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“Yeah, you were.” He liked her quick, easy laugh. “You should make it up to me.”
“I can try. What did you have in mind?”
“What I had in mind this morning when you were too busy being a pain in my ass.”
“I see.” She rose, then straddled him on the chair. “I guess it’s the least I can do.”
“It won’t be the least when we’re finished.”
He rose with her so she linked her long legs around his waist. “We should call the dog in.”
“He has to finish his last patrol. He knows how to get in when he’s ready.”
“Can we do this again sometime?”
“Absolutely not,” he said as he carried her inside, “if I have to fold napkins.”
“You can be excused from that duty.”
“In that case, I’ll give you a chance to persuade me.”
“Miles.” She nuzzled at the side of his neck, sparked little fires in his blood. “You’re so good to me.”
He intended to be.
Chapter Twenty-six
Ten days after Gavin Rozwell left a crappy motel room to drive into the rain-soaked dark, Beck and Morrison worked in a less crappy motel room while rain pounded the night.
They’d pinned maps on the walls, marked trails they’d followed, trails local PDs and staties had followed. They’d highlighted confirmed sightings in red, possibles in yellow.
Along with the maps, they had photos and descriptions of stolen vehicles they’d traced to Rozwell, separated them into recovered and not recovered.
They had photos of the last motel room in Oregon, statements from the not-very-interested desk clerk, statements from the goggling-with-interest waitress who’d served him the fried chicken special in the rinky-dink diner squatting beside the motel.
They had the statement of the clerk at the Quick Mart—who’d smelled of pot and despair—where Rozwell had bought a six-pack of Coke Zero, a family-size bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, and half a dozen Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
They had the rattletrap Ford pickup, flat tire, no spare—with his prints all over it—abandoned on a back road outside of Fall City, Washington. And the description of a Dodge Ram reported stolen from a driveway less than half a mile from the Ford.
All leads pointed north.
“We tracked him back to the motel outside of Alpine in Oregon because of the mini-mart stop. Got him on camera there.”
Beck paced back and forth in front of their makeshift evidence board while Morrison worked on their nightly report.
Beck wore a sleeveless tee and drawstring cotton pants that served her for these late-night sessions and for sleeping.
In the past three weeks they’d had a scant forty-eight hours back in Baltimore in their home office, including two nights in their own beds.
In lieu of a desk, Morrison used a side table about the size of a manhole cover where he tapped away on his laptop. His reading glasses—picked up at a Walmart after he sat on his last pair—kept sliding down his nose.
“Why’d he go into the mini-mart?”
Morrison looked up, over the half rims. “Because he wanted sugar and carbs for the road.”
“It’s under ten miles from the motel. The motel has vending machines. But he doesn’t get his fix there, he goes into the mart, and he damn well knows they’ll have the camera on checkout.”
“Mostly luck we hit on that wit in the first place.”
