What She Found in the Woods

It’s Officer Longmire.

‘What are you doing out here?’ he barks at me.

‘Uh . . . I was just waiting for Maria,’ I stammer.

‘Come in,’ she calls. ‘I’ll be in touch, Officer,’ she says, dismissing Longmire, and then she waves me in impatiently.

I have to pass the officer on my way in. ‘Sorry I startled you,’ I tell him, barely able to suppress a payback smirk. He gets it just as I turn away.

‘Shut the door,’ Maria tells me.

I do as she says. She stands behind her desk, and she doesn’t invite me to sit opposite her.

‘What did you hear?’ she asks plainly.

‘Un-muf-ner-rumm-sss-murf,’ I mumble incoherently. I pretend to think it through. ‘Yeah, I think I got that word-for-word.’

Maria stares at me for a moment and then breaks up laughing. ‘OK, sit. You want to talk schedule?’ she says, still smiling and shaking her head. ‘You’re funny, you know.’

‘It’s my only redeeming quality,’ I say. I watch her pull out the schedule sheet. ‘But, just out of curiosity, what were you talking about?’

She looks up at me and narrows her eyes. ‘I don’t want to upset you.’

I meet her gaze. ‘Too late.’

She studies me before answering. ‘Mila.’

‘What have you heard?’ I ask, coming to the desk. ‘Do they have anything?’

Maria holds up her hands. ‘No, nothing. There’s no news yet. He just wanted to ask me some questions about her and her . . . habits.’ She looks away.

I nod. ‘He wanted to know if she was using.’

Maria nods. ‘It changes where they look and how they look . . .’

‘Or whether they look at all,’ I finish bitterly.

Maria sighs. ‘Yeah,’ she admits. Then she leans towards me earnestly. ‘What happened to Mila is bound to throw you, but don’t let it throw you off the path. Don’t let her bad choices choose for you.’

I nod and get back to the schedule.

I’ve already made my choice.

Aura-Blue answers her phone before the first ring ends.

‘Did you hear anything? Did they find her?’ she asks breathlessly.

‘No,’ I say, sighing so I don’t start yelling. ‘They don’t know shit.’

I debate telling Aura-Blue about Officer Longmire coming to the shelter today, but I decide it’s too much. She needs to think the police are doing something to help, even though I can tell from the way Maria looked at me that the police are ready to write Mila off as a runaway drug addict who doesn’t want to be found.

Unless the FBI gets involved.

They’re here for something, and I need to know specifics. Right now all I have are vague similarities. If I’m going to rat out Bo’s family, I want it to be because I know for certain that Ray is Dr Goodnight, not because he helped sick people end their own lives. Because if euthanasia is his crime, who the hell am I to judge? I’ve done far worse.

‘Listen,’ I say, putting some hope in my voice. ‘I want to talk to your grandfather. He used to be sheriff, right?’

‘I mean, of course you can meet him, but why do you want to talk to him?’ she asks.