Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(85)

Unnaturally calm. Unnaturally mature. Highly intelligent. Highly creative.

A boy who intellectually understood the difference between right and wrong. He’d tried to cover his crime, after all. He had also accepted his punishment.

I tried. I failed. You got me.

I’m digging for more when a voice at my shoulder says, “May I join you?” and it’s a testament to how deep I am in my research that I look up with an automatic smile, presuming it’s Dalton. It is not Dalton. It’s a guy about forty, holding a coffee and a muffin. He has a too-white smile and blond-tipped hair, spiked in a style that would have better suited him twenty years ago . . . when it was in vogue. When I smile, he puffs up in a way that makes me internally smack myself upside the head.

“Uh . . .” I begin. “My—”

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re hard at work, and I don’t mean to disturb you. I just hoped to use the wifi to check in with my kids and . . .”

He jerks his chin around the patio. Every table is filled.

“My husband will be joining me,” I say, “but you can certainly use that seat until he does.”

He sits, and I type in more search terms. I don’t even get my results before he says, “My ex is home with the kids. I promised I’d send them photos.”

I nod and keep my gaze on my screen, hoping his haste to clarify his marital status means nothing. I pull up an article on Bastion’s release.

“So you’re here with your husband?” he says.

I glance up just enough to see his gaze fixed on my empty ring finger. “Yes. We were out panning this morning. I took my band off before it fell in, and someone thought they stuck gold.” I smile, but it’s a tight one that should warn him off. Instead, he inches his chair toward mine.

“What kind of laptop is that?” he asks.

“No idea,” I lie. “It’s my husband’s.”

“Looks state-of-the-art. He’s a tech geek, I take it?”

I can’t help laughing at that. “No.”

“So where are you from?” he asks. “I was talking to a couple just this morning from Tokyo, and our guide said tourism from Japan is booming.”

I fix him with a steady, deadpan look. Then I return to my article. It’s on the kind of junk-news site that posts pieces by wannabe journalists. Written nine months ago, the writer claimed to have found Bastion’s apartment building, which she’d been staking out in hopes of spotting him. Not sure what she hoped to “spot” when no photos of him were available online. Did she think she’d see his crimes writ on his—

“Surgeon or musician?” the man asks.

I look over at him.

“With those fingers, you must be a surgeon or a musician.” He smiles as he leans closer. “Although, with that face, I’d say model. You must have done some, right? Former model turned cardiac surgeon?”

I stare at him. He’s grinning like he’s just paid me the biggest compliment ever, and surely I’ll rise to the bait, blushing, and stammering, my ego bolstered.

I’m tempted to say I’m a cop, but he might like that. Somehow, I seem to attract the guys who do.

“I’m a travel writer,” I say. “And I’m on a deadline. I’m sure your kids are waiting for those pictures.”

Kiss-offs don’t come much clearer than that.

“Travel writer?” He inches his chair closer still. “Got any hot local tips?”

“The coffee shop down the road is less crowded.”

He only laughs. When he opens his mouth again, I snap my laptop shut and stand.

“And if you’ll excuse me, I should probably move to that other shop,” I say. “My husband’s late, and he may have gone to the wrong one.”

I check my watch as I put my laptop away. It’s been two hours. Dalton should be here any second. I’ll find a place nearby to hang out and watch for the car.

The encounter has annoyed me more than I like to admit. On the force, when I dared complain about being hit on, my male coworkers would either tell me I should be flattered or they’d scold me for “misinterpreting,” as if I was so conceited that I presumed any guy who speaks to me is flirting. At first, it pissed me off, and I’d try to explain that I knew the difference between conversation and flirtation and harassment. But that conversation rarely goes well. So I’ve learned to deal with it, as every woman does, and it rarely bothers me. Today it does because it drove me from my seat and from my work. So I’m fuming, walking fast, trying to regain my focus.

I stride along one sidewalk and start crossing the road. When I check for traffic, I spot the guy I just escaped, hands in his pockets as he gazes about, his face turned the other way.

Is he following me?

Again, this is always a dilemma. Just because he’s left the coffee shop does not mean he’s coming after me. However, he’s also discarded his unfinished coffee and muffin, which suggests that he didn’t just happen to be done and depart at the same time. Still, if I jump to the conclusion I’m being followed, a little voice tells me I’m overreacting.

Don’t be silly. He just finished up quickly and decided to leave.

And if I listen to that voice, I hear others—all the voices of all the women I met as a cop in special victims, the ones who admitted they’d had a “bad feeling,” and they ignored it because they didn’t want to seem paranoid.