Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13)(28)

“So she’s a regular here?”

“That’s right.”

Sara took close-up shots of the sign and the trash can. She looked around again.

“Seen enough?” Nolan asked.

“Yes.”

? ? ?

They returned to the pickup, and Nolan opened the door for her, catching a waft of her sweet scent as she slid into his truck. He liked showing her around, even if he didn’t like the reason she was here. He was interested in her take on his case and her take on his hometown, too.

Sara quietly looked out the window as he made a slow loop through the park, passing the pond-size lake that had been dragged for Kaylin’s body.

“Kaylin’s parents were here during the search?”

He glanced at her. “Her dad was. Couldn’t keep him away, even though we blocked off everything and started our work at the crack of dawn to avoid spectators.”

“Desperate fathers have a way of showing up.”

Nolan tapped his horn at Randy on the way out, and Sara heaved a sigh when they were back on the highway.

“What are you thinking?” Nolan asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

He tamped down his impatience. He wanted Sara’s perspective, both because she was smart and because she had fresh eyes. She was well educated, too—much more so than the cops and CSIs he had access to in Allen County. Not that she was a snob about it, but she’d seen a lot in her travels and her humanitarian work, not to mention her time at the Delphi Center. She’d logged a lot of hours in the field, and Nolan respected her for that. It had to be soul-crushing work, and it required careful precision. Her pace drove him crazy, but he’d already decided her expertise was worth waiting for.

He glanced at her beside him, watching the scrub-covered landscape whisk by with a pensive look on her face. Her cheeks were pink from the sun. She had tiny scratches on her arms and a smudge of dirt on her face from tromping around the creek bed, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so attracted to a woman. Every damn thing about her turned him on.

She looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

They drove in silence for a while, with traffic backing up as they neared Springville’s first stoplight. Nolan swung into the Dairy Queen parking lot.

“What are we doing?”

“Getting dinner.” He pulled into a space. “I’m guessing you missed lunch?”

“I had a granola bar.”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Why on earth are you sorry?”

“I should have sent someone out there with sandwiches for you guys.”

Sara slid from the truck and crossed the lot with him. “Yeah, right. I’m sure your officers have nothing better to do on a national holiday than cart food around.”

“We take care of our emergency workers.”

Nolan opened the door for a group of tween girls holding chocolate-dipped ice cream cones. The restaurant smelled like french fries, and his mouth started to water the moment he stepped inside. Sara ordered a ridiculous amount of food—which she insisted on paying for—and they found an empty picnic table on the patio.

Nolan unwrapped his double cheeseburger as Sara dug into her chicken tenders.

“Did you know White Falls Park is listed as one of the top mountain-biking destinations in the state?” she asked.

“Whose list?”

“A sportswriter out of Colorado, Will Merritt. He has a popular blog called High Life, and he recently did a piece about mountain biking gaining popularity in Texas.”

“We get plenty of them through here.”

Sara slurped her Coke. The food seemed to perk her up, and he was glad she was talking again.

“You’re wondering if Kaylin was in with them?” He chomped into his burger.

“Or maybe her boyfriend?”

“From what I know, they were more into hiking and climbing,” he said.

“Climbing’s banned in the park.”

“Doesn’t keep people from doing it.”

“Why bother with the ban?”

He popped a fry into his mouth. “County officials put it in place a couple of years ago after a sixteen-year-old fell to his death while free soloing. That’s climbing without a rope. After the accident, his parents sued the county.”

“Did they win?”

“No. But the lawsuit scared everyone pretty good, and the elected officials decided to try and head off anything like it in the future.”

“So having a ban in place absolves them of liability, even if people ignore it.”

“Something like that.”

Sara looked out at the traffic on Main Street as she nibbled a french fry. Pickups rolled by and Jeeps and convertibles. People were out in full force, despite the lingering heat.

“What’s on your mind, Sara?”

She watched him intently with those vivid green eyes, and he wished he could read her thoughts.

“I’m stuck on the locations and the timing,” she said. “I keep thinking Kaylin’s disappearance is directly connected to these other deaths. Otherwise, it’s too much of a coincidence.”

He didn’t comment. The prospect that they were dealing with a serial killer weighed heavily on him.