The Girl Left Behind by M. William Phelps

Author:M. William Phelps
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780578742557
Publisher: Suspense Publishing
Published: 2020-09-08T22:00:00+00:00

31.

SEVERAL DAYS PASSED. IT had been a week since Cassie went missing. It was now officially puffer jacket, see-your-breath weather. A sudden snap of cold had pushed down from Canada and settled in over New England. Time for woodstoves and hot chocolate. Apple-picking season was over. The thrill of fall, those fiery colors bursting everywhere, were mere memories—fallen to the ground and rotting.

After the “event,” as Linda’s boss would come to call it, Linda found herself buried in paperwork; Cam, too. They’d been questioned by the Internal Affairs Bureau and gave detailed statements. Dave had been sent out of town to an “undisclosed location.” Brad was taken off the job, put on desk duty. Linda had gone over it in her head a thousand times. A split-second question every cop faces: What do you do? Well, she had her weapon trained on Freddie, too, and not once did Linda Kane ever think he was reaching for a weapon at the small of his back, like Dave had claimed. It was about judgment. Simple deduction. Careful reasoning.

What type of person are you?

Since the news broke, several women had come forward and accused Dave of using the n-word in their presence on occasion. He’d also belittled a black girl behind the counter of the local 7-Eleven, which a social-media user behind him in line, who’d recorded it, had since uploaded onto Twitter.

Dave was, it was being said around the squad room, fucked.

As well as it should be.

The entire office, most of the time bursting with energy and life, had a pall of gray over it. Linda went through a series of emotions: from fury and anger to complete and utter depression. This was not the type of police department that handled scandal and high-profile attention well. It was going to destroy people. Careers. But more than that, take the focus off of Linda and Cam finding Cassandra Caldwell.

As she sat, Linda’s gaze had concrete in it. She stood and walked over to the window, resisting the urge to scream. Being on the second floor of the building gave the viewpoint of looking out onto the parking lot, down the long driveway leading up to the circle turnabout at the front entrance, where the flagpole stood in the middle.

The blinds had been closed. Another form of seclusion and hiding since the event.

Outside, the press gathered. In Hartford, a chapter of Black Lives Matter was gearing up to stage a protest on the street in front of the building. They’d managed to employ some sort of Al Sharpton wannabe, a local pastor by the name of Rufus Smalls—a fat man with gray dreads down his back, a bullhorn, and an attitude toward all cops. Smalls, himself, had done time for burglary and assault years ago. But that did not make any difference now. He was the voice of his people. And the people wanted not only to be heard, but were tired of being treated like second-class citizens. They wanted justice in any form they could get it.

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