In the Clearing Read Online Free PDF

felt guilt for leaving her mother in Cedar Grove when she moved to Seattle, though she knew she had to go, for her own mental well-being. “Sarah’s getting so big.”
    “We survived the terrible twos, barely.” Jenny smiled. “You did so much for me, Tracy. If it weren’t for you, I’d probably still be working at Costco, I never would have met Neil, and I never would have had Trey or Sarah.”
    When Tracy and Jenny met at the Academy, Jenny had been barely twenty, an eager young woman who wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps but who had little chance of graduating. Homesick and overwhelmed by the workload, Jenny had been living in a depressing motel room. Tracy insisted Jenny move into Tracy’s two-bedroom apartment and join Tracy’s study group and training team. Jenny’s scores improved dramatically, and Tracy taught her to shoot well enough to pass her qualifying exam.
    “You would have found your way. You have found your way.”
    Jenny leaned against the desk, clearly emotionally spent after a long couple of days. “I’m going to miss my dad. Maria and Sophia lost their father too, but I also lost a mentor and a friend. The first few days in the office without him were tough.”
    “You’ll do fine, Jenny.”
    “Dan seems nice. Do you think he might be the one?”
    Tracy shrugged. “I’d like to think so,” she said, “but it’s been a crazy year. At least he hasn’t dumped me.”
    “Are you kidding? He’s in love with you. He came to a funeral for a friend of yours he’s never met. That’s love.”
    “I hope so,” she said.
    Jenny walked behind the desk. “So, I have an ulterior motive for bringing you back here. There’s something I was hoping to discuss with you. The timing could be better, I know, but I thought I should do it now or I might not ever get around to it.” She pulled out a six-inch-thick brown legal file from the desk drawer and set it on top.
    “What is it?” Tracy asked.
    “It’s a cold case,” Jenny said before catching herself. “Well, not exactly. It’s complicated. It’s the first case my father ever investigated as a deputy sheriff. Nineteen seventy-six. I wasn’t born yet, but most people who grew up here are familiar with Kimi Kanasket.”
    “Who is she?” Tracy said.
    “Local high school girl who disappeared walking home one night. My dad got the call.”

    Saturday, November 6, 1976
     
    Buzz Almond and Earl Kanasket had retraced on foot Kimi’s usual walk home from the diner. It hadn’t been easy. Buzz couldn’t remember a night that dark. And then it had started to snow—big heavy flakes that clung to the tree limbs and covered the ground. Even with flashlights, they’d found no visible signs of Kimi—no footprints, no discarded bag, no article of clothing. And as each minute passed without any sign of the young woman, Buzz regretted having told Earl they’d find her.
    After an hour he dropped Earl back at the double-wide, which remained teeming with people wanting to help. Phone calls to Kimi’s friends had been equally unfruitful. Buzz drove to Husum, a small compound of homes and industrial buildings situated on both sides of a bend in the White Salmon River, to talk to Tommy Moore, Kimi’s ex-boyfriend. Moore’s roommate, William Cox, answered the door in shorts and a T-shirt. Despite the late hour, he did not appear to have been sleeping. Cox said Moore had come home around midnight but left when he found out that Élan Kanasket and a group of men, some armed, had come looking for him. Cox said he didn’t know where Moore went but that he had been on a date earlier that evening. If Kimi Kanasket had recently broken up with Tommy Moore, it didn’t sound as though Moore was too upset about it.
    Just after four, with the first light of day still several hours off and the snow continuing to fall, Buzz returned to the sheriff’s office in Goldendale to fill out the necessary missing-person paperwork and to bring his sergeant up