Still, Rafe couldn’t help but notice the expression on Janie’s face: indignant. It amazed him that throughout the whole investigation, she’d started to sympathize more with Derek than with Brittney.
Somehow, Rafe needed to make Brittney more real to Janie.
With that in mind, Rafe guided the conversation back to the missing girl. He asked Justin, “Did you ever run into Brittney Travis at any of those places?”
The other man shook his head. “No. Nathan showed me her photo when she went missing. I came in thinking I’d go through the evidence bag from her case.”
Because Brittney had gone missing in Adobe Hills, their police force had jurisdiction. All the evidence from the case was stored here, no matter what Rafe preferred.
“Good idea,” Rafe said. “I’d like to take another crack at the evidence bag, too.”
“There’s not much there.” Nathan’s words were gruff, clipped. “After I left the school Thursday morning, I came back here, called you and then dug out everything we’d gathered on the Travis case. It was the first time I’d looked at it in over a month. All the evidence was circumstantial.”
Rafe understood that. “So there’s nothing there to link her to Derek.”
“Nothing,” Nathan said. “There’s one note, written to her, obviously from a boy, asking her out. But the handwriting’s not Derek’s. Plus, whoever wrote it sounds young and fairly innocent.”
“Do you have any new evidence that connects to Derek?”
“Friday morning, I got a call. A meth bust right inside county lines. At the scene, one of my deputies was handcuffing a female when she told her husband, ‘Hey, it could be worse. We could be Derek.’”
“Meaning it’s better to be busted than dead,” Rafe told Janie.
Before she could say anything, the phone on Nathan’s desk rang. He answered it, interrupting their conversation.
Settling back, Rafe crossed his legs and waited for Nathan to finish. He wasn’t sure how much attention Janie was paying to the call. She appeared to be studying Justin, who obviously enjoyed her appraisal. Rafe wanted to caution him that Janie was just sizing him up with her artist’s eye, and that she didn’t really like cops.
Then she turned her attention to Rafe, and not in an appraising way. She gazed at him with the same do-something expression she’d worn earlier. He’d seen that plea often, from victims of crimes, from parents of missing children, and even from his own officers who wanted to do more than the law allowed.
But Rafe was good at his job, and part of being good at his job was understanding when to act and when not to.
Right now, waiting was their only choice. If Nathan got any more agitated, Rafe might sever their tenuous partnership
At thirty-two, Rafe Salazar was the youngest man to earn the title of Laramie County Sheriff. He’d been elected because of how he’d campaigned, what he’d accomplished during his eight years on the force, and yes, because of his last name. When Rafe’s father had died in the middle of his term from a heart condition, Rafe was the only one who’d been willing to take the position. Still, his youth was something people talked about. Since winning the election, though, he’d more than won over the people of Scorpion Ridge—most of whom had known him from birth.
It was the neighboring towns that presented more of a challenge. A good four years older than Rafe, Detective Nathan Williamson clearly did not appreciate a much-too-young sheriff, especially one who made his office in the much-too-small neighboring town and who butted in on what Nathan considered to be his turf.