Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
I blink. “He… he didn’t try. I promise. And I won’t let him!”
“What makes you think he’ll give you a choice?” Micah growls. Then he tosses back his drink and clunks the tumbler onto the black glass coffee table. He stands, hooking his fingers in Rolf’s collar and gently helping him to his feet. “Take your time with your drink. There’s water under the bar too if you need it. It’s time for his walk. When you’re done, wait for me and I’ll walk you home.”
What, he’s leaving?
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, to find my words.
To ask him why the hell he almost kissed me and what we’re going to do about it.
There’s only the angry line of his back and the unbreachable distance of a man I can’t begin to comprehend. He leaves me staring after him as he walks away, fetching Rolf’s leash from a hook by the sliding door before he leads the dog out into the night.
Leaving me alone, with more questions than answers and the lingering scent of his smoky whiskey breath still clinging to my skin.
10
DARK TIMES (MICAH)
That man is definitely dead.
I sink down on one knee at the edge of a sharp drop-off, deep in the woods in the hills past the outskirts of town.
Grant, Lucas, and Henri lean over me, peering down the rocky cliff to the bottom.
There, the body of a man in his late twenties wearing jeans and hiking boots sprawls, broken on the rocks. His blood spatters the fallen leaves and dirt from where his head appears to have struck one of the larger boulders.
“Well,” Grant drawls at my back. “This looks pretty open and shut. Just gotta get down there and get the poor guy into a bag.”
“Does it?” That’s all I say.
Lucas and Grant both let out exasperated sounds. They know that one simple question means this case will be more work than it’s worth.
“Someone want to explain?” Henri looks confused.
I turn my head to the left, toward the peak of the high ground where we’re clustered. We’ve kept ourselves to a very small area, stepping carefully so there’s no disturbing the possible crime scene—like the uneven earth and blades of grass right where the cliff juts out to a little point.
Several overgrown tufts of grass look snapped in half by a boot. There’s a chunk of dirt kicked away, exposing fresh soil and threads of grassy roots.
Also, more broken grass leading up to the edge.
Footsteps.
If I’m right, those footsteps belong to more than one person.
“The obvious answer is that he was hiking,” I start slowly. “He didn’t know the area or else he got too close to the edge and it broke off under his weight. He fell, and the rest is history.”
“Don’t, Micah. Don’t even.” Lucas groans. “Look, man, we know you think something else is up. C’mon, what’s that bloodhound nose of yours telling you?”
“That if any of you boys move another inch, you might fuck up a crime scene.”
I peer over my shoulder.
The crew freezes while Lucas gives me a dirty look, his green eyes piercing over his black beard. He’s wearing it thicker these days with married life and all.
I smirk.
“Just stay away from the path leading up to the ledge,” I say, bracing my hands against my thighs and pushing to my feet. “Doesn’t look like there’s anything else, though we should have a thorough look just in case. Someone might have dropped something.”
Grant gives me a solemn look—his ordinary look, really—always so grave. “Stop going around in goddamn circles. Fill us in.”
I circle around the team and stop just shy of a little divot in the earth, this churned-up grass in the shape of a heel.
“For starters, this wasn’t made by a hiking boot,” I tell them, pointing.
Suddenly, I’ve got a crowd gathered around me.
Three grown men the size of bears, practically tiptoeing like ballerinas to see what I’m looking at without stomping on anything crucial.
Henri frowns, crouching next to me, looking at the footprint.
“Don’t quote me on this, mes amis,” he drawls in that thick Cajun accent. He’s so bad we’ve started calling him Gambit lately. “Need to get a good look at the vic’s shoe size, but I’d say this was a smaller foot. A loafer, maybe. No treads on the sole, half-moon heel.”
“There’s a pattern of steps overlapping his. Here, see the larger sections of crushed grass? That says more weight, deeper heel divots, then smaller steps, smaller feet, different shoe,” I point out. “Somebody followed him. Their heel imprints don’t fit inside his, so they weren’t tracing his steps. But they were right on his ass. Their steps overlap, sometimes blur his. The second set of steps goes both ways—right to the ledge before they turn around and come back. The victim’s, they don’t.”
Grant heaves out a long, rough sigh, dragging a hand over his bearish brown eyes. “Really? Do we really need another murder case?”