Missing in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law #5)(11)

“But someone above him could be withholding information.”

“Exactly. But if they’re not telling the man leading the search what he could potentially run into, then there’s no way they’re going to tell me.” He clenched his hand until his fingers dug into his palm. “If the car that hit Zach continued west, there’s nowhere else it could have gone but here.”

“True, but that car could have turned around at any point and headed right back the way it came. You don’t have any reason to believe it did otherwise, do you?”

“No,” Colt admitted. He didn’t have any concrete reason for believing the car had continued into Mudbug city limits. In fact, it would have made far more sense for it to turn around and head back toward New Orleans. But he had a feeling.

And in his entire law enforcement career, that kind of feeling had never been wrong.

“Have you talked to Jadyn about all this?” Shirley asked.

“Briefly. She brought Mildred and Maryse to the hospital this morning.”

Shirley gave an approving nod. “She’s a keeper, that one. Reminds me some of Maryse but with better social skills and not so clinical. Doesn’t seem a bit like her mother.”

“You know her mother?” Colt asked, trying not to sound as curious as he felt.

“Can’t say I really know her, but I’ve met her. One of those former beauty queens—beautiful in physical form, but nasty as they come otherwise. Only took a minute of exposure to know she didn’t care about anyone but herself. Makes you wonder how Jadyn did growing up with her, especially as she don’t seem the beauty queen type even though she’s quite lovely.”

“Seems like she did all right.” Good heart and good-looking. Maybe she’d gotten the best part of her mother and the rest had come from her father.

“Seems like…well, speak of the devil.” Shirley pointed out the front window where Jadyn was crossing the street toward the sheriff’s department. Several seconds later, she stepped inside.

“Evening, Shirley,” Jadyn said. “How are you today?”

Shirley waved a hand in dismissal. “Same as always and ain’t nobody really cares. You go on about your business with the sheriff. I expect that’s what you came for.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jadyn said and smiled at her before turning toward Colt.

Colt inclined his head toward his office. As he turned, Shirley winked at him, and he held in a groan. Bad enough his attraction to Jadyn had caught him completely unaware and was something he fought daily. The last thing he needed was the town women playing matchmaker.

He opened his office door and waved Jadyn inside, careful not to glance at Shirley as he closed the door. Given her tendency to try to mother him, she might be holding up flash cards. “Have a seat,” he said.

Jadyn slipped into a chair in front of his desk as he took his seat behind the desk.

“How did it go today?” she asked.

“Not so good,” he said and filled her in on the dismal search results.

The tiny bit of hope she’d been wearing when she walked into his office slipped away to nothing by the time he’d finished his recount of the day.

“Crap,” she said when he finished.

He nodded. “I had a similar reaction, but not as polite.”

“My original reaction wasn’t as polite either. I just didn’t verbalize it.”

He smiled. “Normally, I prefer it when people see things my way, but this one is a hell of a thing to agree on.”

“Yeah. You got any ideas?”

“Not a one. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out any connection this situation might have with something going on in Mudbug, but I come up empty every time. I know we went through that rough patch a couple weeks ago, but I assure you, Mudbug has been pretty quiet in the twelve months since I’ve taken the sheriff’s job.”

“It’s not the sort of place you expect high crime to occur, but then…”

She frowned and stared out the back window at the bayou. He held in a sigh. That was the crux of it—but then. If Mudbug were still only a bunch of average hardworking blue-collar folk and the occasional drunk or redneck, then the recent happenings wouldn’t have occurred at all. Sooner or later, Colt was going to have to wrap his mind around the fact that the things that happened in New Orleans could also happen in his hometown.

But he wasn’t going to get his mind around it today. “Did you check with the state on the contract worker thing?”

She nodded. “I have $750 a month to spend on contract help. If I pay you the minimum of fifteen dollars, that only gives us fifty hours.”

“That’s no problem. If we have to go that direction, it’s not like anyone’s watching me punch a time clock. As long as it’s legit, that’s all that concerns me.”

“Then we’re good…if we find a reason to need it.”

She was still hopeful that a happy ending was forthcoming. He heard it in her voice. Hell, truth be told, he felt the same way. He just wasn’t about to count on it.

He reached into his filing drawer and pulled out a stack of folders, then pushed half across the table to Jadyn. “This is every crime committed in Mudbug the past month. I was about to flip through them and see if anything stood out. Why don’t you take a look at that stack and when we’re done we can trade.”