“You know where she is or not?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course, I know where she is.”
Warden McFarland took his life in his hands to give me a ride back to the diner, where I found Cat in the same booth, spitting mad.
“Don’t,” she holds up a hand as I sit down.
“Don’t?”
“Don’t start with me, jackass,” Cat won’t look at me. “I’m not in the mood. And before you start spouting off your assholery: I’m not on my period, nor do I have PMS.”
“Kitten, do you get much exercise jumping to conclusions?”
This gets her attention, and she whips her head up to glare at me. I’m glad her ice-blue eyes don’t have lasers attached because I’d be dead a thousand times over by now.
She smiles, leans over the table, and gets right in my face. “My clitoris has eight thousand nerves. Why don’t you go get on one of those?”
My response comes out a strangled “wha-ah?”
I lose the ability to speak or think coherently as the blood rushes away from my brain. I blink a few times and shake my head for good measure. Nothing is working.
Cat slaps the table to bring me back to the real world. A world where I’m not thinking of her clit. No, sir.
“Listen, Ryker, the sooner we find these dirtbags, the better,” Cat snaps at me. “Now, I’m going through this stack of mail for Rose, and you look through that cryptic shit for Helfinger.Comprende pendejo?”
She shoves a stack of papers at me, and I bite back my smile. My Kitten does have claws—sharper claws than the waitress placing pulled pork sandwiches in front of us.
“Don’t give me that look,” Cat sniffs. “I can’t have you passing out from hunger while we’re chasing suspects.”
My chest warms as I bite into my sandwich. Cat may be mad, but she was still thoughtful enough to order lunch for me.
???
An hour later, we’re full, but I’m no closer to understanding what I’m looking at. While Jeffrey Rose received handwritten or typed letters, Dakota Helfinger only had emails. And those emails were written in code.
On the surface, it looked like nonsense.
“Listen to this,” Cat takes a sip of her tea. “Jeffrey, My King. I hope you are holding up as you await your freedom. I prayed for a miracle, and our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, answered. God knows our love is heaven-blessed. It’s challenging to hold onto my all-consuming passion for you. For only you. But, I know the reward is great. Every night as I climb into bed, I think about how we’ll consummate our marriage once you are outside.”
“I thought Rose killed his wife,” I frown.
“Oh, he did,” Cat nods. “This is from a woman who claims shesoul-marriedhim.”
“The hell does that mean?”
Cat shrugs. “That they’re soulmates or something? She talks about their wedding night, et cetera, et cetera. But that’s not the most interesting thing.”
“Okay.”
“Look at this picture that came with the letter.”
She slides a photocopy of a Polaroid picture across the table at me. A woman, maybe in her late 20s/early 30s, grins ear-to-ear as she holds a bouquet. She’s wearing a white dress. And the background is blurry but looks familiar. I pull it closer to my face.
“Need some cheaters?” Cat lifts an eyebrow.
“No,” I growl. I did, but there’s no way I was pulling out my reading glasses now. “Why does this look familiar?”
Cat points at the front door of the diner. I swivel around. That’s why. The woman took a picture in this diner.
