Free Lake Country by Sean Doolittle

not answering his phone. It sounds like he took some money that didn’t belong to him, and he took my car. After that I’m in the dark, Hal. Believe me.”
    Hal leaned against the desk with his arms folded,scowling at the floor. The next time he spoke—and it took a minute, long enough that Mike started to hope maybe the conversation was over—he spoke very quietly, and he didn’t raise his eyes.
    “Is it possible he went and took that girl?”
    Mike didn’t know how to answer. He rubbed his eyes. “Possible covers a lot of ground.”
    “Don’t hand me that shit. You served with him, kid. You fought next to him. You’re the guy took him in when he showed up here without a pot to piss in or a goddamn friend in the world.” Hal finally put Mike directly in his high beams. “So I’m asking you, and it’s the last time I’m asking, so take a goddamn minute before you open your mouth. Could he have taken that man’s daughter or not?”
    Mike took more than a minute. He wanted to say that he couldn’t imagine it. The only problem was that Mike had seen enough crazy shit in his time that he could imagine just about anything if he tried, and, deep down, he’d already answered Hal’s question.
    Hal didn’t need to hear him say it. He shook his head. “Christ.”
    “Hal?” Mike sat up. “Where you going?”
    “Where the hell you think I’m going?” Hal had already returned to the door. “I’m gonna write down that number they’ve got up there on the TV screen, come back here, and dial it.” He paused and cocked his head. “Does that spook-eyed son of a bitch have it in his head that I wouldn’t? Because we used to wear the same initials?” He held up his forearm and smacked the old tattoo there with the flat of his hand. “Do
you
?”
    “No,” Mike said. “Hal, wait a second.”
    “Wants to use my place.
My
goddamn place.”
    “That’s what I mean.” Maybe this was like a bad episode from one of those cops-and-lawyers shows on television: Some guy in a bar blurts out how he’d sure like to teach so-and-so a lesson. Next morning, so-and-so turns up dead, and who’s the main suspect? Everybody goes apeshit looking for him, but then surprise: They all find that the guy who made the threat was really off screwing somebody’s wife when the murder happened. “If Darryl was … Look, he sure as hell wouldn’t tell anybody where he was going, right? Why would he do that?”
    “Because he’s a goddamn head case,” Hal said.
    “Yeah, well, who isn’t?”
    Hal snorted. But he was listening.
    “Anyway, he’s not stupid.”
    “You say.”
    “Pretty far from it, Hal. Trust me.”
    Hal shook his head again. Still listening.
    “Give me a chance to get up there and see what’s what,” Mike said. He rose from the chair and joined Hal at the door. “He’s probably just hacked off at Toby, trying to make a point.”
    “Yeah? What kind of a point would that be?”
    “A memorable one?”
    “Don’t be a wiseass.”
    “I’m just saying, one thing might not have anything to do with the other.”
    “Might not,” Hal said. “And if it does?”
    “Hal, this girl’s been missing, what, a couple hours? Come on. She could be anywhere.”
    “Yeah, and she could be somewhere real specific, too,” Hal said. “Could be there right now while we’restanding here talking about it. You’d better think about that, son.”
    Mike hadn’t stopped thinking about it. None of it made any sense. Making sense wasn’t always a priority with Darryl, but still. “It’s a couple hours to Rockhaven,” he said.
    “I know where the hell it is.”
    “Hal, give me a head start. If he’s up there alone, playing some game on Toby, I can sort it out. Without a bunch of cops.”
    The way the muscles in Hal’s jaws rippled, Mike could tell that he was grinding his teeth. “If he’s not?”
    “Hal …”
    “If it turns out he was up there helping himself to this girl while you and me were busy making