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“The logo on his sweatshirt. I’m ninety percent confident that it’s from a diner in Albuquerque.” He reached for the hot sauce.
My gaze shot to his as I handed it over. “Albuquerque? Lila was born there.”
“It could be a coincidence. The diner is legendary. It’s right there on the old Route 66. Been in the same family for forty-five years. It still has a lot of the original memorabilia. Road signs and all that. People go crazy for that shit. It’s possible her attacker was passing through for his own reasons. Or maybe he’s from Albuquerque himself, and its connection to Lila is purely coincidental.”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t one of those people who didn’t believe in coincidences. The universe was too big for that. But my gut was telling me this wasn’t random. “Or maybe he’s obsessed with her and wanted to see the house where her dad nearly ended her life in a bathtub.”
“That, too.” Mateo shrugged. “Could also be that he’s connected to Lila in a way we haven’t considered yet. I know she left with her mom when she was still an infant. Does she still have family there?”
I shook my head. “She was an only child. Her dad died last year.” I sliced off a triangular bite of steak before setting down my fork. Frustration had stolen my appetite. “So, we’ve got nothing, basically.”
“Not nothing. We know we’re looking for a 5'10 pasty motherfucker with a dark freckle on his left hand who happened to be in Albuquerque sometime in the last two years.” He nodded toward my plate. “You better eat that, or Amos will give us nothing but oatmeal for the next week.”
Knowing he was right, I pulled my plate closer. “How do you know he was in Albuquerque in the last two years?"
“That’s when the logo changed to the new one. Here, take a look.” He pulled the image up on his phone. “See this right here? The sunbeams look like the orange shapes on his sweatshirt. Before the switch, the logo was a black-and-white bronc rider.” He put his phone down and picked up his fork. “Or the patch on his shirt might not be the logo at all. We only get a corner of it visible on his sweatshirt. I could be wrong. As I said, I’m ninety percent sure.”
Mateo’s ninety percent was worth more than anyone else’s hundred percent. I nodded. “All right. So has anyone in her circle been in Albuquerque in the last two years?”
Mateo lifted a hand to his mouth. “Haven’t gotten there yet,” he said around a mouthful of potatoes.
“Why the fuck not? What the hell have you been doing, then?”
“Sleeping? Eating? Fucking? I have needs, man.”
I snorted. “You haven’t left the ranch in two weeks. There are no women here. Who would you be fucking?”
“There are women here.”
“Three.” I held up my fingers, counting them off. “There’s Tamilee, who is absolutely not going to fuck you. There’s Emma, who might fuck you—might—but Liam would kill you. And there’s Holly, who would definitely fuck you because she needs a host for all her little praying mantis babies and your head would make a tasty snack.”
Mateo flashed me a shit-eating grin, his dimples popping out. “We all gotta go sometime.”
I stared at him. “I really hope you’re joking.”
He laughed. “Relax, Seb. I found the match last night. I figured if I told you then, you’d be on my doorstep in fifteen minutes. I was tired as hell, and there was no reason for you to lose sleep, either. We’ll start hunting the Albuquerque angle today.”
Now I felt like shit. Mateo had really come through for me on this one, and I was being a dick about it. “Thanks. Divide and conquer? You can take Lila’s known contacts, and I’ll dig around on the genealogy side of things and see if that turns up any leads.”
“Sounds good.” He wrapped his hand around his coffee mug, his expression serious. “We will find him, Seb. He’s leaving us a trail of breadcrumbs right to him.”
“It could be a trap.”
“You think he’s that smart? I have my doubts. Who wears an identifiable logo to a felony?” Mateo shook his head, then grinned. “I hope it is a trap. What do you get when you trap five angry SEALs?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“It’s a riddle. Answer it.”
I sighed but played along. “I don’t know, Mateo. What do you get when you trap five angry Navy SEALs?”
Mateo smirked, lifting his coffee mug like a toast. “Your ass handed to you.”
16
LILA
“You know what we need?” Lennon said. “A night out.” She leaned on her pitchfork. Somehow we had gotten wrangled into mucking out stalls, and it was taking twice as long as it should have because we tended to do more yapping than mucking.
