Spook by Steve Vance

Author:Steve Vance [Vance, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: psychological suspense
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2018-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

6

The wipers squeaked on the windshield. Ross and Lola could hardly have picked a worse day. The morning was cold, windy and drizzly. The sky looked like frosted glass.

As they left Sturgis, heading northwest, the two talked about the three films they had already seen that week, where to have dinner Sunday night, the book Ross had recently read— anything but where they were going and what awaited them there. Lola rummaged in her bag and brought out a thick, worn paperback.

“Almost forgot,” she said. “More for you to immerse yourself in.”

“I’m so immersed now, I feel like I should be wearing my library card on my chest when I sit down at my duty desk instead of my badge.”

“It’s nice to know our tax dollars are going to support industrious and enlightened public servants.”

“He also serves who sits and answers the telephone,” Ross said.

“What better way to keep your mind from turning into tomato sauce than by reading a good book?” Lola glanced at the unbroken rank of trees that lined the road. “We’re getting closer,” she said.

Ross nodded, eyes on the road. They had left behind other traffic and all houses. For miles there had been no signs of settlement aside from the pavement and scant telephone lines.

“You sure have a lot of trees,” she said, looking out.

“Yep. More than half the state is forested: twenty-four million acres. More timber than anywhere else in the country, except for Oregon and Washington. Not much out here except the interstate.”

“You up to this, Ross?” she said.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You seem preoccupied.”

“Hadn’t noticed. Must be tired.”

“Something on your mind?”

He looked over at her. “Lola, if this girl’s mom answers our questions, and we see that the girl is alive and okay and not in any immediate danger, then I think we should go back and take it through official channels.”

“We’ve had this conversation before. This is no time to be timid.”

“And it’s no time to blunder. There’s nothing to be gained, crashing into somebody’s life that we know next to nothing about. If we wind up dragging this poor kid out of there without the proper preparation, we could do a lot of damage. I just don’t want us to make the situation worse. You see my point?”

Lola was uneasy. “If I said the word, you’d turn around and forget the whole thing right now, wouldn’t you?”

He didn’t look directly at her but could sense the expression in her angry eyes. The car became very quiet.

Ross didn’t know the exact location of the Nelson house, but he had established, at the records department, that this was the road on which Muriel Nelson maintained a mailbox at the turnoff to her home. Just when he had spotted a chain link fence and the mailbox, the sky opened and it poured.

“Damn,” he mumbled, and eased the car to a stop in front of the mailbox with the faded name on it that read something Nelson. Then he turned into the muddy driveway and braked before the gate.

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