Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
I nodded.
“Is he coming?”
Damn, damn, and triple damn.
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’ll wanna talk to me?”
How did I do this?
“Did you see him?
“No.”
“In Aromacobana? See his face?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t notice him at all until you tore after him. I mean,” he tried for levity, at the same time letting me off the hook because it was clear he was a decent guy, “this famous woman just walked in, and she knew me.”
I gave him a weak smile.
“I just…well…I…” I didn’t know. So I said, “He can find you at the rec center, right?”
He nodded. “And I’m a city employee, so they just gotta look me up if they need to find me.”
“Okay, though, I wouldn’t expect it. I think I just got jumpy.”
“That’s understandable,” he muttered.
He started to move by, but I reached out and caught his forearm.
He looked at it, to me, and I let him go.
“Sorry for touching you,” I said.
“I don’t mind. Just…what do you need?”
“It does get better,” I whispered.
He studied me.
He nodded.
Then he walked to Shelly.
Megan came right to me.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Me being an idiot,” I answered.
“How?”
“Well, a young woman’s body was pulled out of the lake while I made coffee and cinnamon rolls and watched, and maybe I’m realizing I’ve not been processing it all that well.”
She flinched, grabbed my hand and tucked it under her arm as she led us back to the coffee house.
“I think we’ve all convinced ourselves we’ve seen this murderer a dozen times,” she remarked to make me feel better.
“Yes.”
“Though none of us raced after him like we were Cagney and Lacey,” she teased.
“I’m totally an idiot,” I mumbled, lifted my phone and walked back to Aromacobana with Megan, texting Bohannan where I’d be.
And asking if he wanted a coffee.
“Right, let’s go over this again.”
We were in Bohannan’s office.
I was getting a lecture because I’d been a naughty girl.
And I was trying to focus on that and not get mad that he was treating me like the idiot I’d been, and further not focus on how I might be able to get into acting out a “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” fantasy.
“Larue,” he called.
I focused on him.
“If we think we see a serial killer, we don’t chase him, are you with me?”
“You’re pissing me off,” I shared.
His brows rose. “I’m pissing you off?”
“Yes. I didn’t think. Yes. It was a kneejerk reaction. Yes. Pretty much anyone runs when chased. But I’m telling you, Bohannan, he was creepy. I felt it before I even looked at him.”
“And you didn’t see his face, but he was wearing the same hoodie he wore when he was outside by the lake.”
“Not the same. I don’t know if it was the same. They were just both blue and hoodies.”
“You didn’t tell me it was a hoodie before. You said it was a sweatshirt. You’re telling me it was a hoodie now?”
“A hoodie’s a sweatshirt.”
“A hoodie’s a hoodie.”
Damn it.
He had me there.
“It was a hoodie. I should have said it was a hoodie because it was.”
“Sure?”
Was I?
I nodded.
“And he just happened to be hanging at Aromacobana, waiting for you to show when it’s random you hook up with Megan to get a coffee.”
“You’re making me feel stupid.”
“I’m making you think.”
“Are you going to quote Confucius to me?” I asked.
I knew instantly we were about to get in our first fight, and I was the one who shot across the bow, because that wasn’t the right thing to say.
“What I’m asking,” he said slowly, “is for you to tell me if he followed you in, or if he was in there waiting for you. You said he didn’t have a drink. If he’s following, I gotta know that. If he’s waiting for you, I gotta know that. If he might have been waiting for someone else, I gotta know that. I gotta know everything about this guy if he’s our guy, and if me asking you questions about it makes you feel dumb, suck it up.”
“So you don’t think I’m being an idiot?”
“No, I think you need to share what the fuck happened.”
“I told you.”
“What did you read on him?”
“I didn’t read anything. I felt it.”
“Someone watching you.”
“Something wrong. But yes. When I turned, he was watching me.”
He blew out a breath.
I crossed my arms on my chest.
He was in his office chair, turned to face me.
I was sitting on the arm of the club chair in the window.
“You know, you chasing a man down the street is going through MP like wildfire right now.”
“I know,” I said between my teeth.
“We’ve thankfully managed not to have a full-blown panic. That won’t help.”
“Bohannan, I already told you I feel like I screwed up, and yet I still feel right. About what, I don’t know. But how many young men flee from fifty-three-year-old women?”