The next morning, Kendall hung up from her call with Matt and looked at the sunlight flooding in through the dining room window. She wished her mood was as sunshiny as the day. She still had a residual headache and hadn’t slept much last night. Her fault totally. She kept checking in with Seth, who had parked her car in strategic locations to lure out her attacker, but he arrived at dawn with her vehicle minus the GPS tracker, tired and frustrated from a night of zero action.
She looked at Cord, who was peering outside, his expression pensive. He’d been distant like that since they learned the phone Eve called from was indeed a burner, and the call triangulated to a large park on the north side of the county. Both dead ends. She didn’t know if he was thinking about that or Lucas’s injury or about losing his family. Maybe all of the above.
Kendall wanted to know, but she didn’t feel right asking. Still, she could let him know she was available to help. “We may not be together anymore, but you can always tell me what’s bothering you, and I’ll try to help.”
He turned then, a vacant look in his eyes, before he whisked it away. “Not really much you can do.”
“Sometimes just talking helps.”
“Sometimes, but right now I need to find Eve more than talking.” He sat down next to her. “Did I hear Matt say he got the warrant for the bank phone wiretap, and he’ll have it up and running this morning?”
She nodded. “He’ll babysit it personally.”
“I can never begin to repay your family for everything. You have all been so great.”
“If we were in your situation, you’d do the same thing for us.”
He nodded and gestured at the table. “We should get going on the credit card bills.”
Kendall scanned down the most recent statement and noticed a high number of recent visits to restaurants across the county. “Did Eve like to eat out a lot?”
Cord shook his head. “She always says there’s nothing better than home cooking, and she makes the best meals.”
“Check out these charges.” Kendall handed the statement to Cord.
“Odd.” His brow furrowed. “She dined out once, sometimes twice, a day for weeks, and the restaurants are spread all over the county.”
“None of them are in Lost Creek. Maybe she was trying to hide that, too.”
“Also, based on the dollar amounts, she didn’t eat alone but picked up the tab. Maybe she was taking out the money and giving it to whoever she ate with.”
“Question is, who did she eat with?”
“We should start with her church friends, though if she gave them fifty-thousand dollars, I’m sure Gladys or Pauline would’ve told us.”
“I’ll call them.” Kendall took out her small notepad and flipped to the page with Gladys’s contact information. Kendall dialed and Gladys answered right away, but she had no idea that Eve was dining out, and she confirmed that such behavior was odd. So did Pauline when Kendall called her. Kendall then called the shelter and church to see if Eve donated a large sum of money to either of them, but struck out there, too.
Tapping her finger on the table, she thought about their next move. “Seems to me our best option right now is to check out the restaurants to see if anyone remembers seeing Eve and can describe her dining companion or if they have video cameras.”
“Agreed.”
Kendall started gathering the papers together. “Let me tell Mom we’re leaving and ask her to keep an eye out for Lucas.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She eyed him. “I think I can handle this on my own, Cord. No one is going to try to kill me in the kitchen.”
“No, wait. I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted to thank your mother for her help with Lucas.”
“Oh, right. Okay.” Embarrassed at her erroneous assumption, Kendall fled to the kitchen. Cord followed behind.
She found her mother at the sink, washing dishes, and her nana at the counter, pounding down dough for what Kendall believed would be warm, yeasty dinner rolls or bread.
“We’re heading out to conduct interviews,” Kendall said.
Her nana looked up. “Will you be home for dinner?”
“If those are rolls you’re making, I sure hope so.” Cord grinned.
“Menu tonight is rolls, roast beef, mashed potatoes and garden carrots.” She smiled back at him.
Kendall loved the ease between the pair and wondered what it would be like to be so free with her emotions with him, as she had once been, instead of feeling so guarded all the time.
“And I promised Lucas I’d bake brownies. His favorites, he said, as long as there’s some vanilla ice cream to go with them.” She winked.
Instead of the smile Kendall expected from Cord, he looked like something was bothering him. Perhaps he had no idea what any of Lucas’s favorite things were.
“We should go,” she said to keep him from stewing about his nephew.
Outside, she turned to Cord. “I’ll drive. I want to take my squad car so I have computer access in case we need to check on anyone we talk to.”
He seemed to think about it a moment, then nodded.
She reached her car, and the dent in the door brought back memories of the suspect’s angry eyes as he warned her to back off. His harsh words. Tone. Then the noose came to mind. Hanging there. The warning clear.
A chill cascaded down her body even though temperatures had already topped ninety degrees. She paused, hand on her sidearm, and scanned the area.
“I’m glad to see you being so cautious.” Cord bent to check the wheel wells. “After the noose yesterday, protecting you has to be a top priority.”
Feeling even more unsettled, she got into the car and clicked the locks before taking the road toward Cumberland and the restaurant where Eve had dined most often. Kendall’s residual unease—when she was usually pretty fearless—left her anxious, and she didn’t feel like talking.
Silence settled around them like a Texas dust storm, thick and irritating. Shifting to get physically comfortable, she lifted her hand to rest it on the computer mount but brushed Cord’s shoulder. She jerked back from the searing touch, earning a raise of his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” she said, hating that he reacted so negatively to her touch. Time for her to be brutally honest to put this to rest once and for all. “I guess there’s still something between us. At least from my end.”
“You clearly don’t want that to be the case.” His tone was laced with disappointment.
Wait, what? Did he want to get involved again? What would the point be if they hadn’t ironed out any of their issues?
She had to make sure he clearly understood that a relationship with him was the last thing she wanted.
“You’re right, I don’t.” She gave him a pointed look. “Now would be the worst possible time for me to get involved in a relationship. The very worst, and even if it wasn’t, you would totally be the wrong guy.”
* * *
The force of Kendall’s words felt like a punch to Cord’s chest. He didn’t want anything to do with her on a personal level, either. Okay, he did, but he wouldn’t follow his interest. Couldn’t. Not with his crazy, mixed-up life right now, but her vehement rejection still stung.
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t want it, either,” he said from between clenched teeth.
“Good,” she replied.
“Fine.” He crossed his arms and sat back to stare out the window. He felt as angry as Lucas often acted and wanted to become full-blown mad at her, but why? She’d done nothing other than voice her opinion. An opinion he was glad for, right?
So take a breath and get over it.
He tried. Once. Twice. Didn’t work, so he watched out the window, focusing on the familiar scenery. This area had been in his regular patrol sector when he was a Lake County deputy, and he’d driven down this rural road hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. He always thought out here in the boonies was an odd place for a restaurant, but Buddy’s World-Famous Barbeque had started with a smoker at Buddy’s house fifty years ago, his wife baking the pies to sell alongside the barbeque. It grew from there into a full-fledged restaurant.
A few miles outside Cumberland, Kendall pulled into Buddy’s parking lot and killed the engine. The place had cedar siding, grayed from years under the Texas sun, and a green metal roof. A large porch ran the length of the building and held white rocking chairs. The lot was empty, but the smell of roasting meat and the smoke rising up from behind the building gave him hope that someone was working.
He reached for the door but turned back to Kendall. “Let’s make sure our personal differences don’t get in the way, okay? Your safety and finding Eve have to come before anything else.”
“Agreed.” Kendall pulled the keys from the ignition and grabbed the suspect’s sketch. Her phone chimed, and she glanced at it. “It’s a text from Matt. Eve called the bank again. He wasn’t able to record it, but he’ll track the phone number. He’ll get back to us if it returns any actionable information.”
Cord gave a firm nod but she could tell he was disappointed. “Keep your head on a swivel.”
He stayed close to her until they were inside the small joint with tables covered in white butcher paper. Metal buckets filled with peanuts, and smaller cans holding crayons for doodling, sat on the table. The scarred wood floor was covered in shells that crunched underfoot.
“Eve would hate this place,” Cord said to Kendall. “She likes things neat and tidy and this is the opposite.”
“Which makes it even weirder that she ate here four times in the last few weeks.”
A dark-haired woman wearing jeans and a purple plaid shirt with a white apron over it looked up from behind a counter, where she was filling salt shakers. She smiled, but it was forced. “Sorry, we don’t open for an hour.”
“Actually, we’re not here for food but for some information.” Kendall held out her identification.
The woman planted her palms on the counter and looked like she wanted to sigh but held it in. Cord noticed her name tag read Billie Jo.
“How can I help you?” she asked in a heavy Texas drawl.
“I was wondering if you remember seeing this woman here.” Kendall held out her phone, with Eve’s picture on it.
“Yeah, sure. I remember her.” Billie Jo smiled again, and this time it was genuine. “She’s been here a few times lately. She sat in my section each time. Real nice lady and great tipper.”
“Might this man have been dining with her?” Kendall laid the sketch on the counter.
Billie Jo glanced at it and shook her head. “She was with a man but he was older than that. Maybe ten years younger than her. I figure she’s in her seventies, and he’s in his sixties, maybe late fifties. But you know how sometimes men age better than women and it’s hard to tell, so I could be totally wrong.”
So basically, she didn’t have any information, except Eve’s companion was older than their suspect. It didn’t narrow things down much and left Cord frustrated. But Billie Jo couldn’t help that.
He schooled his voice to keep his emotion in check. “Was she with this same guy every time?”
She nodded.
“Did you catch his name?”
“She never mentioned it, and she always paid, so I didn’t see his name on a credit card.” Billie Jo frowned. “Honestly, I thought it was kind of odd that the man didn’t pay.”
So did Cord. “Did you get a feel for their relationship?”
“He held her hand. Smiled at her a lot. She seemed captivated by him. So yeah, I thought they were dating.”
Cord fought his mouth’s natural desire to drop open. “And they both seemed to be into each other?”
“Yeah…yeah. I guess so. Her maybe more than him, but then he’s a guy and guys aren’t always that expressive, are they?” She looked at Cord like she was lumping him in that category.
Maybe he belonged there. He often felt devoid of any emotion except grief these days. Frustration with Lucas, too, he supposed. That was when he wasn’t just plain mad at the world and aching inside. Or maybe wanting to be with Kendall. So fine. He was an emotional wreck.
“Do you have any security cameras?” Kendall asked.
Billie Jo snorted. “We barely have a working cash register. The owner’s not about to fork over money for cameras.”
“Do you remember the guy well enough that you could meet with a sketch artist and have a drawing made like this one?” Cord tapped the attacker’s drawing, which was still lying on the counter.
Billie Jo lifted her head to the ceiling. “Not sure, but maybe.” She quickly dropped her chin, her eyes narrowed. “What’s this about anyway? This lady in trouble?”
“We’re not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation.” Kendall smiled. “If I arrange for a sketch artist, could you come to the office to meet with him?”
She ran a hand over her hair. “Sure, as long as I can be here by ten to prepare for the lunch rush.”
“What’s your cell number?” Kendall asked. Billie Jo offered it and Kendall tapped it into her phone. “You should hear from me soon. Until then, can you give us a basic description of the man?”
“Silvery hair. Distinguished looking. Was pretty fit. Not overweight. Maybe six feet tall.”
“Anything that set him apart from other men?” Cord asked.
Billie Jo tilted her head. “No. Not really. I mean, except he was fit for his age, when a lot of the guys we get in here for all-you-can-eat barbeque have packed on some weight.”
“That’s it for my questions.” Kendall handed a business card to Billie Jo and gave Cord a questioning look.
“Thank you, Billie Jo.” Cord smiled.
She nodded. “Hope I can help you figure out whatever it is you need help with.”
Kendall offered a final smile, and they headed for the door.
“I wonder if Eve ate with this guy at every restaurant,” Cord said as they walked back over the crunchy shells. “Or maybe she met an old friend for dinner here and Billie Jo is mistaken about the romance angle.”
Kendall looked up at him. “You really don’t like the idea of her dating, do you?”
“Like it? I don’t know if like is the right word, but it’s crazy weird to me.”
“Well, it’s beginning to look like that might be what’s going on.”
“I know.”
“Here’s the thing, though,” Kendall continued. “If she’s missing because she’s run off with some guy—”
“Which I don’t think is the case.”
“I tend to agree with that, but hear me out. So if she’s run off, who’s the young guy who clocked me with the rolling pin?”
“Makes me think this has even less to do with dating.” Cord opened the door and stepped outside. “Or I don’t know. Maybe I’m too closed-minded about that. Maybe I’m too close to Eve to do a good job here at all.”
“You’re doing fine,” she said.
“Fine isn’t good enough. I feel like I’m missing things.”
“Speaking of missing things, I spent some time last night thinking about the item missing from the bookshelf. What if Eve has pictures with the bookshelf in the background? If we head over there, we might find one and figure out what’s missing.”
“See, that’s the kind of thing I need to be coming up with. It’s just…”
“You’re worried sick about Eve. Cut yourself some slack and let me help, okay?”
He nodded, but that wasn’t going to stop him from blaming himself for Eve’s disappearance. Wouldn’t stop him at all.