Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(33)

“Yeah,” Mike said. And he thought—I bet it wasn’t the beer. “Keep me posted. I’ll never let on that we talked.”

Mike hung around the school, introducing himself, trying to cozy up to the kids, being as friendly and cool as possible. He knew he’d find some pot as he looked deeper. There was whispering of some methamphetamine, but no one breathed a word of roofies. Having Zach on his team was a big plus, but he was hoping to nab himself a teenage confidential informant, a CI who would feed him some names. The local police and sheriff’s department would already be looking into any underage drinking or illegal drug use when it turned up. But he wanted to know if any of his Virgin River girls were getting raped, and unless someone had filed a police report, local law enforcement wouldn’t know about it. And he already considered them his girls, his town.

He took a swing by the rest stop on 109 and found some beer bottles and condoms in the trash. He decided he might visit this spot with regularity, see who turned up. What turned up. He might even try a little woodsy surveillance. But winter came early in the mountains and he suspected that his window of opportunity was nearly closed for the season.

There was only one new guy on the block, as far as Mike could determine—seventeen-year-old Tom Booth, Vanessa’s younger brother, the general’s son. Tom hadn’t been in town very long, not long enough to effect any damage. Booth, who invited Mike to call him Walt, was a widower and introduced him to Tommy, who seemed bright and affable. Polite and sincere. He would probably be popular with the girls, but he didn’t know many people yet. If Tom were well acquainted at school, he’d make a good source, but that wasn’t the case. When Mel’s second patient had awakened pregnant after a party, Tom had still been back in D.C.

And then there was a host of boys who had passed the age of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—and perhaps come into some serious hormonal brain damage. A little testosterone and a lack of values could do the trick.

Unsurprisingly, the one person he wished he could talk to about this was Brie. But if he was any judge, she wasn’t up to that conversation. It was still too close to her own violation.

Mike didn’t expect to find himself back at the sheriff’s department quite so soon, but he felt compelled to let him know what he was sniffing around for. Since he had no victim, no suspect, no evidence, he really expected the sheriff to thank him politely and ask Mike to keep him informed. To his surprise, the sheriff called a detective named Delaney into his office and introduced him as their representative to a multi-agency drug task force, comprised of law enforcement from each local, state and county agency. “We have a detective working sexual assault, but it sounds like that would be getting ahead of ourselves. I’ll check with him, though. Ask if he’s heard anything about this,” the sheriff said.

“Thank you, sir,” Mike answered. “I understand this is big marijuana country,” he said to Detective Delaney.

“We have a lot of that, yeah. But we have a growing problem with white dope and really want to get ahead of that,” he said. White dope would be meth, coc**ne, heroine.

“Gotcha,” Mike said. “Heard any rumblings about ecstasy? Roofies?”

“Ecstasy, though rare. Roofies—no. But Jesus, if you chase that down…”

“You’ll keep us up to speed?” the sheriff interrupted.

“Absolutely,” he said. “With this reluctance on the part of possible victims to report this, it could be a long process.”

“Even more reason I’m glad you’re willing to look further,” the sheriff said. “Without a victim or charge, no way I could free up a deputy to look into this. I appreciate the help.” He stuck out his hand. “That little town upriver is lucky to have you around.”

“Thank you,” Mike said. What he didn’t say was that in this case his motivation went a bit deeper than simply finding a bad guy. This was hitting a little close to home. There was Brie…

The next day he drove to Eureka and bought a laptop and printer. It was time to get online, use the Internet and his contacts for research.

When Brie arrived in Virgin River she had a couple of days with Jack, Mel and the baby before her brother and sister-in-law got off to an early start on the third day, headed for San Diego to the graduation. Then she changed the linens on the bigger bed in the room next to David’s and looked forward to a peaceful couple of days in the cabin. She bathed and fed her nephew, read while he had his morning nap, then took him into town at about lunchtime.

David was a baby used to being taken everywhere. While his mother and father worked he was either at Doc’s clinic or at the bar, being looked after by a variety of people. He was a flexible baby, but because of the hectic schedule his parents kept, easily bored. Sitting around at home wouldn’t do it for him. So Brie went visiting.

She spent some time with Paige, hearing about the new quest to make a baby. She had lunch at the bar and David had finger food from the tray in his stroller. She spent a little time at Doc’s, where they played gin while David had his afternoon nap. She visited with Connie at the corner store and watched the afternoon soap opera with Connie and Joy, finding the starring hussie was doing yet another guy on the air, much to the delight of the older women. It was nearly dinnertime by the time she got back to Jack’s and people started wandering in. Brie had herself a beer while Preacher warmed up some finger veggies for David and a little skim milk for his special cup with the spout. Everyone who came into the bar gave her a friendly hello but then went immediately to David to kiss him, snuggle him, nuzzle him, make faces at him and entertain him. This was one of the most loved residents of Virgin River, and if it was not because he was charming and handsome, then it was because he belonged to Mel and Jack.