Free The Far Empty by J. Todd Scott Page A

floor—ugly, warped pictures he’d dug out of storage, his dad’s things; something to do with the body he’d found. Holding them up to the light, then piling and repiling them because he’d already admitted to her he was afraid they wouldn’t be much use, and he didn’t really know what he was looking for anyway. Faded pictures spotted with rust—blood-colored, as if the film itself had bled. A thousand people she didn’t know, would never know.
    Slowly, deliberately, she picked her purse off the counter, rummaged around the bottom of it, and found a cigarette, lighting it in front of him. Letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak. He didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. He’d known all along. He turned back to the sink.
    She blew smoke. “I thought you said no one else was big on going to too much trouble for that thing.”
    That thing.
The body that had once been a living, breathing person.
    His hands paused. “No, not so much . . . not really. The sheriff, everyone else, thinks it’s just another drug runner or alien smuggler.”
    “It probably is.”
    He made a face, unreadable, careful while stacking the still-wet dishes, not drying them. “Yeah, I know. But do you know how many people go missing in this country a year?” She flicked ash, pretended to be uninterested, as he blinked through her smoke. He kept going. “Okay, about a million, give or take. Half of those are never found.”
    At least she knew what he’d been looking up on the Internet . . . all his investigating. “Sure, Chris, and probably half of those didn’t
want
to be found. Maybe they got sick of their lives, got up and left and never came back. How many people go missing around here, Chris, in Murfee? Really?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know, babe, but that body I found was
someone
. They once had a name, maybe a family that’s still waiting to know what happened to them. I think that’s worth a bit of trouble.”
    “You didn’t find
anyone
, Chris. You and Matty Bulger, you found a
thing
, broken pieces. You’re just scraping it up.” It was too much and she knew it the minute she said it. All of her needling, pushing, about the body—because it was the only thing that mattered to him now, after months of nothing mattering at all. She raised her hands, surrendering. “I’m not telling you not to do this or that, but don’t be disappointed if nothing comes of it. Maybe these people in Austin won’t be able to tell you a goddamn thing. It’ll stay a mystery. I don’t want you moping around about it.”
    He turned to her, his hands red and wet. “Really? That’s what this is all about? I’m doing my job, Mel, at least as I understand it. That’s all.”
    That spark she’d blown out earlier flickered, alive. “Don’t talk to me about
your fucking job
, Chris. You drag your ass around here for months, show no interest in this house, me, anything. Other than telling me what I need to do, all you do is come home and sit in frontof the computer or bury yourself in those damn books. I don’t understand what’s going on, but it’s got nothing to do with your job.”
    He stepped back. “Mel, I . . .”
    She cut him off. “Think very fucking hard on what you’re about to say right now, Deputy Cherry, because you’ve said very fucking little for weeks.” She paused, breathed, searched his face. “Please make this count, Chris.”
    She hadn’t planned on any of this—not here, not now—but here it was all the same. He’d seen her angry plenty of times before. They both knew it could get a lot worse before it got better.
    He settled against the counter. “Okay, I know, I know. I haven’t been easy. Coming back here, all of this”—he took in the house, her, with a tired glance—“it’s just different than I thought it would be. Harder. You’re not happy here.”
    She inhaled, buying a moment, before nodding. “I’m not
comfortable
here, Chris. All of this stuff is yours. This house,