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It took hours for them to process the river scene. Clay had gotten called away, and left Bailey with Dr. Harris. The other woman and her team had promised to drop Bailey off at the Value TSP on their way through.
Clay was kept busy with the rest of the county, but he worried about her while she was out there.
He probably always would.
When they finally brought her back near nine at night, she was beyond the point of exhausted. But he had good news for her.
“Wichita Falls called. They may have a match to three old cases that remain unsolved. Their machines are down—whatever that means—but the service tech will be there at six a.m. And they want you up there by nine. The detective on the cold cases is retiring, and he wants to talk to you in person. I think he’s wanting to hand it over to someone young and enthusiastic. I’ve got business up there myself—we’ll take my jeep.”
She nodded then sank into the chair next to his desk. Clay just studied her for a moment. Her hair was falling down, she had clay and mud caked on her uniform pants beneath the knees. “The ME thinks she’s only been dead a few days. Probably not even time to report her missing.”
Something tickled his brain. “Unless she’s one of the names on Jake’s list of missing from this town.”
“Unless she came from Finley Creek. Someone going missing here would be almost too noticeable. And anyone that woman was with or seen in contact with would be more easily identified. But Finley Creek...forty-five thousand people actually make it easier for someone to disappear.” Bailey grabbed for the bag of M&Ms off the corner of his desk.
He’d put them there for her hours earlier.
***
Someone would have to drive her home. Bailey considered just camping out on the couch in his office again, but that idea didn’t appeal.
She wanted to go home for a while. A place to forget everything the last few days had brought. “I need to find a ride. I’m exhausted.”
He immediately stood. “I was planning to drive you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m going to go change out of these pants first. I don’t want to get mud all over your jeep.”
“It’s a jeep, honey. It’s made for mud.” He stepped up beside her, his warm hands going to her shoulders. He rubbed.
Then tangled his fingers in her hair. “You have mud in your hair.”
“One of the trees had evidence of the flood. I brushed against it.”
“You need a shower.” He smiled down at her. “Let me drive you by the diner. I’ll run in and grab you something to eat. Then I’ll take you home and tuck you into your bed.”
“Bert may have something to say about that. Sometimes he makes Cam sleep on the couch—just to mess with him.”
“I don’t think Bert will mind. He’s too busy wrangling Veri.”
“What is going on with them? Is it just the storm?”
“She made a comment about them having slept together eighty years ago not giving him any rights over her life. Deb, Jeremy, and Ralley were speechless. But Bert convinced her she was going with him tonight—by kidnapping her cat. Said the cat was going home with him and she could follow. Last I saw her she was climbing into the passenger side of that older truck of his.”
“That’s so weird.”
“No kidding. And Celia Lake is still out there with Jake. Her house took some damage, and the roof will need to be repaired. It’s right over their bedrooms, Jake said. She and her son are with Jake—and not her sisters.”
“Really?” That was a surprise. She hadn’t had much time to talk to Jake in several days. It felt like weeks. Apparently, some things had happened in his world that she didn’t know about.
Life kept going around them, didn’t it? Bailey lowered her head to his broad chest, right against his heartbeat. “I’m exhausted.”
His hand trailed up her spine. “Camp at my place. I’ll feed you, loan you some clothes, and run these through the wash. Then you can sleep a little later. I think you need it. Come home with me.”
Bailey found herself nodding. She didn’t want Bert and Jake, or even Liam, at the moment. She needed a buffer, from what she’d spent the last six hours doing next to Bracker’s Mill Creek, and what she’d done in the six hours before that.
Bert and Jake and the baby, and Celia and her son, and Veri and even the cat. It would be too real, too much like a family.
And that would bring obligations she wasn’t ready to meet tonight.
“We’ll get back to normal in the morning.”
Yeah, people just kept saying that.
Bailey wasn’t certain she believed it.