Page 3 of Little Girl Vanished
I gave Louise a sarcastic smile as I sat down at her table in the dimly lit bar. “Hello to you too.”
Considering I didn’t know her very well, I figured I must look pretty bad.
To be fair, I hadn’t seen Louise in a few months, not since she’d shown up at my house as a Little Rock police officer to take a breaking and entering report in the dead of night. I’d been a detective with the department on paid leave after a shooting.
I’d thought I’d hit rock bottom back then.
That seemed like ages ago.
Before she’d left her position in Little Rock in favor of a job at the Lone County, Arkansas sheriff’s department, she’d told me, Even rats leave a sinking ship. We hadn’t talked about it much since, but I believed her. I wanted it to be true because it would mean I wasn’t the kind of person who imagined guns and bullets. The kind of person who killed a kid by mistake.
“Interesting place,” I said, glancing around. “Seems like an odd place for a bar, this far out of town.” When she’d suggested we meet at Scooter’s Tavern, I’d been surprised but also relieved. It was ten miles outside of Jackson Creek, which would hopefully be enough to save me from running into anyone who’d recognize me.
She gave me a smug grin. “It’s next to the Grant County line.” Lifting her bottle of beer, she added, “Grant County’s dry.”
It seemed crazy that in this day and age some counties in the state still refused or had strict limitations on the sale of alcohol, but the proof was just a few miles away.
She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “How are you doing? Really.”
I’d just lied through my teeth with that therapist, but Louise was my friend.
Still, I didn’t want to acknowledge how far I’d fallen. “I’m gonna need a drink before we get into that.”
“Fair enough.” She took my order—Jack and Coke, of course—and headed up to the bar to get us a round, giving me a chance to decompress. I’d been nervous about seeing Louise again, worried about what she’d think of me now—the disgraced ex-detective who would likely never work in law enforcement again.
She came back a few minutes later with a highball glass and a bottle of beer, and I caught a couple of men staring at her ass before she slid into her booth seat and placed the glass in front of me. Louise had always been pretty, with long dark hair that hung down her back, but she looked much more relaxed and happy than she had in Little Rock. The move to Lone County had been good for her.
Too bad I couldn’t say the same for myself.
My mouth watered at the sight of the drink, and I had a sudden desperation to slam it down to ease my anxiety.
Instead, I picked it up and took a casual sip. “Tell me about your job,” I said, eager to turn the conversation away from me.
She told me that while she loved the sheriff, some of the deputies were giving her a hard time. She was one of two female deputies in the department and some of the men had let her know they didn’t appreciate her presence. The sheriff didn’t put up with their bullshit, but he only knew about a quarter of what was going on, and she wasn’t about to tattle.
“Okay,” she said after answering my questions for ten minutes, her gaze on me. “How are you doing? Really. And not some bullshit answer. It’s me you’re talking to. The person who had your back in Little Rock when no one else did.”
I wiped condensation from the side of my nearly empty glass and gave her another sarcastic grin. “Great. What thirty-six-year-old doesn’t love living with their parents?”
She laughed. “I offered you a place to stay.”
She had, several times, but I carried around a stink she didn’t need associated with her. She was already facing an uphill battle in her new department. My baggage would only weigh her down.
“It’s only temporary. Until I figure out where to go…” I shrugged. “And what to do.”
We were both silent for a moment until she said, “What those assholes did to you wasn’t right, Harper.”
My thumb slid up and down the side of the glass, focusing on it and not the anxiety racing through my body. I took another drink, finishing it off. The burn in my stomach started to relax my tight muscles.
“Yeah, well…” I let the weight of my words hang in the air. It wasn’t right, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I was lucky they’d just backed me into a corner and not a jail cell.
“Harper.” Pity tinged her voice, making me flinch. I’d had plenty of people pity me over the years, and I hated it. Anger and frustration I could deal with. But nothing was as suffocating as pity. “I believed you then, and I believe you now. You know that, right? That kid had a gun, and someone made it disappear.”
She’d told me the same thing four months ago, the night she’d shown up at my house after that final break-in, but it felt good to be reminded that someone believed me.
“I’m gonna get another drink,” I said a little too brightly, making the words sound brittle. “Want anything?”
Worry filled her eyes, but she lifted her half-empty bottle. “I’m good.”