Nora walked into the parking lot, shaking off the strange encounter with the man in the auto shop waiting room. She wasn't particularly sure why she had said so much, especially because she had said so much before she learned he was an outsider. With that final revelation, she felt that her emotional confessions were a little bit more secure, but still. Why tell so much to someone she'd just met? Or, in truth, hadn't even met yet?

She had felt emotionally blocked-up of late, and getting everything out brought with it a certain relief… it felt to her like blowing her nose, leaving her much clearer-headed in the present. She put her key in the ignition and switched her radio back on. "Hey dispatch, this is Nora Campbell. Tell asset management that regular squad car maintenance for my car was completed today, July 15th, at about 3 p.m. Over."

"Message received, Nora. Also, we've got someone at the station hoping to talk to you, over."

"Oh, really? Did you get a name? Over."

"Jackson Trent, senior. Said it's about his boy, over."

"No further details? Over."

"No further details, over."

Nora frowned, remembering her own suspicions related to the Johnson's General robbery. She had made the judgment call to not chase the boy's tenuous connection to the robbery. Skin color and group size alone don't make for enough evidence to bring someone in, she had thought. She even knew that some in the precinct were a little less racially-progressive than they ought to be, so she figured she'd leave Skinny out of the investigation until further implicating evidence surfaced. Is that what's waiting for me in my office right now? She hoped not, because that would also involve confronting the other thing she'd been pushing away. If Skinny were dragged back into the suspect list, it brought Parker into that list as well. Strange, twisted timeline of the hoodie or not, if Skinny were connected, Parker's connection would be undeniable.

"Tell him I'm on my way over," she said. "Over and out."

* * *

Jackson Trent was seated in Nora's office, hands unmoving in his lap. When he saw Nora, he smiled and stood, offering a hand to her. She took it and shook it, noting its clammy, cold feeling. It also felt far lighter than she remembered.

"Jackson, it is good to see you. You look well," she said, which was not totally a lie… last year, the man had seemed a mummy.

"Nora, thanks for coming in early." He spoke with that peculiar manner of his, where each staccato word seemed a separate sentence entire. "They told me you weren't scheduled until 6."

"I wasn't supposed to start my shift until then, but I wasn't gonna leave you waiting, Jackson. So, what's on your mind?"

"Well, see, it's about Junior… Skinny."

Nora nodded, but she did not speak. She had been taught that one of the best ways to get more information out of someone was to hold silence: people abhor a vacuum, and so they'll often subconsciously move to fill any silence that you strategically leave behind. Jackson continued.

"See, today at work, young Wade Kerrigan came to visit me… said he and the boys were looking for Skinny, that he missed some meet-up of theirs they'd planned. Now I told him that he probably went off with his mother, but then I spoke to her. Shaun Valdez went by her office looking for Skinny as well. He wasn't there either."

Tracking the likely trajectory of this conversation, Nora quickly grabbed her notebook from her pocket and began taking notes.

"And at home?"

"The boys said they checked by there… no sign. We then called up the parents of each of the boys in their usual gang… saving you for last, of course, for obvious reasons. If you had seen him lately, you'd have said it by now," Jackson began, trailing off.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"So when's the last time anyone's seen Skinny?"

"Michelle and I turned in early last night… it was probably around 7 or 8, just after dinner. In the morning, what with no school for the boys, we sometimes let Skinny sleep in. Neither of us saw him before we went off to work."

"Has he ever run off before?"

"No ma'am."

"Does he have any other relatives he's particularly close with?"

"No ma'am." Jackson's mouth opened, as though he meant to speak, but then he closed it. Then it opened again. Nora waited for him to speak.

"Do you think we're being paranoid? That this is too soon?"

"There's no such thing as too soon when we're concerned for our loved ones," Nora replied. It was a question she'd answered a few times before. "We'll put in a missing person report, issue an APB. Is Michelle at her office or at the house?"

"At the office, but should be soon on her way over here, I think. I told her you wouldn't be here to speak with me until six."

"Well that's ok. Give her office a call, and ask if she could swing by the house first and pick up the most recent photo of Skinny she can find… we'll want it for the file."

* * *

"Jesus Christ, Nora," said Chief of Police Clyde Pemberton. "You should've brought this to me days ago and recused yourself," he said.

"But sir, you have to acknowledge the fact that the hoodie's timeline makes no sense."

"Witness testimony is notoriously fallible," Clyde said. "Maybe they were wrong on the timeline."

"The identification of the hoodie could just as likely have been wrong."

"Granted. But then what are we to make of this? As if this damned robbery case wasn't confusing enough… you have a girl who tries robbing the place. Then in comes a gang of boys who match your son's friend group in apparent age, height, and skin tone in the case of the tallest, who, I'll remind you, is the tallest of your son's friend group. That gives us suspicion—mild suspicion, sure—that Skinny is at this robbery. Then, one robber is allegedly shot multiple times, but escapes without so much as a drop of blood. Then in comes a new robber, wearing a jacket that your son buys down the road… after the robbery takes place. From a guy who swears it never left the store. Following up with hospitals… no unexplainable gunshot wounds in the area. But then, adding the icing on the cake, Skinny suddenly and inexplicably goes missing. Something stinks here, and it doesn't take a detective's nose to smell it."

"We can bring the boys in," Nora began, but the chief cut her off.

"Damn right we'll bring the boys in… I'm sorry, Nora. But you know we need to. We'll check them for wounds—even a bulletproof vest would leave bruises—and we'll take their stories."

"Where the hell would kids their age get bulletproof vests?"

"Beats the hell out of me. But however odd it seems… we've got the boy possibly tied up in some crime, and then he goes missing only days later? It's a hell of a coincidence. I know the boys. I know your boy. Personally, I don't think he did it. But we've got to stay objective here, Nora. We've got to chase any credible leads."

"You call that credible?"

"It's the best we've got to work with right now. I'm putting Coulter on questioning the boys, but you can go round them up. Unless you'd rather we send someone else for that."

"No, I'll do it. What about the Trent parents?" Nora asked, gesturing towards her office. In it, both Michelle and Jackson Trent waited for her to return.

"I'll bring them up to speed with what they need to know. And then, after we speak to the rest of the boys, we'll decide if a search party in the woods is a necessity."

* * *

"What is this, like an arrest thing?" Wade asked, eyeing the squad car.

"No, not an arrest. We'd just like to bring you in for questioning… totally voluntary," Nora said.

"Am I allowed to say no?"

"Of course. But we're just trying to help track down Skinny… the more we can learn, the better our chances."

"He wasn't at the vet's office, then?"

Nora pursed her lips. "Nobody's seen him since last night."

Wade chewed at his lip, thinking. Then, with a shrug, he sauntered over to the squad car and climbed into the back seat.

"You know, you're allowed to request a parent be there with you, if you like."

"I think it's ok," Wade said. "This won't take too long, will it?"

"Quick as can be, I promise."

A similar conversation took place outside the Valdez residence before Shaun entered the squad car as well. His parents protested, saying he was much too young for this sort of thing, and that Nora was "scaring him half to death!" Nora wasn't sure if his mother had even taken a full breath in the two consecutive minutes of yelling, but she finally quieted when Shaun requested her presence during the questioning. She climbed into her Sedan and drove to the station while Nora completed her next stop: driving to her own home to pick up Parker. She dropped these three off first, promising her son that she'd return as quickly as she could.

She next drove to the DeLange residence, where Mr. DeLange told Nora that Ronnie had been spending the evening at his grandmother's home. After finding the home at the address given, she knocked at the door and was greeted by an elderly woman and a shriveled poodle.

"Is Ronnie here?" Nora asked. Four minutes later, Ronnie was climbing into the back row of the squad car. He'd declined to bring any family along.

Lastly, Nora drove to the Kessler residence, quickly discovering that the boy was currently home alone. "We'd like you to come with us… but you're allowed to request a parent be there for questioning. If so, we can withhold your questioning until they get back in town."

"I don't need them," Logan said. "I'd be happy to help."