Page 37 of Caretaker

Chapter Thirteen

When I woke up the next morning—afternoon, actually—I was alone in Shane’s bed. In typical Shane Copas fashion, he’d taken off without so much as leaving a note, and I wasn’t surprised.

He had, however, left me a key. He’d placed it on his pillow, and it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.

I snatched it up, grabbed a toaster pastry from his tiny kitchen, then took a quick shower. My body still tingled from our night together, and my mind buzzed with thoughts of what our relationship meant.

Time would tell, I supposed. It didn’t feel bad, or scary, or dark.

It just felt…right.

I’d have to put my clean body back into yesterday’s dirty outfit—the jeans, anyway. I borrowed one of Shane’s T-shirts since he’d ripped the buttons off my shirt. I shivered at the delicious memory.

I gave a scream that probably scared the neighbors when I spotted a tiny tick climbing up the leg of my jeans. That was what happened when you went walking through the woods in the summertime.

I shuddered and flushed it down the toilet, then ran a comb through my short hair and headed out. No way was I going to stop hunting Madalyn, even though her scent had dissipated like a puff of smoke.

I was almost outside before I realized I’d ridden over with Shane and had no ride back to Bay Town and my car.

I called Frank Crawford.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the station. You have news?”

“No. But I’d like to talk about what I found last night. Can you come pick me up? I’m stranded without my car.”

“Sure. I’ll take you to lunch. Send your location to my phone.”

I texted him the address, then went outside to wait. It was too nice a day to stay indoors. The sun shone gently, the air was very warm without being stifling, and everything was green, bright, and cheerful.

Crawford pulled up in a battered Jeep and jumped out to open my car door as I approached. “Thank you, kind sir,” I said, as I got in.

“You’re in a good mood,” he remarked.

“It’s a beautiful day.” I gave him a bright smile and he paused, squinted, and then jogged around to climb into the car.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that.” He started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

“Do what?”

“Smile like you mean it.” He took a sharp right, then glanced at me. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that smile isn’t because of me.”

I laughed. “You’re a nice enough guy and all, but…”

He groaned. Then, “Copas not a nice enough guy to take you home after he gets you into his bed?”

He blanched even as I reddened, and neither of us said anything for an awkward five minutes.

“What news do you have?” he asked, finally.

“News?”

“You said you wanted to talk about what you found last night.”

I grasped onto his words eagerly. “Oh. Right. The bloodstained tree in Galangal I tracked Madalyn to last night. Someone smacked her off that tree pretty hard.” I shrugged. “She could have fallen, of course, but what matters is that she was in those woods. Maybe she was running from her captors and fell.”

He said nothing, but his entire body stiffened. He pulled into the parking lot of a tiny restaurant called Harry’s Home Cooking, carefully turned off the engine, then slowly turned his head to look at me.