Page 11 of Romance Is Dead

Damn it, Trevor.

“Hang on, I’ll check.” Teddy pulled his head away from his phone. “Are there any visible injuries?”

“One second.” Bracing myself for what I might see, I scanned his body. The blood seemed to stem from a gash on his forehead, likely inflicted by the rock he’d fallen on. His clothing was dark, and the light dim, but I didn’t see any other obvious injuries.

I relayed the information to Teddy, who passed it along to the operator.

“A pulse, uh, I don’t know. Quinn, is there a pulse?”

“Um . . .”

I eased myself gently down into the ditch and tugged down the neck of his shirt. It didn’t look promising. I took a deep breath and pressed two fingers on his carotid artery. Nothing.

“No!” I yelled back up to Teddy. “Shit, no, he doesn’t.”

“No pulse,” he repeated into his phone, sounding queasy.

As I scanned Trevor’s body, looking for anything else that might be helpful to first responders, I noticed that his wrist was conspicuously bare—there was no sign of the friendship bracelet from his niece, the one he told me he never took off. The thought that he was here, alone and without his beloved token from his niece, made me impossibly sad.

Shortly after the paramedics arrived and, grim-faced, called the coroner, the police also pulled up on the side of the road, lights flashing. Two officers climbed out of the vehicle—a pudgy man who might have been in his fifties and a woman who looked like she could have been his twin. After a quick word with one of the paramedics, they ambled over to where we stood, the man shining his flashlight in our faces as he approached.

“You two the folks who found the body?” His mouth worked at a toothpick and he was still wearing sunglasses, even though it was well past midnight.

I bit back a smart comment about him being able to see better if his eyes weren’t covered.

“Yes,” I said, squinting and holding up a hand to shield myself from the blinding light. “That’s us.”

“Ah, sorry ’bout that.” He lowered the flashlight and tucked it back into a holster on his belt.

“Honestly, Larry.” The woman shook her head, rolling her eyes as she turned to us. “Can you tell us what happened, sweetie?”

Teddy and I recounted what we’d seen, each helping the other remember. Teddy hadn’t noticed the pool of blood had already been coagulating when we found him, while I completely forgot to mention the time we left my trailer until Teddy chimed in. The two cops jotted down notes, nodding along as we told them everything, which—admittedly—wasn’t much.

“Did you see anyone else in the immediate vicinity?” the woman cop asked.

Teddy and I looked at each other. “No,” we agreed. “No one.”

“And where were you two prior to finding the body?”

“I was in my trailer, since about. . .” I wracked my brain, trying to remember. “Seven, I think it was.”

Teddy nodded. “Same. In my trailer, that is. Since eight.”

“I see.” The woman chewed on the end of her pen. “So you two were the only ones in the area where the body was found. Interesting.”

“That we saw!” I clarified. “There could have been someone else, we just didn’t see them. We only left my trailer, like, five minutes before we found him.”

“I thought you were in separate trailers?”

“I paid a late visit to her trailer,” Teddy explained. “I knew she’d be missing me and wouldn’t want to wait until tomorrow to see me.” He capped off the lie with a jaunty wink.

I bit my tongue to avoid cussing him out in front of the cops. This freakin’ guy.

Nodding, the woman police officer held out the notebook and pen. “Your contact info, please.”

Mouth dry, I jotted down my name and number before Teddy did the same.

“Thank you kindly.” The man tipped his hat to us. “I think we have what we need here. Hey, Deb? You want to start taping off the scene?”

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