A/N: Well, will we ever get to know why Sam hates Cedes? Thanks for staying in there. I know it's not a romance. But there will be some steam eventually. Forgive all my mistakes and enjoy. Thanks for the new favorites and follows. This is a journey and we are just at the very beginning.

Eleven

Suspect arrested for shoplifting a travel-sized
bottle of shampoo and for killing his next door neighbor.
The incidents do not seem to be related.

—LIMA CITY POLICE BLOTTER

Before they headed out, Cedes checked in on her daughter. "Knock, knock," she texted.

After a few seconds, her phone chimed. "Who's there?"

"Ms. Are you behaving?"

"Ms. Are you behaving, who?"

Cedes giggled. "Ms. Are you behaving because if you are Ms. Behaving, you'll be grounded for the rest of your life and your grandmother is going to pick you up after school."

"That is the longest name ever. Have you heard anything?"

"Not yet, but we may have a lead. Anything on your end?"

"Nothing yet. Ashlyn is nice and smart and adorkable, but she keeps to herself, and I have yet to find a single student who really knew her or who she opened up to."

"That's okay. At least you tried. I'll be home late tonight."

"Anything I can do to help search?"

"Yes. You can help by going to your grandparents' house and doing your homework. And eating something besides pizza and not letting your grandparents allow you to spend the evening alone eating a bowl of Captain Crunch while you fall asleep watching reruns of The Facts of Life."

"If you insist."

"And when you do manage to convince your grandparents that ordering pizza is their idea, at least make sure there's a vegetable or two on it like mushrooms, green peppers, or olives. Your granddad doesn't need all that grease with no fiber. He will insist on a meat lovers. No meat lovers are allowed."

She could almost see the eye roll when her daughter texted back, "Whatever."

Hunter came out in his protective clothes which was just his regular clothes covered in a jumpsuit to keep his body temperature up.

Cedes gestured him closer as she looked past the guys doing construction on the office and pointed to the rooster that was out there running around. "Isn't that Puff Daddy?"

"Mrs. Pierce's missing chicken?" he asked.

"Missing rooster. And, if I'm not mistaken, that's Mr. Duncan chasing him."

A man with more bandages than a two-year-old left alone in a doctor's office stumbled past the front of the station. The two waded through the snow. The rooster with relative ease. Mr. Duncan was almost falling face down in the snow trying to reach down and pick up the bird.

"It's really brave of him to give a station full of deputies front-row seats to his criminal activities."

"Okay, now we have no choice but to arrest him."

"For what?" she asked. "Technically, poor Mr. Duncan does not have possession of Puff Daddy."

Hunter snorted. "Not for lack of trying."

"True. But we have more important work to do."

"Fine. I'm heading home to get the pickup. They'll never recognize me in it."

The Menkins family were painfully private people. They would never let Cedes or her deputies on their land without some kind of warrant, but Cedes needed to know where Sam was searching. Once they had a location, they could get a warrant to assist. If, and only if, Hunter wasn't spotted on their land.

If it were up to Sam, Cedes liked to think he'd be sensible and allow them access. But she couldn't take the chance. If Ashlyn was up there, they needed to know sooner rather than later.

"Thanks, Hunt. Keep me updated."

"I'll let you know where they're searching."

He started for the exit, but Campion called out to him, "I'm going with you, remember."

Hunt lifted a shoulder. "I'm just getting a location. I was going to call you and the sheriff back with it. Then you two could meet me there if I see anything of relevance."

"Yeah, from what I've seen, if they spot you following them, you'll need more than that horrible disguise of sunglasses and a cap on your head."

"Horrible disguise?" He gestured to himself as they headed out. "There is nothing horrible about my disguise."

"Other than the fact that that is barely a disguise?"

"I'll have you know I played the lead in all of our high school's musical productions."

Cedes laughed softly, wondering, as Campion probably did, what the hell that had to do with anything.

She waited three more minutes, told Dani she was going out, then headed out the side door as well. After making sure they were gone, she walked down the alley, careful of the shaded areas where the snow was still high and packed hard enough to be hazardous.

Then again, even spoons could be hazardous in the wrong hands. Like hers. She'd never been accused of being agile.

Her phone had beeped on the way back to town with a message from the Original Teen Mom. It simply said, 20. That was twenty minutes ago, so Cedes hurried.

She opened the back door to the latest and greatest clothing shops Lima Springs had to offer, the Boutique, and stepped into a dark storeroom.

A thin blonde came out from behind a stack of shelves overflowing with clothing designs of all sizes, colors, and fabrics. She glanced around, her eyes red and swollen, making sure no one was with Cedes, then ran to her.

Cedes wrapped her in her arms. "Stace," she said when Stacey Menkins began sobbing. "Are you okay?"

"No, I am worried out of my mind." She let another round of sobs quake through her, before saying, "My baby is missing."

Cedes smoothed back her hair. "Stacey, why didn't you call me as soon as you knew he was gone?"

Despite her emotional state, her expression went flat. "Cedes, my brother is the best tracker in the state. What else could you have done that he couldn't do better and faster?"

She had a point.

Even so, there were about a thousand reasons she should have called her, but there was no sense in going into it now.

"And even if Stevie knew that Caswell girl, he would never hurt her. I know every parent says that, but he's a lover not a fighter. He is the sweetest kid in the world, Mercedes."

"But you've never seen them together?"

"No. Never. He walks to the lake a lot and hangs out, but none of the teens talk to him. He never goes to anyone's home and nobody ever invites a Menkins into theirs." Cedes could see the pain that caused in her. "Not that I know of."

"Has he ever gone missing like this before?"

She lowered her head. "He gets lost sometimes because he will follow an injured animal or something, but we've always found him if he wandered off too far. He's never been out all night before."

One of the two owners, a.k.a. two of Cedes' best friends ever, stepped into the dark storeroom and spotted them. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking, then hurried to the pair and threw his arms around them both.

"Is everything okay?" he asked into their hair. "What's going on? Blaine and I have been worried sick." Her best friend from Eureka greeted her, Kurt Hummel.

When they met, his boyfriend Blaine composed music, and Kurt was a set designer and over wardrobe when Cedes acted in one of their shows. Kurt babysat Gina backstage, so Cedes could sing and act in their musical at the local community theater. After that, the three became inseparable while she was in Eureka. When they'd heard Cedes was moving back to her hometown, they'd decided to join her because Kurt's father was from Lima Springs and had had a heart attack. Kurt was eager to move closer home to be with him, so they decided to open a clothing boutique, a passion that Kurt had for ages since Lima Springs was not known for its high quality clothing shops. Blaine would help out when he was not composing music.

"Is Stevie okay?" Kurt asked Stacey.

Before she could answer, Blaine, a half Asian short king who was also as good looking as he was musically talented, rushed into the storeroom, presumably between customers, and grabbed a hug from both women before hurrying back to the store.

It was sad that these were the only two people in the entire town Cedes could completely trust with her and Stacey's secret. There were plenty of people she trusted, but not when it came to her former nemesis's life. Or her son's.

In a bizarre twist of fate, one that left Cedes baffled to this day, she had been working with Stacey on an investigation for months, even before she won the election.

The hot mess of a woman had reached out to her while she was still in Eureka, and they had become very close in the months since, a fact that boggled Cedes' mind even more than it had Stacey's. Funny what the common ground of teen motherhood, being a single parent, and protecting one's own, could do for a relationship.

Cedes would never forget the first time they met up in a bar halfway between Eureka and Lima Springs on the county line. Stacey had walked in with her tail tucked between her legs, humbled for the first time ever in Cedes' presence.

"I'm so sorry. For everything we did to you, but mostly for what happened. For the . . . accident."

Cedes shook her head. "It was a long time ago. You had dropped out of school before it even happened and had a son."

Stacey beamed at her. "Yes, and I don't regret having my son. He's gorgeous, Mercedes. Just like your daughter."

The mention of Gina had surprised her at the time.

"I've seen her," Stacey explained. "When she stays with your parents over summer breaks." She leaned in. "She's a real beauty. She could be the new it girl give Zendaya a run for her money."

And just like that, all was forgiven. As though the woman hadn't been her worst nightmare for years. As though she hadn't tried to kill her once and maim her twice. As though her crazy family hadn't been part of the reason Cedes left Lima Springs in the first place.

But Stacey had sought her out for a reason. Her Uncle Cooter had been trying to worm his way back into the Dixie Mafia that was now back up and running nationwide again. That wouldn't be a big deal, but he wanted to use Sam's business as a means to get back in.

"My brother has worked his ass off for that business," she'd told her on the first meeting. "And my insane uncle wants to use it to launder money for the DM."

Fury and indignation for Sam flooded every cell in Cedes' body. "Surely, Sam would never allow your uncle to do something like that."

"You don't understand." She leaned closer and took Cedes' hands into her own. "Even if Sam refuses, which he will, once the DM sees the potential gold mine of EMS Lima Springs Finest, they'll do everything in their power to take it over and run meth with the shipments."

"Would Sam ever allow them to?"

"Samuel Evan Menkins? Hell no. He'd go to his grave first, and they would have no hesitation about putting him there. He hates the DM. He hates the uncles. You know he is only biologically related to me and Stevie, and they know he is biologically no Menkins and have no love for him at all. They are waiting to see him fail and fall and be the white trash that the family has been and always will be despite the money they now have because of him."

"What about your uncle?"

"Please, he'd kill Sam just for shits and giggles. Cooter detests him. Always have and always will."

"Cooter has always be a lecherous asshole," Cedes said, tapping her nails. "Have you gone to the sheriff with any of this?"

"Sheriff Will Schuester? I would, but since he's in on it . . ."

"Sheriff Will Schuester, the poster boy for law and order?" she asked, stunned. She knew the guy was a nincompoop but . . .

Stacey nodded. "They're involved in several business ventures together which I think involves confiscating drugs found in raids and getting them back on the streets and splitting the profits, but I could be wrong about that one in particular. I do know that there's a deputy involved, too, but I can't tell which one. I've never seen his face."

"Would you recognize him from his build?"

"Maybe. It was a man. Not a woman. It could've been anybody in uniform."

The blood drained from Cedes' face. Hunter fit the description and couldn't be eliminated as a suspect.

"They will not stop going after Sam. Ever since he legitimized the family business, my uncles have been trying to come up with a way to knock him off his high horse."

"Of course. He can't do better than they did."

"Never, and they won't stop trying until they succeed."

Never underestimate the devious nature of a family drenched in crime and blood. "The only thing I can suggest is that we go to the FBI."

Stacey jerked back as though Cedes had slapped her. "I can't do that. If they find out . . . No, it has to be you. Once we gather enough evidence against my uncle, then you can go take it to the feds."

"Stacey—, you are an eyewitness."

"No. No, Mercedes. I can't be involved. If Sam's life was not in danger, I wouldn't be here now. I am already risking so much. I can't risk my son's life, too."

Cedes understood more than Stacey could ever know. "If your uncle finds out you're doing this, he'll kill you, Stacey make no mistake. Cooter Menkins is a boil on the butt of humaniry."

She raised her chin and put on her brave face. "We just have to make sure he doesn't ever find out."

That was months ago, and she still worried about Stacey's uncle finding out she'd been gathering evidence against Cooter and the DM for her. And she was still worried about the Dixie Mafia taking over Sam's operation.

Since then, Cedes had been investigating each and every one of her deputies besides Jay her newest hire and ally. She was even investigating Hunter. She pretended like they were best buddies, but she knew better than anyone else how sometimes it's the person that you trust the most is the one who will betray you. She wasn't signaling him out. Her face-to-face meetings with all the deputies served two purposes: to get to know them and to get an initial impression.

None set off any alarms for her, so far, so maybe the elusive Undersheriff Biff McIntosh was the deputy involved with former Sheriff Schuester and the DM. He'd served with him the longest. If one of the deputies she now knew was corrupt, he was an excellent actor. Then again, they'd have to be, so she kept her guard up.

"Okay, enough." Kurt was tearing up even though he had no idea what was going on. "I have to get back to work. You two just stay safe. Promise me."

"We promise," they said in unison.

"Now talking about Academy award winning acting, you should have seen Stacey earlier. She really looked like she couldn't stand the sight of me, and we all know she wished I was down for some lady kisses with her, but unfortunately for her, I am not the least bit bi."

This caused Stacey to laugh hysterically.

"Do you know where they're searching? And where did Sam find Stevie's prints?"

"It's over by North High Bend."

While Cedes knew a few of the names for places in the mountains—like North High Bend and Shorty's Pass—she had no idea where any of them actually were. It wasn't like they were on a map. Not most of them, anyway. But leave it to a family of bootleggers to know every hiding spot in the vast mountain range.

She made a note of it on her phone, anyway. Hunter might know the place.

"Stacey, what happened to the rest of your uncles?" Cedes only knew that Stacey's mother, Mary, had died when she was young, and her death was rumored to be about Sam. Their father never believed Sam was his, and Sam did not look or act like the rest of the Menkins men. He had died a year later in car accident, and Sam and his sister were barely raised by a their aunts and uncles. None of them were what anyone would call upstanding. Stacey bullied Cedes in school because she was jealous that she had new school supplies and new clothes. Her family told her that black people were inferior, but she couldn't see that Cedes was. Cedes looked and sounded superior, and that is why Stacey had hated her so much.

Once Mercedes knew of the neglect that Stacey had experienced as a child, she could understand and forgive the girl for her bullying. She didn't forget, but she could understand. Stacey's life had been a living hell. She had to dodge handsy relatives and hide whenever Sam wasn't around. She had to learn how to fight with weapons early. She never had anything good happen to her throughout her childhood. Being pretty was the only thing that made school bearable. She didn't even have holidays or birthdays to look forward to because she and Sam were never given presents. And their clothing was hand me downs from the older Menkins children. Most of the food they got to eat came from school, and in the summer they ate what Sam fished, hunted for or trapped in the mountains and supplemented it with the fruits that grew in abundance and the corn that was grown for bootlegging whiskey, and when Sam was old enough, he got jobs mowing lawns and delivering newspapers, so they could have money to eat regularly according to Stacey. This explained why Sam and she were so painfully thin as kids.

If her parents were to be believed, Sam's father was a quarter Native American from the Shasta tribe, to be exact, which was why he spent much of his summers on the reservation with a man believed to be his paternal great grandfather. Stacey was left alone with the rest of the Menkins clan and spent as much time hiding and camping out to avoid them as much as possible.

"I mean, you had four, and now you're down to one?"

"Two, actually. Uncle Cooter is here, as you know. And Uncle Bryan is in prison in Arizona."

Right. Cedes did know about that one who had gotten caught.

"Uncle Frank died. Cancer."

She did not know about that one.

"And Uncle Sandy ran off to California. Nobody's heard from him in years. He didn't have a wife or kids, so nobody missed him."

"Really?" she asked, surprised.

Stacey nodded, and if she hadn't bitten her cheek and looked away, Cedes may have believed her. As it stood, she knew more about that uncle than she was letting on.

But she also knew Stacey was a good person. Motherhood had changed her. Stevie was all she cared about, and she was clearly willing to go to any lengths necessary to keep him safe.

"Stacey, don't you think it's strange that all of this is happening on my first day on the job? Do you think your uncle knows we're onto him? Do you think he had anything to do with any of the disappearances? Whoever took the Caswell girl knew how to get past their security system. Knew how to sneak her out without anyone hearing. Had a solid plan and executed it with laser-like precision."

"A solid plan? Laser-like precision?"

"Yes."

She chuckled, the sound void of humor. "Yeah, neither my uncle nor my cousins had anything to do with it. Trust me."

"What about Schuester?"

Her mouth thinned. "He's definitely smart enough. And more than capable."

Cedes nodded and took Stacey's hands into hers. "I have to get back to work. Please keep me updated on Stevie."

"You'll do the same?"

Cedes nodded. Before she left, she turned back to Stacey and asked, "How is he handling all of this?"

"Oh, hell to the no Mercedes Porter." The blonde crossed her arms over her chest, adamant. "I'm not doing that."

"What?"

"If you want to know how my brother is, you'll have to ask him yourself."

Cedes scoffed. "Like that'll happen. Like he would answer me, anyway. That man hates my guts."

That time, Stacey scoffed. "Yeah right. That's why he named the whiskey distillery after you and more."

Cedes gaped at her, then shook her head. "EMS Lima Springs Finest? Surely those are his initials scrambled around because we know he is biologically an Evans and not a Menkins. His initials are SEM for Samuel Evan Menkins."

"He was not using his initials for the business. EMS is E M apostrophe S," she said, heading for the front to pretend to shop. "He's always called you Em."

It was not E.M.S. but Em's Lima Springs Finest. The thought shook Cedes to her core. A play on her nickname and her profession as a police officer. You would really have to know Sam like his sister to figure it all out.

She couldn't waste time thinking about Sam Menkins, so she checked in with the marshals, who were searching for the escaped fugitive Ramon Martinez. They had two possible sightings thus far, both promising, but they couldn't zero in on a location or figure out who Martinez would be staying with.

With Gina taken care of for the evening, Cedes set Dani on the task of communications with the mission coordinator, the person who organized the search party starting at 7:00 a.m., then she took Jay with her to meet up with Hunter and Campion.

"So," Cedes said to Jay as they drove back through the mountain pass toward the Menkins' family property.

Jay's hair had been pulled back into a knot at the back of her heard, emphasizing her beautiful eyes and gorgeous bone structure.

"We've known each other for a while, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," she said, looking at Cedes suspiciously.

"So, don't take this the wrong way, and I apologize if this sounds sexist or like sexual harassment, but I have to know how someone with your looks and your intellect wound up being a lowly paid sniper for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office when you could have been a model making millions and retiring early?"

Jay laughed out loud. "I could ask you the exact same question."

"Please the fashion world is not ready for my jelly and my short height."

"I was never that type of girl who was interested in fashion and makeup. I always preferred to do what my brothers did. When my brothers wouldn't let me play with them, I always had to prove to them that anything they could do I could do better. I was a real Calamity Jane. They are responsible for giving me my current nickname. When they found out I could shoot and play Call of Duty better than them, they were embarrassed, so they would refer to hanging out with me as hanging with Jay, so nobody knew I was their little sister. They always tried to outdo me, and in physical sports they could when we got older, but archery and shooting, those were things that I excelled in and I enjoyed, and I decided to make a career in doing something that I love."

"So, you love killing people from a safe distance?"

She laughed out loud. "I love keeping people safe from murdering lunatics at a safe distance. I wanted to be the one they called in when all else failed, you know? I'm not sure you would have hired me had you known this, but when I started, I wanted to be a shero."

Cedes understood that all too well. She pulled down her visor when they turned into the setting sun, only a couple of hours away from dipping underneath the horizon.

"And what about you?" Jay asked her.

"What do you mean?" Cedes didn't know exactly what Jay wanted to know, so she needed her to be more specific.

"Most black females don't go into law enforcement because of the police violence against black males and the history behind policing and jailing in the United States. We know that after Jim Crow was ended and Civil Rights promised no more discrimination based on race that the prison system has become the way to disenfranchise black males. Because the prison system was created for them, it makes it hard for people who truly want to serve and protect and keep our communities safe to pursue the occupation that is set up to keep them without jobs, the right the vote, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice."

"Well, I will tell you the full story on why I chose law enforcement some other day, but the main reason is that I want to keep people safe. I guess being a hero was never my ambition, but I don't have a problem with strong black women being sheroes and having little girls of all nationalities look up to them. So, if that's your jam. It's your jam. If you think snipers are heroes, then that's okay with me."

"I see anybody putting themselves in danger to save someone or to help anyone as being heroic. It's not hard being a hero if you are not risking yourself in my opinion. And many who wear the badge are cowards and want to feel powerful. I detest those who bring a bad name to what could be a worthwhile career. Now enough about me. What about you?" she asked.

Cedes cracked a smile. "I hate people who give us a bad name, but I think it's the same in every profession. There are drug addicted doctors who perform botched surgeries that patients die, nurses who abuse newborns because they are black, teachers who molest students, priest who sodomize boys, and so on and so on. Our profession is just worse because we have weapons and use them to kill innocent people or use unnecessary force that results in death. Many of the deaths involve minorities and the mentally ill, and that is something I hate."

"I know that's right. Preach to the choir, Sheriff Cedes."

They pulled in behind the Green Bomber, which was an ancient pickup that was more rust than green.

"Are we going to join them out there to look for Stevie and Ashlyn?" Jay asked, wondering if she should change into her hiking boots and parka.

"It doesn't look like we have to." She said as she got out of the jeep.

"Hey, sister," Hunter said. He'd been leaning against the truck and his eyes lit up when he say Jay.

Jay only nodded at him, and Campion just stared at them both trying to figure out how they were related.

"How quickly did Sam notice you were following him?" Cedes asked Hunter.

Campion answered for him him. "Almost immediately, it was like Clarington was an emergency flare sent up on a clear night."

Hunter tried to look offended. "That man is not normal. He spotted a mouse under a patch of leaves at ten yards. Then went on to tell us it was too small and what that meant for the area and how it was responding to its environment and the deforestation happening a few hundred miles to the north and how it was all tied together."

"His family were bootleggers in these mountains for years and he has visited his grandfather at the reservation every summer since he was boy," Cedes said. "He was taught that kind of thing as a way of survival in this area."

"Well, he's still up there with that insane cousin of his. I don't know how they are doing it, though. It's slippery and way too steep." He lifted one of his boots and checked the bottom of it as though his boot tread was the problem.

Campion looked around the area, straining to check out the clouds overhead. "Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait until tomorrow to continue the search. We tried earlier to get a helicopter in here, but the storm's coming in, and it wouldn't be safe. The storm is supposed to clear out by midnight, though, and warm up in the morning. Might melt some of this snow and if tracks are being made, we will be able to see them."

Cedes understood exactly what he was talking about. "One thing that we know for sure is that there is a teenage boy wandering around up there cold and lost." Just thinking of Stevie alone another night devastated her because she couldn't do a thing to help him.

"Not to mention a teenage girl," Jay said, " who could possibly be kidnapped and held up here in these woods, too."

"We can continue to look if you'd like, Sheriff," Hunter said. "I'm willing to search all night."

"No. I am going to need for you to go home and get some rest. We have a lot of volunteers showing up first thing tomorrow morning to help us search the area. I need you physically able to be on your feet hiking for miles and"—she stepped closer to her near-frozen chief deputy—"not suffering from frostbite."

Jay laughed and punched Hunter on his arm. The two of them would make beautiful babies someday if Hunter didn't mess it up with her.

"I'm about to head back into town and pick up Gina from school, drop her off at the parents', then head over to the store to see if we can get footage."

Hunter gave her a thumbs-up. "Fingers crossed that they have working security cameras and are not just using them for show."

Cedes grabbed a pen and paper out of her cruiser and walked to Sam's truck. It was locked, of course, and the storm would probably destroy it, but she left a note on the windshield, telling him about the search party tomorrow and to let her know if they found Stevie.

After walking back to the vehicle, she turned to look at the mountain. She should have found the the scenery beautiful, the sun glistening through snow covered trees stunning, but today, she found the scene treacherous. Deadly. An obstacle she didn't want to take on alone.