Free Ugly As Sin by James Newman

must have asked you to—”
    “Since when is it a crime to visit my daughter?”
    “I never said it was.”
    “The poor girl’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She’s got nobody.”
    “Finding Sophie is my number one priority, Mr. Bullman.” Mackey rested his elbows on the tabletop. “I’ve got every man in my department pulling double-time seven days a week to bring Sophie home. The SBI has been called in on this. We’re utilizing resources from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. All I’m asking is, you don’t do anything to muddy up my investigation.”
    Nick let him finish.
    “We’re on the same side here, make no mistake. On the other hand, if you get in my way I will not hesitate to do whatever I have to do to move you aside.”
    “Fair enough.”
    The sheriff dug back into his breakfast. “Glad we understand one another.”
    “I gotta wonder, though, how well this ‘investigation’ of yours is going, considering it’s been almost a month,” said Nick. “From what I hear, you’re no closer to finding Melissa’s daughter than you were the night she disappeared.”
    Sheriff Mackey froze with his fork an inch or two from his mouth. He knew he’d been insulted. But before he had a chance to retort, a pretty young waitress approached their table.
    “Freshen up your coffee, Sheriff?”
    “Thank you, Sandra.”
    The waitress stared at a spot somewhere over Nick’s left shoulder. “Sir? More tea?”
    “Sure. Thanks.”
    She looked disappointed, as if the big man had let her down. She snatched up his glass and took it away.
    “You’ve got nothing, Sheriff,” Nick said the instant she was out of earshot, “because you’ve been looking at this all wrong from the start.”
    Mackey set down his fork. Stared at Nick.
    “You think Sophie did it,” said Nick. “You think she murdered this drug-dealing piece of shit.”
    “It’s one theory,” said the sheriff. “It’s certainly not the only one.”
    “Well, it’s dead wrong.”
    “Mr. Bullman, whether you or your daughter choose to believe it or not, there is no evidence to suggest there was anyone in the house with Eddie that night except Sophie. Plus, I’ve got a phone call from Sophie telling Melissa she did it. I’m supposed to ignore that because no one wants to believe a fourteen-year-old is capable of doing something like this? Kids younger than that commit murder all the time, without provocation.”
    “Wait a minute. What phone call are you talking about?”
    “Your daughter must have told you.”
    “I guess she didn’t.”
    “We put a tap on her phone for the first couple of days after Sophie went missing, hoping that we might get a ransom call. I never expected anything to come of it, given Melissa’s financial situation, but it is standard procedure. About forty-eight hours in, Sophie called her mother from a payphone in Hendersonville.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Nick.
    “She told Melissa that Eddie had been putting his filthy hands on her since she first came to live with them. She assured her that she was safe, and promised she would be in touch again ‘as soon as things died down’.”
    Nick shook his head, refused to believe what he was hearing. “Someone forced her to make that call. My granddaughter was kidnapped. I have proof.”
    The sheriff gave a mildly annoyed expression, but his eyebrows rose behind his tinted glasses. He wanted to hear more.
    Nick obliged him. He filled Mackey in on everything Leon had told him, about four men forcing Sophie into a fancy black car. He wasn’t sure why, but he chose not to rat Leon out in regards to his breaking into Eddie’s house, searching for drugs. Perhaps he felt he’d gained an unlikely confidante in the twitchy little speed freak? Plus, there was the matter of his own illegal entry. He changed the details of how they had met to a vague white-lie account of the skinny man walking out of the woods, striking up a