“Nah. You’re fine. But if she makes some excuse for popping into the Roc, don’t let her get away with it. She only wants to sneak a little coffee liqueur for her milk.”
She stares at me and then shakes her head. “You have a very strange sense of humor, Casey.”
“It runs in the family.”
I hand over Rory, and then take off. I’ve only gone about twenty steps when I spot Arturo and Dalton at the edge of the forest. The northeast edge. In the exact direction of Muriel’s little clearing. Seriously? At least that’ll make this easy.
“Casey!” a voice calls.
I look to see Tish, Kendra’s girlfriend, who works in the kitchen. She runs over, her long curls bouncing, her full cheeks red from the exertion.
“Something happened,” she says. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but I thought you should know.”
“Were you working in the kitchen?”
She nods.
“And Muriel came in?” I say.
“Yes. Your sister followed afterwards, asking where she was. She was alarmed. Dr. Butler, I mean, and that seemed odd. Nothing ruffles her feathers. I figured there’s a medical reason—and that’s why she was urgently looking for Muriel—so I was concerned. I said Muriel had hurried out the back door.”
I open my mouth, about to say it’s fine, we know what’s going on, but before I can, Tish continues, “I figured it was none of my business, so I went back to work. I was deboning fish, and I’d left my knife right there on the butcher’s block. It was gone. Then someone said they thought Muriel took it.”
“They thought Muriel took the boning knife?”
She nods. “I didn’t like the sounds of that. So I came to find you.”
I don’t like the sounds of it either. Not at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Muriel has a knife?” Dalton says. We’re striding into the forest, having left Arturo and Haven’s Rock behind.
“A boning knife. So maybe six inches long. Sharp.” I hurry after him as his strides lengthen. “She might have just spotted it and thought it could come in handy, both as a weapon and a tool. But that might also be why she used the kitchen as her escape spot in the first place.”
“To get a weapon.”
After a moment, I say, “Are you following her trail or just heading for her clearing?”
“Trail,” he grunts, and points to the foliage, where he must see something I don’t. “Which seems to be heading for her clearing.”
“She might have something still stashed there.”
Another grunt. Then he says, “We’ve got our sidearms. If she wants to bring a knife to a gunfight, let her. I’m just glad we got a heads-up that she’s armed.”
He stops short, and I narrowly avoid bashing into him. When he looks north, I resist the urge to ask what he hears. He keeps looking, and then shakes his head and continues walking.
“The patrol,” he murmurs, voice lowered.
“Kendra and Gunnar? You thought you heard them?”
“Maybe. Either way, they need to be warned. They have a radio?”
“They should.”
I pause to call, and Kendra answers.
“Hey,” I whisper. “We may have a situation in the woods. Whereabouts are you guys?”
