CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Harley approached the sergeant’s desk and drummed her fingers on the wood as she glanced around for someone to help her. The sheriff’s office was oddly quiet: no clacking of computer keys, no ringing of phones, no murmur of idle conversation. She would have expected such a scene at lunchtime, not in the middle of the afternoon.
She was helping herself to a bowl of complimentary pretzels when a toilet flushed nearby. Finally, she thought, grateful someone was still around.
The man who stepped out of the restroom was young and tall, with a baby face and a pompadour hairstyle that gleamed greasily beneath the fluorescent lights. He wore a robotic expression up until the moment he noticed Harley. Then his face lit up with an eager intensity, not unlike that of a beagle who
