He walked back to his patrol car, climbed in, and drove off.
Coral sat there, puzzled, sure that he’d been up to something, but not sure what.
Then a sneaking suspicion flared up. She grabbed her purse and searched through it. The journal and the notepads were gone.
She hurled the purse on to the floor, swearing at the top of her lungs.
Then she picked up her cell phone and called Flint.
“Did you tell the sheriff’s office to have me pulled over?” she demanded.
There was a long pause, and she gritted her teeth with anger.
“Coral, I’m telling you that you need to back off this story for now. If you’d just be patient, you might very well find that you’ll get what you need.”
“Be patient? Tell that to the people whose kids are missing!” Furious, Coral hung up the phone.
Then she drove back to the newspaper, marched into the publisher’s office, and told him what had just happened. She left out Flint’s involvement, and the fact that she suspected he was an Enforcer.
“How do you think the sheriff’s office knew to look for those notebooks?” Mr. Brewster asked.
“Well, this being Blue Moon Junction, anyone could have seen me going to the house that Adrian had rented. If there is some kind of active investigation, maybe the police are even having that house watched to see if anyone else tries to break in,” she suggested. That could even have been what happened; after all, Flint hadn’t specifically admitted that he was the one who snitched on her.
Mr. Brewster frowned. “You know, I originally thought Adrian’s mother was over-reacting, but obviously you’ve stumbled on to something here. I’m going to call the sheriff’s office, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”
She returned to her desk, where very shortly, she could hear angry shouts coming from the newspaper office, with phrases like “freedom of the press” and “harassment” hurled around at high volume.
Frederick didn’t even glance up when Coral walked by. His cell phone was lying on his desk next to his keyboard, and he kept glancing from the computer screen to the cell phone and back again.
Bettina wandered up. “Blanche called to say she’s picking up some crullers and she’ll be by in a few minutes,” she said. She surreptitiously glanced at Frederick, who didn’t look up from his computer. She stood there for an awkward minute before she finally said “Hi, Frederick.”
“Hey,” he muttered, staring at the cell phone as if he could will it to ring.
Bettina turned and stormed off.
“You’re a moron,” Coral said. “And you’re going to die a virgin at this rate. And you’ll deserve it.”
“What?” Frederick glanced up at her. All his attention was focused on the cell phone. “Did you say something?”
“Why were you rude to Bettina just now?”
“Bettina? I didn’t mean to be rude. I told you, I like her. She’s way cool. She likes all the same video games as me. It’s just…Melinda. Wow. You know what I mean?”
“I know she’s using you because she really likes Flint and she was trying to make him jealous by bringing you to that restaurant.”
His face flushed red and his expression turned sullen. “She has called me several times since then. She loves to talk to me. She thinks my work is fascinating.”
“Just watch yourself,” Coral sighed. “Has she actually suggested getting together again? Has she even let you kiss her?”
“You’re just jealous!” Frederick snatched his cell phone off the desk, and stormed off.
Yeah, that’s it, Coral thought in exasperation. I can’t resist a skinny, socially awkward virgin.
Mr. Brewster walked up to her. “Tomorrow, you’re going to start investigating who bought those parcels of property. And give Interpol and the Shifter’s Council a call, and see what kind of comment you can get on the missing people.”
“When would we run a story?”
He shook his head. “There’s a story there, but we don’t know what it is yet. I’d like to nail down who bought all those pieces of property. And at this point, we don’t yet have proof that the property sales are connected to the disappearances.”
Coral sighed and turned back to her computer. She was frustrated. She knew that the disappearances were connected; she just couldn’t prove it yet. Her phone rang and she glanced down; it was Flint calling. Scowling, she turned the phone off and tossed it into her purse.
Chapter Ten
Over the past year, there were six property purchases in the swamplands northeast of Blue Moon Junction, Crystal found by visiting the Blue Moon County tax collector. Every purchaser was a business that appeared to be a corporation in name only, with no information available about them on the internet. One of them had an address in Crystal Grove, a tiny town three hours drive from Coral Grove. It was still early in the day, and Mr. Brewster suggested that Coral take a drive out there to see what she could find.