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“Your mom was always nice to me.”
Maybe she remembered wrong. “She wasn’t nice behind your back.” He probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he’d rather be realistic than a liar or someone who remembered things with rose-colored glasses.
His mom had told him it was best to be rid of Clare. They’d tried looking for her, but his mom didn’t put much effort into it. He’d tried to file a missing person report, and the detective laughed at him. A younger cop in uniform pulled him aside, got him a cup of awful coffee, and let Gage unload the whole story.
That cop had been killed in the line of duty a couple of years later, but the impression he’d left on Gage would last forever.
“Can we maybe”—Clare bit her lip—“go out for dinner later? Talk about everything.”
“Why don’t you just tell me if you had an abortion. Or did you give our baby up for adoption?”
A tear spilled from the corner of her eye. She started to speak, but his radio squawked.
He listened for a second.
“What is it?” Clare sniffed and cleared her throat.
“A van was found in the ravine.”
“Our van?”
He nodded. “There’s a body inside.”
FIFTEEN
“You keep a change of shoes in your car?”
Clare looked up from tying her hiking boot, sat on the edge of her trunk with the door open overhead. Gage looked past her, into her little SUV. They’d driven to the trailhead separately, which gave her time to figure out how to tell him she’d lost the baby. Butlostsounded like missing, so she hadn’t settled on a good way to say it yet.
Now the moment was gone, and this wasn’t the time or place to get into their personal thing.
“Shoes,” Clare said. “Two blankets, a shock blanket, a full medical kit. MREs. A case of waters. Two sets of clothes and winter gear. And an umbrella.” Along with her phone, she also had a gun tucked under her jacked in a holster at the small of her back. Just in case.
“And a shovel?” He blinked.
She twisted and picked it up from beside the plastic tote bin. “The kind that folds up.”
“Huh.” He stared as though he didn’t know what to make of her.
That went both ways. Lieutenant Gage Deluca was nothing like teenage Gage. She had grieved a moment for his mother on the way over, even with what he’d said about her. The idea his mom had talked badly about Clare behind her back wasn’t entirely surprising. She’d done that about people she met, disparaging perfect strangers she’d seen at the grocery store in a way that seemed mean and sometimes prejudiced.
But she’d loved her son. Not in an over-the-top, touchy-feely way, but Clare had seen it in her.
She set her boot down. “I’m ready.”
Clare hit a button inside the tailgate door, and it beeped and started to close. Then she slid her sunglasses to the top of her head, since the cloud cover was back. When the sun broke for three minutes through the clouds, the day was bright enough she needed them. After that, it was back to clouds.
They headed for the trail, giving their information to the officer with his clipboard. Smoke hung in the air, but there were no fires nearby. A fire department vehicle had been parked a few spaces down from where she left her vehicle, so she figured the situation was handled.
Gage still wore his uniform. The officer called him “sir.” Clare had been the recipient of that respect in the military, with her officer rank. Now she no longer held it, the respect was different. Her employees treated her similarly, but if she was honest, she’d rather go back to the camaraderie of teammates.
Even with all the employees and the close relationship she now had with Ember, Clare had to admit it was lonely living by herself.
Not enough to entice her into a relationship. Just enough she noticed it, and then had to force herself to ignore the longing in her.
“Whoa.”
Gage’s exclamation jogged her from her thoughts. Clare looked around and saw what he’d noticed. “Oh. Wow.”
