Hide and Seek (Criminal Profiler #1)(62)

The boys cheered, and Tyler clamped his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Breaking stuff makes you feel like a winner, right?”

Part of him did enjoy the destruction. It felt good to release some of the anger that was always chewing on his gut.

Tyler leaned closer and in a voice loud enough for them all to hear said, “Amy isn’t the only one who lost her cherry here. Know who else did?”

The boys laughed and egged him on to tell.

Tyler wagged his finger. “Matt, do you know the answer?”

Matt’s smile melted as the energy suddenly shifted. The boys now looked at him as if they were a pack and he was prey. “I hear your mother could fuck like nobody’s business.”

The other boys’ laughter rang around Matt.

“I wonder if your mama moaned like Amy did when I was grinding into her.”

Matt’s fingers tightened around the stick. “Don’t talk about my mother.”

“Why? You said yourself she’s an uptight pain in the ass,” Doug said.

Matt would never say for sure exactly what happened next. But when Benny punched him in the arm, he snapped. He and his mother practiced self-defense moves, and she always said to come out swinging. Make the first shot count. No such thing as a fair fight in the streets. He cracked the stick against Benny’s head. Adrenaline surged through his body. The other boys stared in stunned silence before they raced toward him. They were bigger. But he was faster. And it turned out, a whole lot meaner.



Nevada picked up Macy fifteen minutes later, and the moment she climbed into his vehicle, he was glad he’d bought strong coffee for her. She looked like she’d slept some but oddly looked less rested than she had when she’d left the sheriff’s office.

The scent of the coffee pulled her gaze to the cup holder. “For me?” she asked.

“Three sugars and two creams.”

She tore back the cup’s tab and sipped. “Bless you.”

As they pulled out onto the road that led to town, he asked, “You look like you’ve caught some sleep?”

“If you can call it that.”

“The leg?”

“For once the leg feels pretty good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s all good.”

“The Macy I used to know could sleep through anything.”

She sipped more coffee. “The new Macy has dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?” He kept his tone low and nonjudgmental.

Instantly, she seemed to regret the confession, as if deciding nothing good came from being too forthcoming. “The kind of dreams I get when I’ve had too much coffee. Weird, odd, and in the light of day, they mean nothing.”

“Coffee never bothered you before.”

“Sadly, it does now. Getting tagged by a three-thousand-pound pickup changes a lot of things.”

“The limp will improve and the hair will grow back. What else has changed?”

“I now have a weird fascination for country western music.”

“I’m serious, Macy.”

“So am I. I found myself tapping my foot to banjo music the other day. Frightening.”

Nevada said nothing, but he could almost hear the wheels grinding in her head. Instead of telling him what was really on her mind, she shifted the conversation back to the case.

“So where has Debbie Roberson been for the last three days?” she asked.

“Holed up with an old boyfriend, Rafe Younger.”

Macy groaned. “Such an obvious explanation. If I had followed up with Rafe sooner, I’d have known that. Did Debbie blow off her job for him?”

“She said she notified her boss that her roommate agreed to swap shifts.”

“That’s not what Dr. Shaw said.”

“A simple miscommunication? Work schedules get mixed up all the time. Everything pointed to Debbie being in trouble.”

“But she wasn’t.”

“It was a false alarm.”

Macy sat back, staring out the window. “I have three days remaining to make headway in this case, and I’ve wasted precious time today running down a rabbit hole. Stupid.”

Nevada parked in front of the station and they both went inside. The deputy on duty buzzed them in, and they found their way to the conference room, where Bennett sat with an annoyed-looking young woman.

Dark hair framed the young woman’s face, drawing attention to smudged mascara and full, pouty lips. Looking freshly fucked and irritated, Debbie tapped her foot.

Beside her sat a lean man, sandy-brown hair, tanned skin. He was a good decade older, but unlike his partner, he didn’t appear concerned.

“Ms. Roberson and Mr. Younger, I’m Special Agent Macy Crow, and you must know Sheriff Mike Nevada.”

Both nodded, but it was Debbie who spoke. “I called my mother and she melted down over the phone. She said everyone thought I was dead.”

“We’re glad you are safe,” Macy said.

“I can’t believe you thought I was dead,” Debbie said.

Rafe leaned forward, hands clasped. “We didn’t mean to screw things up for you.”

Macy sat across from them but Nevada remained standing, leaning against the wall off to her right, his arms crossed. When he and Macy had worked together in Kansas City, he had let her do most of the talking while he played the role of the proverbial silent, brooding bad cop. By default, she was good cop, but if Debbie didn’t lose the attitude, he was fairly sure it was going to be a case of bad cop/bad cop.