Innocent Prey

“Threw a fit?” He frowned and turned to look at me. I totally got that he was searching for something in my face. Then he quickly schooled his expression into a mask. “I don’t have anything to do with him. And I don’t know where Stevie is. I hope she’s okay. And I really have to get ready for work now.”

I couldn’t tell if that was sincere or not. The man had closed up tight, was keeping everything inside and showing us the door. Literally. He went to the door and opened it.

Mason sighed, and I knew he was disappointed. “Call me if you hear from her, okay?” He handed the guy a card.

Jake took it from him but didn’t even look at it. “Sure.”

I didn’t believe him.

I waited until we were back on the sidewalk in the bright afternoon sunshine to say, “Something happened between him and Judge Howie. Something big enough that he thought we already knew about it. You need to find out what it was.”

Mason nodded. “I think the guy has a record.”

“Really? I didn’t get that at all. How did you—”

“You get a feel for it after a while. People who’ve done time almost carry the scent of it. I’ll run him through the system, see what pops up. Should’ve done that first, but I figured the judge would’ve told me if there was anything.” He looked at me. “What else did you get?”

“I think he still cares about her. And he was either surprised to hear she was missing or surprised that we were there asking him about it.” We got to the car, Mason’s big black beast. I opened the passenger-side door and had to heft my bulldog out of the way to make room on the seat. Her loud snoring broke into aggravated bursts and she opened one eye, but other than that, she didn’t break nap. “When do we get to talk to the other boyfriend? The current one? What’s his name again? James Tiberius?”

Mason got behind the wheel and started her up. “Mitchell Kirk,” he corrected, deadpan. My Star Trek reference went right over his head. He wasn’t a Trekkie like me. “Tomorrow night at the chief’s anniversary party.”

“He knows the chief?”

“He’s his nephew.”

“Oh. I did not know that. The plot thickens.” I relaxed in my seat and watched the city pass by as he headed for the highway. Ten minutes and we were back on 17, heading for 81.

“So what now?” I asked after riding in silence for a little bit longer.

“I take you home and head back to HQ to tell Chief Sub what we’ve found so far. See if he’s ready to make this thing official yet.”

A big sigh rushed out of me before I could prevent it, catching me by surprise. He shot me a look. “What?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned. “I think that was me being disappointed that our day hanging out together is over. Weird, huh?”

Mason’s grin made his dimple flash at me. It was a more potent weapon than his stupid handgun. “I enjoyed it, too. It’s like old times, huh?”

“Old times meaning the last time a serial killer was after us? Pretty sad when I’m missing those sorts of good ol’ days.”

“Are you?” he asked.

I shrugged, because I didn’t want to get too deep or stupid. “I think if I wrote a book about you, the title would be Meets, Screws and Leaves.”

“Is that literary humor or a serious complaint?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Never mind.”

He eased into the left lane, then pressed the pedal down. He had a big, loud motor in the Beast, and even I got a little thrill when he made it roar. The nose end of the thing literally rose a little as the powerful engine kicked up a notch. I had discovered that the sighted Rachel was a little bit of a motor-head. I drove a convertible T-Bird that was a modern homage to the classic 1955 model, and I loved it. I had to admit, the ’74 Monte Carlo was growing on me, too.

A little.

As he merged onto 81, he said, “Jeremy has a home game tonight. You should come.”

I looked at him fast. “I wasn’t hinting around for an invitation.”

“Shit, Rachel, you don’t hint around for anything.”

“It’s fine, we have the party tomorrow night. Don’t overdo it or I’ll get sick of you.”

“I was going to ask you anyway. Josh has been griping that he never gets to see your potbellied pig anymore.”

“Hey!” I punched him in the shoulder and hoped it hurt. “Fine, my gorgeous, sweet-smelling, damn near svelte bulldog and I will be there. What time?”

4 (#ulink_cc1afde4-ebf5-5dd0-80a6-b617d82b839d)

“Boys’ varsity baseball is not nearly as much fun as girls’ varsity softball,” I said a few hours later from the bottom row of the bleachers at the Whitney Point High School’s baseball diamond. Mason was sitting beside me, his nephew Josh beside him, and Myrtle was lying on the ground in front of Josh’s feet. Possibly on Josh’s feet. She was the president of the eleven-year-old’s fan club. She was smiling with her bottom incisors sticking out over her upper lip, and every time the kid stopped petting her, she batted him with a forepaw.

“And you’ve come to this conclusion based on...?” Mason asked.

“Everything. The pitches are too fast, the hits are few and far between, the scores are too low—”

“Baseball scores are supposed to be low.”

“He’s right, Aunt Rache,” Misty called. She and Christy, my sixteen-going-on-twenty-five-year-old twin nieces were sitting on the top row, as far as possible from us. They only insisted on being part of our conversation if it meant an opportunity to correct their too-long-out-of-high-school-going-on-spinster aunt.

I twisted my head around. “You’re saying this? You, when your game last week ended because your team got so many runs ahead that they had to invoke the mercy rule?”

She shrugged, and returned to avidly watching the game, while her twin never looked up from the screen of her phone. Her thumbs were moving at the approximate speed of sound. Misty whisper-shouted, “Jeremy’s up!”

So I turned to pay attention. Misty and Jeremy were an item, though neither had admitted it yet, and nothing was official, as far as I could tell. But it was on. I’d have known that even if I’d still been blind.

Thank God I wasn’t, because it was one gorgeous spring evening. The sky was bluer than blue, not a cloud in sight, and Mason was beside me, a situation I liked way better than I had, up until now, admitted to myself. Admitting it to myself now gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I liked things easy and casual between us. I didn’t want to screw it up by wanting more.

Jeremy was crouching low, elbow up, bat moving in little circles behind him as he awaited the pitch. Then it came. He swung, and crack! It was outta there.

I shot to my feet, whooping and clapping and grinning so hard my face hurt as the ball sailed out of sight and Jeremy jogged the bases while we cheered. I glanced at Mason. He was smiling harder than I was. He met my eyes and nodded.

Yeah, I heard him. It had been a rough year for Jere. Last August he’d lost his father. In November his baby sister had been stillborn. At Christmas his mother had gone off the deep end and now she was in a locked psych unit. On top of all that, Jeremy had shot a man dead to save Mason’s life, and mine along with it. That he was still upright and not curled in a corner, drooling, was a triumph, in my opinion.

“Okay, maybe I spoke too soon about boys’ games not being as exciting as girls’,” I said as he rounded third and headed home. We sat down again as the applause died down. “That was freaking awesome.”

“And it means ice cream sundaes,” Josh added. “You promised, Uncle Mace. If he hit a home run, we get sundaes.”

“I guess I have to pay up, then,” Mason said.

“Don’t let him bullshit you, Josh. He’d have paid up either way.”

Josh grinned, probably because I’d said “bullshit.” Hell, I forgot again. I was lousy around impressionable youth. Yet another reason to keep things right where they were with Mason. He had kids now. I was not mommy material. I was eccentric aunt material. I had that gig down.