Harvest Moon by Helena Shaw

hand
found hers and silenced her once more.
    “I know, I know,” Mosley said as he nodded. “I won’t
lie to you guys, and I’ll tell you what I told the cops. There’s no sense in me
denying that I thought that maybe Miss Frey and I might… well… you know. But
the moment I got in the car, I realized I was just a tad lonely and that I
might be taking advantage of the girl. So I drove her home.”
    “She never got home,” Gabe reminded him.
    “And that’s my biggest regret,” Mosley said as he hung
his head. “I dropped her off and drove away without making sure she got inside
her house. I didn’t know about the animal attacks or the missing hikers. If I
had, damn it,” he said as his fist met the table, “I would have made sure she’d
gotten inside. So yeah, I guess it’s my fault she’s missing, but I didn’t kill
her.”
    With that, his shoulders slumped and he rubbed at the
corner of his eye with his thumb. Dawn was about to call him out on his
ludicrous display, but Gabe opened his mouth first.
    “Damn,” Gabe sighed. “That’s a lot to have sitting on
your shoulders.”
    “It can be,” Mosley nodded, his brown eyes glassy with
the threat of tears. “I don’t mind the cops’ questions, or the feds poking
around my house. I didn’t do anything, and I’m happy to prove that, but I know
in my heart that I’m responsible because of my inaction.”
    “Please,” Dawn rolled her eyes at the melodrama.
    “I know you might not believe me,” Mosley said. “But I
figured I should at least man up and come talk to you folks.”
    “Aw, now Dawnie just misses Courtney,” Jim said. “We
all do. That was quite the convincing story you told, and I think it wise for
the three of us to ruminate on it before we give you a pardon.”
    “That’s fair,” Mosley said with a nod. “I, uh, guess
I’ll get going, then.”
    Jim, ever the gentleman at heart, rose to show him
out. He put a burly arm around the baseball player as they walked and
whispered, “Don’t worry about Dawn there, she’ll come around. She’s got a good
heart.”
    Dawn knew that Jim thought she couldn’t hear him. Most
people never thought she was listening, but she always was, and now she was
fuming. It didn’t matter how convincing Gavin Mosley’s little show was. In the
end, the man was still responsible for Courtney’s disappearance.
    And, as Dawn was starting to accept, her death.
    As hard as it was to swallow, Courtney had been
missing for days. One day was one thing. Maybe she really had run off with a
guy or back to Chuck or something, but she would have called. It wasn’t like
her not to call. In the back of her mind, that sour thought was digging a
little hole and it wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she struggled to shut
it up.
    She might not have been the only one feeling that
unwelcome dread. Gabe refused to meet her eyes once Mosley left, and Jim, well…
Jim looked like a mess.
    “Goddamn it,” Jim sighed after he finished his beer.
“Goosemont is supposed to be a safe town, a quiet town. Now, all this.”
    “You can’t possibly believe him,” Dawn said, fighting
her own frustrated tears. She was frustrated with her boss, frustrated at no
one agreeing with her that Gavin Mosley was a killer, and frustrated that even
she had to admit his tears might not have been entirely crocodilian in nature.
    “He looked so sincere,” Jim mumbled. “Damn it all to
hell, why did this happen here?”
    For a second, Dawn wanted to tell them it was her
fault. Bad luck seemed to follow her, but usually it had more to do with the
wrong kind of cops, the crooked kind, looking for her, not her friends getting
mauled by bears.
    “Luck of the draw,” Gabe answered for her. “Sometimes
nature likes to remind us who’s the boss.”
    “That may be,” Jim sighed. “But this Sunday, I think
I’m going to head to church. Ain’t been in twenty years, but I think a little
prayin’ might do my old soul some