Breaking Cover

Chapter OneHAVE YOU SEEN US?THE FACES OF THE TWO BOYS WERE EVERYWHERE: stapled to roadside telephone poles, tacked to bulletin boards in Laundromats and grocery stores, taped to the sides of cash registers in convenience stores.HAVE YOU SEEN US?The pictures were grainy and blurred from repeated copying on creaky, overused public machines. The photo had been taken at a birthday party or some other festive occasion. The younger boy wore a cheap paper party hat with a tuft of plastic streamer jutting from the top. The older boy had his arm around the younger one's shoulders. The gap-toothed grins on the boys' faces contrasted grotesquely with the desperation of the hand-lettered caption.HAVE YOU SEEN US?Sanders's eyes flickered over the familiar poster as he waited in line. He knew who the boys were; everyone knew by now. The missing Powell boys, Evan and Earl, had seized as much news airtime as a dozen small wars. They had been taken from their suburban Raleigh home by someone invariably described as "an unknown assailant." There were also pictures of the unknown assailant, a drawing made by a police artist from the description of witnesses who had seen him talking to one of the boys. The boys were widely presumed to be dead, although no one would actually say this, least of all on the local news.Sanders turned his attention back to the counter. The clerk was a bulky teenaged girl with bored eyes, a sullen mouth, and a gold stud through her tongue that flashed in the glare of the fluorescent lights when she spoke, which wasn't any more often than she could help. Her demeanor indicated a stubborn resistance to the idea of hurry. She rang up the gas purchase for the man in front of Sanders with short, erratic stabs of her fat fingers on the cash register keys."Mbackseeus," she mumbled at the customer, dismissing him from her consciousness as she said it and turning to Sanders in the same motion. "Atbeall?"Sanders put a Mountain Dew and a pack of Nekot crackers on the counter. "No," he said, "I need to fill up on pump number four. Supreme.""Leave the gas card," the girl said."Don't have one," Sanders said.The girl looked at him in exasperation. "You gotta come back an' pay, then.""I know," Sanders said. "But you won't turn the pump on until I come in and ask."The girl heaved a heavy sigh and turned to the console that controlled the gas pumps. She punched the keys to turn on the pumps as if she were imagining poking Sanders in the eyes. She turned back. "Well?" she said, as if she were offended that Sanders was still there."I want to pay for the drink and the crackers now.""You gotta pay all at once," the girl said."Says who?" Sanders replied."There some kind of problem, Alison?" a voice said.Sanders turned. The man standing a few feet away was about the same height as Sanders, but he was slim and wiry where Sanders was stocky. It was hard to tell his age; he looked about forty at first glance, but his skin was lined and creased by long exposure to the outdoors and pockmarked with ancient acne scars. He had thinning sandy hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He was dressed in a light brown deputy sheriff 's uniform. The gold star gleamed on his right breast pocket. There was a rectangular gold name badge over the other pocket. Sanders could make out the raised black lettering against the gold background: T. BUCK-THORN."He's got to pay for the stuff all at once," Alison complained to the deputy."I'm thirsty," Sanders said. "I want to drink my drink while I fill the tank. I don't know why this is a""Tell you what, Alison," the deputy said, "I'll walk out and keep an eye on him. I'll make sure he doesn't drive off withoRhoades, J. D. is the author of 'Breaking Cover' with ISBN 9780312371555 and ISBN 0312371551.