“Excuse me.” I showed my badge. “I’m Riley Smith, Lonesome Creek deputy. Could I ask you a few questions about your luminook tour experience?”
The father frowned while the daughter perked up, clearly finding the idea of being interviewed by law enforcement exciting.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Just routine. We’re gathering feedback on visitor experiences.”
This was a white lie, but I needed information without causing alarm. The last thing we needed was tourists panicking about luminook thieves.
The teenager stepped forward. “I’ve done the tour twice this week. It was different each time.”
That caught my attention. “Different how?”
“Well, the first time, we watched them from beyond the outer gate. But yesterday, one of the staff members was doing health checks. She even picked one up and was, like, brushing its spine with a metal tool.”
“A health check?” I kept my voice casual while mypulse quickened. “Was this an orc?” Could’ve been Aunt Inla, I suppose.
“No, it was a human.”
“That sounds interesting. Could you describe her for me?”
She shrugged. “She wasn’t wearing the usual ranch uniform. She was wearing a baseball cap, plus jeans and one of those smock aprons everyone wears in the Pottery Barn when they’re taking a class. She was kneeling with her back to us.”
“But you know it was a woman.”
“She had long hair. I suppose guys do too, but she just looked feminine to me.” The girl shrugged. “I’m Jamie, by the way. Jamie Morgan. This is my dad, Bill Morgan.”
“Nice to meet you both. When the woman was working with the luminook, did it seem distressed?”
“Kind of. It was making this weird humming sound. But the woman said that was normal. I asked because I was worried about the baby.”
“She didn’t turn around when you spoke with her?”
Jamie shook her head. “She seemed busy, and I didn’t want to mess with that.”
I wrote down the details, keeping my expression neutral despite the alarm bells ringing in my head. “What time was this?”
“Around three. We did the pottery class in the morning, then had lunch, then the luminook tour.”
After a few more questions that yielded little additional information, I thanked her and continuedinterviewing other tourists. No one else had noticed anything unusual.
By late afternoon, I’d spoken with twelve groups of tourists and gathered a concerning picture. Someone was handling the luminooks directly, using specialized tools, and doing so in a way that distressed the creatures. The teenager’s observation matched what a few others said and fit what we already suspected, that someone could be collecting biological material from the luminooks.
And a few tourists identified what appeared to be either Joyce, Mary, or Ava at one time or another, all within the vicinity of the luminook pens.
When I returned to the sheriff’s office, Dungar had transformed the back wall into an evidence board. Photos, maps, and timeline entries had been arranged in a grid, color-coded by subject. Red for suspects, blue for witness accounts, green for physical evidence.
“Find anything?” he asked, stepping back to survey his work.
I shared what the tourists had told me.
Dungar’s jaw tightened. “That explains the distress behaviors Ruugar noticed. Luminooks communicate through their spines. Damaging them would partially silence them until they’d healed.”
The thought made my belly twist. “I’d like to start mapping possible connections between our suspects. Mary, Joyce, and Ava were meeting behind the maintenance shed, and all three have been spotted near the luminook pens at different times.”
“Use the east wall.” Dungar gestured to the empty space. “I’ve prepared materials.”
Sure enough, a stack of colored index cards sat on his desk.
