He touched her left rear cheek with his right hand. It happened quickly, as if premeditated. But it was unmistakable. It was the kind of thing women understood because it wasn’t the first time it happened to Meghan. Because she was a little less than average height, men thought she had a little less than the average combat training.
The moment she felt his brazen fingers graze the crease of her jeans, Meghan snapped to respond. She turned right, swiping her hand down to deflect his fingers. It was instinct and muscle memory.
Meghan grabbed the first digit she contacted and heaved with all her weight, pulling and twisting. She felt the cadet’s thumb turn in a direction beyond human mobility. She felt the tension and then the thick ‘pop’ as if separating two sections of a turkey joint during the holidays.
When it was over, the cadet wailed in agony, cupping his arm, backpedaling away from Meghan the second she released the grip on the digit. His fellow cadets and the two troopers rushed to his aid. He stumbled away from Meghan, still standing with her back to the table, the camera set up, and Vincent.
The cadet slid along the file wall until he reached the archway. She didn’t get a good look at the hand, but from what she felt and the amount of pressure Meghan used to bend back the thumb, she knew something tore loose in his hand.
“You guys know where the clinic is?” she asked. Meghan walked toward the cadet. He scrambled to back up more, sliding along the wall, and passing through the archway into the lobby. He almost fell over the knee-high wall and swinging door to the side of the tall counter. “Get him to the clinic. Tell Dr. Tate to bill the city for a visit.”
Meghan approached the table again. She turned off the digital camera and closed the program on the laptop. Vincent sat very still as if considering the proximity of a predator.
“Help yourself to a soda in the fridge, Vincent. If you can hang out here for a while, I’d appreciate it. Someone else will come to talk to you.”
“Am I under arrest?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Vincent. Right now, all I care about is Christine Tuktu. If you’re being honest with me, I am not going to arrest you. But you need to know if those female items come up with her DNA, we are all done. You and I being polite to one another, it all ends. You got that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at the trooper, watching them. “Get Vincent back to his apartment. Sit with him while they secure that warrant. I don’t want anyone thinking he’s under arrest for the disappearance. Vincent doesn’t need the added drama.”
“I need to relay that to Sergeant Reeve, ma’am,” the trooper said.
“I don’t care, as long as you return Vincent to his house. Take my four-wheeler.” She tossed him the keys. “He’s not under arrest until you find something. Vincent is free to go. If Reeve has a problem with that, tell him to take it up with Special Agent in Charge, Wilcox. You’ll see I’m right.”
Vincent stood up from the conference table and zipped up his coat. He lingered by the chair, not sure if it was safe to leave. The trooper phoned Reeve, and she shook her head.
Meghan collected her laptop, left the camera on the tripod, and marched into her office. She had an incident report to draft. After all, she dealt with in the day; the last thing she wanted was a personal matter with a cadet showing signs of his future in law enforcement. Conduct unbecoming of an agent was a good lead on the report. It wasn’t up to Meghan how the bureau handled it. All she had was her word against him. If it wasn’t enough, it didn’t matter. Meghan had had enough of playing nice while the state and federal agencies walked all over her town. She had a job to do. Up to that point, using the unwanted physical contact as a jolt, Meghan decided to do her job. She wasn’t taking orders from Dana, Reeve, or Wilcox.
Chapter Thirteen
No school on Monday meant most of the kids in town were still up, wandering the streets, and interested in the additional law enforcement officers roaming Kinguyakkii. Meghan spent a few hours following the incident with the cadet writing the report on the matter. The young man she later found out named Aston Holmes returned to the Chena, where they had secured sleeping arrangements with the hotel manager. Meghan hoped after Memorial Day weekend, she’d never think about the misogynist again. It was after eleven that Sunday night before Meghan rode back out to the search site. It was a forty-minute ride on the four-wheeler.
The crew from the shoreline continued to work in shifts. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of another long night with no sleep. Oliver looked grim. Lester looked like a man about to fly apart in all directions. Whatever happened with the search and retrieval of the youth jacket, Lester had his fill of the others. Meghan understood the man had more experience than anyone else waiting and watching the joint operations. He didn’t criticize the search pattern, but Lester didn’t take orders from anyone when it was his time to search for the body. It was a hopeless endeavor. They knew collectively that a child of ten, approximately 70lbs and fifty-four inches in height wasn’t enough weight or mass to quickly locate. The water temperature in the Sound was 13°F. Salt made it harder for water molecules to bond, forming water crystals. Salt molecules
