Chapter 7 About-face
Chapter seven
About-face
Met Sheriff Parker.
Jon scowled at the text after he cut the engine. He’d thought just to check it, make sure Lance wasn’t sending out some bizarre distress signal, but the message he had sent seemed almost as bad.
Sheriff?
Lance responded immediately, probably waiting with the phone in his hand.
Yup.
That whole apple-tree analogy is on-point. I’d lay my retirement the entire department’s fucked.
Jon grunted and tucked his phone away without replying.
“Was that your friend?” Jenna asked. “Is he okay?” She twisted toward him in the passenger seat, and the cab of the truck suddenly felt much too small.
Jon did his best not to drown in her eyes. “He’s fine. Probably agitated. Asshole Senior made sheriff, huh?”
She blinked once before choking on a snort. “God, I haven’t heard that expression in years.” She blew out a breath, her flash of amusement fading. “Yeah, sometime before I came back to town. Hence Drew’s worsening attitude.”
“Well, that’ll be fun.” Jon reached for the door. “First thing’s first.” As much as he wanted to light into the entire sheriff’s department, he couldn’t prioritize that. Arguing over actions already taken, and the ripple effect that boiled down to money, was less important than a missing teenager.
Jenna met him on the square of lawn in front of the small mobile home and Jon told himself not to be disappointed that she hadn’t let him get the door for her. She’d let him drive, for shit’s sake. “I feel like I’m overstepping…”
Jon curled an arm around her to settle a hand over her back.
He made no effort to keep his touch light or subtle, instead using it to prompt her forward.
“Think about how you would feel, or how your mom would have felt, in their shoes. Sounded to me like Martha was barely holding it together when she called before, and if Mr. Carlisle’s so bad, he might not have the strength or even cognition to be present.
So, worst case, everything’s suddenly fine and people are embarrassed for worrying you.
” He guided her up the steps as he spoke and didn’t bother articulating that he didn’t personally think this would have such an easy and happy ending.
He couldn’t see the future. It was possible he’d lived too long in and around war.
Jenna seemed to relax a fraction, at least, and her death-grip on her purse straps slackened. “Right. Community.” She chuckled almost bitterly. “I’ve been back for years, you’d think I’d have re-learned it by now.”
Jon dropped his knuckles to the door and pressed the fingers of his other hand into Jenna’s back in lieu of stretching out his arm to squeeze her hip.
She was letting him be too familiar as it was.
If she didn’t draw clearer, firmer boundaries soon, he’d be calling her his before his lazy buddy was ready to haul ass out of that hospital.
Which reminded him, he still needed to find a place. Land, or a good building. And a goal. Because he sure as shit wasn’t applying to the sheriff’s department—a thought he’d entertained for twenty seconds as the bus had rolled into town.
The door swung open in front of him and he slammed the proverbial mute button on his wayward thoughts.
In front of them stood a petite, tired-looking woman whose worn-down appearance made her seem older than the mid-to-late-thirties Jon estimated.
It was mildly disconcerting, considering she lived only minutes from Jenna and was likely close enough in age to both of them as to be their peer.
The woman’s eyes snapped between them, a heartbeat of hope sliding swiftly into fear. The expression was actually somewhat familiar, in a way Jon would rather have not confronted. “Yes…?”
Jenna spoke, her voice careful and quiet. “Martha? I’m Jenna. I … well, I thought we could talk about Steph?”
Martha’s eyes widened. “D-did you find her?”
That one question said everything.
“No,” Jenna replied. “I haven’t been able to reach her, and no one else from the bakery has heard from her today. That’s why we’re here. To figure out as best we can when she went missing and—”
Martha sucked in a breath and latched onto the door, suddenly and perplexingly defensive. “No,” she snapped, like a kitten just discovering its claws. “Steph’s not missing. She’s not. This is just—she’s just acting out again. She did it once before, that’s all this is.”
You’ve got to be shitting me.
Before Jon could decide on the most appropriate response, Jenna exclaimed, “You can’t be serious? Steph isn’t that irresponsible! I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.”
Martha shook her head. “I’m sorry for bothering you,” she said.
“I should have thought it through better. I’ve been putting too much pressure on her.
This is what she does when it builds up.
It’s the same as when I moved us out here to take care of my brother and she ran away for a couple of days.
She’ll be back and we’ll adjust and move on.
” She stepped back, pushing the door forward to make it clear they were not to come inside.
“I’m so sorry. Thank you for your concern. ”
“Martha!”
The door closed with a firm, resounding thud.
Jenna physically reeled, leaning into Jon’s arm. “Did she just … do that?”
Jon ground his teeth and shifted his glare around the property with a sweep of his head.
It wasn’t in the best shape, but it was a damn sight better than the state his own childhood home was in.
Considering the neighborhood, there was nothing obviously amiss out front.
A quick sweep of his extra-sensory awareness revealed only two humans beside himself and Jenna on the property.
Maybe I really am getting paranoid. He turned Jenna around to lead her down the steps.
Forcing their way inside would make them the aggressors, and it was too soon to take that approach.
“Come on. There isn’t much we can do if she’s slamming doors in our faces. ”
Jenna was quiet a beat. “You weren’t glaring at her, were you? I noticed yesterday your glare is meaner. It might’ve scared her.”
He almost laughed. “Of course it’s meaner, Jen.
I went to war. I’ve seen shit, done shit, and once I started climbing the ranks, I had to send other guys out to deal with new waves of shit.
Not all of whom came home.” That was what it meant to do what he had chosen to do, but the knowledge didn’t lessen the burden. “But, no, I didn’t glare at her.”
“Right, sorry.” She fell quiet until they reached his truck, and as he moved to drop his arm, she lifted hers to twist her fingers into his shirt. “So … now what?”
Jon sighed. “Steph is an adult, legally. And her own family just told you to stand down. So, for now, until you come into real information to justify doing otherwise, you have to respect that.” Her expression told him how much she disliked his answer.
He wanted to tell her to let it go and not to worry, but he knew better, and he wouldn’t bullshit her.
“Keep your eyes open. Keep reaching out.” He curled a finger beneath her chin.
“I’m not saying to go do stupid things that put you in danger,” he added firmly, “I’m saying to pay attention.
Be vigilant, for yourself as much as for her. ”
Jenna pursed her lips and slowly nodded as his hands fell away. “That answer sucks. For the record.”
“It does,” Jon agreed. He reached past her and pulled open the door.
Jenna turned just a little, helpfully pinning herself between him and the truck. “What are you … going to do now, then?”
He choked back his immediate response. The urge to kiss her, to lift her up and pin her to his new truck, surged through him like a riptide. He drew a hard breath. “Looks like I’ll be heading back to your place, and maybe actually reading that letter.”
She let her head drop back against the doorframe. “That plan really went sideways, didn’t it?”
It could still. “I’ve seen worse.”
Jenna finally hauled herself into the cab. “I can’t decide if that’s reassuring or petrifying, if I’m being honest.”
He only chuckled. There was no sense in giving her nightmares she didn’t need.
Jenna turned her head to watch out the window as he pulled back onto the road, and Jon knew if he let her, she’d only sink further into the fears already consuming her.
She cared about what may or may not have been happening to the girl.
That was respectable, but he couldn’t stand letting her fall apart over it.
He flexed one fist over the wheel and asked the first unrelated, distracting question that came to mind. “Could you tell me … about the story my old man spread?”
Jenna started and leaned away from the window. “What?”
“I didn’t exactly get it out of him,” Jon said. “It’d just be nice to have an idea what the town thinks happened to me. How long it’s been since he ran his mouth. That kind of thing.” He was of mixed opinions on it, truthfully, but it was never smart to knowingly move forward uninformed.
Jenna drew an audible breath. “It was … while I was away,” she began.
“Maybe three or four years after your grandpa passed. My parents still lived in town, and they said one day it was like the whole town was on-edge. Mom said she saw Mrs. Valdez crying in the grocery store and she had no idea why.” Jenna shifted her purse to her lap.
“Until Mama J showed up at the door that night. I guess she smelled like she’d had way too much to drink, so they brought her in rather than let her walk off, and she started wailing about what failures they all were as parents.
Her, and mine. She was mad that I hadn’t stopped you from leaving for bootcamp, and mad that my parents hadn’t pressured me to stop you. ”
Jon locked his jaw as he turned onto her street. His mother hadn’t exactly lived a sober life when he’d been younger, and she’d been prone to drama, but it was still a bit hard to picture. Not that he doubted Jenna’s words.