Face the Flames by Jo Davis

Author:Jo Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-14T11:47:01+00:00

7

Melissa was hard at some paperwork when Captain Austin Rainey stuck his head in the door.

“Ryan,” he said in greeting, then stepped inside. His expression was grim. “You got a minute?”

“Sure, Cap.” Rising, she tried to quell the icy clench in her gut. She couldn’t think of a thing she’d done wrong, but nasty surprises could come from all sides. “What can I do for you?”

Moving inside, he closed the door, leaving just the two of them. “I’ve been made aware of a situation, and it has to be handled with the utmost discretion.” He paused, the silence weighty. “One of our officers is missing, and I need for you to dig around, find out anything you can as to his whereabouts.”

Her heart skipped a beat and she stood, walking over to the captain. “Missing? Oh, no. Who is it?”

“Officer Ron Nelson. He’s forty-five, been in the department over twenty years. You know him?”

“No, but I know who he is.” She thought for a few seconds. “The last time I saw him was after he answered the robbery call at the gas station. We spoke briefly, but that was it. When was he last on shift?”

Austin raked a hand through his hair. “He worked the day before yesterday, then left around five thirty p.m. He called his wife from his cell to say he was picking up Chinese on the way home, but he never arrived at his house.”

Melissa pulled out her notebook. “Does she know where he stopped?”

“A place called New Hong Kong over on Barrett Street. He used his credit card, so the restaurant had no trouble confirming that he picked up his order.”

“Just because his credit card was used doesn’t mean he’s the one who picked up the order,” she mused.

“True. But we have an eyewitness who claims it was, in fact, Nelson who picked up his food, and he was still in uniform. The kid described him to a T, and we’ve been able to pull some security footage from the restaurant as well.”

“And the trail goes cold from there,” she guessed.

“You got it.”

“Okay, I’ll review the footage and then go talk to the people at the restaurant. Maybe someone knows something they don’t realize they know.”

“That’s what you get paid the big bucks for,” he said. But his teasing was halfhearted.

Anyone going missing was serious business, and they would act swiftly to try to find Nelson. But in recent news, with officers being persecuted, shot, and murdered on a regular basis, for one of their own to disappear without a trace was especially alarming.

“I’ll do my best to find him, Cap.”

“I know you will. The video from the restaurant is in room three. I’ll meet you there.” After clapping her on the shoulder, he turned and walked out.

Quickly, she grabbed a pen, her purse, and her cell phone, and hurried after him. She’d need to go into the field, and didn’t have her car. She’d have to check out an unmarked squad, which she hated doing, but it couldn’t be helped.

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