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He didn’t know just how dangerous those words were. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“If Hannah’s case is closed,” Zach said up ahead. “I suspect Max will offer you a job, therefore you could afford a new pair of boots.”
I glanced past him to see Brody up ahead, so acknowledging Kipp’s presence wouldn’t be a problem, which is why they talked so freely. So much of Zach’s statement sent heat rushing through my blood. “First off, I make decent money at my job. Second, what job could he offer me?”
Zach glanced over his shoulder as he continued to walk ahead. “Not as much as the department would pay you, and as to the job, you seem to have a real knack for the cold case files.”
Oh, now I understood perfectly. “Who says I’d agree to help? Trust me, I’ve had just about enough of all this death stuff.”
A knowing grin spread across Zach’s face before he returned his gaze to watch his steps. “It’s not always a choice, sometimes it’s an obligation.”
“Hrmph,” was my only response.
“You’ve got a gift,” Kipp said. “There must be a reason you’ve been given such a powerful ability. It’d be a waste not to use it to help others.”
I sighed as deep as I could muster. I had hated my gift and never once thought of it as a way to actually help people. I only helped when the ghosts bugged me enough to do otherwise. Had fate brought me together with a bunch of police officers because it was the right thing to do? Could what Zach said be true, did I have an obligation I had to fulfill? All things I held no answers to.
Besides, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted them answered. Right now I just needed to continue trudging through the forest. There were enough questions swirling in my mind about the present to worry about the future. I moved along, more than done with this conversation. “What will happen if Hannah’s not here?”
“Nothing,” Eddie answered, groaning as he stumbled on a rock. “We’ll go back to square one and start over.”
The confidence in his voice stated something I already believed—Hannah wasn’t wrong and everyone here knew it. “And if you do find her, then what?”
“We’ll call Max and he’ll bring in the forensic team to extract the bones,” Zach replied.
“Really?” This might be interesting after all. “That’d be kind of neat to see.”
“It’s not,” Eddie retorted. “It’s meticulous and incredibly boring.”
“For you, maybe, but it’s like dinosaur hunting.” The men laughed and I did as well. “So if we happen to find bones, how will we know it’s her?”
“The clothing she wore will probably give it away,” Eddie answered. “The night she went missing, she had on blue jeans and a teal blouse.”
All right, that just seemed so far out there. “After five years, her clothing will still be…you know…in the ground?”
“More than likely,” Zach said, not looking back as he shrugged. “At least pieces of the clothing will remain.”
I stumbled on a stick poking out of the ground, but caught myself before I fell to the ground as a cold breeze swept through me. “Stupid stick,” I grumbled, finding my footing again.
Kipp sighed. “I tried to grab a hold of you.”
I looked back at him and smiled a thank-you.
He inclined his head and glanced away as he walked. Before he did, though, sadness reached his eyes again, which declared that it tore at him that he couldn’t touch me. As much as I felt the sadness too, I was determined to ignore it. We just needed to get through tonight, then deal with the rest later.
Resolved to push away the pain that lingered beneath the surface, I continued, “So what does the forensic team do?”
Zach cursed as he tripped. “They’ll extract the skeleton from the ground, bring it back to the lab and compare dental records. They’ll also likely take DNA from Hannah’s parents and see if there’s a match.”
I snorted. “Now that’s a call to make. ‘Good afternoon, we believe we’ve found your dead daughter, can we take a sample of your blood to prove it’s her?’ Honestly, how horrible.”
“In this line of work, no call is ever easy, no matter what it’s about,” Kipp said.
At the same moment, Zach said, “It’s never easy to make those types of calls.”
“Then why do you do it? I mean, it’s so depressing.”
Zach glanced over his shoulder, smiling in grand-scale. “I’d imagine we’re all addicted to the rush of finding a killer.”
