Page 70 of Hold Your Breath
Naomi turned her narrowed gaze to her coworker. “You weren’t that concerned about it when you were banging me in the storage room.”
“O-kay!” Lou said more loudly than she’d intended. “Don’t you two have to get back? Who’s running the store?”
With a shrug, Daryl took another bite. “Put a sign on the door. You know, a ‘be back in five’ kind of deal.”
“It’s definitely been five,” Lou said, grabbing the sparse remains of his bar and wrapping it in a piece of waxed paper. She handed it back to him, making a shooing motion toward the door. “There’s probably a line of people waiting to buy something.”
“Doubt it,” Naomi said, although to Lou’s relief she started moving slowly in the direction of the exit. “It’s been dead.”
“Like the headless dude!” Sputtering a crumb-spewing laugh, Daryl jammed the last piece of the seven-layer bar into his mouth. Balling up the waxed paper, he tossed it toward the garbage can across the shop. It fell to the ground a fair distance from the trash bin, and Daryl’s shoulders collapsed.
“I’ve got it,” Lou assured him, hurrying around the counter and toward the fallen wad of paper. “You’ve got a store to open. Off you go now!”
For once, the jangle of the sleigh bells was music to Lou’s ears as the pair gave final waves and headed outside. She tossed the paper into the garbage.
“I really could’ve lived without the mental image of the two of them going at it in the storage room,” she muttered, returning to the counter to grab a wet cloth. “Can you imagine what his kitchen looks like? Gross.” The wet crumbs were everywhere. She squished up her face as she cleaned the pastry case.
“Forget them,” Derek said. “Tell me what happened.”
She did. From the punctured tires to the fire at her cabin, she gave him all the details of her stalker, the lovely Brenton Lloyd.
“You’re sure this is the guy?” Derek asked when she finished.
“The car matches his, down to the Connecticut plates,” she said, rinsing out the cloth. “The more I think about it, the more I can see him doing things like this. He always did have a short fuse. Well, at least hiring someone to do the small things. The arson seems flat-out nuts.”
“I don’t get it.” He frowned, picking at the rim of his now-empty cup. “If you broke up with him last summer, why’d he go all stalker on your ass now?”
With a shrug, she reached for his cup, knowing that if she left it in his hands, it would shortly be in pieces all over the counter. “He’s always been, I don’t know, a little bit…off, I guess. My parents really pushed me to date him, but once I found out they were bribing him to marry me, I knew I had to break things off with him—for good that time.” Her legs felt tired, so she rounded the counter and sat on the stool at the end—Callum’s usual seat. When she realized she was smiling at the thought, Lou hastily wiped her expression clear.
Luckily, Derek was too busy thinking about her stalker’s motives to notice. “Why now, do you think?”
“Not sure.” She shrugged again. “Maybe it fully sunk in that I wasn’t coming back, or my parents could have said something about me refusing to leave the mountains, or who knows? Sometimes I wonder why I’m trying to apply logic to the actions of a crazy person. This makes me extra glad I turned down that plane ticket, though. Despite everything that’s been happening here, there’s no part of me that wants to return to Connecticut. I spent too many years caught in that trap.”
“Plane ticket?”
With a heavy sigh, she tipped her head back against the wall. “Don’t ask. After kicking HDG, I was a little traumatized and obviously not thinking clearly. I figured I needed my mom.”
“HD—what?”
“Oops!” Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “Can you pretend you didn’t hear that?”
“No.” He started to smile. “I’m curious now.”
Groaning, she let her head bump the wall behind her. “You’re going to think I’m…I don’t know, insensitive. Crass, even.”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but almost every single person working as a first responder is insensitive.” Raising a mocking eyebrow, he parroted her, “Crass, even.”
When she thought about it, it did seem to have a ring of truth.
“We have to be,” he continued. “You can’t see bad shit over and over without throwing up some defenses. It’s either that or burn out. Some of the jokes the deputies tell…” He shook his head, although a smile tucked in the corners of his mouth.
“Headless Dead Guy,” she said in a small voice, peeking at him to see his reaction.
Derek blinked. “The guy from the reservoir? Is that his nickname?”
“Maybe. But that’s just between me and you. And Callum, of course.”
“Ah.” He leaned back, twisting his stool until he faced her. “Of course. So, the two of youareknocking boots, then?”
