Half an hour later, Sam found himself in a flat-bottomed fishing boat with the chief of police, a borrowed cap on his head, a fishing license purchased from a bait shop tucked into his shirt pocket. He’d done this before, he decided as he cast toward a promising-looking hole—sat in a boat with another guy, listening to the water lapping against the sides, inhaling the slightly fishy smell of lake water and the faint, gassy fumes from the outboard motor. He could almost picture the man who usually sat in the other end of the boat—brown hair, deeply tanned skin, someone he knew well. Like a brother.
Was he a brother? A longtime friend? Or just a figment of his erratic imagination?
“Nice cast,” Dan observed. “You do a lot of fishing?”
“Some. You?”
“Every chance I get.”
“I guess you stay pretty busy with your job. You’re on call around the clock, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much.” Dan glanced ruefully at the pager clipped to his belt. “And, yeah, the job keeps me running. We don’t have a lot of crimes around here—haven’t had a murder in four years, and that was a domestic abuse case out on the edge of town—but we have our share of Saturday night brawls and break-ins. Unfortunately, the days of leaving doors unlocked are over, even in small towns like this one.”
“Did you ever arrest anyone for the break-ins last week?”
“No,” Dan grumbled. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got three, maybe four burglaries committed by the same people, but I haven’t found anything to lead me to them. Yet. I will, though. They get cocky when they think they’ve gotten away with a few, and then they get sloppy. That’s when I catch them.”
“What about the kid I met the other day? The one with the bruise on his face?”
“Zach Hinson.” Dan’s brows dipped into a frown. “Yeah, I checked on him later that day. His mother swore he fell off a skateboard. Her live-in boyfriend told the same story.”
“And the boy?”
Dan shrugged and reeled in his lure. “He didn’t dispute their story.”
“Did you believe them?”
From beneath the brim of his cap, Dan’s eyes met Sam’s. “No.”
Sam sighed. “But there’s nothing you can do without proof.”
“Not a damned thing.”
Sam remembered the flashes of disturbing memories he’d experienced while he’d talked to young Zach. The feeling that he’d identified a bit too well with the frightened, probably mistreated boy. It bugged him that the few memories that had come back to him were so sketchy and hazy. Being slapped as a kid. Dining in an elegant restaurant. Drinking beer in a smoky club. Fishing with a buddy. The vague images were no more real or substantial to him than scenes recalled from TV or movies. Was that all they were? How could he tell the difference between imagination and reality when he had no frame of reference with which to distinguish them?
Dan seemed to think Sam’s silence carried an implied criticism. “I’m not turning my back on the kid, Sam. I’ll be keeping a close eye on them. First evidence I have that either the mother or her jerk boyfriend is mistreating that kid, I’ll move in so fast their heads will spin.”
“I’m sure you will. It just makes me sick to think of anyone hitting a little kid.”
“I hear you. But there’s very little I can do without proof. Maybe it’ll help some that I went by to talk to them. I think I made it clear that I’m keeping an eye on them.”
“Sometimes that’s enough,” Sam agreed. “At least, it should be—”
His words broke off when he felt a sudden tug on his line. He moved to set the hook, then swore softly beneath his breath. “Missed it.”
Looking away from his own line for a minute, Dan opened the small ice chest he’d brought along. “Are you thirsty?”
The thought of drinking beer still made Sam’s stomach tighten in protest. “What do you have?”
“Cola or grape soda.”
Relieved, Sam accepted a grape soda. The sweet taste lingered in his mouth, reminding him of the snow cone he’d eaten during his outing with Serena. Dan caught a nice-size bass then, which kept him busy and Sam entertained for a few minutes, and then they fell back into companionable silence again while they waited for the fish to bite.
Sam broke the silence. “I heard you had some excitement late yesterday. A fire on Locust Street?”
“Yeah. An old dairy barn burned. The fire almost got out of control and threatened a couple of homes nearby, but the fire department managed to contain it in time. How did you hear about it?”
“Serena and I ran into Lindsey last night. She told us about the fire and said she was going there when she left us.”