And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(12)

“I gotta go, Gary. I’ve got work to do.”

Packard led the way out. Gary took the half-smoked cigarette butt out of his pocket and relit it as they stepped into the sunshine. “So if someone comes by to adopt the corgi, should I let him go?”

Packard turned but kept walking backward. “Not yet. I might need to question him if this business with Cora and the crossbow escalates. Understand?”

Gary folded an arm across his belly and propped the elbow of his cigarette hand on top. He thumbed the butt and knocked the ashes loose. “Honey, I understand plenty.”





Chapter Five


Packard drove home, pondering the idea of getting a dog again. Not having to scoop Jarrett’s winter poop this spring had been nice, but he missed their walks. He missed the sound of another living being in the house.

To describe where Packard lived as “under construction” would imply that any part of it was fully constructed. It was not. He’d bought the house at a bank auction knowing full well what he was getting into. The house needed a roof, windows, flooring, mechanicals, and siding. He’d started by renting the largest dumpster available and gutting the place from top to bottom. He was slowly finishing it one room at a time. Throughout the house, furniture sat on plywood subflooring, and plastic sheeting hung in doorways. He was nearly finished turning one of the bedrooms into the master bath. It had a two-person shower, a cedar sauna, two sinks, and a hammered copper soaking tub sitting on a bed of smooth river rocks. He’d built a bathroom for two just for himself. Marcus would have loved it.

Packard parked in the garage and brought in the twelve gauge for cleaning. Shooting the bear already felt like another day. It was only 3:00 p.m.

There was no word from Susan by the time he’d changed clothes and cleaned the gun. He made a list of Jenny’s girlfriends, Jesse’s mom, and their phone numbers. He added Sean White Cloud’s name to the list, then texted Kelly to ask for his number.

He waited until the end of the school day before calling Jenny’s girlfriends. Neither one answered her phone, but the first one called him back as he was still leaving a message for the second.

Her name was Taylor. The last she’d heard from Jenny was via text the night before. Packard asked her to read their exchange, which Taylor did reluctantly. She had to spell out all the abbreviations and describe the emojis used. It was a lot of nonsense about another girl and the homework that was due the next day. Taylor’s parents had a rule about no phones after 10:00 p.m., so the messages stopped then. Jenny made no mention of Jesse or of sneaking out to meet him.

“Were you surprised she wasn’t in school today?”

“Kind of. She doesn’t miss very often. She has diabetes, you know, so she can get sick suddenly. I’ve seen her when her blood sugar is really low, and she’s disoriented. I texted her today to make sure she was okay, but she never responded. I know Carrie hasn’t heard from her either.”

“Where would Jenny and Jesse go if they wanted to be…together?”

Taylor seemed embarrassed by the question. “I don’t… She wouldn’t. I don’t know.”

“Come on, Taylor. Now’s not the time to play dumb.”

“I mean…there used to be a cabin that kids would go to. It’s kind of remote, owners were never around, and there was a hidden key. Everyone called it the Love Shack. After that old song, you know.”

“I know the song. It’s very old.”

“Too many people found out about it. Some kids ended up having a party there. The owners put in cameras and changed the locks. That was, like, six months ago. I don’t know where they would go now.”

“Tell me about Jesse,” Packard said.

“I don’t know him other than through Jenny. We don’t all hang out together. They do their own thing.”

“What kind of kid is he? Jock, nerd, pothead?”

“None of those really. He’s just a guy. Kind of cute. Smokes weed, I guess. Who doesn’t? My dad vapes it out in the garage every night. Like we don’t know what he’s doing.”

Packard asked a few more questions, but Taylor didn’t give him much else to go on. Carrie, by the time he got hold of her an hour later, was even less helpful. She confirmed the Love Shack story but didn’t know of a new place. She couldn’t identify any of Jesse’s friends, wasn’t even sure he had any. She called Jenny and Jesse’s relationship intense and weird.

“Weird how?” Packard asked.

“Just how into each other they are.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“A good way, I guess, unless you’re the one who’s left out because Jenny doesn’t have as much time for you.”

After talking to Taylor and Carrie, Packard found tasks to keep himself busy, realizing the whole time that he was waiting to hear from Susan, and that every hour that went by made his shoulders feel tighter, like he was bracing himself for something to come at him but he didn’t know what or from what direction. He was still convinced Jenny and Jesse had taken off somewhere to be alone, but he also thought someone would have heard from them by now.

He made himself dinner in a kitchen where all the upper cabinets and drawers and lower door fronts had long ago been hauled to the dump. His meager collection of dishes was piled on green linoleum countertops begging to be put out of their misery.