Page 57

“I know, who would have thought we’d make such great not-enemies?” I say.

She places a hand on her chest. “Did we just progress to reluctant allies?”

I wrap an arm around her shoulders, leading her out of the cave. “I think so, darlin’.”

29Sabrina

I can’t believe there’s nothing listed,” I say, scrolling through Benson County’s missing persons reports for the billionth time. “This is a small town. Aren’t they supposed to talk about local tragic deaths for years?”

I scan my laptop, but there’s nothing that matches the age, body, or death description of the woman, which leaves us with two options: no one reported her missing or someone wiped the record.

Lawton stuffs an oversized Maple Bacon Glazer (a doughnut, I learned) into his mouth. Hole-y Donut is bursting with people, and the cinnamon-sugar smell is so sweet, it’s making my saliva glands work overtime. There are only six tables in this store, so we’re crammed into a corner next to an old man with hearing aids because Lawton just had to wait forty-seven minutes in line for “Wyoming’s Best Doughnut” according to The Ranch Life blog.

“Did you check the database?” he asks, plucking a giant, sprinkled rainbow doughnut from a box that reads, Doughnut Worry, Be Happy!

“Did I check the database?” I repeat, snapping my laptop shut.

“Someone didn’t get her daily Americano with two shots of espresso.” He licks his fingers, and my unruly, rebel eyes watch his tongue dart out, not caring that this is a man who pushed me into a hot spring like it was a cauldron less than twenty-four hours ago.

Our knees bump beneath the table. “I’m just frustrated we can’t find any reports. How are you casually eating your fourth doughnut?”

“ ’Cause we’ve still got three weeks to figure out if they’re murderers, that’s plenty of time.”

“That’s not even a full menstrual cycle.”

He shrugs. “I’ll take stakeouts and doughnuts any day. My back’s been killing me lately. I’m getting too old for this shit. You know what sounds nice?”

“What?”

“Sleeping in the same bed for more than a month. I’m done drifting from job to job.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I thought you had a two-thousand-square-foot penthouse waiting for you back in Manhattan that was passed down through the generations?”

“Are you joking? Growing up, my parents were always dragging me to different apartments so we wouldn’t ‘build an identifiable pattern.’ I’d kill for my own makeup drawer. Well, maybe not kill, but I’d definitely blackmail someone.”

“A makeup drawer?” he says. “Why?”

“Because I have to stuff it inside all these bags since I travel so much. I want a drawer to neatly color-code my foundations.”

“Isn’t it all the same color?”

“Not the point.” I pack my laptop in my tote. “Let’s just get back to work. We need to focus.”

“I’d say finding a…” He glances at the old man reading an actual newspaper. “Box of doughnuts in the woods is a good start.”

I blink at him. It takes a second, then: “Really? A box of doughnuts? That’s what we’re going with?”

“Yeah. A box of doughnuts,” he repeats, using his whole head to gesture to the man.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes until they water. “We might’ve found a box of doughnuts, but we don’t know where those doughnuts came from, or who ordered them. We need more information.”

My phone vibrates on the sticky tabletop. Onyx. ALERT: T-minus 21 days. I check the encrypted messaging board. The client still hasn’t responded to the photos I uploaded. Not even a thumbs-up. I flip my phone face down a little too hard.

“You’re stressed,” Lawton says, pushing a pink box toward me. “You should eat a doughnut.”

“I’m not eating a doughnut we found in a hot spring.”