Forever by Jacquelyn Frank

she said gently to the mother.
    Becky was watching Jackson now, too. And Marissa hesitated just long enough to see the woman start biting on the inside of her lower lip. The nervous gesture only confirmed what she had suspected all along. In a way she felt bad about suspecting the mother. She could always be wrong and it was a terrible thing to accuse an innocent mother of. But statistics didn’t lie. An overwhelming percent of child disappearances and deaths were from the violence or nefariousness of a family member or close friend. It could just be that she had aform of Munchausen’s, where she thrived on the attention she received through the plight of her child. It didn’t mean necessarily that she had had anything to do with it. But it was enough of a suspicious behavior to mark how she wanted to approach this search. The more efficient they could be, the better. Especially since Jackson was, at present, the only dog handler in the area. Every hour that passed would make the situation bleaker and bleaker for the child, provided he was still alive.
    She moved toward Jackson hurriedly, but not so much as to alert the mother of her suspicions.
    “Officer Waverly!” she called out just as he was bending down to unhook Sargent from his leash.
    “I think he’s got something,” Jackson said. “And don’t call me that,” he said with a frown. “We’re a little beyond official titles, wouldn’t you say?”
    The remark paralyzed her throat momentarily, causing her to stare at him openmouthed for a good five seconds.
    “I don’t see why—”
    “I don’t see why everything needs to be an argument,” he cut her off, regaining his full height, the leash still attached to Sargent’s harness.
    “Jackson, please,” she said, frustration lacing her voice.
    “There. Was that so hard?” He grinned, completely pleased with himself, the infuriating ass. For a moment she seriously thought about committing cop-icide … or something like it. No. Better yet, something really juvenile like putting motor oil in his coffee. The smug bastard.
    Then again, knowing what the station coffee tasted like, he wasn’t likely to notice the difference.
    “I came to tell you that I don’t think the mother is telling us the whole story,” she said icily. “Not to getpoked and teased and have you pull my pigtails like some bully in the school play yard!”
    “I had a feeling you were going to say that,” he said grimly. Then he looked at her with amusement. “Pigtails, huh? I bet you wore pigtails, didn’t you? Cute little red-haired girl with scabby knees from falling while playing jump rope, freckles on her nose …”
    “I did not have freckles!” she hissed in a low voice when a pair of cops walked past them. “Do you see any freckles?” She gestured with the blade of her hand at her eye-line, over her nose. “It’s not like they magically disappear, you know.”
    “You never know, what with the miracle of makeup and all.” His voice dropped as well. “So you’re thinking foul play by the mother?”
    The question was grim, reminding her that he had a job to do. That he was potentially the one who’d find this poor kid dead in a ditch somewhere or under a copse of trees. It made her realize that he’d been teasing her once againag.perhaps as a way of coping with that knowledge.
    Great, Marissa. Some shrink you are
.
    Jackson leaned over and cut Sargent loose. He made a deep sound in his throat and Sargent took off into the woods.
    “Keep working the mother,” he said before heading off after his dog.
    She did exactly that. Subtly, slowly, waiting for the woman to do something to give herself away.
    “I just don’t understand,” she said, dabbing a tissue under red-rimmed eyes. The tears had been genuine at least. Whether it was actual grief or due to fear, that part was hard to tell. It was past three a.m. and as far as she knew, Jackson had only taken two breaks, and both of those breaks she suspected were