Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

"Not when all the evidence points to her being out at the Barn." There. It was out. The reason he was here. The Big Brown Barn and Nevada Case. Holden wasn't sure whether it was the idea of bringing down the woman or her rumored cause that was responsible for the surge in his pulse.

He saw the lift of the sheriff's brow, the tick in the other man's jaw, knowing his own would have been equally evident had he not worked so long to govern his emotions. One small mannerism gave so much away.

"I see." Munroe slowly sat forward again. He picked up the pencil he'd left on his desk blotter, held tightly to both ends. "What sort of evidence?"

Holden waited for the pencil to snap. "With their parents' permission, the school principal held interviews with several of Liberty's classmates. I was allowed to sit in. She was present during discussions about the Barn's website, and about other girls believed to have disappeared with Ms. Case's help."

"None of that has ever been proven as fact, Wagner," Munroe said, shaking his head. "You know that. Besides, if being present at a discussion is all the evidence you have, you're really stretching. The township's fathers must be getting desperate to put blame for your runaway problem someplace other than where it belongs." He used the pencil to point due west. "On that goddamn travesty you call a church."

"I'm not here to discuss religion, Sheriff," Holden said. Or here to lose his temper. He was too close to his goal of putting an end to the cancer of the Big Brown Barn. "I'm here about Neva Case's possible involvement in the disappearance of Liberty Mitchell."

"Neva Case has never been connected to the girls from Earnestine that go missing. The girl who works for her designing jewelry, that Candy Roman, she's the only one Neva can be connected to that way, and they both came out of Houston." The sheriff's mouth quirked with his mistaken upper hand. "You really can't believe everything you see on those prime-time TV news shows."

"Sheriff, I promise you. I am not here because of anything I've seen on television. Or because of Candy Roman. I've worked for the township long enough to separate fact from fiction," he added, creasing the knee of his slacks again.

"Then you're doing better than most because I can't tell you how many parents have come to this office," Munroe began, counting them with a repetitive bounce of his pencil's eraser against the blotter, "sat right where you're sitting, and begged me to list their daughters officially as missing persons after a thorough search of the Barn turned up nothing."

"Not a strand of hair, a lost button, a barrette, or trash from a favorite candy bar." The pencil stopped. "Now, if you want an unofficial escort while you check out the hearsay bringing you here, I'll be more than happy to meet you out there later this evening after I finish the paperwork on the Jase Bremmer case."

Such an impassioned defensive rebuttal deserved a round of applause, but Holden kept his hands laced in his lap. "Sheriff. I realize the lifestyle practiced by many of the residents of the township leaves a bad taste in the mouths of outsiders. But it leaves an equally bad impression on us when law enforcement does not take our claims seriously. And goes so far as to protect one of its own."

Munroe reached toward the far left corner of his desk and placed his pencil point-down in a mug emblazoned with the likeness of the Pit Stop Pirates mascot. Then he pushed to his feet, his hands flat on his desktop, his body leaning forward to form a silently menacing angle.

His expression, however, when he looked up, was a blank slate. "By one of our own, Wagner, can I take you to mean a law-abiding taxpayer who is innocent of all suspected crimes until proven guilty? Just as residents are in every community that falls under my jurisdiction? Including that of Earnestine Township?"

Too late, Holden realized his mistake. He needed to treat this case as dispassionately as he did the disappearance of any of the girls from Earnestine. It didn't matter that his own existence depended on his plans after finding the missing Liberty Mitchell.

Were that to be discovered in the course of this search, were this case to make the news, were his name to be connected, his past dredged up and into the fray, red flags would be run up poles best left empty for his future's sake.

He got to his feet, as well. "Seven o'clock, then. At Ms. Case's office."

The sheriff straightened, moved one hand to his hip above the butt of his gun. "No need to bother her there. We'll meet at the Barn."

A quick knock sounded on the door before it pushed open. "Yancey, I need to ask—oh, I'm sorry. Kate wasn't at her desk." The woman waved back toward the receptionist's empty chair. "I didn't know you had a guest."

"It's fine, Jeanne,"Munroe said, coming out from behind his desk. "Mr. Wagner was just leaving."

"Sheriff. Mrs. Munroe," Holden said, and since the other made no move to do so, showed himself out.

Yancey waited for Wagner to leave before turning to his wife and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. She smelled like fruit and flowers the way she always did after getting her hair done—embracing, as she told him, the onset of middle age, simply adding highlights to the new strands of silver.

Laying her palm to his face, she patted him in that gentle way she did everything. "I didn't mean to run off your guest."

"Holden Wagner's not exactly a guest." A scumbag. A sleaze. A snake oil salesman. A shark. "It was business."

Jeanne turned to gaze at the closed door. "Hmm. Well, I'm not sure if he's what I expected in person."

"I don't know why you would've expected anything," he said, returning to his