fast back into a doorway. And that
was
the same as it had been in Boston: the quick glance, the indecisive lingering.

“You go on,” she told Dylan. The topcoat he wore, she was acutely aware, was the same one she used to bury her face in each time they parted.

“Go on, now,” she repeated, “somebody wants to talk to me.”

Starting back toward her office, she couldn't help feeling a familiar quiver of anticipation. Here in Bearkill she might not see quite the same high level of criminal romping and stomping as she'd been accustomed to back in the city. She might not need her weapon as often up here, either, and even the standard tan deputy sheriff's uniform was mostly optional, much to her relief.

But she was still a cop. “Lizzie,” Dylan called after her. “Lookin' good.”

“Yeah, sure.” She caught her own reflection in the window: short, spiky black hair, smoky eye makeup expertly applied, red lipstick. It was not at all a style that was common around here—switchblade-slim, emphatically female, and with a tight, nervy way of moving that suggested she would deck you, no problem, if you gave her half an excuse.

She carried herself, as she was perfectly well aware, as if begging for a fight. But that suited her, too.
Because let's face it, most of the time, I am.

Inside, she switched the lights back on, noting that Dylan had left his black-and-white-striped scarf on the coat tree and that there were still no calls, then turned to the visitor who'd followed her silently in.

Late twenties or early thirties, five foot four and a hundred pounds or so, short dark hair, dark eyes, and pale complexion. Both hands were visible, Lizzie noted automatically, even though it was already clear there was nothing threatening about the woman. Her face was a little too thin and her nose too bony, with high, sharp cheekbones and a too-wide mouth. But her plainness was the kind that came almost all the way around to beauty again: simple, serene.

Only right now she looked grim.
Like she's getting ready to face the music. Like she's done something bad.

Which didn't seem likely, either: that face, those eyes, as if she'd walked through a fiery hell recently and come out still kicking on the other side.

“Have a seat,” said Lizzie, pointing to the chair Dylan had used and thinking that despite her bleak expression, this woman hadn't done anything so very terrible, probably.

Still, you never knew.