Hetsked. “Liar, liar.”
“I don’t have a hot boyfriend. I have a hot fiancé.”
And oh, how that smile grew. He was hot. He was the kind of man who could stand in the middle of the grocery store debating what cereal to buy and turn heads. But when he smiled like that, it transformed him into something bright and wonderful.
How had I’d gotten so lucky to have a man like that—someone kind and smart and curious and hot—fall in love with me?
“What’s that face for?” He moved toward me, seemingly unable not to. “Penny for that thought in particular.”
“You’d need more than a penny for what I’m thinking.”
“Oooh,” Jean cooed. “Look at you two lovey-dovies. Bet the wedding planning’s been a lot of fun, right?”
Mood ruined.
Wedding planning had not been fun. Ryder’s wince showed me he was thinking the same thing.
He’d been trying to pull it together all on his own, and I felt guilty about it. But if I tried to help, he pushed me away. It had happened enough I’d given up and stepped back.
Like way back. No matter how much he said he could handle it, I knew he was drowning. I could see it, I really could. But I didn’t know how to get back into the ring and tell him to tap out.
The few times I’d tried, he’d firmly refused my help.
But I’d caught him staring into space like he had a hundred plates he had to keep spinning on a hundred sticks and he knew there was no chance he was going to get through that without plates toppling and breaking all around him.
Or I’d catch him pacing, one hand running up the back of his hair over and over as he talked to someone on the phone, or grumbled over a list, or pulled out his sketchbook to draw little rectangle tables.
I’d peeked at his sketches. The tables sometimes had flowers and streamers scribbled everywhere, or sprays of sparkle lights. Or one time, something that looked like chain-link fencing and prison bars.
“Yeah,” Ryder said, filling the silence that had gone on too long. “Planning’s been…fun.”
Fun.
“So, no one in the vehicle,” I said, all cop voice, which was not lost on Jean, if her eyes darting between the two of us was any indication. “And no one exited the vehicle.”
“As far as we can tell.” Myra nodded toward the car. “We’ve identified ourselves, but haven’t gotten close enough to look inside.”
Myra was shorter and curvier than me, and wore her hair in a page boy that brushed her shoulders. Her eyeliner, and whatever else she put on this morning to make her look like a pin-up dream, was flawless. Over her uniform she wore a bulky coat with the stitched emblem of the Ordinary Police Department.
Her phone was in her hand, and the footprints in the sand showed she’d circled the car while taking pictures of it.
“Did you catch it falling?” I pointed at her phone.
“No, but plenty shots of it. How do you want to handle this?”
“Let’s spread out. Ryder, stay back and watch for anything strange. Myra, take the backseat, Jean, the trunk. I’ll take the front.”
Everyone got into position, Ryder stationing himself closer to the strip of harder, wet sand. It was a smart choice. If someone took off running, Ryder wouldn’t be fighting soft dry sand at the start of the chase.
We moved in on the car as one, no weapons drawn. “This is Chief of Police Delaney Reed,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the waves. Seagulls drifted overhead, arcing toward the shallow waves. “We’re here to help. Are you injured?”
Myra chose the ocean side back door. Jean stood ready at the trunk for me to pull the trunk release lever in the front. I glanced in the driver-side window.
Empty and clean.
Most vehicles showed their use. A forgotten straw wrapper. Dust on the console. Smudges on the edge of a window.
Not this vehicle. It looked like it’d just rolled off the factory floor, the black leather clean and supple, the carpeting pristine, and everything else shiny and new.
