But Not For Lust by BJ Bourg (comprehension books .txt) 📕

the ground was damper here and I left tracks in the soft mud. Not only did I leave tracks, but whoever had come here last had also left tracks, and I was able to follow them with ease.

The tracks snaked through the trees, sometimes in a straight line and sometimes veering off in one direction or the other, but I finally found the destination of the one who had left the shoe impressions behind.

Up ahead, about a hundred yards from me, stood a small clearing near a giant oak tree. Tied to one of the branches was a rope swing. A makeshift tent was located a few yards from the swing. I couldn’t see inside the tent, so I called out before I approached.

“Hello the tent,” I said loudly, my voice echoing through the trees. “This is Detective Clint.”

Nothing.

In addition to calling me Detective Clint, Ty also referred to me as sheriff sometimes, so I tried that name.

“Hey, Ty, this is the sheriff.” I waited for a second. “I need to talk to you, buddy.”

I waited for a long minute, but there was no movement from inside the tent. Suddenly, a feeling of foreboding swept over me. What if Ty wasn’t answering because he couldn’t? What if he had killed himself inside that tent?

I began stepping with real purpose. I set off through the trees—making a wide arc around the camp—and approached the tent from the west. The tent was nothing more than a large drop cloth draped over some branches, and the flap was a beach towel bearing the picture of a cartoon character I didn’t recognize. Through an opening in the flap, I had a partial view of the inside of the tent. It looked as cluttered as Ty’s camper.

“Ty?” I called, inching closer to the tent. “Are you in the tent?”

An alligator rumbled from somewhere in the swamps behind me. I paused and glanced over my shoulder to see if it was nearby. It sounded close, but I couldn’t see it, so I ignored the sound.

“Ty, it’s Detective Clint, and I’m here to talk to you.” I kept my hand low, near the handle of my pistol. “Let me know if you’re inside, Ty. I want to come inside and talk to you.”

The towel flapping in the cool wind and birds chirping overhead were the only other sounds I heard at that moment. I continued stepping closer and closer and was finally within reach of the towel. Without speaking again, I reached forward and jerked the towel free from the opening of the tent. I let out a long sigh. It was empty.

“Shit!” I mumbled, stepping fully into the tent to have a look around. Empty cans of beans were scattered on the ground. A rumpled blanket rested on the ground to one side of the enclosure and a log was positioned as a chair on the opposite side. I pulled back the blanket and found a small stack of nudie magazines hidden there. I immediately dropped the blanket and wiped my hand on my slacks, wondering what kind of germs might be on the fabric.

“So this is why you’re coming to the woods, huh?” I noticed that the magazine on top of the stack was a Playboy dated thirty years earlier. I chuckled. “You must’ve found your dad’s stash.”

Leaving everything exactly as I’d found it—with the exception of the blanket that I dared not touch again—I made my way back to my Tahoe. Blue was running around his yard shooting imaginary bad guys when I drove away. He looked up and I waved, but he only scowled and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

I drove to Mrs. Richardson’s house and checked the camper and the shed again, but Ty wasn’t home. I strolled back to the front of the driveway scratching my head. If he wasn’t in the woods or back at his house, then where in the hell could he be?

I got on the radio and called out that I was back in service. Taking another bite of my now-cold hamburger, I drove to the office and parked beneath the massive, raised building that served as our police department.

Once inside, I greeted Lindsey and walked to the break room. I warmed my burger in the microwave and then carried it through the dispatcher’s station toward my office.

“Call Tracy Dinger,” Lindsey called over her shoulder. “She called like five times. I tried your radio earlier, but you didn’t answer. Once you finally called 10-8, I figured you were heading here anyway, so I didn’t bother telling you over the radio.”

I cursed myself for forgetting to turn the volume back up on my cell phone and radio. “Did she give you a clue as to what she’d found?”

“Does she ever?”

“Figures.” I thanked her and hurried to my desk. I took a bite out of the burger and called Tracy. She answered on the first ring.

“Clint, where’ve you been?”

“Sorry, I was in the woods looking for my victim’s son.”

“My guys recovered a fingerprint from the pipe,” she said. “We ran it through AFIS but we didn’t get a hit.”

“Did it match the print on the shed doorknob?” I asked, almost certain the print would belong to Ty, because that was how my luck was going. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to verify whether or not it was Ty’s print until I found him, and that search wasn’t going so well.

“Nah, they were made by different people.”

“Huh?” I asked, scratching my head. I now had three unidentified fingerprints. “That’s weird.”

“It would be great if you had Ty Richardson’s fingerprints,” she said. “One of them has to belong to him.”

I agreed and asked her what else she’d found. “I can hear it in your voice,” I said. “There’s more to come.”

“Look at you, acting all psychic