“That’s awfully presumptuous of you, detective. Would you get in? We’re losing daylight.” I angle my head toward the setting sun before clicking the unlock button on my door.
He hesitates, trying to find an answer in my eyes to a question he hasn’t asked. Seemingly against his better judgment, and because his curiosity won’t let him walk away, he leans off the car and pulls the door open, landing in my passenger’s seat with a huff.
I peel off the curb and flip a bitch, heading back to the main drag that’ll lead us to the outskirts of town and to Hussey Ridge.
“How long is this going to take?” he asks, his grip loosening on theoh shithandle after we’ve made it to the highway and I’ve eased my foot off the gas pedal.
“You got somewhere to be?”
“Just in the safety of my own home, far away from you.”
I snort a laugh. “Which is why you always happen to end up wherever I am, right?” I glance over at him and note his tense jaw. “It’ll be a few hours if you’re willing to stick around and see the process from start to finish.”
“The process,” he parrots, staring at the side of my face.
“Well, I should probably gut him while he’s still in the field. He’ll be a bit easier to lift then. Back at the house I need to skin him, and then basically just set him in a barrel of warm water for a few days until the rest of his tissue falls off. Ever heard of maceration?”
Colin’s eyes are wide, his mouth fallen open in disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”
I laugh, leaning over to pat his thigh. “It’ll all make sense when we get there, babe.”
He shakes his head, facing forward again as the tree line closes in on us and the road begins to curve out of town limits.
“So, where were you?” I ask.
“On a case.”
“You’re always on a case, detective. I meant for the past year. Where were you?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his head turn in my direction, the pause before his answer stretching between us. He’s hesitant to trust me, because he doesn’treallyknow me. But I want him to know me; the real me, the things that drive my desire to do what I do. I can only hope that eventually, he will.
“I was with my mother,” he says flatly, his eyes trained out the windshield again.
“Oh. In…”
“Sunset Peak.”
“Why?”
He looks over at me, expressionless. “None of your business, Stark.”
I shrug, letting it go. I’m willing to put in work to win my prize.
I ease my foot off the gas pedal and onto the brake as our turn comes into view, and I don’t miss the way Colin glances at the mile marker as we turn off the highway.
Stone’s favorite fishing spots are mostly unmarked roads not maintained by any public entity, and as we make our way down the nameless street, the pavement ends. Colin and I rock back and forth in the Bug on the dirt road littered with potholes, and he grabs the handle above his window again, his body stiff as the sun continues setting at our backs.
“I also have a gun,” he says abruptly.
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Jesus, Colin. I’m not going to kill you.”
“You’re driving us to bum-fuck-nowhere to apparently transport abody, Stark.” His words come out shaky as we traverse the uneven road.
I glance at him and the way his knuckles are squeezed so tight around the handle that they’re turning white, and decide to cut him a break. “It’s a fucking deer body, you lunatic.”
The crease between his brows deepens, and he continues arguing. “We’re transporting a deaddeerback to your house for you to skin and stuff in a barrel of water for weeks? AndI’mthe lunatic?”
“It’s art.”
