Bad Debt by Jenna Bennett

Author:Jenna Bennett [Bennett, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magpie Ink

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Catherine said she’d drive Yvonne back to Damascus, so I headed back up into the foothills to find my husband and the sheriff, to update them on what had happened. And since Rafe had been concerned about his phone, I didn’t call him first. Instead, I called Sheriff Satterfield.

“Good afternoon, Sheriff. It’s Savannah.”

“Afternoon, darling.” From the background sound—a sort of humming—I thought he was either driving, or standing next to one of the generators.

“What’s going on? Has my husband made it out of the woods yet?”

“Not quite,” the sheriff said, “but he’s found a road and gotten his bearings. I’m on my way to pick him up.”

“I’m on my way to talk to the two of you.” He didn’t answer, and I added, “I brought lunch.”

Before I left the café in Columbia, I’d had them pack up a couple of chicken wraps for me. I’d thought the offer of food might come in handy—aside from the fact that I had assumed my husband hadn’t had a chance to eat—and I turned out to be right.

“Why don’t you go on up to Robbie’s place,” the sheriff said, “since you know the way. Meanwhile, I’ll go pick up your husband and meet you there.”

That worked for me, and I told him so. We both hung up, and I continued driving. I assume he did, too.

I thought they might beat me there, but Rafe must have ended up farther from the Skinners’ properties than I’d thought. When I came up the rutted driveway and into the open area in front of the trailer, there was no police car there. Just Robbie’s blue truck and the trailer, just like earlier.

I turned off the engine and looked around. Everything seemed quiet. Nothing moved, other than the bare branches of the trees.

I opened the car door, the bag with the sandwiches in my hand, and got out. The dry branches creaked and sort of snapped when they rubbed together.

But there was another sound, too. Sort of squeaky. A little bit like crying.

I should have gotten into the car and waited. But it sounded pitiful. And I thought someone might be in trouble and I could help. So I made my way carefully around Robbie’s truck, toward the back of the trailer. We’d been here earlier, after all. There hadn’t been anything scary here then. And Rafe and she sheriff were coming.

I guess I thought it was someone mourning Robbie. That girlfriend we’d surmised he might have. Or maybe Kayla, Robbie’s daughter. Rafe’s son David had once bicycled all the way from his summer camp on the Cumberland Plateau to Sweetwater to look for his father. He was only a year or so older than Kayla, and it was a very long distance. I wouldn’t put it past her to have bicycled from Pulaski to the Devil’s Backbone to see her dad’s place.

And I didn’t want to scare her, so while I picked my way across the still-muddy ground, I called out. “Hello? Is someone there? Do you need help?”

The whining ceased.

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