Winter Kill - lanyon Josh. Страница 18

“Too much rain,” Bert told Rob. “Too much rain, too much snow, and too much time.”

“Hey, you tried,” Rob said.

Bert looked more dour than ever.

If there was anything good about a situation like this, it was the way a closely knit community came together in times of crisis.

Rob noticed the Constantine men speaking to Zeke, and he remembered Adam’s theory that Bill and Tiffany had some kind of relationship.

He studied Bill. He wasn’t a bad looking kid. Actually he wasn’t a kid. He had to be about twenty-five or twenty-six now. He looked young for his age, still as tall and gawky as he’d been as an adolescent. He was like an awkward version of his older brother Dan. Now Dan was a handsome guy, and if Tiffany had stuck a photo of Dan on her mirror, nobody would have questioned it. Like his old man before him, Dan had been a heartbreaker—although these days he did his heartbreaking in Springfield. But Bill?

If they didn’t find Tiffany soon, they would need to interview him. That was going to be an awkward conversation. Rob was still hoping they’d find her. How far could a teenaged girl get in this terrain and in this weather? Then again, she was physically fit, and her parents had both been park rangers, which gave her certain advantages.

Rob glanced over at Adam who was practically vibrating with nervous tension. He reminded Rob of Bert Berkle’s sleek, eager hunting dogs in the seconds before Bert turned them loose.

He grimaced. It bothered him how aware he was of Adam. He noticed things about Adam he’d never noticed of another man before. The stubborn, sun-streaked wave in his stylishly cropped hair. That discreet loop of silver around his wrist. What was the story there? He’d thought it might be a medic alert bracelet. It wasn’t; he’d checked that night they’d spent together. Adam’s cheekbones, for God’s sake! Since when did he notice another man’s cheekbones?

Even when he wasn’t looking at Adam, Rob knew where he was standing, who he was talking with, what he was watching.

Well, the last one wasn’t hard because Adam was watching everyone and everything—watching with suspicion.

And as little as Rob liked it, he couldn’t help looking at his neighbors and friends through Adam’s eyes. Law enforcement made you cynical. That was the reality of the job. Good people did bad things. And bad people got away with doing bad things.

He had joined the sheriff’s office because he was fit, active, and had a hunger for adventure. He had wanted to spend time in the outdoors, and he had wanted to do some good in the world. And that was pretty much the way things had worked out. Frankie was easy to work for most of the time. Off season, life was quiet. Never monotonous. And during their busy months…well, there were other compensations. He never lacked for company, that was for sure.

They searched until nine that night, and then reluctantly, Rob called a halt. The snow was coming down again, like ghostly leaves glimmering in the gloom. The temperature was falling. It was bad news for Tiffany if she was out there, if she was still alive. Rob hated to think of her frightened and freezing. Nobody wanted to give up, but it was dark, and it was getting dangerous.

“We’ll meet back here at daybreak,” Rob promised. He didn’t like being the guy who had to pull the plug on the search effort. Most of the would-be rescuers were not professionals, not trained, and he was responsible for their safety too.

“What about the cabins by the lake?” Adam said on the drive back to town. “Did anyone search them?”

Rob shook his head. “If she walked back to town why would she hide out in the cabins? Why wouldn’t she come to us for help?”

“I think we should check the cabins.”

It was too dark to read Adam’s face. He didn’t appear to be kidding. “In that case we might as well break into all the vacation homes in the area too. Hell, we might as well do a door-to-door search of every house in Nearby.”

“It may come to that,” Adam said. “You don’t mind me checking out the cabins, do you? I’ll be staying at the campground anyway.”

Rob was cold, hungry, and tired. He hung onto his patience though. “No, I don’t mind. I’ll check with you. But I think we’re wasting our time.”

And yes, they were wasting their time.

But by God they checked out every single one of the thirty-four cabins that weren’t being commandeered for use by Klamath Falls Search and Rescue. They looked behind dusty shower curtains. They checked closets that smelled of mothballs. There was no trace of Tiffany.

Rob resisted the desire to say I told you so. Adam had been tireless in his efforts to help with the search. He could have stayed back at base, warm and comfortable, advising and consulting, which was what Frankie had dragged him up here to do. But he’d been out there hiking up hillsides and digging through brush and bush, cold and wet and weary as the people who actually knew and cared about Tiffany.

“You want to grab something to eat?” Rob asked when they had closed the door on the very last empty cabin.

Adam said regretfully, “I’ve still got a couple of reports to file tonight.”

Rob’s day wasn’t over either, and tomorrow would come early, but they had to eat, and they had to sleep at some point. Or at least lie down. He said, “I have to get back to the office. I could come by later.”

As he threw it out there casually, his heart pounded with a mix of hope and adrenaline. He was startled at how much he wanted to spend the night with Adam.

Adam said slowly, “I’d like to, but I make it a rule not to get involved with work colleagues.”

Rob gave a disbelieving laugh. “Since when?”

“Since I got involved with a work colleague, and it ended badly.” Adam’s smile was wry. He sounded polite and regretful.

It was unexpectedly painful—and it felt unfair. “What the hell was last time?” Rob asked.

Adam hesitated. He said still quiet, still courteous, “We weren’t work colleagues. Your John Doe wasn’t connected to my case. We’re working together on this, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to mix personal with professional.”

“It doesn’t have to be personal,” Rob said. He didn’t want to be a dick, but his ego was definitely smarting. If anything, Adam’s attempt to be tactful made it worse. “It could just be sex. Really good sex. Like last time.”

“That’s very tempting.” Adam sounded less tactful now and more irritated. “No thanks.”

“Okay.” Rob already regretted his previous comment. He said pleasantly, “Maybe next time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Adam turned away.

Your loss, Rob thought. Mostly, it felt like his own loss.

Chapter Six

He woke to the echo of a scream.

Adam’s eyes flew open, and it took a second to remember where he was. He had been dreaming about Bridget; the familiar confused, frantic scramble to get to her in time. Somehow, knowing how it all ended didn’t change the horror of the race to reach her. Only this time he was arguing with Rob Haskell about his decision to hide in Conway’s car. What the hell Haskell was doing in his nightmares, Adam didn’t know, and he had been starting to question it when the scream woke him.

For a confused instant he thought it was Bridget screaming. The darkness was complete and absolute. The bed was not his, and the room smelled of pine and fire pellets and musty linens. He remembered that he was in Oregon, and that Bridget had been dead for nearly a year.

Had he dreamed that blood-curdling shriek?

It had been so loud. So close.

Adam pushed back the blankets and reached for his pistol on the bed stand. The cabin was cold despite the red glow behind the grate of the potbelly stove, and the wooden floor was chilly beneath his feet. He found his way to the door, unlocked it, opened it, and gasped at the rush of icy air. That blast of frigid night air took his breath away and woke him up completely.