Joan Sosin

“There.” Sheriff Young pointed his deputies to the park entrance.

Tire tracks. Last sighting. Where the dogs lost track in the mud.

“Someone impersonating a deputy stopped Arielle last week. Now this.”

A man drove his pickup past the sheriff’s huddle, parked, and joined the volunteer searcher line creeping across a wet field.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Nope.”

At twilight, searchers drudged to the parking lot.

The man pulled a silver shield from his breast pocket and smeared dried mud specks into nothing with his thumb. He smoothed the tarp, tug-tested the bungee cords.

Nope. Nothing to find out there.

Joan Sosin lives, learns, and writes in sunny (hot and humid) Florida.