Page 16 of Hold Your Breath
She shrugged. “Maybe he had some ideas he wasn’t sharing. Figuring out who the dead guy is should be his priority, anyway.”
“Had he?”
“Had he what?”
“Figured out who the dead guy was?”
“Nope.” She flexed her fingers. Had he ever touched her for this long before? “Rob got back as I was leaving. I happened to overhear a little bit of his conversation with Chris about that.”
Finally moving his hand, he propped an elbow on the counter, tipping his head toward hers in a silent request to continue.
“No one in Field County went missing around the time the coroner thinks the dead guy was dumped in the reservoir—no one who looks like our guy, at least. Chris’s checking all the people who disappeared in Colorado during that time, but he hasn’t found anyone yet.”
Looking thoughtful, Callum took another sip of coffee.
“Do you think you should mention your theory about the cult? Or the militia group?”
He shook his head. “Rob’s a smart guy, and he’s been doing this a while. He’ll look at all the possibilities.”
“Hmm.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Nowyou’redoing it.”
She laughed but sobered quickly. “It’s just… Rob said that they don’t have any leads in finding out who he is—well,was. It doesn’t sound like state will be much help, either. I feel kind of responsible for him—the dead guy, I mean. Because I was the one who found him, I think. I really want to help figure out who the poor guy is. His family is probably frantic.”
“Or they think he went for cigarettes and never came home.”
Horrified, she stared at him. “That’s even worse! His kids will think that he abandoned them. His wife probably thinks he was having an affair and… Okay, that’s it. I’m going to do a little digging.”
His eyebrows were raised in hisplease-return-to-realityexpression. That was probably her third least favorite of his faces. “The entire Field County Sheriff’s Department is working on it,withthe Colorado BCA. You really think you have resources they don’t?”
“I’m tenacious.”
With a sigh, he said, “You’ve already pissed off someone enough that they’re sticking knives in your tires. Do you really need to annoy more people by muddling around in a murder investigation?”
“Yes. I mean, I won’t annoy people. I’ll be discreet.”
He snorted.
“I can be discreet.”
Those damn eyebrows were up again.
“I can. Discreet and tenacious. Two of my best traits.”
Rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache, he sighed again and tugged his hat back into place. “Fine. We’ll do some research.Discreetly.”
“We?”
“Yes. God knows what trouble you’d get into on your own. At least if I’m there, I can make sure you don’t aggravate someone into sticking a knife intoyou. Now top off my coffee—please. I have to get to work. My real work, not this Nancy Drew shit you’re dragging me into.”
Stunned into silence and stupidly thrilled at the idea of spending more time with Callum, she did as he asked. After grabbing his newly filled travel mug, he stomped out the door, making those stupid bells ring again.
She stared after him for what felt like a long time. “Huh.”
* * *
It was a relief to leave the coffee shop at the end of her shift to find all four of her truck’s tires still fully inflated. Lou did feel a smidgen of guilt at disregarding the don’t-go-anywhere-alone advice both Callum and Chris had given her, but she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ivy about scheduling a second person for evenings. Not that she’d really tried too hard to find that chance, since she was dreading Ivy’s reaction. Her boss could be a bit of a bear, especially when it came to the coffee shop’s bottom line. Having two people working the slow winter evenings was going to be asking a lot.
