Page 34 of Diesel’s Desire

I pull up everything the county’s got on file about him. Owns sixty percent of downtown, give or take. A seat on three different boards that decide things like school funding and hospital budgets. A mansion out past the old quarry road that I’ve driven past exactly twice in my life, both times slowing down without meaning to because the gate alone looks like something out of a different state entirely.

Wife rarely seen in town. Adult children who live somewhere else and don’t visit, according to two separate mentions in old society-page clippings the county historical society scanned for some anniversary project nobody remembers commissioning. Described, more than once, by the local paper, as a quiet, generous man, if a bit of a lonely figure since his children moved on.

Lonely.

The paper makes his loneliness sound like something the town ought to fix for him.

I don’t have proof of anything. I know that. I know exactly how thin this is—four cases, a pattern that could be coincidence, financial ties that half this town shares with Pemberton because he owns half of it. A defense attorney would eat this alive in about four minutes.

But it’s the same feeling I had standing over Erik Halvorsen’s body. The same feeling I had staring at a ring in an evidence bag on County Road 9. A hunch won’t hold up in court. It ought to be enough to justify asking a few more questions.

I photograph the school photo clipped to Addison’s file with my phone before I know why I’m doing it—round face, missing a front tooth, hair in two uneven pigtails her mother probably did herself that morning without knowing what the afternoon would bring. I look at it a long time.

Then I go find Morris.

His office light’s still on, which doesn’t surprise me. Man hasn’t slept a full night since this case broke either, and it shows in the gray under his eyes when he waves me in without looking up from whatever he’s signing.

“Got something,” I say, and I don’t waste time working up to it, because I’ve learned that’s not how Morris likes his bad news delivered. “I think it’s worth pulling Douglas Pemberton in for questioning.”

The pen stops moving.

For a second, he doesn’t say anything at all. Just sits there with his hand still on the page, not looking at me, and the silence stretches long enough that I keep talking to fill it, which I realize soon is a mistake.

“Not as a suspect,” I say. “Just as someone who might have information. He’s connected to at least three other cases over the past several years, all girls the same age as Addison, all missing four to seven days, all⁠—”

“Stop.”

He says it quietly. That’s what makes it land harder than if he’d shouted it. Morris usually raises his voice when he’s angry. This is worse.

“Chief—”

“I said stop.” He sets the pen down, finally looks up, and whatever’s behind his eyes isn’t the folksy, patient man who’s been handing me wisdom off the corner of my desk for a year. It’s something colder. “You are not going anywhere near Douglas Pemberton. Not for questioning, not for a friendly chat, not for anything. That’s a direct order, Officer Carpenter.”

“I’m not accusing him of anything. I just think⁠—”

“I don’t care what you think.” His voice climbs now, filling the small office, loud enough that I glance instinctively toward the door even though there’s nobody left in the building to hear it. “You don’t understand how this town works. You’ve been back, what, a year? You think you know this county better than I do after thirty-eight years wearing this badge?”

“I think four little girls and a pattern nobody’s looked at⁠—”

“That man’s lawyers will tie this department up in litigation so fast we won’t be able to afford paperclips by the time they’re done, and you know what happens then? We lose funding. We lose the grant that pays for the new cruisers, the one that pays half your salary. You want to explain to this town why the police department went under because Officer Carpenter had a hunch?”

“This isn’t about funding.”

“Everything in this town is about funding.” He’s on his feet now, hands flat on the desk, leaning toward me and glaring at me. “You want to talk to me about how this town works? Fine. Douglas Pemberton keeps three-quarters of Main Street afloat. He funds the volunteer fire department. He put a new roof on the elementary school two years ago out of his own pocket because the county wouldn’t. You go after a man like that with nothing but a feeling, and you don’t just end your career, Penny. You end this whole department’s ability to function in this county.”

I stand there and let it hit me, wave after wave, and somewhere under the anger in his voice I catch something else. Something that isn’t just fear of lawyers or budgets.

“You know something,” I say, quiet now myself. “Don’t you.”

His jaw works. For a second—just a second—something flickers behind his eyes that looks less like fury and more like a man standing at the edge of a hole he’s spent years avoiding looking into.

“I know this town,” he says quietly. “I know what happens to good officers who go poking at things that should stay buried. We will both be replaced by some pen pushers who don’t give a shit about helping anyone if we poke around the wrong people. It’s safer to drop it. Focus on the sedan, focus on the renter two houses down, focus on anything that isn’t Douglas Pemberton’s name, or I will personally see to it you’re off this case entirely. I can’t lose you on this force, Penny.”

I don’t answer right away. I can’t, because if I open my mouth right now, I’m going to say something that ends this conversation somewhere neither of us can walk back from.

“Are we clear?” he asks.

“Crystal,” I reply.