Now that Leo's focus is off the pool table, he leans back in the cushions of the leather sofa that Sagan was sitting on before and aims a look of obvious scrutiny up at me.
"Hey, guys." Jay turns his chair to face the room as he ends his call and sets the phone back on the desk. "We might have something here. The rangers just brought a girl in. Deputy says she's telling them that her hiking partner was taken off the trail while they were backpacking-- "
Austin and Leo both stand, alert and ready to head out on a moment's notice.
"Don't get too excited just yet," Jay waves the men down. "She's also talking about Bigfoot or some shit."
Leo falls back onto the couch, suddenly much less interested.
"Doesn't sound like a real reliable witness then," Austin acknowledges.
"So what does Chief Dickhead want us to do about it?" Leo asks.
Jay gives him a tired look, one that tells a long story about how well these men know one another.
"He wants one of us to come down and take her off his hands," he explains. "Said he figured this is what we're here for."
Each of the men around me snorts, curses, or does some combination of both.
"He's not wrong," Austin scolds.
"Fine, send the new kid," Sagan says, switching places with Leo again.
"Yeah, I'm not in the mood to go make nice with those assholes today. Let Avis earn his keep around here."
I don't bother with any more of the guys' bullshitting. This is what we're here for. As soon as I have the details from Jay, I'm headed down to the town's local police station... with a heads-up that the local officers might be slightly less friendly than Sag and Leo have been.
Arizona
"Areyou willing to submit to a drug test?"
The question comes out of left field and strikes me as entirely inappropriate.
"Why would I need to do that?" I question the woman behind the desk whose been taking notes nonstop since the ranger brought me here.
The woman doesn't answer me. Just keeps scribbling on her tablet without acknowledging me.
"Are you going to send anyone up there?" I ask, my voice sounding a bit more hysterical than I'd like.
Still nothing.
"HEY!" My hand slams down, open-palmed, over the fucking pad of paper on the desk between me and Officer Don't-Give-A-Fuck. "My friend is missing up there. Are you guys going to send someone to go look for her or not?"
The woman looks up at me cooly, her eyes narrowing.
"You said Bigfoot abducted your friend." She tells me, deadpan. "Paradise Point is a small community. We don't have the resources to support a Bigfoot task force. I'm sure your friend will find her way back to the trailhead on her own."
She's already on her feet and knocking to be let out of the small room where I've spent the last hour explaining whathappened to local law enforcement officers who clearly don't believe me.
"I never said 'Bigfoot!'" I shout at the bitch's retreating back as she leaves me in the room without acknowledging me.
The man who opened the door to let her out gives me a look that's not anywhere close to sympathetic or compassionate. Just a smirk as he closes the door that makes it very clear what they think of me here.
They think I'm stoned out of my gourd.
Or, more likely, tripping on shrooms or some other hallucinogenic substance that I'm sure plenty of people do take while they're camping in these mountains.
Maybe if I let them draw my blood, they'll take me seriously and start a search and rescue operation to find Astrid.
