U is for Undecided

Amory sat spellbound following his conversation with Abby. He had seen the dark side of Cole on numerous occasions, especially in their younger days. He knew there were issues, and he knew that as a young man, Cole had been charged with attempted murder following a brutal beating episode. Some good attorneys had gotten him acquitted, despite his cohort being sent to prison. And it was never mentioned, by anyone, ever again.

He really thought it had been a fluke. Cole had said Abby had gone of the rails, his speak for she had gone crazy. But there was starting to be a pattern of the people in Cole's life going crazy. He didn’t much believe in coincidences and when he had been around Abby in the early years, he didn’t get any feelings that she was anything other than a pretty, capable, intelligent lady. So what went so wrong?

Then there was the story Abby told him about Julia. Julia was the wife of Cole’s youngest son. Cole’s oldest son had died a few years before, from bad choices related to drugs. Abby told him the girl had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Those circumstances being that in the first days following her disappearance, the story of who saw her last and what was happening changed multiple times. The story went back and forth from Cole was the last one with her, to her husband was the last one with her. Abby also told him that although the police had ruled it a run away, a close friend with ties to the police department had told her the case was still under investigation.

Wow, what a tangled web this was, and he had to make a decision about whether to tell Cole he had found her or not. He had already been dodging his calls for two days. He was still undecided. After googling the disappearance he couldn’t find anything about conflicting stories and since he was a person non gratis in all police forces now, he wasn’t sure what else he could do. Contacting any of the family members he was still in contact with wasn’t going to be helpful. It was a tight family, accustomed to covering for each other, and he knew, this long after the fact, there would only be one story.

Amory was still a lawman at heart. So he knew he had to do the right thing. He didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision. But he had checked the court records and discovered that there was a divorce, over a year ago. Weighing the choices he realized that if he erred in favor of Abby, Cole would be mad, but likely no one would be hurt. If he erred on the side of Cole, there could be devastating consequences. While he hated making uninformed decisions, the ramifications of his decision were clear.

Amory’s decision was made.

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~*~
Scarlett Braden
in Cuenca, Living the good life!