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said,
and sat down beside Aurina again.
    “It’s
just for a while.” Aurina told her, but Ryanne didn’t look at her sister. She
fixed her eyes on Jones, and thought she saw some of the excitement in his eyes
come back from when he first entered the office after their talk with David. A
young guy, probably the youngest inspector in the department, and he was
finally getting a big break in a major case.
    Ryanne
knew that she needed the answers Jones was after as badly as he did.

Chapter 7
    Max
stood on the Holloway’s front porch, waiting for Chief Crawley to show. He
turned his face upward catching the morning sun and enjoying the warm breeze
that drifted across the fields. 
    At
what was to have been the end of his shift the night before, the Chief called
him into his office to discuss taking him off desk duty, and putting him out on
his first field assignment. While Max was surprised, he quickly accepted his
new position, and thanked the Chief for the opportunity. He was told that his
assignment was confidential, and that there were only three people at the
station who were in the know concerning the special task at hand.
    Ever
since Max had finished college a year before, he had been stuck on desk duty at
the station in the quiet town of Dersten, Ontario, answering phone calls, and
filing papers. His parents told him he shouldn't complain about his place in
the office, and that he was just paying his dues. The police station in Dersten
only took one or two recruits a year.  Almost half his class had gone to
work for the OPP in other areas, and many were still out of work in Dersten, or
Camden, the neighboring city. Initially, Max had been proud to be hired onto
the Dersten Police Department, but soon he longed for a job working his own
beat. Although the day had finally come for Max to get out into the field, it
didn’t all play out as he had imagined.
    Chief
Crawley filled him in, along with Officer Jenkins, who had been on the police
force for more than twenty years. Max was told the Dersten PD had taken two
girls into their Witness Protection Program. The fact that Dersten even partook
in such a program was a surprisingly well kept secret in such a small town. He
was told the girls were witnesses in a big ongoing investigation, and they
needed to be kept safe until they could find the perp.
    The
file they had been sent from Toronto was small and they were waiting to receive
the rest. What Max had read lead him to believe Inspector Jones made the right
call sending the girls. They needed protection more than they could have known.
    The
chief assigned Max the night shift; he would be stationed outside the safe
house. Max had spent the morning preparing, and going over the paperwork that
had been sent over that night, but as he waited on the Holloway's porch, he let
his mind wander. He wondered how the small town had kept the protection program
under wraps and tried to figure out who might also be in the program. His
biggest question was why the Chief had entrusted him with this duty instead of
one of the other eleven officers, ten of whom had seniority over him.
    Max
saw the Chief’s faded police station wagon kicking up dust as it rolled over
the stony dirt road and pulled up the long driveway. Chief Crawley got out
slowly, and leaned against the car before making his way to the porch.
    "Nice
day." The Cheif said and they both looked around at the fields across the
street from the house.
    "Yes
sir." Max couldn't help but smile, and took a step back into the shade of
the porch as a sweet, aromatic breeze passed.
    They
waited in silence.
    *****
    Charming. That was the
word Aurina used to describe Dersten as they drove through the heart of town,
and Ryanne couldn't disagree. There were just two main streets that formed the
center of town, and they were full of shops, restaurants, banks, and a few
offices. The streets were well looked after, with hanging baskets attached to
the street lights, full of purple flowers