“The techs would’ve searched the entire area,” Nari said gently.
“There’s a note.” Angus would bet his life on it. He overturned a rock. Nothing. Going methodically, he turned over each rock in the area, finding nothing but dirt and bugs. “Where is it, damn it?”
Jethro looked up toward the bridge. “I’ll scout the bridge.” He turned and jogged gracefully up the hill, only breaking stride a couple of times because of his newly healed leg. Roscoe kept pace with him and stopped to shake his fur at the top.
Heat coated Angus’s throat and he coughed out the frustration. The rain pounded harder. “Why don’t you wait in the car, Nari?”
She tugged the hood of her raincoat over her head. “It’s my fault for forgetting my umbrella. I’ll go search over by the creek.” She turned and slipped on the leaves but kept trudging toward what looked more like a long mud puddle than a creek.
Angus tried to forget that two people he cared about were possibly risking their lives to help him. He studied the area, making sure no cars approached. If anybody came upon them from the woods, Roscoe would catch a scent.
Even so, Jethro and Nari shouldn’t be there. He would have expected the woman to think he was nuts, but instead she was going along with his delusion. She deserved so much better than this disaster. She’d been in a fight the day before, was still bruised, and should be resting by a fire with a good book. Instead, she was out in the freezing rain, looking for a clue that probably didn’t exist.
He couldn’t stop the team from working this case, but he didn’t have to let them court danger.
His phone buzzed and he looked down to see a familiar number. “Hi, Serena,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m being tailed by two HDD agents,” the professor said, sounding more bemused than angry. “Why? We only worked that one case together and it was months ago. Even if your team is in danger, as these nice agents have informed me, I’m not on your team.”
Angus studied the trees up the bank. Surely the techs had canvassed the entire area. “I’m just being overly cautious. The world doesn’t have enough geniuses; I’d hate to lose one.”
“Sure it does. Anybody with an IQ over one-sixty is a genius,” Serena said thoughtfully.
He was too tired to feel amused, but his lips twitched anyway. “Oh. Of course.” Lightning zinged the earth close enough he could smell ozone.
“Where are you?” Serena asked.
“At a crime scene looking for a note that doesn’t exist,” he said, turning to make sure Nari was all right by the creek.
Serena was quiet for a minute. “In the rain? Nobody would leave a note in the rain, and it’s been raining for weeks. Should snow soon. Statistically it should’ve snowed yesterday, but that’s another story, and one you probably don’t have time for right now.”
“True.” He had a flashback to her trying to explain something called methods for entanglement verification to him one time when she’d dropped by the office to meet Brigid, and he shivered. “Thanks, though.”
“Anytime. Let me know when I can lose the feds.” She hung up, no doubt already on to her next puzzle.
Angus slipped his phone in his pocket. She was right. It didn’t make sense to leave a note in the rain. There had to be some sort of clue with the body. “Let’s go, gang,” he called out. “I want to drop by the morgue.”
Nari hunched her shoulders against the rain and picked her way toward him. “We’ll need to dry off Roscoe. I’ll hurry ahead and get the towel out of the back seat.”
Angus turned to examine one more time the place the victim had been. He looked up as Jethro descended the embankment. The bridge caught his attention. Swirls and lines. Gang tags. He recognized a couple, and then the muscles down his back tensed. “Nari.” He grasped her arm to turn her toward a concrete piling. “What do you see?”
She turned and squinted, tiling her head. “Is that a dog?”
“Yeah.” The outline of a German shepherd was barely discernible, laid over several gang monikers. He moved forward, squinting as the sun went down. “Ah, crap.” Lifting his phone, he pressed Redial.
“I told you not to call me,” Tate said by way of greeting.
“You’re gonna want to get down here.” Angus leaned closer to the painted message. “I found the note.”
Chapter Eighteen
Dinner had been a quiet affair with the team before everyone left. Exhausted, Nari had gone to bed and snuggled down. The cabin was warm, even a little steamy, with the rain continuing outside. So she’d worn a pink cami with matching shorts. It was more than warm enough, yet she couldn’t sleep. Her body hurt, her mind ran too fast, and electricity arced between her and Angus.
They were in bed together. Again. The memories of what Angus could do in bed made her restless. And needy.
Several hours later, after listening interminably to the fire crackle, she couldn’t take it anymore. The man in the bed with her was too quiet. “Are you sleeping?” she whispered, turning on her side to face Angus.
“No.”
