Maybe he should make more of an effort to befriend the jovial deputies he’d just passed, he thought, but every instinct in him told Steel not to. It would be only natural for one of them to slip up and mention his name to a wife here, a girlfriend there. The more time he spent around them, the more his name would become part of their vocabulary—and the more easily they might slip and spill his secret to someone else, a mistake that could be deadly to him—and the people around him. At least back in Washington he’d been part of a cadre who worked undercover. He’d never felt as isolated there as he did here.
“Come in,” Sheriff Bolton called out when Steel knocked.
Mitch Bolton was a man who was getting stout as his years accumulated and desk work took its toll, but he’d once been a cross country medalist and the pride of the county. He took his job seriously, and as far as Steel was concerned he was the best of what the place had to offer.
“Wedding go okay last night?” Bolton asked.
“Yep.”
“Anyone see you?”
Bolton knew him too well. “Nope.”
“Good.”
“Any more information come in about Rena Klein?” That was his reason for stopping in. He hadn’t heard back yet about what they’d found at the scene of her death.
“There’s nothing to indicate her death was anything more than an overdose.”
Not surprising. It had been the same with Cecilia Foster and all the other girls before her.
“No immediate evidence,” Steel corrected him. “You’re focusing too narrowly. Look at Klein’s life as a whole. Teenage girls from good families don’t go from perfectly clean to overdosing overnight.”
“Sheltered girls who have no idea what they’re doing might, by accident,” Mitch shot back.
“This isn’t just about drugs.”
“I know you think it isn’t, but I think your focus isn’t narrow enough; stop the drugs and you’ll stop the deaths. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
Steel shook his head. You couldn’t stop the flow of drugs when they were available everywhere. “I’d like to see Rena’s file again.”
Bolton found it for him among a pile on his desk and handed it over.
With a sigh, Steel opened it to see the face of a young woman staring back at him. Blonde. Pretty enough. Seventeen years old.
When he noticed he was crumpling the folder between his fingers, Steel forced himself to relax. He was going to figure out what was behind all these overdoses—or who. It was just a matter of time.
“You going to the pit today?” Bolton asked him.
“Of course,” Steel said automatically, reading through updated information. The pit was a vacant lot in Silver Falls where an old colliery had stood for over a hundred years before it was declared unsafe, knocked down and the rubble mostly cleared away. Its broken foundation still stood surrounded by weeds, tangled bushes—and a motley collection of disaffected youth. Outside the center of the small town but close enough to the main strip for easy access to the liquor store and pizza joint, it attracted drug users, runaways and malcontents of every stripe. At least once a night the Silver Falls sheriffs rousted everyone out of there. An hour later they were all back.
“I think it’s time Cab Johnson knew about you,” Bolton said.
Steel was already shaking his head. “I disagree. Respectfully, of course.”
“Of course.” Mitch leaned back in his chair. “Cab’s a good guy, Steel.”
“He’s tied to every family in Chance Creek, including mine,” Steel said. “No way he’d keep that secret.”
“He’s a professional.”
“He’s also human. The minute anyone suspects that Cab is tiptoeing around me, which he would once he understood what I was up to, the game is over. In order for this to work, he’s got to be as suspicious of me as anyone else.” He lifted the folder in his hand. “What are we missing about her?”
“Nothing, far as I can tell. Good student. Churchgoer. Family is intact. Started acting out a few months back. Cutting class. Staying out late. Refusing to say where she’d been. Changed her sleeping habits, stopped eating. Her family did what they could: grounded her. Tried to get her more involved with the youth group at church. Offered to take her on a trip if she got her grades up. Nothing worked.”
“Because someone got to her. Convinced her there was something more exciting to do than all that.”
Bolton frowned. “Or like a million other teenagers she decided to get high just once and couldn’t stop.”
“I think it’s more than that.”
“I know you do, but you need to stay focused. Don’t let your past chew you up and spit you out. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” But it was too late for that.
“I think you’d make a great deputy,” Maya said over breakfast, waving a piece of bacon to emphasize her point. “You’ve worked at the station for years. Cab thinks the sun rises and sets with you. What are you worried about?”
Stella was happy her sister had joined her and Mary for breakfast today, even if she and Lance usually ate at the small cabin on the Flying W where they’d moved after the wedding. Jed wouldn’t be down for another hour. Everything was back to shipshape in the sunny kitchen after hours of work the previous day. Liam and Tory, who were to take up residence in the house with Stella, were gone on their honeymoon to Colorado Springs. Lance was probably already doing chores. Maya
