Chapter 16: Nevada and a Story

Elko, Nevada looked like the kind of place where dust collected even in the snow.

Andrea Perez zipped her coat up to her chin as she stepped out of the tiny public library, boots crunching over ice-crusted sidewalks. The sky was the color of old concrete, and the wind cut sideways, pushing drifts of snow up against shuttered shop windows and neon beer signs that flickered in protest.

She headed toward her rented Ford, boots slushing through the half-frozen slop of the parking lot. The wind bit at her face, but she was used to it. She’d walked out of plenty of newsrooms colder than this place.

She was a journalist, or she used to be. Now she was something else .A freelance writer. A nomad with a press badge. Some people called her reckless. Others called her brilliant. She called herself unemployed most of the time.

She had spent her day interviewing ranch hands, truckers, waitresses about the body that had been found off I-80 and if they believed it was part of the areas serial killer that had supposedly been working the area for a decade. Sheriff said the person was a runaway and hitchhiker and definitely could be linked to the other deaths over the past few years. She then went to the library where she was researching some old articles.

She didn’t buy it. She rarely did.

“You Andrea Perez?”

She froze not startled, but annoyed on instinct.

The man approaching her was maybe mid-thirties, rugged beard, weathered cheeks, hair hidden under a gray wool cap. He looked like he could fix a tractor or break someone’s ribs with the same pair of hands. He was dressed in his sheriff’s department uniform. He wasn’t bad to look at all. Too bad she had a strict policy of not mixing business with pleasure.

“Depends,” Andrea replied. “If you’re here to serve a warrant, I don’t recognize the name.”

He laughed once, a short, surprised sound. “No warrant. Name’s Kyle Newman. I read your work. Especially that piece on Dahmer and the Oakland County Child Killer.”

She hated fans but she needs them to support her. Andrea cocked her head. “Flattery won’t get you my notes. Or anything else.”

Kyle raised his left hand to show his wedding ring. “I don’t want your notes or anything that my wife wouldn’t like me doing.”

Andrea snorted, “Like that has ever stopped someone before.”

Kyle laughed—the warm, deep kind that didn’t sound rehearsed. “I didn’t come out here to flirt,” he said, stepping closer. “I came because you’re here chasing the wrong death.”

Andrea leaned against her car, crossing her arms against the cold. “Enlighten me.”

“The body off the interstate?” Kyle said. “It’s nothing. One dead guy. Probably drugs, maybe a fight. Sheriff’s going to slap a serial killer label on it so he can get funding.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t think so?”

“No,” Kyle said. “There might be one around, but not this body., but I do know a cold case that might interest you.”

Andrea stopped breathing for a fraction of a second.

Kyle continued. “I know a case,” he said. “Not very many have heard of. Kids went missing and turned up dead.”

Andrea felt her pulse tick up. “And you know this because…?”

Kyle shifted his weight, boots crunching on frozen gravel. “Because I lived there,” he said. “When the last kid was found, I was twenty-seven.”

Andrea raised her chin. “How was he found?”

“I can tell you more over dinner at the Dusty Diner.” Kyle states. Andrea gave him a long stare—sharp, skeptical, but intrigued. “I’ll buy you dinner. Burger and coffee, best you’ll get in Elko. Just hear me out.”

Andrea exhaled slowly, visible in the bitter air. “I don’t share information,” she warned. “And I’m not sleeping with you for a story.” Kyle gave her reassuring look. “And you’re really willing to talk? On the record?”

“About what I am going to tell you, definitely.” Kyle nodded. “Because very few others will.”

She studied him, his posture, his eyes, and the tension in his shoulders. This wasn’t someone chasing attention. He was serious, almost desperate. This was someone haunted.

Andrea popped the lock on her car and slung her bag inside.

“Fine,” she said. “Dinner. Talking only. If the burger is terrible, I’m writing an exposé about your taste buds.”

Kyle actually smiled this time. “Deal.”

She locked her car and followed him across the street through the swirling curtains of snow, toward the flickering neon sign of the Dusty Diner, unaware that one small story in a dead-end Nevada town was about to pull her straight toward a darker place. A place where four boys died and not one of them by accident.

© 2025 James William Jackson III. All rights reserved. “Jaxson Lee” and all related content are original fictional works created by James William Jackson III. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locations is purely coincidental.