Brantley held his gaze while he stepped back, space opening up between them once more.
“I handed Walker Demo over to Autumn this morning,” Reese explained. “I know it’s a few days early, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to start workin’ today.”
Brantley nodded, mentally saw the line they were crossing. Moving forward. Not back. Never back.
“We’re glad you’re here.”
“I am because you brought donuts,” JJ declared, coming around to her desk.
“Where’s the sugar?” Reese asked, grabbing his coffee cup and turning toward her.
She waved a hand over her shoulder. “In the kitchen. But I put some in your cup before I left.”
Brantley watched Reese’s grin form. Nope, they weren’t low on sugar. Brantley knew because he’d stocked it on Sunday.
Taking a full breath for what felt like the first time that day, Brantley turned back to the whiteboard they’d been marking up before Reese’s arrival.
“I was able to talk to Lauren’s mother, Ellen, yesterday. She moved to Round Rock shortly after she and Lauren’s father divorced. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she has moved on, but she isn’t the sort who has been hounding the police about her missing daughter. She admitted to contacting them at least once a year, but she said it’s difficult because the case keeps being passed from one detective to another every few years. It was obvious she’s disappointed in the lack of answers.”
“I can imagine,” Reese said, staring at the whiteboard.
“Did you learn anything we don’t already know?” JJ asked.
“Not much, but there’s something that might help.” He glanced at Reese, then at JJ. “Like Governor Greenwood said, the day Lauren disappeared, she walked home by herself because Corinne had stayed home sick. What the governor didn’t mention was that Lauren had stayed after school to work on a project with a couple of her friends. Rather than leave the school at three thirty like normal, it was closer to five according to those who saw her exit the building. Her mother didn’t know who she was with, but she did give us a list of names of the girls she was closest to.”
“If you’ll give me those, I can see if I can track them down,” JJ offered.
“You can reach out to them, too. Not sure how much they’ll remember, but anything’s better than nothing. I also want to talk to the teachers again,” he added. “There are notes from interviews back then, but if there’s even a remote chance we’ll learn somethin’ new, I want to ensure we cover all bases. A couple of them have since moved out of the area, but if they’re nearby, I want to find them.”
“What about Lauren’s father?” Reese asked. “You speak to him?”
“Not yet.” Brantley glanced over. “I was hopin’ to do that today. He moved to San Antonio shortly after the divorce, remarried, has a couple of kids. According to Ellen, Rob Tyler spent most of his time at the office. Rarely was he home back then. She said he wasn’t close to Lauren, but I’d still like to talk to him.”
Brantley had actually been a little bothered by the way Ellen tried to dismiss Rob’s relationship with his daughter. As though the man hadn’t cared that she had disappeared. Perhaps that was because Brantley had come from a big family who all pitched in to take care of one another when necessary. He couldn’t imagine any scenario in which they wouldn’t want to find one of their own. He had suspected she was projecting her own anger on her ex-husband.
“What about sex offenders?” Reese inquired. “Do we have a list of those who were in the area at the time? Or anyone nearby who did, or is currently, serving time for a similar crime? Rape, kidnapping?”
“Good idea.” Brantley glanced at JJ. “If there were any sex offenders in Coyote Ridge specifically, the sheriff’ll know offhand. But broaden the search to the surrounding cities. See if you can track them down.”
“Will do.”
He glanced over at Reese. “Whaddya say? Wanna go for a ride to San Antonio?”
“Where you go, I go.”
For the first thirty minutes of the hour-and-forty-five-minute drive to San Antonio, they rode mostly in silence. The radio played, set on a country station. Brantley didn’t engage conversation, nor did Reese. The quiet wasn’t wrought with tension, but it wasn’t the comfortable kind. It just was.
And then it wasn’t.
As the minutes passed and the silence became heavier, Brantley kicked off with the one thing that had been on his mind for the past few days. “I want to take you on a date.”
There was no surprise in Reese’s voice when he answered. “A date? Like dinner?”
“For starters, yes. You make it sound like a foreign concept.”
“It’s just…”
“What?” He glanced over. “You think gay guys don’t like to go out?”
