And thought about the missing James boy and now the two missing girls.
Then he turned and thought about Sofia and their years together, before she returned to her hometown of San Diego. She had never found comfort in the cold climes of Maine. And truthfully, they had married too early and had never been right for one another. Sofia had blamed him when their daughter chose to attend a small private college in Maine instead of one of the state universities in California. By that time their divorce had been finalized and she’d moved back to San Diego. But Amber’s decision to go to Colby had had nothing to do with being closer to him. She’d traveled the farthest distance possible from San Diego and her mother, but in the process, she’d gotten farther away from both of her parents than ever. Since Sofia had no money, except for the pittance alimony she received from him each month, he ended up paying Colby what he could, which wasn’t much. The remainder Amber had to make up with financial aid and school loans, and because of this, and his financial shortcomings, she seemed to resent him.
He tossed. Why did exhaustion preclude sleep? He thought sleep more indicative of boredom—and he was anything but bored. Sleep required shutting down the inquisitive mind, and a police officer’s mind seemed to race nonstop. Always questioning. Always thinking. That was why cops drank a lot—even cops from small towns such as Shepherd’s Bay. To drown out the many voices in their brain that were competing for attention.
That evening alone with Isla had made his overnight shift more manageable. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wanted to find Katie alive and well and become Isla’s white knight. Feel her embrace when she thanked him profusely for returning Katie home to her. How nice it would be to wrap his arms around her and feel her lips pressed against his like when they’d been teenagers.
Fat chance.
What if he could do something about her shitty marriage to Swisher? Like set him up by putting drugs in the cab of his pickup truck. Bad thoughts filled his mind. Swisher didn’t deserve a woman like Isla. The guy couldn’t even take care of his own sick son. Karl had seen him stumbling out of a fishermen’s bar one evening with a woman hanging on his arm, the two of them laughing drunkenly as they staggered along the sidewalk. He’d debated pulling him over for a DUI, but then they had disappeared into another bar, and he had decided to put it out of mind. Forget it had ever happened.
Before he did something he might regret.
Like Taser him and kick the shit out of him. Only problem was that Swisher was an ornery bastard when wronged and was tough as nails. But Karl knew he’d had righteous indignation on his side—and a wood baton.
His alarm went off, and he realized he’d fallen asleep. The sun shone through the gauzy white curtains, momentarily irritating his eyes. He needed sustenance before he resumed his search for those two missing girls and the James boy. He showered and dressed and then headed out. On his way to the station, he stopped at a nearby convenience store for his first shitty coffee of the day.
Live to fight another day, he thought as he took the first sip.
ISLA
SIX IN THE MORNING AND THE TEMPERATURE HAD NOT YET HIT FIFTY: that was Maine in a nutshell. By noon it could hit eighty degrees, with high humidity. Or it could be raining, with thunder and streaks of lightning. Old-timers frequently talked about the snowstorm that had hit in June one year. Isla pulled up to the designated spot near the coast and noticed that she was the first person to arrive. With what little money she had, she’d gone into Baker’s Donuts and tried to purchase two dozen assorted for the volunteers. But then Ed Baker had come out of the fry room, covered head to toe in flour, and had refused to take her money.
A steaming cup of coffee sat in the cup holder between the seats. She let the engine idle a few seconds so she could bask in the heated cab for a bit longer.
Her sister-in-law had come over earlier in the morning to keep an eye on Raisin. She could trust Deb with her son’s life, as Deb knew what to do