Page 17 of The Missing Couple

“You’re doing a great job on that tomato,” she commented just to break the silence.

He glanced up as he finished slicing. “I do have my kitchen talents.” With that, he opened the fridge and grabbed a handful of lettuce from the cloth bag and placed it on the plate next to the tomatoes.

“Like I told you, I’m afraid my talents in the kitchen are quite limited.” He might as well know this up front in case he planned on eating with her during his stay.

The question of how long it would take to find his sister and her husband expanded in her brain. The couple might never be found. She swallowed hard. Not that she minded having him here—not at all, in fact—but that would mean she would have to watch him go through that nightmare. The uncertainty. The defeat. The painful final reality.

“But,” he said with one of those smiles that seemed so easy and…very nice to look at, “you obviously have other related skills. I scoped out your little garden.” He leaned against the sink now, arms folded over his chest. “Not bad for someone who doesn’t like to cook.”

“Thanks.” She frowned. “I think.”

“Your friend, Shelly, finished the cleanup of the cabins.”

“And the restocking and the laundry.” Thank God for Shelly. “If I can’t be here she’ll check in the new guests on Friday.” Maybe she should have asked her to do a supply run as well. Restocks always depleted most of her inventory. She didn’t like waiting to replenish those shelves.

He stared at the floor. Didn’t take a mind reader to recognize he likely hoped his sister would be found before then. At this point, Charly had her doubts. This was looking far more sinister than before. There was no mistake about dates. No decision by the couple to take a little side trip. This was an abduction. No question.

“Sheriff Malone didn’t mention any ideas on the investigation?” She shrugged. “He hasn’t found anything on his end?”

In the middle of their meeting she’d had to take a call from her sister, which was a good thing—she loved hearing from Jen but she’d missed the rest of whatever the sheriff had to say. Since Billie hadn’t said anything on the drive back here, she hadn’t wanted to ask. If new evidence had been found to suggest the worst, she figured he would tell her when he was ready.

Billie shook his head, his lips tight with frustration. “But I did some deeper digging in the wee hours of the morning, which is partly why I didn’t really sleep, and I spotted a pattern.” He exhaled a big breath. “Well, calling it a pattern might be a stretch. The instances were few and far between, but I found about seven similar incidents over the past sixteen years. I tried to look back further but I didn’t find anything that met the same criteria beyond that point.”

“What exactly did you find?” She reached into the oven and removed the pan. Folding back the foil, she was pleased to see the bacon was nicely browned but not burned. Moving it from the foil to a plate where a paper towel would allow it to drain, she resisted the urge to ask why he hadn’t mentioned his search earlier today. Whatever his reason, he appeared ready to talk now.

He turned around to face the counter as if he intended to help. She held up a hand. “You talk, I’ll make the sandwiches.”

“Is that code for get out of my way?” he asked with his hands up.

“It is.” She laughed and shooed him away with a hand. “The BLT is my specialty.”

A deep chuckle as he moved to the far end of the counter had her grinning at him. After bracing a hip there, he said, “Like I said, I couldn’t sleep so I was looking for missing persons reports from the area,” he explained. “There’s quite a few every year in the tri-county area of Marshall, Madison and Jackson. Sadly, that’s not unusual. It’s the same in most places. Someone disappears because they want to or are forced to. Reports are filed. In the end, the results are mixed.”

“Some are never found,” she offered as she placed the bread on the plates. “Others show up in another town leading their lives as if nothing happened.”

“Some are dead.” He said the part no one wanted to hear.

No one wanted that end, either. She placed the bacon on one side of the bread, then added mustard. “Oh shoot!” She looked to her guest, who appeared deep in thought. “I forgot to ask if you liked mayo or mustard.”

He flashed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Either one works for me.”

She returned the smile, hers likely as feeble as his. “You were saying.”

“I narrowed the results down to this specific area and I found seven over a sixteen-year period.”

“So our fair city has had seven disappearances over the past sixteen years?” Frankly, she had expected the number to be higher. She added the tomatoes and lettuce and the other slices of bread.

“Seven unresolved disappearances of victims who meet certain criteria.”

Okay, so obviously, more disappearances but some were solved. Or were different, depending on what he meant by criteria. Not that Guntersville was a bad place to live. It was great. But the world wasn’t such a safe place as when she’d been a kid. People went missing all the time. Sometimes even in the best places. It was really important to always be vigilant even in your hometown.

“What are the criteria you mentioned?” She passed a plate to him. “Beer? Cola? Water?”

He took the plate. Studied the sandwich placed in the middle. “A beer would be nice.”

Her pulse jumped at the realization that she might not even have any beer. Alex had liked beer. The offer was automatic. She prowled through the fridge, certain she was going to have to retract the offer, then found a single bottle of Alex’s favorite. Whew.

“Here you go.” She passed it to him. Hoped it wouldn’t be bad. It had likely been in there for three years. Maybe four.