I smile sweetly.
He cuts his eyes to me, attempting an annoyed expression, so I just add extra cheese to my smile. He gives up. He’s not nearly as grumpy as he used to be. Well, sometimes.
“Brook Meyers is fully alibi’d. He’s not even close to a suspect, despite his connection to both girls.”
Well, damn. I hate it when alibis check out. “That sucks.”
“He claimed not to have dated Toni for weeks, and he was the one who called Suzie to see if Melissa had left without him. He got stuck in the traffic on the highway after that crash and was late to the airport to get her. He tried calling her when he knew she’d landed, but her phone wasn’t on, which is why he called Suzie. He figured her phone was out of battery and that Melissa would call home from the airport.”
“But she never did,” I say softly. My stomach sinks.
“Not yet,” Drake responds resolutely. “Teenagers go missing all the time then come back perfectly fine.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and squeezes me into his side. “They’ll be all right, sweetheart. Toni has been rebelling since her parents told her they were divorcing, so she’s probably hiding out somewhere to gather herself, and we won’t know when Melissa left the airport or if she was alone until we get the security tapes. They’re dragging their asses, and even then, we’ll be lucky to get them before Austin does.”
“Who’s leading it there?”
Drake’s lips tighten. “Messina.”
Ahhh, the famous Giorgio Messina, my one-time blind date courtesy of Nonna and seemingly the bane of both Drake’s and Trent’s existences. I’ve never understood the feud they seem to have going, and if I’m honest, I’m maybe a little afraid to ask. I initially thought their…dislike…of him was because of the date thing, but I’ve since realized that it runs a little deeper than that.
I do know that, if Holly Woods PD doesn’t have to work with any branch of the Austin PD, they won’t, just in case they find themselves teamed up with Detective Messina. So I can’t even imagine how well it went down the day Melissa disappeared and they found themselves working with him.
“Would he really be an ass if there were something that could forward the investigation?” I ask, doubting it a little myself.
“We’re leading Toni’s since she disappeared in town.” Drake lowers his voice. “Technically, no one knows where Melissa went missing, so we’re sharing that right now.”
“I don’t want to think about this, but what if they’re connected?”
“Then he has to hand us everything.” He shrugs. “All we have is that Toni was seen with a guy with dark hair. It doesn’t exactly narrow it down. For all anyone knows, the guy she was seen with was me.”
I quirk an eyebrow. I see the point he’s making. “Guy with dark hair” isn’t exactly the most descriptive, and it probably encompasses eighty percent of Holly Woods, with the inclusion of the travelers, who arrived a few days before this all happened.
“Have you thought about—”
Drake sharply shakes his head, and I shut up. Don’t ask about that here. Got it. He swerves me around the corner and into the area where most of the mystical-type stores are set up. I fight the urge to wrinkle my nose—being a realist strikes again.
“Don’t look so offended,” he mutters, tugging me close to him. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Here?”
“No, the other side of town,” he drawls, clearly unimpressed with my powers of deduction. He pulls me toward a stall decorated with various religious items, many I recognize as Catholic but none like I’ve ever seen before. “Hey, Alex. This is Noelle.”
A chill threads down my spine the second the guy—Alex—turns around. His eyes are so dark that they’re almost black, and the light lines at their corners age him to his midthirties. I can’t decide if they’re laughter lines or frown lines, but his raven-colored hair is cut relatively short and combed back from his angular face. His jaw is sharp, his lips pursed, and he wipes his hands on his pants as he steps to the front of the stall and casts his eerie gaze over me.
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
I eye his hand warily before steeling myself and taking it. “Oh, it’s Noelle. It’s nice to meet you too.” Wow. I hope my words don’t give my lie away. I wanna get the hell away from here. “Interesting stall.”
Alex steps from the shadows, but it doesn’t detract from the way they play across his chiseled cheekbones. He’d be damn attractive if he didn’t scare the eggs out of my ovaries. “Yes, you sound very interested.”
I narrow my eyes as the light lilt of an accent hits my ears. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
His smile grows slowly. Predatorily, almost. “We’re from everywhere, Noelle. Pretty name, by the way. French, isn’t it?”
“Yes. My mother’s way of forever annoying my grandmother.” I drop my eyes to the rosaries decorating a portion of the table.
They’re intricately designed, and the only one I’ve ever seen like this is the one Nonna keeps locked away. It’s the one she was given as a baby.
“Do you like them?” Alex asks, motioning. “They’re from Italy.”
“Blessed by the Pope, I assume.” That comes out drier than I thought it would.
To my surprise, Alex chuckles. “If they were blessed by him, I’d be selling them for a lot more.”
I smile tightly.
“Alex sells religious items from the various countries around the world,” Drake puts in, presumably to stop me from being further offensive.
What? Sometimes, it slips out. My brain-to-mouth filter got lost when it smelled cupcakes.
“I spend six months with the fair, and the other six, I spend traveling the world,” Alex explains.
I slide my gaze over his other items. I couldn’t tell you what half of them were if you handed me a phone with Google open on the browser. “Must be nice.”
“Depends on how you define ‘nice.’” He smirks, and that chill catches my spine again.
I refrain from shivering. Just.
“You have a lot of rosaries,” I observe, stepping closer to Drake. “Anyone would think you’re Italian.”
His smirk changes to a gentle smile, but there’s no softness to his gaze. “What gave it away?”
“A woman never reveals her secrets.” I meet his eyes for a moment then turn to Drake. “I have to get back. Mike’s sending me a case file he needs help with.”
Drake frowns at my lie but doesn’t say anything against it. “All right. I’ll call you when I’m done here.” He kisses me and releases me.
“It was nice to meet you, Alex,” I lie again. Pinocchio would be proud.
“And you,” he says slowly, as if he’s calculating my every word and ripping every syllable apart.
I walk away from his stall, my gut churning and the undeniable sense of being watched crawling over me until I’m securely out of view.
“I swear to God, if I were in one of those paranormal books you’re obsessed with, he’d be a vampire looking at me like I was his future mate,” I tell Alison, my sister-in-law.
She frowns, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Don’t be ridiculous. If he’s Italian, then that’s how they look at everyone. You should know that. You’re damn terrifying when you’re tearing the crap outta someone.”
“Oh, please.” I sigh and sip my glass of wine. “I’m not that bad.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Next time you lay into someone, I’m gonna video it.”
“You do that.” I dismiss it with a wave of my hand. “He just made me real uncomfortable. You know that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and any number of crazed serial killers could jump out at you from the darkness as you get a glass of water in your panties? My skin crawled.”
“That’s called paranoia.”
“Are you a triage nurse or a psychiatric one?”
“Triage,” she responds without missing a beat. “But I don’t need to be a psychiatric one to know you’re a little crazy over this.”