Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [80]
He smiled. “Thought you’d see the light.”
“I should call the damn police on you.”
“Go ahead. Your future brother-in-law the state trooper likes me. Call him.”
“Scott’s not necessarily…Never mind.” She breathed out, looked down at the placid water, the ducks visible again, floating under the low-hanging willows. “I don’t know why I bite every time you try to tweak me.”
“Now, there’s an image.”
She almost smiled but instead gestured back toward the guesthouse. “Find anything interesting?”
“Nora’s cell phone, an old stuffed penguin and Tao quotes—”
“If you saw anything that suggested she was a danger to herself or in danger from someone else, you’d tell the police.”
“Without question.”
She nodded. “I know, it’s tricky figuring out what to do.”
“Relax, Jo. I haven’t been in the back of a police cruiser in years.”
“You took a big risk,” she said. “Not just because you entered a private residence without permission. What if Rigby had caught you in his living room?”
Elijah rocked back on his heels, amused. “Worried about me, Jo?”
“Never mind. I give up. What about Devin? Has he been in touch?”
“No. I assume he’s back on the mountain trying to work things out with Nora.”
Her eyes sparked with just the slightest touch of humor. “You let a bruised, scraped, scared eighteen-year-old kid get the better of you?”
“He wasn’t that bruised or scraped. It was all a big act.”
“One you fell for,” she said.
“Running off was a dumb move on his part. I trusted him, and he threw that trust back in my face.”
She went very still, her eyes half-closed now. “Not a fun position to be in, is it?”
He looked at her dead-on and said, “No.”
“He made a promise. You took him at his word. Maybe he was sincere when he made the promise, and something changed.”
“You and Rigby were on your way back to the lodge when Devin took off. Maybe he saw you and decided to bolt.”
“Maybe.” Jo walked down to the edge of the pond. “Where’s your truck?”
“Through the woods,” he said, following her.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her fleece and stared at the still, gray water. “You’re having trouble adjusting to being back here, aren’t you, Elijah?”
“No, I’m fine with being back here.”
She glanced sideways at him. “You just broke into a guesthouse.”
“Show me the evidence—”
“You’re a rule breaker, Elijah. You always have been. Assuming it wasn’t you last night, going to break into my place next?”
“Nope. I did that first.”
He could tell she didn’t know if he was serious or not.
He grinned suddenly. “I swear, Jo, if I weren’t afraid of being attacked by wild ducks, I’d kiss you right now.”
“Elijah…” She licked her lips, which, in his mind, meant she was thinking about him kissing her, too. But she gestured to someone behind him, and he turned and saw the Whittakers ambling down the lawn. “You should go.”
“I don’t want to leave you—”
“Ten to one they invite us to tea.”
He gave a mock shudder. “Save me, Agent Harper.”
This time, she smiled all the way. “I’ll see you back at the lake.”
He got out of there, cutting through the woods back to the stone wall and his truck. He arrived back at his place above the lake just in time to answer his phone.
“Grab a pencil, Sergeant Cameron,” Charlie Neal said, then added, “please.”
Twenty-One
Nora dumped her backpack against a rotting fallen tree and collapsed onto her knees in tears of frustration. It was dusk, and she didn’t know where she was—not that she was lost, exactly. She knew she was on a knoll on the north side of Cameron Mountain in the general vicinity of where Devin had found Drew’s body. But she’d never find the exact spot, and now she didn’t want to, because it was getting dark and she didn’t need any more reminders of death, especially with the gray sky and the eerie shadows—and the silence.
She hadn’t considered what it would really be like to spend the night up here by herself. She sat back on her heels, sobbing. She’d sunk into a bed of wet pine needles. She could hear Elijah telling