“Just like I’m not surprised that you disappeared for a few days.”
“And?”
“And a man by the name of Brian Mathers went missing. Of course, that was only reported this morning,” he mused.
I shook my head, pretending not to understand. “Don’t know who that is.”
“Right,” he grinned. “Because when your foster sister came home with bruises, you just brushed it aside as another bad relationship. She’s had a lot of those, hasn’t she?”
I glanced at the shop, wondering when Josie was going to be done. If she came out right now, she’d get an earful she didn’t need to hear.
“Is there a point to this, sheriff?”
Tipping back on his heels, he grinned up at the sky. “You know, it’s funny. Every man she’s ever dated has beaten her at some point.”
“She has terrible decision-making skills.”
“And every one of those bastards has disappeared. That can’t be a coincidence.”
The man stood there with a cocky grin, knowing he had me just where he wanted me. The question was, why wasn’t he hauling me in? If he knew it was me, then why the hell was he just chatting with me?
“Well, as far as I know, every one of her boyfriends turned out to be a lowlife. Is it really that strange that they would disappear?”
He pretended to think about it, then shook his head. “No, I suppose not. After all, as you said, no one would really missthem anyway.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “But you would most definitely miss her if anything happened to her.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Nope. Just a simple analysis of the situation. It seems to me that Alyssa should stick around here. She might have better luck with a real man, and we have plenty of those around these parts.”
“Are you fishing for an introduction?”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Simply suggesting that you might want to have her closer, where you can keep an eye on her. For all our sakes.” Tipping his hat, he started to turn. “Paperwork is a funny thing, JR. It sometimes just goes missing, and computers can be just as fickle. Funny how the system might accidentally delete reports randomly. Can’t trust technology these days,” he sighed.
He was actually fucking helping me. But why? I didn’t know him from a hole in the ground. He was just another random face in a town I’d only been in for a matter of months. I meant literally nothing to anyone here.
Except, maybe Josie and the damn dog.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked as he started to walk away.
Glancing over his shoulder, he tipped his hat up, shrugging slightly. “Well…maybe it’s because you’ve been keeping an eye on Lizzy,” he answered, cocking his head in thought. “Or maybe it’s because that neighbor of yours seems to have taken a shine to you. Then again, I do love a story of good triumphing over evil.”
“And what exactly would that be?” I asked, gritting my teeth at where this was going.
“I looked into you when you came into town and hung around. JR Hunt, loner, only relation is a mother who died when you were just a kid. You were placed in the system and ended up with a nice elderly couple who would have kept you forever. If they hadn’t died.
“From there, you got shuffled into the system where you ended up with some really shitty families. One in particular where you were left alone for two weeks. When the police found you, you’d pretty much eaten anything you could get your hands on, but you were still emaciated and dehydrated. You didn’t speak for an entire year after they transferred you to a new home, and after that, you got into fights everywhere you went.
“Until you were placed with one particularly nasty asshole who liked to beat on kids. It was there that you met Alyssa Camryn. Pretty girl, about two years younger than you.”
I gritted my teeth at every word he spoke. Those records were supposed to be sealed. Yet, somehow, he knew about all of it. And I was pretty sure he was just glossing over the really bad shit for time’s sake.
“Alyssa was in the same foster home with you for about two years. She was sent to live with someone else on the other side of town, but that didn’t stop you from sneaking out to check on her.”
Clucking his tongue, he sighed heavily. “That police report painted a very nasty picture of you, a knife, one very frightened little girl, and a man who just barely lived—if you could call it that when he was essentially in a coma the rest of his life.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, but I didn’t elaborate. It was none of his fucking business.
“Well, it seems you know a lot more than you should.”
