Clearly, thanking him killed her, but she’d been raised with manners. “Okay, I’ll leave, but you need to lock up after me and promise to be careful.”
“The three women went missing by the river.”
“Thelastthree.”
She frowned. “What?”
Fuck. He shouldn’t be saying anything about the others. Not yet. “Just promise you’ll lock up after me, Sunshine.”
“If you stop calling me Sunshine.”
His lips twitched. “Can’t make any promises on that.”
She rolled her eyes for a second time, and he fucking loved those eye rolls. He wasn’t even sure why.
He noticed a phone on the floor behind her. It wasn’t a smart phone and it looked old. Not what he’d seen Polly with in the past. “That yours?”
“It is now.” She lifted the cell and pushed it into her pocket.
He frowned, but then she was slipping off her shoes before pushing him out into the kitchen and through the main area.
“You know, if you wanted to touch me, you just had to ask,” he said playfully.
She scoffed. “Are you under the impression you’re God’s gift to all women, or do I get special attention?”
“Do youwantspecial attention?”
When they reached the front door, she opened it. “What I want is for you to go. And if you decide not to come back, that’s okay.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. You’d miss me too much.”
“Yeah, I’d miss you like mosquitos miss bug zappers.”
He chuckled before leaning down to her ear and whispering, “I don’t believe that for a second.”
There was a small gasp of air from her. He was still smiling when he crossed the street and slipped behind the wheel of his truck.
The smile faded, though, as his mind went back to those missing women. Two missing and another dead.
His fingers tightened around the wheel as he started home. There were others. Five women who’d either gone missing or had been found drugged and dead in the river. The history of unsolved disappearances and deaths in this part of Montana spanned back twenty-five years.
Not one of them had prompted a criminal investigation. Why? Because the joke of a sheriff had marked them all as missing women or accidental drownings.
Shit, he hated that guy. This town deserved better.
As he got close to home, his phone rang. He didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was. The same person who called every day—his mother.
He silenced the call and climbed from the truck.
He’d spent a year in Houston with his parents before coming to Deep River. An entire fucking year, and he still had no idea why he’d gone there. His parents were too different from him. But then, they owned and ran Dawson Energy Services, which brought a level of wealth most people couldn’t dream of.
The neighborhood was quiet around him as he crossed to the front door. He’d barely stepped inside when a black-and-white cat pressed against his leg.
“Hey there.” He lowered and scratched her head. “You know, you don’t need to stay here. There are plenty of other homeowners you can live with.”
He hadnotsigned up to be a cat dad. The thing had just entered his house one day and never left.
Instead of walking out the still-open door, the creature headed toward his kitchen.
