Angels Fall

drop."
    "Please, no more flattery. You'll turn my head." She waited one beat, two, then grabbed her pack from the floor and fumbled for the door.
    "Problem?"
    "No. Well, I thought you'd kiss me goodbye."
    His lips twitched as he cocked an eyebrow. "'Gee. Slim, are we going steady?"
    "You're such an asshole." But a laugh tickled her throat as she shoved open the door. "And when you ask me to go steady, make sure to bring a ring." She stuck her head in the door. "And tulips—they're my favorite." Then slammed it.
    The baffled amusement carried her to the sheriff's door. Nerves didn't start to bump until she'd opened it, stepped inside.
    It smelled of stale coffee and wet dog. She noted the location of the first on a short counter on the left side of the room where a nearly empty pot of what looked like black mud steamed away. And the source of the second lay snoring on the floor beside the two face-to-face metal desks where, she assumed, the deputies worked.
    Only one was occupied. Mop of dark hair, little goatee, cheerful hazel eyes, slight, youthful build. Denny Darwin, Reece remembered, who liked his eggs over hard and his bacon next to burnt.
    He glanced up as the door opened, flushed a little. The way his fingers hurriedly tapped keys on the computer led her to believe whatever he'd been doing on it wasn't official business.
    "Hey. Ms. Gilmore."
    "Reece." He wasn't that much younger than she was, she thought. Twenty-five, maybe, and with a fresh open face despite the goatee. "I was hoping to speak to the sheriff if he's in."
    "Sure, he's back in his office. Just go ahead."
    "Thanks. Nice dog." She paused, took a closer look. "I've seen that dog. It's the one who likes to swim in the lake."
    "That'd be Moses. Abby Mardson's dog. Sheriff's middle girl?"
    "Yes, of course. She tosses a ball in the lake for him so he can dive in and get it."
    "He likes to keep us company when the kids're in school. Stayed over some today."
    Moses rolled one eye open, gave Reece the once-over out of a brown furry face and stirred enough to thump his huge, hairy tail.
    "We've usually got some soup bones over at Joanie's. Just let me know it Moses wants one."
    "Appreciate that."
    "Nice meeting you, Moses."
    She walked through the outer office in the direction Denny had gestured. There was another desk for Dispatch, empty and quiet now, just before the hallway.
    Down one end of the hall were two open cells, currently unoccupied, and down the other a door marked STORAGE, another marked LAVATORY. Across from the storeroom, Rick Mardson's office door stood open.
    He sat behind an oak desk that looked as if it had been through several wars. He faced the door, with the window behind him high enough so that it gave him privacy while it let in light. Besides the expected computer and phone system, the desk held a couple of picture frames, file folders and a bright red mug as a nesting pot for various pens and pencils.
    On the old coatrack in the corner hung his hat and a faded brown barn jacket. Movie posters cheered up the industrial beige walls with images of John Wayne, Clint Lastwood, Paul Newman in their cowboy best.
    He rose as she hesitated at the doorway. "Come on in, Reece. I just called your place again.
    "I should get an answering machine. Have you got a minute'"
    '"Sure. Have a seat. Want some of the nastiest coffee in Wyoming?"
    "I'll skip it, but thanks. I wondered if you had any news?"
    Well, on the good news front, everyone in Angel's Fist's accounted for. Same for any visitors we've had in and around last few days. No missing persons in the area matching the description of the woman you reported."
    "No one's realized she's gone yet. It's only been a day." "That may be, and I'll check on that periodically."
    "You think I imagined it."
    He walked over to the door, shut it, then came back to sit on the edge of his desk. There was nothing in his face but kindness and patience. "I can only tell you what I know. Right now, I know every female in my town is accounted for, and the visitors who're here, or were here as of yesterday, are alive and well. And I know, because part of my job is to check these things out, that you had a bad time a couple years back."
    "That doesn't have any bearing on this."
    "Maybe it does. Now I want you to take some time and think it all through. It could be you saw a couple of people, just as you said, hav-ing an argument. Maybe things even got physical. But you were some ways off, Reece, even with the