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"Missing, huh?"

The ranger office wasn't really somewhere meant for receiving guests. There were some decent chairs out in the visitor center lobby, but back here, the only seats available besides desk chairs were an old, broken-down couch and a camping chair someone had forgotten to put away.

(It was Finn. Finn had forgotten to put it away.)

Finn looked at the photographs on the desk again, and then up at Detective Mercer.

"Yeah, detective, those are the kids I caught on the beach. We allow overnight camping, but the seashore closes at sundown. I can get the incident report for you if you give me a second."

He turned to the computer, which was literally running Windows XP, and jostled it out of sleep.

"A couple minutes, actually," said Finn, revising his estimate.

Finn shrugged - the park got a lot of visitors, and he only recognized the ones who were either regulars or regular problems. "No," he said. "Can't say I had, but that doesn't mean they weren't here. There are about six other rangers on staff here. We go all hours."

The computer finally finished waking up, and he opened the incident database, which was sure to take another three minutes to load.

"When I saw them," Finn continued, "I warned them about how dangerous the water is this time of year. About rip currents and sudden storms. Gotta hope they listened to me, or they're long gone."

He stared down at the photographs. It didn't stretch credulity to him that the kids might have fallen through into the Otherworld, but there was no telling how long someone could survive on the other side - Finn had never tried to set any endurance records with his stays.

And he didn't think Detective Mercer would be much amused by that mumbo-jumbo.

The report finally loaded. Finn hit print before the computer had a chance to decide to freeze up again, and the ancient laserjet in the corner spurred to life. "Grab that for me, yeah?"

"Yeah, they are," replied Finn, blue eyes following Jeremiah to the printer. "Bit of a problem, really--"

He cut himself off. Detective Mercer probably didn't care. He'd go out later, personally, and sort through all the crumpled plastic and soggy paper before it could get swept out by the tide. "We had to close the beach," he said, changing the subject slightly. "In case anything washes up. But that hasn't stopped the kids. I can give you a lift up there in a bit if you need one - someone should be coming by to break me in a few minutes."

"I'll ask around the post," he added. "See if anyone else saw anything and wants to talk to you."

See if Sunny hadn't seen anything. He could still feel her damned storm prickling at he back of his neck, like a swell bound to break. If Mercer doesn't get to her first.

Finn nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I'll make a note of it. If anyone gives you trouble, flash your badge and tell them that Ranger Derouen approved it."

Ranger Derouen. He had to pause and consider that that title made him sound like one hell of a responsible adult. Well then.

He took the card and stuck it at the bottom of the computer screen, wedged into the monitor housing and obscuring the START menu. "I'll be sure to, sir."