“I already explained to you, sir, we’re doing the best we can,” the deputy said. “Martie-Anne’s son’s visiting this week, so she’s taken a few days off, and it just so happened that Nick Froese got the stomach bug at the same time Nick Van Hooten fell off the ladder while trimming his birch trees and fractured his ankle.” He threw up his hands, like he didn’t know how I could expect him to work competently under these conditions. “There’s only me and a couple uniforms to investigate. The good news is, Dry Hump’s a small town, and I know Chester pretty well. My brother August went to school with his oldest sister’s oldest boy, Paul. Or was it Peter—?”
“I literally don’t think it would be possible for me to care less about this story,” I interrupted. “How hard can it be to find a van? Doesn’t the rental company have some kind of tracking thing? Can’t you—?”
“Rafe.” Jay put a hand on my arm and pushed me back down into my seat… which was when I realized that I’d started to stand. And possiblyloom. “Deputy Horowitz is doing the best he can.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I blew out a breath. “I just can’t believe this whole situation.” I’d started tolikeChet, damn it.
“Well, like I was saying…” Deputy Freckles scratched his temple. “Is it possible there’s been a mistake? ’Cause I know for a fact that Chet Hatcher’s no hardened criminal. Neither is Chrissea Drake, even if she did run off and leave the restaurant in the middle of her shift, which was real irresponsible when she knows Barbara’s short-staffed now that Talia Van Hooten—”
“Please don’t tell meshefell while trimming the birch trees, too.”
“Of course not. She’s seven months pregnant!”
“Eight,” someone in the crowd corrected.
“Huh. You might be right, Rose,” Deputy Freckles allowed. “I remember Nick saying they conceived the night of the bonfire, which I suppose was—”
“Is this inanyway relevant to this situation?” I interrupted. “Oranysituationanywhere?”
The deputy huffed. “Well, only in the sense that when Talia saw Nick take a tumble, she thought she was going into labor, which is why Barbara was short-staffed over at the All Ears Cafe, which is why it was so irresponsible of Chrissea to just run off like she did, even if itisher six-monthiversary.”
I pushed a hand through my hair and stifled a groan. All I wanted,allI wanted, was to be alone with Jay with no interruptions. Just him and me, with no lies and misunderstandings, just the seemingly endless stockpile ofwantI’d been storing up for the last decade. But to get to that part, I needed tonotpunch the police dude. Or any of the fucking spectators.
“I have no idea how it could be a mistake,” I said between clenched teeth, trying to get back to the topic at hand. “Chet didn’t have the key, and if he had to break into the van, then hot-wire it, I don’t think he could’ve stumbled into it by acci—”
“Your boyfriend said it was one of those keyless jobbies,” Deputy Freckles interrupted.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Jay’s voice was firmer about this than it had been about anything since we’d run out to the parking lot and found an empty space where the van had been parked.
I raised an eyebrow. I mean, Iwasn’this boyfriend, and I understood that he had enough trouble with the tabloids already, but I still didn’t like it. It reminded me too much of all the things that wanted to tear us apart when I hadn’t even fully wrapped my mind around the possibility of us being together. I wanted to grab Jay’s hand and growl at anyone who got close to him.
Down, Goodman, I reminded myself.
“Sorry, your partner, then,” Freckles corrected.
“He’s not my partner either.” Jay was not friendly now; he was deadly serious. “He’s an old friend, not that it’s any of your business. And yes, it’s a keyless starter.”
“Show it to him,” I suggested.
Jay’s eyes flicked to mine. “Show what?”
“The key fob.”
Jay frowned. “I don’t have it. You were the last one driving.”
“Yeah, but you were the one with the keys.”
Jay shook his head slowly. “I haven’t seen the key fob since the diner when I put it in the front pouch of…” He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.
“Of your sweatshirt, which Chet borrowed,” I concluded for Freckles’s benefit.
“Aha. Yep, that makes more sense.” Freckles nodded sagely. “So it’s more like he borrowed it without explicit permission.” He shrugged. “If you think about it.”
“Assuming he brings it back,” I muttered.
The deputy nodded. “If he doesn’t, we’ll contact the state police in the morning, and the rental car place will get you a new one. Can you think of anything unusual about the van, just in case we need to identify it and can’t get in touch with the rental company?”
“Not really.” I leaned back and folded my arms over my chest. “The tires had triple treads.”
