Okay, serving our country in the Coast Guard carries real honor, but beeswax candles? I think.

She goes on a bit more and then stops as we pull off the highway and head up Snow Creek Road.

“Confession, Megan.”

“Go on,” I tell her.

“There’s some weird stuff going on out here. Gives me the willies. Like Deliverance. Do you know that old movie?”

I shake my head.

“You should stream it. Seriously, you never know what you’ll find far away from town. Out here.”

“In the middle of nowhere?”

“Exactly.”

We pass Dan Anderson’s place. Yeah, I think, you never know what you’ll find.

I review what we’re doing. I do this because Bernie, as she likes to be called, is something of a loose cannon. She likes to play cop as much as she seems to enjoy her court-appointed duties. She also has a strange effect when comforting a victim; it’s almost like she’s enjoying her role too much. Like she’s getting off on the misery of someone facing the worst conceivable outcome after a tortuous wait, bouncing from hope to the inevitable reality of what’s really happening.

“Sarah is underage and we’ll need to consider that,” I say. “She’s scared about what might have happened to her mother and father. This will crush her. Joshua too. He’s mature but still, he’s only nineteen. The implications of their mother’s murder will not be lost on either one. While we are looking for their dad, we are not naming him a suspect. He’s a missing person.”

“A person of interest?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Let’s avoid the terminology, all right?”

She gives me a cool look, her eye shadow only adding to the effect. “Fine, though if they bring it up, our victim’s advocacy code says to always tell the truth. Never lie or trick the victim. That’s your job.”

I ignore her little snipe.

“Deputies Davis and Copsey will meet us there. They’ll work with me on the search. You’ll be there for the kids, all right?”

“Fine, but I have had some police training, you know. I could do more.”

Bernie brings up her extensive training all the time. Really. All the time. She had one class at the academy in Burien. It was one class!

“What you’re doing for the victims is far greater than anything I could do,” I say.

Stay in your lane, I think.

“I think you’re right,” she says, as we pass the cruiser with the deputies. “There really is nothing more important than lifting up the hurt and demoralized. It’s really who I am.”

Inside, I roll my eyes upward.

“I told them to wait on the road,” I say. “We’re going in first.”