The River Runs Dry by L. A. Shorter Page A

the girls to get drunk, then following them home.”
    “Jesus, I'm never going out again. He might have been to the Shack on Fridays with us before? Shit, maybe that's how he saw Taylor?”
    “I doubt it. She was in LA, remember.”
    Darcia's eyes sank once again. “Oh, yeah.”
    “Look, let's not talk about this any more babe. It's too morbid. Just let's make sure we don't go out at night, unless we're with some of the guys...”
    “But what about you? You live alone? Do you wanna come and live with me for a while, you know, while your house is being sold?”
    Jess smiled. “That's a sweet offer, but I'll be fine honey. I've got double locks on the doors and everything, so I'm not worried.”
    “You're not worried. I'm so scared I don't ever wanna leave the house.”
    “Life goes on though, you can't let fear stop you living. Anyway, we've both gotta work, today actually, so we'd better get going soon.”
    “Not me,” Darcia said quickly. “Fucking Boring Brian reduced my shifts after I went off work. I only work part-time now.”
    “Are you kidding. I fucking hate that guy. When we move to LA, he'll be the last person I'll miss.”
    Darcia looked straight in Jessie's eye, her face steeling. “Second to last person you mean.”
    Jessie couldn't disagree.
    …
    It was later that afternoon that Jess walked from Darcia's house towards the diner a mile or so away towards the eastern edge of the town. Usually she'd drive, but the weather wasn't so scorchingly hot today, so it was nice to be outside in the fresher air for once.
    As she walked she clearly noticed a greater police presence on the streets, although she couldn't work out why they were there. Frankly, it had become clear that this killer worked at night, so having these cops around wasn't exactly going to help right now in the middle of the day.
    When she rounded the corner towards the town's center, however, she realized that it wasn't just a heavy presence of police on the streets, but regular people as well, and media too. It looked like some kind of impromptu protest was going on as people gathered outside of the police department.
    She gazed over the scene. Half the town seemed to be gathered outside, many of them holding signs and making plenty of noise.
    No more murders , read one.
    Protect our girls , another.
    Jessie's eyes ran across the faces in the crowd. She recognized many of them – fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, boyfriends, friends, and other extended family of the girls who'd been killed. Burgess was a tight community, with several large families going back generations still important members of the local population. Jessie knew that if one girl died, it wasn't just her family and friends who would suffer. No, the entire town would feel the sting.
    She walked forwards to see police guarding the doors to the police department, with several other guards around the perimeter. There were photographers there taking pictures and journalists interviewing people. Jessie recognized one of them as Taylor's father, who she'd last seen at her funeral.
    Her eyes kept scanning and she saw one of the bartenders from the Shack, a girl called Lena, standing towards the back of the crowd. She looked as though she'd only caught the back end of this, as Jess had.
    “Lena, hey Lena,” she called, moving forward and tapping her arm.
    “Ah hey Jess,” the girl said, turning around, “what's up?”
    “Well, what's going on? I was on my way to work and I just ran into this.”
    “It's a protest, about the killings,” Lena said, her tone slightly mocking. “What do you think it is?”
    “Well I can tell that, yeah. But who arranged it, what are they protesting against exactly?”
    “Well it's that young detective running the investigation. He's got no experience, he's never gonna catch this guy. It's like the police aren't even taking this seriously, it's like they don't know what they're doing.”
    “I'm sure they know what they're doing,” said