The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(75)

Jillian catches me looking in the mirror. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Theo,” she says with an admonishing tone.

“I think someone just did a U-turn, like we did.”

“Are they following us?”

“Good question. Take out your phone.”

I stop on the shoulder and turn on the interior light.

“Are we pretending we’re lost?”

I look away from the road and stare at her phone. “Yep. When the car passes, let me know how many people are inside.”

“What if they stop behind us?”

“They won’t. Unless they want to make it obvious that we’re being followed.”

I see the car approach and pass out of the corner of my eye.

“The windows were tinted. It was a dark-green Yukon.”

“Did you catch the plates, by any chance?”

“Montana. Not the number.”

“Interesting. Probably nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She seems more amused than alarmed.

I turn the dome light off. Jillian is still looking at me, the glow of the dashboard illuminating her face. There’s a curl of a smile on her lips.

The lingering gaze, I know what that means.

I think.

For her this is still an adventure. I don’t think she gets it.

Or maybe I don’t.

Impulsively—maybe it’s the adrenaline—I lean into her personal space, and her lips part slightly. I give her a kiss. Intense, but quick.

She’s smiling when I pull back. “What?” I ask.

“This is probably the most morbid first date anyone has ever been on.”

“You asked for it.”

“I did. I did.”

She puts her hand on the back of my neck, signaling that we’re not done kissing.

“You realize that may have been the killer who just passed us?”

“You realize what a turn-on this kind of rush is?”

There’s something about her I can’t resist in the moment. I grab her by the back of the head and press her lips against mine again, this time more forcefully. My tongue finds hers, and they play back and forth.

I slide a hand under her shirt and feel the breasts I’ve been obsessing over all day—actually, since I met her.

At some point her hand touches my thigh and travels upward until she’s cupping my bulge.

She whispers into my ear, “Are we going to do something about that?”

I pull away and lean against my door. “I’m sorry. I . . .”

“What? Is it me?”

“No! It’s me. These are dark things. Dark places. I shouldn’t have taken you there.”

“If I hadn’t gone, then I wouldn’t be here.”

“An hour ago we were looking at a dead body.”

“That had been dead for thirty years.”

“And the killer is still out there.”

“Yes, Theo. He is. And the insurgent asshole that killed my husband is still out there, too. I’ll never get closure on that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that. Are you sorry you kissed me?”

“No.”

“You have to be able to compartmentalize all that. Your problem is you only have one compartment.”

“It’s how I focus.”

“Have you considered the fact that it might keep you running in circles?”

She’s on to something. MAAT didn’t tell me about the hot spring. That came from a random comment. I’ve been doing the same thing over and over again.

I stare at her. She crosses her arms and watches me with her little smug smile on the corner of her lips. “Now what?”

I shut off the professor part of my brain and say the first thing that comes to mind.

“Climb in the back seat and find out.”





CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE


INTERNIST

Dr. Debra Mead looks up at me through her very large-framed glasses and makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, then says, “So you’re the nincompoop who spoiled my samples?”

“Probably.”

“This way,” she directs me down the hallway of the medical examiner’s offices.

I was first aware of the existence of her this morning when I was awakened by a phone call before six. It seems that Montana’s single medical examiner keeps very early hours.

“Theo Cray?” she had asked.

“Yes?”

“This is Dr. Mead. Are you the one who keeps sending me bodies?”

There was something so direct about her question that I almost blurted out an affirmative.

“Uh . . . maybe,” I replied hesitantly.

“I’m told you’re a professor of some kind?”

“Biology.”

“Don’t tell me you teach, too?”

“Uh, yes. What’s the problem?”

“I pity your students. Come to the Missoula medical examiner’s office.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Mead hadn’t given me anything else to go on, other than the imperious demand that I get there as quickly as I could.