Page 69 of A Love Like Candle Light

“Did she banish you from the couch?” I ask amusedly and pad over to his kitchen to get myself a glass of water.

He glances up, then does a double take and lets his eyes slide over my pajama-clad form appreciatively. Maybe it’s the low-hanging jogging pants or the giant shirt with a collar so wide it reveals one of my shoulders.

“No, she didn’t,” he mumbles and runs his hand through his hair. “I’m just a ground kind of researcher.”

“Well, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.” I plop onto the couch. Wordlessly, he hands me the journal. “We don’t have to do this tonight,” I mumble and take it. “If you had other plans, I’m flexible.”

“My grand plans for the night involve you. As long as you’re here, I don’t care if I’m reading one of my books or a file. And this is important to you.”

“It is,” I admit, emotions dwelling in the back of my throat making it hard to swallow. “What book are you reading at the moment?”

“Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. I’m doing something of a buddy read with my dad.”

“Oh, how fun! My English teacher in high school used to sing that guy’s praises.”

“I’m not sure I’d be making it a duet. It’s fun, but maybe he’ll be up for a thriller as our next book.”

Boom.

Another thunder makes me jump. “That’s what I get for trying to escape ghost jump scares for an evening,” I mumble and open the heavy book, about to start reading when suddenly, it’s dark.

“What the—”

“Don’t panic.” Erik gets up and turns on the flashlight on his phone. “Power outages are not unusual during a thunderstorm here.”

“At least it means I didn’t bring the ghost with me, I guess.”

“Here.” Erik throws me a matchbox. “Can you light the candles?”

“Sure.” I turn on the flashlight on my phone to find them. It takes me several tries to light the match, so when I do, it takes everything in me to not break into a happy dance and extinguish it.

“Let me see if I can get the generator running.” Before I can protest about him leaving me alone in the dark, he runs outside.

“To be fair, it’s kind of romantic. As long as I remind myself this isn’t a horror movie,” I whisper to Abby as I light the remaining candles one by one. “Crime research in the candlelight.” I let out a dramatic sigh. “What a perfect date.”

When Erik returns, he makes a beeline for the kitchen, pulls out one of the ice cream tubs, and hands it to me.

“Not a chance,” he lets out a sigh. “The thing already didn’t sound so well the last time I had to throw it on, and now it finally met its maker.”

“Well, there are worse things.” I open the ice cream tub and spoon he hands me. For now, I set the journal aside. There’s no way I’m risking dropping ice cream on it accidentally.

So instead, I lie down on the couch and read the cemetery records along over Erik’s shoulder.

“I don’t see her name on there,” I mumble, reading the names one more time. Erik nods slowly.

“You’re right.” He turns to the second-last page. This is where O’Brien's name appears. I set the ice cream aside, because a brain freeze announces itself right behind my temples, and I flip through the first few pages of the notebook. Erik grabs it and starts eating.

“Erik, look.” He turns to me, spoon in his mouth. “There’s a picture of her.” I pull it out of the notebook and hand it to him.

“Perfect.” He takes out his phone and takes a quick picture of it with flash. “I’ll send it to Logan.”

“Logan?”

“Our forensics guy. Maybe there are some comparisons he can draw. Skull form and all that. Apparently, the sketch and clay artist who usually give skulls their faces are too busy with current cases to have a look at a skeleton as old as the one you found.”

“Abby found her. Credit where credit is due.”

I flip through the pages, eyes gliding over the neat handwriting, when I turn to an almost completely white page except for three short sentences.