“Stealing her cinnamon roll at The Pancake Bar couldn’t have helped.” Connor laughed.
Joel’s lips twitched. “First of all, it was a joke. I bought the last roll with every intention of giving it to her, but she didn’t want it.”
“You’d already taken a bite.”
“Of course I did. It was the last one and,fuck,it smelled good. Something wrong with sharing food with me?”
“Hope that bite was worth it.” He pulled up in front of the very restaurant in question. “Come on. Let’s get lunch before the guys start blowing up our phones about where their pancakes are.”
Not everyone was getting pancakes. Ryan wanted fried chicken and eggs, and Zac had ordered an omelet. Hell if Joel knew why. The pancakes were death-row, last-meal kind of pancakes. Melt-in-your-mouth, dream-about-them kind.
Ward, the town sheriff, stood in front of the café, an older male deputy by his side.
Joel dipped his head and Connor gave them a hey, but Ward barely spared them a glance.
They were about to step inside when Ward’s radio crackled.
“Dispatch to Sheriff Ward. We’ve got a report of a missing female, approximately forty-two years old. Employer states she didn’t show up to work this morning. We’ve put out a BOLO for her vehicle, a red 2012 Subaru Outback and her colleague is requesting a welfare check.” Then an address was rattled off.
Joel froze, and so did Connor.
A missing woman. Yes, it was only lunchtime, but if something had happened to her, the earlier they started the search, the better.
They closed in on Ward as he pulled out his radio, cold drink with cream on top in hand.
“Yeah, copy that. BOLO’s a bit premature. She’s probably playing hooky. I’ll swing by when I’m done here. Send me hername.” He sipped his drink, cream covering his upper lip before he licked it off.
Joel stopped beside the sheriff. He’d assumed Ward saw them, but when the guy turned, he jumped, some of his drink spilling onto his shirt.
He cursed. “What the hell are you boys doing sneaking up on me like that?”
“There’s a missing woman,” Joel repeated.
Ward sighed like both Joel and Connor were public nuisances and not members of the SAR team trying to keep the community safe. “I know your little team likes to put their noses into everyone’s business, particularly mine, but this is strictly my domain. Got it? And you’d do well to not listen in on my radio calls.”
“We need her name,” Joel pushed, ignoring everything he’d just said.
Ward’s eyes narrowed. “Isaiddrop it.”
Connor lifted his phone. “We’ll do a search of the forest.”
Ward’s cheeks reddened. “That’s not necessary.”
With no clues, it would be hard to know which section of forest to search. The land was huge.
“Did you hear me?” Ward called, as Joel and Connor started to turn. “This isn’t your concern.”
They stepped away—only to stop when Ward’s radio crackled again.
“Dispatch. We found the Subaru. It’s parked off Dandelion Road, approximately half a mile northeast of Traipse Trailhead. Plates match. No one in sight. Want me to hang tight for you?”
Joel stiffened, and Connor did the same. The woman was missing and her car was on the outskirts of the forest.
But Ward didn’t seem fazed. Not even a little bit.
He lifted his radio. “There’s no evidence she’s missing. She could still be playing hooky down at the river.”
Joel was done with this. He jogged to Connor’s truck, ignoring Ward’s calls behind them.
