Blue Twilight

Stormy thought Lou was suspicious as hell of Jason. And she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t agree with him. Max, on the other hand, seemed to believe him—clearly she wanted to. She kept touching his arm, his shoulder, as if to comfort him.

Stormy turned to the other two. “Where do you want to start?”

“I’d like to see that visitor center,” Max said. “I think you were right, Storm. She could have stopped there for directions or something.”

“The visitor center is closed,” Jay said. “I stopped there on the way into town. The place is abandoned.”

“Then we can case the town, check for any other place where she might have stopped. Diners, gas stations, that sort of thing.”

Lou nodded. “I’d like to talk to the local police chief myself, see what he has to offer. Helpful or not, it’s a good idea to let him know we’re here and we’re looking for her, put him on alert to keep an eye out and contact us if anything turns up.”

“There’s no point, Lou,” Jason said. “The local cop doesn’t even believe she was ever here,” Jason said.

“It won’t hurt anything to talk to him,” Lou said. “What was she driving?”

“Little red Neon,” Jason said. “Only two years old.” He swallowed hard. “She works part-time waiting tables to make her payments.”

“You have the plate number?” Lou asked.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“So we can have the local cop keep an eye out for the car, too. Like I said, it can’t hurt.”

Max stroked Jason’s upper arm. “Lou’s right, hon. We should use every resource we can, even if it does seem unlikely to pan out.” She glanced at Stormy. “I think we should run a check on this town. See if anything like this has happened before.”

“I’ll get the laptop out of the car,” Stormy replied.

Lou put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her even as she turned to go. “Let’s book ourselves some rooms first, huh? Set the computer up in one of them?”

Stormy heard it in his voice, loud and clear. He didn’t trust Jason. He wanted a place where they could talk without him hearing every word. “All right.”

“I’ll take care of the rooms,” Max said.

Lou shot her a look and seemed about to say something, then bit it back. Maxie rolled her eyes at him. “A double for me and Stormy, and a single for you,” she told him. “That suit you, Lou?”

“Fine.” He pulled out a wallet, reached for a credit card.

Max put a hand over his. “This is going on the company card,” she said. “It’s our first official case.” She headed off to book the rooms.

Lou sighed, turned and went after her. Stormy didn’t blame him. She was liable to have him sharing a bed with her if he didn’t keep an eye on things. And he’d pissed her off all morning without even meaning to.

Once they had gone and she found herself alone in the room with Jason, she cleared her throat. He walked to the bed, folded up his map.

“Is it going to be hard, working with me?” she asked.

He looked up at her, sent her a sad smile. “If I have trouble working with every girl who ever turned me down, Stormy, I’m in for a pretty tough existence. No. It’ll be fine.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.