“I’ll camp out here. With him.”
His gaze ticked sharply to her. “You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “What do you think? I’m just going to leave you out here alone?” So much for that anticipated shower, hot meal, good mattress. “It’ll be fine as long as I’m back in town for my job at the airport tomorrow evening, because Brixton will fire my ass if I’m not.”
Jock Brixton, who ran Coastal Investigations, had been reluctant to hire Angie in the first place because of her notorious dismissal from the MVPD and the subsequent media frenzy after she’d shot and killed a serial sex murderer known as the Baptist.
The media had also gone to town over the discovery that Angie was the mysterious little Jane Doe found in an angel’s cradle over thirty years ago and that her biological father was a sex trafficker who’d killed her mother and sister, among others. Angie had begged Brixton to give her a chance because no other PI firm had come even close to offering her a job, and by law she had to work for a registered company in order to accrue the hours required to graduate to an unsupervised PI license. Once she had her unsupervised license, she could think about starting her own boutique-style agency. She’d even offered to take a lower-than-average rate of pay.
Brixton had finally relented and offered a probationary period of employment. Which meant Angie had been left scraping the bottom of the PI barrel, her case load consisting mostly of following adulterous spouses or the children of rich parents who wanted to spy on their kids. It sucked; no two ways about it. But she just had to keep her eye on the prize—running her own business. Screwing up her probationary employment would cost her that prize.
“Hey, look, if you guys don’t need me,” Budge said, “would you mind if I headed back to my truck? Port Ferris cops know where to find me if they have questions or anything.”
Maddocks said, “You okay to find your way back? It’s almost dark.”
“Got my GPS. Got my headlamp. Got Tuck. We know our way. Done it plenty times in far worse conditions. Don’t live that far away, neither.” The old guy positioned his headlamp atop his ball cap and clicked it on. He gave a nod and, wheezing, made his way off into the woods. They watched his light bobbing into the mist, then it disappeared.
“Do you want to come help me get the gear while Maddocks waits here?” Claire said to Angie.
She nodded and started to follow Claire down the trail toward the beach, but Maddocks reached for Angie’s arm and held her back a moment.
“You okay?” he said.
“Why shouldn’t I be okay?”
He angled his head, his skin pale under the beam of her flashlight. “Because you’re reacting like this. Getting all snippy. What is it? The wolves? Are they prodding old memories?”
She glowered at him, a cocktail of feelings stirring into her heart. He cared. He was a good guy. She loved him with all her heart, and a part of her resented him because he was so goddamn perfect. Because he was still a big-shot detective, and she wasn’t. Because his success—his recent promotion to head a new major incident unit—just offset her own failures. Because something buried deep down inside her was still resisting committing fully to a relationship with him, and she didn’t know why, and it saddened and confused her. More than anything she did not want him to treat her like a victim. She wanted his respect. To be his equal. She wanted his admiration, not pity.
“You’ve been treating me like fragile china ever since I found out my father was a killer. Do you know that?” she whispered so Claire would not hear. “And while I appreciate the sentiment—I really do—I’m made of tougher stuff than you’re giving me credit for right now, okay? I don’t like being cosseted. I want you to lay off.”
An owl hooted somewhere. Wind rustled through the tops of the trees. His gaze held hers, and a deeper subtext layered into the chill between them.
You ever thought of kids ...
“I’m a survivor, Maddocks,” she reiterated. “Nota victim.”
Something shifted in his face. He stepped back, his shoulders squaring. “Fine,” he said. “Are you sure you want to stay out here with me tonight?”
“Do youwantme to stay?”
“You know the answer to that, Angie.” He paused, eyes glinting. “I always want you. It’s whatyouwant right now that worries me.”
Her jaw tightened as she held his eyes a second longer. Then she turned and followed Claire into the woods, heart thumping against her ribs.
CHAPTER 4
James Maddocks poked a log into the campfire, shooting small orange sparks into the night. Angie was snugged up beside him, a blanket around her shoulders. A tarp strung between branches kept rain from their heads as water plopped and fizzed into the flames. She handed him a hip flask of brandy. He took it and sipped in silence as they listened to the wolves howling in the mountains. The ominous roar of Plunge Falls seemed to creep closer in the black cold of the night.
Angie shivered and drew her blanket up tighter around her shoulders.
“Chilly?” he said.
“It’s the sound of those wolves,” she said. “You were right. It does send me back into the past.” She shot him a wry smile. “Doesn’t help to be camping next to exposed human remains.”
“Claire said the pack stays mostly on the other side of the river.”
“Hope so. I haven’t practiced defense with OC in a while,” she said, using the police term for bear or pepper spray that contained extraction of oleoresin capsicum.
