CHAPTER 50
The next morning,Micah stood in the backyard of the house where Good Boy had been tied up and stared at the area around him.
Whoever had been here had cleared out fast.
“Place was a rental,” Deputy Knox said from behind him. “Paid in cash through a third party. We’re still trying to trace it.”
“Keep trying.”
“Will do.” Knox headed back toward his cruiser.
Micah’s thoughts drifted to Naomi again—to finding her under that boulder in the woods in the distance.
That was the problem. She kept showing up in his thoughts without invitation, slipping in through the cracks he hadn’t realized he’d left open. Last night in that nursery, watching her with Grace, he’d felt something shift in a way he hadn’t felt in years.
That was on him. He’d let it happen.
He’d known better. He’d told himself he knew better. And yet he’d followed her inside without thinking.
Then he’d stood in that nursery holding someone else’s baby like it was the most natural thing in the world. And for abouttwenty minutes he’d let himself forget every reason why this was a bad idea.
Naomi had already been through enough.
He wasn’t going to be one more thing she had to recover from.
Instead, he’d focus on solving this crime.
He pulled out his phone and opened his notes. Three possible leads on the dog, each one feeling thinner than the last.
The Hendersons first. They had motivation—to make Naomi pay for taking the land.
Dale Harding was second. The man had resources and motivation and had already demonstrated he was willing to operate outside the law to get what he wanted. Using the dog as a tool—to get onto the property, to gather intelligence, to create a distraction—fit the profile.
Gio Moretti was third.
Micah’s jaw tightened at the name.
He didn’t have anything concrete on Gio. No evidence, no connection he could point to, nothing that would hold up to scrutiny. Just instinct, sharpened by fifteen years of reading people.
Gio had looked at Naomi, not like a man who missed someone but like a man taking inventory.
And that parting comment.I just hope you remember what’s important.
It had almost sounded like a threat.
Micah had poured everything he had into finding answers. Into finding Good Boy. Into making sure the people threatening Refuge Cove faced consequences.
And if staying relentlessly busy happened to keep his mind off the way Naomi looked at him last night when he’d said good night . . . then so be it.
Besides, he needed to keep his walls up. He couldn’t let himself forget that.
Grace had been fussy all morning.
Not sick-fussy or hurt-fussy. Just restless and particular, wanting to be held but not settled, interested in everything and satisfied by nothing. Naomi had walked her through every room in the house twice, bounced her, and sung to her.
Nothing stuck for long.
Naomi pressed a kiss to her temple. “Let’s try the porch.”
