I peel some of the wrapper away from the side of my cupcake. Rosie just had some delivered to her stall and I just so happened to be walking past at that very moment. I don’t believe in much, but I believe in cupcake fate. That was cupcake fate.
Besides, I need some sugar. Desperately.
I sigh and look down. This case is exhausting. It feels like it’s been weeks since we found Toni’s body, but it hasn’t even been one. How are they connected? I don’t believe that the victims have been picked at random. They haven’t been opportunistic. The killers have made the opportunities. Why else would this be going on at the fair? It’s the perfect cover. If the killers are travelers, then they can disappear and that’s it. We’re left with a cold case and nowhere to go.
Ugh. Serial killings are the cul-de-sacs of the homicide world. Unless you’re picking off a cheer team or a football team or something with an obvious connection, it’s hard to get past even that, let alone find the killer. Having a reason for the connections always helps.
That said, if it helped that much, Jack the Ripper wouldn’t be known as Jack the Ripper, would he?
Ho hum. At least my brain is rationalizing things now.
I wonder if it’d be acceptable to line up every male traveler, pluck a hair from each of their heads, bag them, then write their names on it for DNA testing. I mean, you could ask them to jack off into a little cup, but that seems a little too far.
Hair pulling does hurt though. When done incorrectly. Sometimes, it’s nice.
No. Now is not the time to think about sex. If I think about sex, then I’ll think about… Never mind.
Probably shouldn’t eat the last half of this cupcake if I’m going off on tangents already. Mind you, I do think of my best ideas when on a tangent. They tend to break through rather suddenly. It’s like when you’re walking through your brother’s living room at three a.m. after babysitting and step on a Lego. Just not that painful… I have bumped my head or stubbed a toe once or twice while coming up with an idea, so there is that.
I don’t think making them all provide a DNA sample is exactly legal anyway. I’d be pretty pissed if I was asked.
My phone buzzes in my butt pocket. I reach around, pull it out, and bring the text up. It’s from Grecia.
Tracey Young made an appointment for nine a.m. on Monday morning.
Tracey Young. Tracey Young.
Ah. Wife of sleazy lawyer.
Nine a.m. on a Monday. Vile. I hope she isn’t… Ah, shit. I have to write that report. At least it’s Saturday. I’ll type it up tomorrow night or something. I don’t know.
Okay. Let’s get real and focus here, Noelle. You came to the fair for a reason, and that reason was to find Dina. So stop fucking around and go find Dina.
I throw my cupcake wrapper in the nearest trash can and walk to her stall. It’s closed down, and when I check with her neighbor, she says that she hasn’t seen her for two days.
Odd. Why would she leave it unattended? Unless there’s a problem at her store… Or maybe she’s sick.
I pull my phone out and dial her number. Thankfully, I thought ahead and pulled it from her card last night—just in case.
Hell…was that meeting really only yesterday?
I have got to get a hold on my own days if I want to get anywhere with this.
And my focus, because for what feels like the tenth time in the last couple of days, I walk right into a person.
The person chuckles, and I recognize it as Eddie Roy’s laugh.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry. Again,” I say, hanging up the phone call when it goes to her machine.
“Don’t worry,” he replies, still chuckling. “Important call?”
“Apparently,” I mutter, wondering why it went to her machine. Odd that she isn’t here, odder that her store is apparently empty. She must be sick and in bed. “Again, I’m sorry. I have to learn to—”
“Eddie!” A twenty-something-looking man appears behind him.
“Damien, where are your manners?” Eddie says, releasing my arms and turning. “Excuse my nephew, Noelle. Apologize, boy.”
“Sorry,” Damien says to me, glancing at me before doing a double-take.
Oh boy. Here we go.
“Damien Roy,” he says, his eyes, the same bright blue as his uncle’s, crawling over me. He shakes some blond hair from his eyes then holds his hand out.
“Noelle Bond.” I take his hand and shake.
I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. And not just because I think I was already in school before he was born.
It’s not a damn-you’re-hot kinda look. More a hey-girl-you’re-fine look, and when I say, “hey, girl,” I don’t mean in the Ryan-Gosling-Facebook-meme way. I mean in the I-haven’t-gotten-laid-for-six-months-and-I’m-sleazy kind of way. Or maybe that’s just because he needs to give his hair a good wash.
I kind of want to attack him with a can of dry shampoo at the very least. You know that feeling when you’re stuck on a bus or in the grocery line next to the guy who really, really should have considered a shower before he left? When you really want to just attack them with extract of lavender or something?
That’s how I feel right now.
“Call me forward, but are you single?”
Forward? Forward? That’s not forward. That’s a fucking foghorn.
Eddie slaps him around the back of the head. “Don’t be so rude, Damien.”
“I’m just asking,” he says, holding his hands up. He faces me and smiles slowly. “Well, are you?”
“No,” a familiar, rumbling voice says behind me. “She isn’t.”
Of course, now is when he shows up. Treats me like a rookie cop, doesn’t speak to me for twenty-four hours, but magically finds me right as I’m being hit on.
What is it with guys always doing that?
“I need to talk to you,” Drake says, touching his hand to my upper back.
“Now, you want to talk,” I mutter. I offer Eddie and Damien an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I have to go. And, Eddie? I’m really sorry for running into you. Again.”
He laughs. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I don’t complain.”
Drake tenses beside me. I hold a hand up in goodbye and let myself be dragged across the field.
“Uh, hello? I’m not a puppy. You don’t need to force me to walk,” I snap.
“Drop the attitude for five fucking minutes, Noelle.”
“I’ll drop it when you drop to your knees and kiss my ass.”
He rubs his hand down his face, still pushing me through the throngs of people. His grip is strong and determined, his whole body taut with annoyance. I watch his mouth, waiting for him to count.
Yep. There it is. Barely there movements but an obvious count to ten.
It’s fun when he gets this annoyed. And, by fun, I mean I want to shoot him because he forgets this little thing called boundaries. As in: Don’t tell me to shut up, don’t mention your ex-fiancée, don’t rib on me about my cupcake habit, and don’t do anything that will piss me off in general.
Drake drags me to his truck, where he finally releases me and runs his fingers through his unruly, dark hair. His jaw is tight, and I’m about to either hear bad news or get my ass kicked. Possibly both.
“We have reports of another missing person,” he says in a hushed tone. Angry-as-hell tone, but hushed.
Fear coils in my stomach.
“Lilly Paul. She’s an eighteen-year-old senior from Austin. According to her parents, she runs away on a regular basis, but in light of the recent…unfortunate events…they decided to contact us. She was last seen yesterday morning before school.”
Fuck my life. Seriously. Just screw it all. Just when it seemed like we could be getting somewhere…
I take a deep breath. “Okay. And you want me to do what?”
He frowns.
“What? You don’t have an order for me this time?”
“Noelle.”
“No. Don’t Noelle me. You’re only here to tell me this because you want me to do something. Otherwise, you’d have sent one of my brothers to find me.”
He shrugs and leans against his truck. “I need her information pulled. I’d have called Carlton myself, but he’s terrified of me.”