Си Бокс - Dark Sky

Marybeth noted that he’d stepped farther out onto the porch and had eased the door almost but not quite fully closed behind him as he did so.

“That concrete has to be cold on your bare feet,” she said. She leaned to the side so she could get a peek inside his house through the thin opening. “What is it you don’t want me to see in there?”

Tibbs looked like he was thinking it over.

“This better be an emergency,” he growled as he stepped back and welcomed her in.

“It is.”

The house was warm inside and nicely appointed, she thought. There was a single lighted lamp near an overstuffed chair in front of the television set and a bar of light on the floor from an open door down the hallway. She hoped he’d turn on more lights because the setting was a little too intimate.

Tibbs retreated to the chair and settled heavily into it. He looked annoyed, but he gestured toward a hardback chair near the door for her to sit in. She didn’t.

“So, what’s the big emergency?” he asked.

“My husband, Joe, is guiding elk hunters in the mountains and we haven’t heard anything from him in thirty-six hours.”

Tibbs paused, then scoffed. “I’ve been hunting in the backcountry before, although it’s been a few years now. Thirty-six hours is nothing. I remember not talking to my wife for a week.”

“We’re not like that,” Marybeth said, her voice rising. “Believe me, coming here tonight was the last thing I wanted to do. But you don’t understand. Joe checks in every night he can when he’s gone. He has a satellite phone even if he has no cell signal. Under no circumstances would he forget two nights in a row. Something has happened up there,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the Bighorns.

“There’s a lot more to this,” she said. “You know that Steve-2 Price and his ConFab people came here to go hunting?”

“Yeah, the governor gave me a heads-up on that. He said to treat this guy like a big VIP, so we closed the road to the airport to keep people away from him when he flew in. So Joe is the one guiding him, huh?”

“Yes. And another thing: Steve-2 constantly posts his movements and thoughts to all of his followers, and there’s millions of them. Other than a weird post last evening, he’s gone completely off-line as well.”

“What do you mean, a weird post?” Tibbs asked. “I’m not up on this social media hoopla.”

“My daughter noticed it,” Marybeth said. “The photo in it was taken the day before because there is no snow in the background. Why would Steve-2 post a day-old photo?”

“Beats me,” Tibbs said. Then: “Do they have plenty of food and clothing?”

“Yes.”

“So we’re not worried about them starving and dying of exposure up there.”

“No.”

“I’m not sure this is enough. Why don’t we wait until morning before we run around with our hair on fire?”

“It’s more than enough,” Marybeth said. “The reason I’m here is, I was told by your office that a search-and-rescue effort has to be approved and signed off personally by you before it can be done. Since you aren’t answering your phone, I had to come here and wake you up in person.”

Tibbs flinched.

That’s when a good-looking middle-aged woman wearing a short dark robe peered around the corner from the hallway.

“Scott, what’s going on?”

Marybeth recognized her as Ruthanne Hubbard, one of the longtime dispatchers for the sheriff’s department. She had a semipermanent stool at the Stockman’s Bar when she wasn’t working for the county. Ruthanne was attractive in a rough-edged way and she had at least two ex-husbands Marybeth knew about.

“Hello, Ruthanne,” Marybeth said.

“Hello, Marybeth.”

“Three of the books you checked out are long overdue.”

“I might have lost them.”

“Come in during business hours and we’ll get it sorted out.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m having a private conversation with Sheriff Tibbs.”

“I don’t mind.” But she didn’t move.

“Go back to the bedroom,” Marybeth said to her with a sigh.

“Oh, right. I was just making sure everything was okay out here.”

“It isn’t, but we don’t need your help.”

“Is it concerning Joe?” Ruthanne asked.

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“I hope so.”

“I do, too. I really like him. He’s always polite when I talk to him. Not every cop or officer is like that.”

“Ruthanne, please,” Tibbs said wearily.

“This is kind of part of my job,” Ruthanne said to him.

“Not tonight it isn’t,” he replied.

“Okay, I’ll see you later, Marybeth. It was good to see you. I hope Joe’s okay.”

“I do, too. Come in about those books.”

“I will.” Then to Tibbs: “See you soon.”

Tibbs sighed and looked at the floor. His face was beet red and his bare feet suddenly splotchy.

Marybeth said, “ Caught . No wonder you weren’t picking up.”

Tibbs rubbed his face again. “Please don’t tell my wife when she gets back.”

“I’m not a gossip.”

“I don’t do this kind of thing. I’m not that kind of guy.”

“I’m not here to judge you,” Marybeth said, although what little regard she had for the new sheriff had just been hit by a torpedo.

“Thank you.”

Marybeth took a deep breath and shook her head. She wanted to grab a blunt object, maybe that ceramic zebra on the mantel, and clobber him.

Instead, she said, “Nate Romanowski and my daughter Sheridan are ready and willing to go try and find Joe and the hunters on their own, but it would be much better if you put together an official search-and-rescue effort. We might need aircraft, horses, and men on ATVs.”

Tibbs said, “I’m not comfortable with sending Romanowski up there. I’ve heard some pretty sketchy things about him.”

“It doesn’t look like I have a choice,” Marybeth said with heat.

Tibbs rubbed his jaw. “We can’t get anything going until morning, and then it’ll take a lot of time and money to get it underway.”

“I know that. But we’ve already lost too much time because you wouldn’t answer your phone.”

“I’ve got to figure out the protocol here,” Tibbs said. “I haven’t been in charge of one of these S-and-R operations here before. I know how we did it back in my old department, but there’s a lot more country around here.”

“ Then move your ass ,” Marybeth said. “Get up, get dressed, and get to your office and start making calls.”

“You don’t need to talk to me like that,” Tibbs said.

“It’s been thirty-six hours and it’s probably below zero up there,” she said. “It’s time to do your job.”

Tibbs grasped the arms of his chair and hauled himself to his feet. His face was dark with either anger or humiliation or both, she thought.

“I don’t know what I was thinking when I let them talk me into this job at the end of my career,” he said. “I was told this place was sleepy.”

“It isn’t,” Marybeth said.

—

Marybeth slid into the driver’s seat of her van and closed the door.

“I’m glad he was home and answered the door,” Sheridan said. “Did you get him to do something?”

“Yes, but he’s not very enthusiastic about it and it won’t be as quick as we want. Some of the delay is legitimate. He probably has no idea who to call to get the search-and-rescue team activated.”

“Crap.”

“I know. I wish we still had Mike in charge.”

Sheriff Mike Reed, who’d been gunned down two years before, had been professional, competent, and a friend of Joe’s. The entire county missed him.