The Wolf Code

But death was a common occurrence in her line of work, especially since the victims who came across her desk were the least of the least.  They were the women, and sometimes men, their families had given up on.  The people that police no longer wanted to search for. 

The faces that would never make the six o’clock news.  Senora was their last hope, and she usually didn’t even hear their name until their light had been snuffed out.  The occasional success story was worth all the heartache, but Addie’s case left a heavy, hopeless feeling in Senora’s chest.  This girl was in trouble, and the apathy her disappearance had been met with wasn’t working in her favor. 

Only the mother’s desperate plea had given Addie a fighting chance, but Senora knew that the chance was slim at best.  Addie’s choices had brought her to this place.  Not the choices of the past year, but the ones before.  Senora knew without a doubt that Addie’s previous lies had created the perfect victim.  She knew on a visceral level that someone had pounced on the opportunity that Addie had created.

Even the boy who cried wolf eventually got what was coming to him.

The words swirled in her mind like dead leaves in the autumn wind.   A part of her realized that the Sheriff was justified in his feelings.  But the whole of her fiercely denied it.  It didn’t matter how many times Addie had messed up.  Addie needed Senora now.  And Senora wasn’t about to let her down if she could help it.

Not wanting to sit around the hotel a moment longer, Senora looked out the window and gauged the storm as it made its way through Glen Rose , headed east toward the neighboring town.

Senora scoffed.  Neighboring town?  How about the nearest town, which was almost thirty miles away?  There were a few little places here and there that might qualify as towns, but Senora doubted that. somehow.  With populations in the double digits at most, they seemed more like scattered neighborhoods than actual towns.  At any rate, the storm was heading that way and, by the looks of it, would fizzle out before it found its way to anywhere with a substantial population.

Getting dressed, she pulled on her shoes and shoved the file folder into her backpack.  She checked her revolver and her backup piece, then headed out the door.  She cursed under her breath, wishing that she had thought to bring a light jacket.  Even though it was still drizzling and the sun wasn’t up yet, it was very muggy and starting to get hot already.  It was going to be miserable outside no matter how long she waited.  She might as well get in the car and get going.  It wasn’t like she was going to sleep anymore anyway.

She ran down the stairs, outrunning the drizzle as best as she could and groaning when she looked in the rearview mirror of the car.  Her hair was damp and already starting to frizz as the curls fought against being straightened after her shower.  Rolling her eyes, she hurriedly twisted her long, deep brown hair into a quick French braid and flung it over her shoulder.  It was too humid to do anything else with it, and she really didn’t have the energy to fight it. 

Keying the first address into the GPS, she pulled out of the parking spot and headed down the dark streets.  

She was surprised by the number of cars going down the main two-lane highway, but it seemed that all of Texas got up early to avoid the heat.  She wended her way through the sluggish traffic, then turned down a dark, quiet street and pulled into the parking lot of the Glen Rose Nursing Home. 

She got out of the car and looked for a buzzer on the front entrance and found none.  At the front desk a  man with a big smile waved her through the door.

“There are no locks here,” he said, tipping his head even though he wasn’t wearing a hat.  “I’m Mark.  Can I help you with something?”

Senora smiled at him, then pulled out a stack of photographs. 

“Do you know this woman?” she said, handing him a photo of Addie, smiling brightly with vibrant honeysuckle in the background and the sun shining down on her face.

“I do,” he said, his hands shaking as he looked at Addie’s face.   “She’s got a good heart.”

“Why are your hands shaking?” Senora asked bluntly.

Mark looked up and smiled, the expression sweet and open on his face.  Senora got the impression that this man didn’t know how to be anything but genuine, and she instantly liked him.

“Addie was,” he paused as if searching for a kind way to say what he was thinking, “troubled.  She worked here for about three months before she ‘vanished’ while taking some seniors into Granbury to go shopping.  She left them there and ‘disappeared’ in the shopping center.”

He put his fingers in the air, making quotation marks when he said “vanished” and “disappeared.”  The sentiment was all too familiar, though this man was being far nicer than the Sheriff had been about Addie’s past.

“Is that why she got fired from here?” Senora asked, keeping her face passive. 

“No, if you can believe that.  She was found within forty-eight hours that time, and no one was harmed.  She lost her field trip privileges, but she was so nice, and we have a high turnover rate, so good people are hard to come by.”

“Why the high turnover rate?”

“It’s the nature of the work.  It’s hard not to get attached to the residents here, and they’re at the end of their lives.”

He whispered the last part even though the hallway was empty, and Senora was pretty sure that the people in the facility were aware that they were older.  She didn’t think that it would be a shock to most people in their eighties and nineties that they would probably pass away soon.  His discretion was endearing, his manner heartwarming.  Senora could tell that he loved his job and the people he helped take care of.  But he wasn’t a gossip, and he wasn’t going to give Senora the information that she needed unless she outright asked for it.

“I get that Addie was troubled, but I still don’t understand your reaction.  She was found unharmed and still worked here for a few months before she was let go, right?”

“She was,” he said.  “But I guess I don’t see how you would be asking about Addie if something hadn’t happened to her.  It’s been a long time since her name has been on everyone’s lips here.  I was kind of hoping that she’d made a change for the better, you know?”