Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

Except, that is, for a few precious seconds of extra merriment by those in the tent, who of course have not seen me yet. There’s some laughs and chatter that dries up when they realize everyone outside has gone quiet.

“Something wrong, Officer?” one of them asks. A guy near me, a beer bottle in each hand. He has a buzz cut, freckles across his nose, and a sort of captain-of-the-team swagger.

“Maybe,” I say, forcing my voice to be calm but loud enough to carry. “Maybe not. Had a report of excessive noise, so I came to check it out.”

“Excessive noise. That a crime?” He puts a little chortle into this, raising his voice to show off for his audience.

“Yes, it is,” I say. That shuts him up. I can already guess the next question, so I cut it off. “But that’s not why I’m really here. We’ve had a missing persons report in the area.”

Several of the men in the crowd cast spooked glances at one another. One of them, a heavyset youngster with shaggy hair, looks sidelong toward the tent before catching himself. He swallows.

Casually as I can, I move my hand to the butt of my pistol. There’s a tension in the air that wasn’t there a second ago. “A woman,” I say, raising my voice a bit more. “Brightly colored hair, nose ring. A local who lives nearby. Goes by Clara. Anyone here by that description? Any of you seen her?”

Nobody says a word.

“In fact,” I add, “I have an eyewitness who says she saw you talking to her in the parking lot. Ring any bells?”

No one moves.

Except for one. The big guy who glanced at the tent. He does so again, or starts to. Before his gaze swivels too far he catches himself and tries to turn the motion into a kind of “let me ponder the mysteries of the universe” glance, turning his chin up toward the stars and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. His eyes, I can see now, are bloodshot and watery. He’s seated in a portable folding chair.

“You,” I say, getting his attention. “What’s in the tent?”

All eyes turn to him now. The youngster swallows once more, then manages to look surprised. “Nothing,” he says. “Beer. Chips.”

“It’s the snack tent,” someone off to my left adds.

“The snack tent,” I repeat.

The young man in the chair nods, emphatically.

“A tent designated for snacks. Show me?”

Now a hesitation. Again he swallows. Then, with great reluctance, he pushes himself out of the chair and starts to walk to the tent, glancing back at me several times as we go. When he reaches the tent he steps to one side, as if to say his job here is done, only then noticing I’ve stopped about ten feet from the structure. I nod at the flaps.

The youngster shrugs and pulls one side back, then gestures for me to enter, like a footman motioning his queen to enter the carriage. Several of the onlookers chuckle at this.

I shake my head. “You first.”

Once more his Adam’s apple bobs. But he turns and goes in. I don’t think he’s scared, at least not of anything immediate. More likely they’ve got a shitload of drugs stashed in here and he’s not keen on being the one to get all his friends arrested for possession.

I follow him, and as I step under the flap of the tent it’s like I’ve stepped on a switch. Behind and all around me there’s a flurry of activity. I turn in time to see the backs of every other member of this gathering as they run for the trees. They leave their chairs, their drinks, everything but what they can haul under one arm, behind. Some of them are laughing as they flee. I’ve no doubt that in another thirty seconds I’ll be hearing the sounds of all those Ford trucks firing up their engines.

Frowning at the thought of all those inebriated drivers heading down Slippery Slope, I turn back to the heavyset man, half expecting to find him gone, too. And he is, at least partially. He’s literally on hands and knees, crawling under the staked-down side of the tent off to my left.

I let him go. I’m here for Clara and don’t really relish the idea of trying to make a few dozen drug arrests while she’s still missing.

It’s clear right away that she’s not here, though. The tent is empty of people. True to the dude’s word, the place is indeed a makeshift pantry for snacks and alcohol. There’s huge cases of beer, several bottles of harder stuff, and box after box of bulk-packaged chips, hot dog buns, and so on. Enough for a whole weekend, I estimate, even with the size of the group.

Yet they’ve just up and left it here, along with the expensive tent. Why?

“Drugs,” I voice. Has to be. But there are none visible. Of course only true idiots would leave their stash in plain sight, but then again they doubtless chose this location so they could party without prying eyes, so why hide them?

Then there was the way the dude glanced at the tent when I mentioned Clara. Why would he have done that, if the tent was empty?

I take a second to look at the improvised room again. There’s the crates and cartons of food and drink. Several untapped kegs in one corner. Boxes of paper plates and plastic cutlery. Boxes of ammo, too. All this sits around the edges of a square Persian rug, ten-foot on a side, that’s been laid on the ground, presumably to keep the dust or mud to a minimum.

I step onto the carpet and reach for the nearest stack of beer cases. Then I freeze, and look down at my feet.

There should be dirt and leaves beneath this carpet, but I’ve stepped on something hard and… not flat, not exactly, but flat-ish. I retreat and kneel down, drawing my