Talk Me Down

That couldn’t be right. Sure, she’d started some mystery career during college, and plenty of good, nice, college girls had been sucked into dancing for money, but it still couldn’t be right. There were no strip clubs up here. Whatever she was doing, she had to be able to do it from home. Stripping was good money, but she couldn’t have saved enough to retire at twenty-seven.

Unless she was one of those headliners who traveled the country and got paid big bucks to dance at the best clubs. Maybe he shouldn’t have crossed it off so quickly.

Or maybe he’d seen too many HBO specials in his life.

Ben threw the pen onto the flimsy newspaper open on his desk and turned back to the computer to search for her on Google one last time. His name was there in black and white in the weekly rag, right next to hers. He wanted to find out her secret before Miles Webster did.

Good old Miles had ruined Ben’s high school years. Or more accurately, Ben’s father had ruined those years, and Miles Webster had gleefully magnified each painful moment, drawing out the scandal until every last detail—true or not—had been reported.

Ben had hated Miles for years, perhaps because it had been so hard to hate his own father. Hard, but not necessarily impossible. Not for a teenager anyway.

Still, he’d worked through all that, or thought he had, but seeing his name in Miles’s gossip column was burning a hole in his gut.

And our dedicated Chief Lawson added a new duty to his job description this week. He played welcoming committee to Tumble Creek’s newest citizen, visiting her in the early morning hours to offer a friendly and thorough hello. And who is this new citizen? Our very own Molly Jennings, returning to a hometown that welcomes her with open arms. Check back next week for more information on what Molly’s been up to for the past decade!

“More information,” Ben snarled. Miles was going to love this.

What a fiasco. He was going to have to avoid her like the plague, at least until he figured out her secret. What if she’d been a prostitute, for God’s sake?

“You’ve lost your mind,” he muttered to himself. He was not going to let Miles drive him crazy again. He was an adult now, not some tortured kid.

“Chief?” Brenda asked from the doorway. “You’re not upset about that column, are you?”

“No.” Ben closed the Google screen and reopened the report he was supposed to be working on.

“He’s got no right to gossip about you when you’re doing your job.”

“It’s nothing, Brenda. I was just doing a favor for a friend. No big deal.”

She nodded, but her eyebrows fit together like two puzzle pieces. “How’s Molly Jennings holding up?”

“Fine.”

“I suppose she’s…” Brenda tapped her fingernails together and shrugged. “She must be real different after living in the city so long.”

Different. Ben frowned at his computer. Yeah, she was different.

“Chief?”

“What?” He glanced up just in time to catch Brenda shaking her head as she headed back toward her desk by the front door.

Disgusted with himself, Ben forced his mind back to his Monday duties. He reviewed the report he’d finally finished, then sent it off to the Creek County Sheriff’s office. They kept in close coordination so Sheriff McTeague didn’t have to waste time patrolling this part of the county. If anything needed his attention, Ben got in touch. If Ben needed something—rescue equipment or a search party—the sheriff volunteered it.

A few minutes later, the sheriff’s own report popped up on the screen and Ben took a half hour to go over the whole thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few accidents. One dead moose in the middle of the highway. Two DUIs. Domestic incidents.

Ben memorized the names involved and printed out the document to add to his files. Done.

A weather alert popped to life on his screen and Ben scanned it quickly, then breathed a sigh of relief. The first big snowstorm of the season, but it looked like they’d only catch the edge of it. Good thing, since it was supposed to hit on Halloween night. The poor kids around here had a hard enough time with the steep streets, sloped lawns and ancient, icy steps leading to every door. And the teenagers would have the inevitable party—the same Halloween party every generation had had in this town for forty years—and Ben didn’t want them driving home in a whiteout.

With a reluctant smile, Ben thought of the costume party he’d been to when he was sixteen, the last one they’d managed to throw in one of the old mines. Damn, that had been a good one, complete with strip poker and smuggled tequila. And he was darn glad it’d been the last. The idea of a party in an abandoned silver mine had been exciting as hell as a kid, but it scared the shit out of him now.

Ben made a mental note to go check the locks on all the mine gates sometime in the next four days. A drunk kid falling down a mine shaft would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Chief, I’m heading out to lunch,” Brenda interrupted.

“I’ll walk you out. It’s time for my patrol.” He grabbed his hat and, with a glance out his small window, reached for his quilted uniform coat as well. Snow or not, a cold front had moved in with a vengeance. “You haven’t heard anything about the old mines, have you? I thought I’d better check the gates before Halloween. Remember that last bash when we were kids?”

Brenda’s face blossomed into a rare smile that made her pale blue eyes sparkle. “Well, I don’t know what you remember, but my night ended when Jess Germaine threw up all over my new boots.”

“That’s right. I had to take both of you home, then go wash out my dad’s truck.”

“You always were a gentleman.”

Ben opened the door and gestured her through with a wink. Brenda was laughing as she passed him, but when he tried to follow he walked right into her back.

“Sorry. Is something—”

“Hi!” Molly said to both of them from the bottom of the steps.

Ben nudged Brenda to get her to move out of the doorway and down the three steps to the sidewalk. Molly grinned up at them, a pink, fuzzy hat pulled low over her ears. Her wool coat was feminine and way too white to be practical, but at least it was warm.

“Hey, lovah,” she said to Ben. “I hear we’re a hot item. You move fast for a big man.”

He stumbled on the last step—the cement must have buckled this summer—and had to lock his knees to keep from falling.

“That’s not funny,” Brenda said. “Chief Lawson hates gossip.”

“Oh, I’m—Oh.” Molly grimaced. “I totally forgot about that. Sorry.”

Ben shook his head. “No big deal. Brenda, I’ll see you when I get back.”

Brenda hurried off, glancing back to scowl in Molly’s direction more than once.

Molly watched her go. “Brenda? Oh my God, is that Brenda White? She looks just like her…um, never mind. Wasn’t she in your class?”

“Yes.” Ben scanned the block, looking for Miles’s old pickup.

“Ben, I’m sorry. I forgot about that thing with your dad. I didn’t mean to get you into Miles’s column.”

“Not your fault.” Great, now she was feeling sorry for him. “It’s really no big deal. That was a long time ago.”

Her face brightened, eyes sparkling once more, and Ben was shocked again at how different she was. The same, almost, but more. No longer hesitant or self-conscious, she practically oozed assurance, as if the constant flow of people in the city had burnished her to a lovely glow.

She’d braided her hair into two little pigtails that followed the line of her long neck. She looked soft there…really soft.

“Sooo…” she said. “I was just coming over to tease you about the paper, but now I want to see the station.” She looked behind him toward the double doors.

“It looks the same as it did ten years ago.”