What Janie Saw(10)

                “Yeah, I get it.” Janie’s goal right now was the same as it always was when it came to the local authorities. If she couldn’t avoid them, do what they wanted so they’d leave her alone.

                This time, however, she needed the cops. She just wished she believed, like her sister did, that the men in uniform were the good guys, defenders of the innocent and destroyers of evil.

                Because evil had definitely rocked her world.

                “It was just a typical evening, a typical class,” she muttered, amazed by how quickly normalcy had changed into nightmare.

                “I’m sure—” he started.

                “And then it wasn’t.”

                How could she explain to him that after reading a few pages of a kid’s art book, her world had turned upside down, and she was still clinging to the hope it would right itself, that what she’d read would prove to be just a graphic novel—fiction, and nothing more.

                “So nothing happened in class?”

                “Nothing. It was after class, in the student union  , that everything happened.”

                “Give me every detail. Brittney’s been missing too long.”

                “You talk as if you knew her.”

                “Her dad’s my insurance agent. Her family attends the same church I do. I’ve known her since she was born.”

                Janie couldn’t imagine that kind of stability. Rafe had lived in Scorpion Ridge his whole life. She’d bounced from her father’s place to apartment after apartment, neighborhood after neighborhood with an alcoholic aunt. In some ways she was still bouncing. Maybe she always would be, as her goal was to paint exotic animals in their natural habitat, and this meant lots of travel. Right now, she was saving every dime and putting together her portfolio and résumé, hoping she would be chosen as a visiting artist in Johannesburg, South Africa.

                She could hardly wait.

                Rafe, on the other hand, was a third-generation law officer with roots so deeply grounded in Scorpion Ridge that even during his few vacations, he’d rather have been home.

                Janie’s idea of home didn’t match his.

                She’d figured that out during their one date.

                He’d been all about Scorpion Ridge, its people, the way of life. She loved it here, too, but there were people to meet and places to go.

                And pictures to paint of so many different things far away.

                * * *

                RAFE OPENED HIS top desk drawer and withdrew two flyers. These were just the newest. From the day his father entered the Scorpion Hills Police Station to serve and protect, missing persons had received special consideration.

                But his father had never solved the one missing-persons case that was the most important to him—his own son, Rafe’s brother. Ramon could have been dead all these years...or he could be alive, waiting to be found.

                Not knowing he had a family that loved him and that had never stopped searching for him.

                Rafe stared at both flyers for a moment before casually placing one in front of Janie.

                Three words could describe the photo: young, pretty, happy.