Page 88 of Junkyard Dog

The little girl nodded solemnly and waved while she got back into the truck, Max giving the family a quick salute as he pulled back onto the road.

“Now we’re clocking out late,” he grumbled, his foot a little heavier on the gas than usual. “Bad enough we’re even here.”

She grinned. “Some of us were responsible with our consumption last night. Maybe others of us could learn something.”

Flipping her off, Max pulled into the station, groaning as he opened his door and stepped into the heat. “Some of us shouldn’t answer our phones on our day off. And some of us shouldn’t volunteer others of us for extra shifts.”

She linked her arm through his. “But then I’d be saving people from the great five-inch lizards alone, and you know you can’t let that happen.”

Max grunted, his eyes squinting behind his sunglasses.

The poor guy was hurting, painfully hungover from overindulging the night before.

She clocked out and led Max to her car. “I’m going to drop you off at home to shower and then I’m going to pick you up and take you out for dinner to make amends.”

“Damn right you are,” he muttered, putting his hat over his face until they pulled up to his apartment. “Gimme an hour.”

She glanced down at her phone as she hit the main road, her breath catching when she caught the message that flashed across her screen.

“Thank you.”

She turned her phone over and returned her attention to the road.

She hadn’t actually expected Alex would return. When she was carefully packing the abandoned campsite up, she’d treated it as she had any other.

Respectful detachment.

As she’d brushed the sand off the small tent, rolling it tightly and wrestling it into its nylon bag, she’d talked cheerfully with a sweet retired couple from Canada, answering their questions about the wildlife and the best places for easy hikes.

While folding the discarded shirts and shorts, she’d snacked on a package of crackers and watched a small coyote watch her.

She’d even padded the deserted phones between the layers of clothes, resisting the urge to swipe the recognizable one to life and hunt for any information to justify, or negate, what she had seen.

She pulled into her apartment complex, slipping her cell into her purse before she headed upstairs to shower.

Max had been silent when he dropped her off at the site that evening, a wariness in his eyes as she’d packed the SUV up, tossing the tent into the back of Max’s truck when the thought of spiders nestled in the folds of the fabric overtook any logic.

It had been his eagle vision that spotted the pile behind the back tire, a bottle-opener keychain poking through the sand. He’d followed her close as she drove the SUV through the park and hit the highway, her speed fluctuating with every unfamiliar sound the vehicle made.

She stepped out of the shower and dried off, glancing at the time.

Max.

He’d held his tongue when she quietly parked Alex’s car beside his trailer, sliding his keys under the seat. He’d said nothing when she pulled their work truck up to the Keys the next night and set a bowl of kibble onto the sand. And he’d continued to hold back when she repeated the action every shift since.

All he knew about the night of quake was what she had told him.

He didn’t need to know about the hallucinations she was slowly starting to process.

She took her time getting dressed, giving her hair a chance to move from soaking wet to damp as she stood in front of her closet contemplating her choices, finally settling on an emerald green sundress she hadn’t worn in ages. With a quick touch up of her makeup, she filled her purse, ready to treat her coworker to a meal he sorely deserved.

Picking her phone up off the counter, she swiped her thumb over the screen and reread Alex’s short message before she deleted it, slipping the cell into her bag and heading out the door.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Alex passed Ryanthe release papers and followed him through the impound lot. “Think Bo will be up when we get back?”

“Doubtful,” Ryan replied absently, beelining toward the row where his hatchback sat. “We’ll hit the road tomorrow morning.”

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