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A burst of static came from the police radio

"I can’t just hibernate in that little house, waiting fordo I wait? What if he never--"

Sara couldn’t finish Her throat closed up and she felt her face flush Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the sheriff looking at her After a moment he returned his focus to the road It had been warh it was late winter Today the sun still shone, but the cold was back The snow had allacross frozen tundra It got down into her bones

Atlanta would be beautiful by now Soon, the whole city would blossoo horapher up here, you know," the sheriff said

"For who, Downeast rapher"

Sheriff Norris suy…"

He let the words trail off, having brought the topic up several tiht Sheriff Norris had always been a sort of uncle to her A sweet man, but he had never been that quick on the uptake Since subtlety didn’t work, she decided it was time for the direct approach

"Jackson?"

The sheriff glanced at her "Yeah?"

Sara waved at hiirls"

He blinked To his credit, he hid his astonishht had never even occurred to him

"Oh," he said after a ot a hell of a lot better chance ofsoh, she drew herself across the front seat and kissed his slightly stubbled cheek

"Thank you," she said

"For what?"

"For being a good friend to me and to my father"

A sadness came over the sheriff then He felt at least partially responsible for Ted Halliwell’s disappearance and it weighed on hio, huh?"

"I really do"

They rode in silence for a while, tires crunching on sand left over from the snowmelt

After years away from Maine, she had come home ord had reached her of her father’s disappearance Yet n of his fate or clue as to how he’d vanished in the first place She had flown to Bangor just before Christmas, her schedule clear until after the first of the year When she called her clients-- the first week of January and explained her situation, they had all been understanding They didn’t want to use another photographer, but they would make do until she was back in town

Noas thefor weeks It wouldn’t do to abandon her clients so long that some fell so much in love with her replacements that they abandoned her That was pretty one off on soirlfriend had moved on

But she had to earn money to live, and maybe a return to Atlanta and her friends and her routine would help to stave off her sorrow

Before she went, however, she had asked Sheriff Norris to arrange a naled for a left and then took the turn, following driving regulations without even thinking about it The heater whirred, though it wasn’t very effective, and Sara huddled deeper into her thick winter coat The trip to Freeport had been one of ineered in the past two months None of theing and an ad for the local television news ca Sara could re you had heard and never could understand why they stopped doing that If you liked it and wanted to go buy the CD--or if you wanted to download it--hoere you supposed to knohat it was called?

Sheriff Norris pulled into the driveway of a beautiful home, the kind of place she alished she could live but knew she never would Sara rapher Maybe one day she’d even have enough money to think she was rich But she didn’t think she was destined for a place like this

The car went silent She blinked and looked over to see the sheriff taking the key froht?" he asked

Sara s in this car the rest of my life"

She popped open the door, shut it behind her, and led the way up the walk toward the front door The sheriff had to hurry to catch up On the steps, Sara reached out to ring the doorbell, but before she could, the door opened

The woman who stood inside had been beautiful once In soance of her clothes--a counterpoint to the blue jeans, boots, and bone-white turtleneck Sara wore under her coat--she looked faded, like dried flowers or antique furniture Her lips were folded in a tight line, so that when she blinked and sh the act pained her

"You must be Sara," Mrs Whitney said "Please, co out there, and I’ve made hot cocoa"

"Thank you," Sara replied, stepping inside "That sounds perfect for a day like today"

The sheriff followed her in and, while Mrs Whitney closed the door behind the them in a closet so as not to mar the i else

"I’m afraid that my husband was called away at the last moment to meet with a client," the woman said "So it will just be the three of us"

Sara glanced at the sheriff, who didn’t see She suspected that Julianna Whitney’s father sihter Though Sara did not like the pretense this forced on Mrs Whitney--the poor woman shouldn’t have to lie for her husband--she understood

"That’s all right We won’t take up too much of your time, anyway," Sheriff Norris said

"Oh, please," Mrs Whitney said, waving away his concern "Tiht out a tray with a pot of cocoa and a plate of shortbread cookies Sara had never tasted better hot chocolate It had to have been made from scratch and she let it warm her Very little could

When they had all sipped at the cocoa for a few minutes and the sheriff was on his third shortbread cookie--this strange pantorief--Mrs Whitney fixed Sara with her gaze