He studied it for a minute, then hummed low in his throat. “It’s a little messier than her essays and such.”
“Do you by any chance have one of those on hand?”
Frank scuttled backward, looking grateful to have a mission. “Maybe in the den. I’ll go check.”
Once he left, Hicks crossed the room to her. “What’s up?”
She tapped the pages. “The handwriting doesn’t look like the note.”
His eyebrows dipped in consideration. “Yeah. Maybe.”
While they waited for Frank to return, Lucy continued reading, though the rest proved just as tame as the first part. By the time she finally got through about two-thirds of the thing, it took a second for Lucy to notice she was staring at blank pages. Once she realized she’d gone too far, she thumbed back to find the last entry she must have blown right past.
Hicks saw it first.
In that second, she didn’t even know what it was, but she felt the change in his posture, tension that had been flipped on that hadn’t been there before. Lucy half turned, trying to catch his eye, but his attention was locked on the page she’d just landed on, a muscle fluttering where his jaw hinged.
“Hicks,” she said, after she’d glanced down to see what had caused the reaction. “Why does our runaway have your deputy’s name and phone number as the last thing she wrote in her diary?”
There was a beat of silence, and then Hicks shook his head. “I don’t know.” His face was set, expressionless. A mask she was learning he wore when he was thrown by something. “But I guess it’s time for you to meet Zoey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ELIZA COOK
Two weeks earlier
Noah was curled tight against the passenger side door, his face bathed in the yellow glow from the passing headlights.
Eliza wanted to place a hand on his shoulder, to be an anchor, a comforting warmth, but she didn’t dare wake him yet. They still had fifteen more minutes before they got to the clinic, and Eliza wanted to let Noah sleep as long as possible.
The truck that had just passed them grew smaller in the rearview mirror. Eliza had learned to keep a paranoid eye on the road behind her. Just in case.
She’d borrowed Josiah’s truck again for the night without his knowledge, praying for the first time in months and asking for him not to notice the new mileage on his odometer. This was a bit more than a jaunt into town, and it would be difficult to explain.
Noah snuffled in his sleep as she hit a pothole too hard, and she shushed him even as she slowed to better navigate the bumpy dirt path leading to the Indian Health Services clinic where Doho promised he’d be waiting.
Eliza had met Dohosan Slade three summers back when his family had passed through Knox Hollow. It was just him, an older brother, and their mom, and Josiah had set them up with Scott Shaw, whose ranch hand had been sidelined with a broken leg.
The friendship between her and Doho had been fast and easy and innocent. Both of them liked to fish and make knots and go searching in the woods for lost things. Both of them knew not to ask questions when the other grew silent, haunted by unspoken traumas that neither of them asked about.
Against all odds they’d stayed in touch even after Doho and his family had moved north—through letters and the occasional email, if Eliza could get to the library in town to check hers.
The truck’s clock told her she was twenty minutes late—it had taken longer than she’d expected to get Noah—and a pang of guilt followed in the wake of the realization. Doho was risking his beloved job for her, and this was how she repaid him.
But there he was, leaning against the brick wall of the small building, waiting for her, hunched against the cold, the light from his phone an eerie beacon in the darkness. Probably playing Candy Crush. He was obsessed with it for reasons that defied logic.
Eliza was out of the truck almost as soon as she’d braked to a stop, flying across the small distance into Doho’s arms.
He caught her easily in an almost-desperate hug, burying his face in her hair as she tucked her own into the warmth of his neck. They swayed together, both just breathing each other in.
It took a minute for her to realize she was trembling, but he didn’t mention it, just ran a big hand across her back, making the same kind of soothing nonsense noises she’d made to get Noah back to sleep.
Finally, feeling silly, she pulled back to meet his eyes. Beneath his gentle smile was concern that she knew he wouldn’t voice.
“I’m okay,” Eliza reassured in a way she wouldn’t for anyone else. Because he wouldn’t ask. Because he’d waited an extra twenty minutes in the cold for her.
His nose scrunched up, just a little bit, and she thought it was because he could hear the lie and was trying not to call her out on it.
She laughed a little, without humor. “As okay as I can be.”
At that he smiled for real, but it was a complicated one, full of sadness along with affection. He rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone, his hand cupping her jaw, and she nuzzled into it.
They weren’t like that. Never had been, never would be. Their friendship had taken priority, and neither had wanted it to be anything more. But they’d always been tactile, ignoring boundaries and propriety in favor of the comfort of a loved one’s touch. He’d told her one time that when things burned too bright and too hot, she would slip into his veins like ice, offering relief to the searing pain. In return, he warmed the coldness that beat at the center of her heart.
“I need a favor,” Eliza said, finally stepping fully out of his embrace.
Doho raised his eyebrows, a no duh look that was a go-to for him. He nodded back toward the clinic. “Yeah, I guessed.”
“You know that test you ran for me last month?” Eliza asked, even though of course he knew. Of course, he would have put it together when she’d called him.
He nodded, his eyes deep shadows she couldn’t read. Didn’t want to read.
She pulled in a shaky breath and looked back toward the truck. “I need you to do it again,” she said. “But this time, it’s not for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUCY THORNE
Saturday, 8:30 a.m.
Hicks and Lucy didn’t even make it back to the sheriff’s office before they got a call from the coroner.
“It’s not my fault,” Jackson said as soon as Hicks put him on speakerphone.
Hicks’s confusion showed in the slight, soundless parting of his lips, but Lucy knew what had happened.
“The body’s gone,” Lucy said. It wasn’t even a question.
Jackson was possibly still talking, but Hicks hung up as soon as he heard the confirmation. He took a left, a sharp one since they’d already mostly passed the street, sending her crashing into the passenger side door.
“Sorry,” Hicks threw out. It was surly, careless. Lucy didn’t care. Didn’t care about any of it other than that her victim’s body had gone missing.
“Just drive.”
Jackson was pacing in the parking lot, and Lucy didn’t wait until Hicks had come to a full stop before she was out of the truck. The momentum carried her across to Jackson. It carried them both up through some loose soil and plants to the brick wall.
She kept her hands carefully in full view, away from her weapon. But despite her small stature, she knew how to intimidate, how to apply pressure to someone, to keep them unnerved and get them to actually answer her questions.