One More Time

was still there. Chris Abbott, old friend turned cop. Not a good cop either. One of the cops who tended to look the other way when things went to hell. Some said he was dirty, open to taking bribes to let certain things slide. Others said he supplemented his income by doing the dirty work for one of the motorcycle clubs in the area. Nobody could agree with club he belonged to, which sort of shot down the credibility of the story in my mind.

Still, the fact that he was the last person Hannah had been seen with worried me. It worried me a lot. Chris may not have been everything some people accused him of, but typically speaking, where there's smoke, there's fire. You get enough people saying you're dirty, chances are, you've got some mud on you. How much is just a matter of degree.

“You didn't happen to see which way they went?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry, hon,” she replied. “Like I said, I wasn't really paying attention.”

I nodded. “Okay, great,” I said. “Thanks for the info.”

“Anytime,” she replied.

I turned and left the diner, walking back to my truck, trying to figure out what my next move was going to be. Honestly, I had no next move. I had no idea where to even begin looking for Hannah. Leaning against my truck, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and punched in a number. Holding the phone to my ear, I waited for the call to go through.

“Yora Sheriff's Department,” came the woman's voice on the other end of the line.

“Tracy,” I said, recognizing the voice. “It's Eli.”

Tracy had been a fixture at the Yora Sheriff's station for as far back as I could remember. She was practically an institution unto herself. Sweet older lady – though a little too chatty at times. Like now. This was an emergency and I didn't have time to sit there and chat.

“Hey, Eli,” she said, her voice instantly perking up. “How are ya, hon?”

“Doin' good, thanks,” I said. “You?”

“Pretty good, thanks,” she replied – and then went on to tell me about her various ailments.

I stood there tapping my foot on the ground impatiently, frustrated at having to go through the usual niceties of a civilized society. I was keenly aware of each and every second ticking by and felt my blood pressure rising that much more with every grain of sand through the hourglass.

“Yeah, sorry to hear all that. I hope you feel better soon,” I said. “Anyway, listen, is Chris on tonight?”

“Chris Abbott?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, no, he's not on tonight,” she said. “I'm sorry, hon. I can page him if you'd like.”

“No, that's okay,” I said. “Don't worry about it. I'll catch up with him later. Thanks, Tracy. I'll talk to you later.”

“Okay, hon.”

I disconnected the call and growled in frustration. Where in the hell was Hannah? As I stood there, a wiggling worm of doubt and worry slithered its way into my brain. There was a small part of me – the jealous, insecure part of me – that worried she was with Chris. As in with him. Fucking him.

I shook my head. No, Hannah wasn't like that. She was with me now and I know she wouldn't be with me, wouldn't have made that sort of commitment, if she were fucking somebody else. She wasn't that kind of a girl.

Still, I would have been lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about it.

I jumped into my truck and fired it up. Pulling quickly out of the parking spot, I roared down the road, heading for Chris' place. Yora wasn't a big town and it didn't take me very long to get from one side of it to the other. I drove through the winding streets of the tract homes, shaking my head at the cookie cutter nature of the houses. They all looked alike and they all lacked any sort of personality or creativity. Glad I wasn't living there, to be honest.

Hannah had the home with the white picket fence in her head, and that was fine. I just didn't want it to be in a housing tract like this, and I wanted our home to have some soul to it.

I turned into a cul-de-sac and drove slowly down, looking at the house up ahead and to the left of me. Chris' house. The knots in my stomach only tightened though when I saw that his car was gone and all of the lights in his house were off.

He wasn't home. So, where in the fuck was he? Where in the fuck was Hannah?

I was half out of my mind with worry and was quickly running out of ideas. I stopped the truck in front of Chris' place and stared at the house, trying to find some idea, some inspiration. Trying to find anything at all that would lead me to Hannah.

Then it struck me. As loathe to do it as I was, I pulled the card out of my pocket, along with my phone. Looking at the number Titus had given me, I hesitated for a brief moment, not sure if I wanted to deal with him. Climbing into bed with the Widows wasn't exactly something on my bucket list.

But, I had little choice, so I punched in the number.