Epiphany (Legacy of Payne) by Christina Jean Michaels Page B

missing. I was  wrong . The nightmare hadn’t meant anything. We’d laugh about this in a couple of days—right after I chewed her out for scaring the life out of me.
    I rushed into my apartment and dialed her cell, but it went straight to voicemail. After leaving a frantic message, I keyed in Mike’s number and wedged sockless feet into my sneakers as we exchanged a few words. He hadn’t seen her since Halloween. A call to Tony produced the same results. I even tried Christie, but all that got me was a barked “haven’t seen her,” followed by dead air after she hung up on me.
    Filing a report with the police seemed the next step. The sun’s rays had brightened the gray by the time I walked into the sheriff’s office. Of course, the only available deputy happened to be Judd. He looked up from the morning newspaper, and his mouth twisted into a scowl as he set the front page aside, knocking over his cardboard cup of java in the process.
    “Shit!” He pushed his chair back and used the newspaper to sop up the spill. “You again, huh? What can I do for you this time?”
    “I need to report someone missing.”
    He settled into his chair with a sigh. “Well, don’t stand there all day. Have a seat.” He nodded toward the only chair facing his desk. I sat and wrung my hands in my lap.
    “Who’s missing?” he asked.
    “Six.”
    “Six is missing?”
    I nodded. “She’s not answering her cell. I called around and no one else has heard from her either.”
    Judd sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. I took in the abandoned soft drink cups, burger wrappers, and scattered paperwork. A teenager’s bedroom could compete with that mess. He followed my gaze, viewing the clutter with an air of nonchalance that told me he couldn’t care less about the state of his workspace.
    “Sorry, my cleaning lady’s on vacation.” He smirked from across the desk-turned-wasteland. “So when was the last time you saw her?”
    “The night of Halloween.”
    He ran slender fingers through his wavy, brown hair. “Sorry to tell you this, but we can’t file a report until forty-eight hours has gone by—not without reasonable cause.”
    “Are you kidding me?”
    Judd shook his head. “It’s policy. I don’t make the rules.”
    “I don’t care about your policies. All I care about is Six.” A vivid image broke through of Six, her face pale and terrified, her wrists and ankles bound as she squirmed in the back of a moving vehicle. There was no mistaking those fiery locks, singed at the ends from the flame of a lighter. She never gave her tormentor the satisfaction of begging; she’d unleashed a litany of profanities right up until the rope tightened around her throat. Six was in trouble—the kind I couldn’t stand to think about.
    “What is your definition of ‘reasonable cause’?” I asked through gritted teeth.
    He shrugged. “Signs of foul play.” He reached for his coffee cup but then pulled his hand back with a grimace.
    “I want to talk to the sheriff.”
    “He’ll be in later this morning. The old man’s up to his ears dealing with the press since the story about the Hangman broke. You’re free to try back later.”
    “Don’t you find Six’s disappearance alarming, considering the headline this morning?” I bit my tongue before I said something I might regret, or not, depending on how one looked at it. Damn cop was acting like a buffoon.
    He grabbed a pad of paper from underneath the sodden mess. “Okay,” he said grudgingly. “Where was she last seen?”
    “As far as I know, the Pour House.”
    Judd asked a few more questions, all the while scribbling unintelligible notes. “I’ll see what I can do. Can’t be too careful, I suppose, especially with the media frenzy going on right now.” He paused long enough to set the pad down on the desk again. “She’s probably recovering somewhere from a couple days of heavy partying. Seen it happen plenty of times. She’ll turn up.”
    “And