“I have a partial plate that I’m running. What Icantell you is that vehicle is a little red shitbox pickup and the driver is wearing a baseball hat, black sweatshirt, and what look like skater shoes.”
“A kid?”
“Yeah, teenager is my guess.”
“I don’t know if that helps us or hurts us.”
“Once I find who the plate is registered to we’ll have a real lead.” He blows out a breath. “I think our suspect probably found this kid and paid them to do it.”
“But the timeframe is tight. Were they trying to run Kat off the roadandmaking phone calls to coordinate that? How did they know Jace had left? Or that we all went after Kat?”
It’d been a knee-jerk reaction to have all of us converge on Kat’s location. We should have had Ozzy stay at the house.
Fuck.
“I don’t have any answers for that, but there were several comments made during the time of the chase on Kat’s social media along with private messages from the accounts I already flagged and a couple of new ones.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the person leaving the comments isn’t the same person that tried to run Kat off the road.”
Well, hell, we’ve got ourselves somewhere to start.
34
KAT
Irealized belatedly that in my haste to get away from Tom, I didn’t think about what I’d change into after my shower. The hot water had been soothing, my skin already bruising where the seat belt cut across my chest. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but seeing the marks had tears flooding my eyes, and I let them fall the second I climbed in under the spray.
The bathroom is very masculine with dark gray walls and black subway tiles behind a glass sliding door. The showerhead is one of the big ones and has more pressure in the middle of nowhere than my house does in suburbia.
I used the woodsy soap and shampoo without complaint even though my hair will undoubtedly be a tangled mess.
I hope there’s a brush somewhere in this place.
I didn’t find one in the bathroom after wrapping a soft black towel around my hair and another around my body. In fact, I didn’t find much of anything.
Feeling brave, and still a little too nervous to venture downstairs, I pad softly down the hall toward one of the bedrooms. It’s plain but tidy, the cabin walls and large bedframe dominating the room.
Pausing only for a moment, I cross the threshold and move into the space, going straight for the closet and pulling open the doors.
It’s mostly bare with only an assortment of slacks and dress shirts.
Suits.
And two flannel shirts hanging off to the side, almost like an afterthought.
Perfect.
Dropping my towel, I grab the dark green-and-black plaid one, slipping it on before pulling the towel from my hair.
The shirt is massive and smells like cedar, the scent of detergent gone from the fabric as I press my nose to it. I hate that I wish it smelled like him, that I wish I could curl up in it and maybe just hide away for the rest of the night.
But the muffled sound of Tom moving around downstairs is a harsh reminder that I have to face reality.
And soon.
The thought is a sobering one as I snatch the wet towels off the floor and hang them in the bathroom. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I can’t help but sigh, combing my fingers through my hair because it’s all I can do to make myself presentable.
