Page 125 of Hidden Nature

“There hasn’t been. You want a look at the file.”

“I’d really appreciate a look at the file. Leaving the cars might not be much of a connection, but it isn’t zero. And all from parking lots where someone could also park a vehicle.”

“I’ll give you that. You give me it’s more than an hour’s drive from Uniontown to Cumberland, has to be a solid hour from Cumberland to Deep Creek.”

“I’ll give you that. I’d say, if I decided to go into the abduction business, I’d want to put some distance between where I grabbed people. Different jurisdictions.”

“Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to make a couple of calls, then if I’m satisfied, I’ll send you what we’ve got. It never hurts to have a fresh eye. And the fact is, this one bugs the crap out of me.”

“Thanks. I’ll save you some time and give you my captains’ names and contacts from Annapolis and from up here.”

Once she had, O’Hara said, “All right. I’ll be in touch.”

Something, Sloan thought as she looked back at her very unofficial case board. She had something, if only because she’d shopped on a Saturday.

She made herself step away, and with her phone in her pocket took a walk to clear her mind and keep it clear until she had that something to focus it on.

She walked down her drive, across the road, and down to the lake path.

Lots of Saturday activity, she thought, and those who enjoyed it would probably get another week or two before the ice began to thin. Then, before much longer, there’d be boats, kids fishing off docks, joggers on the paths, more hiking on the trails.

Winter would give way to spring with its bursts of wildflowers. Kits and fawns and cubs would arrive.

But for now, she thought as the first flakes fell, winter kept its grip tight. Tight enough she decided to head back to her fire.

As she did, her phone rang. And reading the display, felt another step of her own coming back.

“Detective O’Hara.”

“You passed the audition, Sergeant. I’m sending you the file. And, FYI, we’ll be reaching out to the investigators on the Anderson and Rigsby cases.”

“That’s good news, Detective. It’s appreciated.”

She quickened her pace back home.

Since he couldn’t think of a way to comfortably duck out of dinner at the Coopers’, Nash pulled out a bottle of the same wine Sloan had poured for him. He opted to take Sloan at her not-fancy word and pulled out black jeans and a dark green crewneck sweater.

But he shaved first, a process he disliked. He’d tried a beard once, but had liked that even less.

As he shaved he considered the bathroom. Not as bad as the one they’d gutted at Sergeant Cooper’s, he thought, but nothing to brag about.

Along the way someone had tried to punch it up with wallpaper, so he had various illustrations of seashells everywhere. The weird yellow shower/tub combo had probably been the rage in the seventies, along with the matching toilet and the sink about the size of a goldfish bowl.

He reminded himself, since there were three on the bedroom level—the second done in baby blue, the third in vomit green—at least he didn’t have to share with Theo.

Eventually, they’d rip everything out of this one, make it a good hall bath. Take out a couple walls and turn two of the five bedrooms into en suites.

As he walked back to his bedroom, he heard music thumping from Theo’s room, and Theo singing along with Billie Eilish.

Eilish, in Nash’s estimation, had no worries about competition there.

As he dressed, he visualized taking down the wall to the next bedroom. He couldn’t say why he needed the walk-in closet, as his life no longer required dozens of suits and all that went with them. But he wanted one anyway.

With a coffee station.

More, he wanted the big-ass bath, the wet room, the heated tile floors, the small but snazzy electric fireplace.

A gas one for the bedroom, and the French doors he’d already installed would, eventually, lead out to a deck. A deck where he could drink that coffee and watch the sun shimmer through the trees, catch glints of it on the lake.

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