Chapter 5
P olly popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth. She’d barely eaten all day. And yes, some of that was because Bloom had been so busy. Basil’s coffee machine had stopped working, which meant she got her own coffee business and his. He certainly hadn’t been pleased about that.
But she also hadn’t eaten because after hearing the whole “Joel’s a playboy” thing, she’d just kind of lost her appetite.
Maybe she was being dramatic. So he’d dated a lot of women? She didn’t plan to date him, so it shouldn’t bother her.
Right? Right.
But dammit, it did. She’d softened toward him since the cellar incident. And maybe she’d even started to wonder if he was different.
Maggie turned her head and frowned at her from the third row, a silent, “What are you doing back there?”
Polly just gave her a small smile before throwing more popcorn into her mouth. She had too much pent-up anger to sit. Standing in the back felt better.
Of course, Ward also got part of the credit for her bad mood.
She’d gone to him about the phone she’d found.
He’d been sitting behind his desk, eating apple pie at ten a.m. Why that irked her so much, she wasn’t sure.
Then she’d told him about the phone. About the messages and the photos.
Also about her being stuck in the cellar, only for the phone to then mysteriously go missing, because the two had to be related.
And what had he done? He’d looked at her like she was telling a fictional story. Like she wanted attention or something.
Another piece of popcorn in her mouth. Now she was just rage-chewing because today had sucked. Big buckets’ worth of suck.
Ward hadn’t cared. Not even a little bit. And yes, she knew he was useless, so she should have expected it. It still made her angry.
When she’d asked what had happened to this Eileen lady who’d owned the phone, he’d simply said she’d probably left town. Something about a bad husband she was trying to disappear from.
Someone came to stand beside her, and she internally groaned when she saw who it was—Gerome, Ward’s son.
The sucky day wasn’t over yet.
Gerome smirked at her. “Enjoying that popcorn?”
“There are spare seats, you know.”
“I saw you back here and thought you looked lonely.”
“You thought wrong.” She frowned at his smile. “Why do you look so happy?”
“I just have a feeling this town’s going to lose a bit more faith in their precious little SAR team and their misplaced belief that the guys will be our new saviors.”
Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”
“Hey.”
Her skin tingled at his voice. And dammit, she was mad at her body for that.
She didn’t look up at Joel on her other side. “Hi.” Another popcorn in her mouth.
“Everything all right?” Joel asked.
She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or Gerome. She answered anyway. “Peachy.”
“Busy day?” Gerome asked, directing the question toward Joel.
She felt him tense beside her.
There was a small chuckle from Gerome before he walked away.
What was that about?
Joel inched closer. “How’s your day been?”
“Fine.” If fine meant a series of terrible events.
“I’ve been worried about you.”
Finally, she glanced up. That’s when she saw it. The exhaustion pulling his brows together. The lines beside his eyes. “Are you okay?”
His mouth opened, but Ferris cleared his throat from the front of the room before Joel could respond.
She looked at Ferris, then quickly back to Joel. Then at Connor. And Zac. And Ryan. They all looked tired. Had something happened? Ethan was the only one missing, but one glance at Maggie and she spotted him beside her.
“Good evening, everyone,” Ferris said.
She glanced back at their mayor. Even his voice was different. More mellow. Like he was about to share bad news.
Shit . Her bad day was about to get worse, wasn’t it?
“I was planning to discuss a grant application for a local project tonight. And a fair that’s coming up in a few months. But something’s happened today. Something that everyone needs to be aware of.”
The back of Polly’s neck prickled.
“This is going to be a really short meeting,” Ferris continued. “Once I tell you what happened, Ryan from the SAR team will briefly talk, and he and his team will also hang back after the meeting for any questions.”
It was another missing woman. It had to be. Had she gone missing in the forest too? Or was it worse? Had they found her and?—
“Today, our search and rescue team found a body in the river near Traipse Trailhead.”
Polly’s stomach dropped. Not a missing person…a body. Someone had been killed.
Gasps cut through the crowd.
“Was it a woman?” Anika called out from the crowd.
Ferris dipped his head. “It was. She was found in the water. The guys pulled her out, but they couldn’t save her. She’d already been shot.”
Popcorn coiled in Polly’s belly, making her suddenly feel so nauseous she thought she might be sick.
Shot. Murdered.
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if Joel really inched closer.
“Who?” Mark, Anika’s partner, asked.
Ferris swallowed. “Jenna Hampstead.”
The bucket of popcorn dropped from Polly’s suddenly cold fingers, and a buzzing started between her ears.
Ferris kept talking but she didn’t hear anything he said. Not a single word.
The body was Jenna’s.
Jenna, who came into Bloom every morning at exactly nine fifteen.
Jenna, who’d overheard her conversation with Maggie about the phone and turned pale.
Was it related? No. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Something touched her shoulder, but she barely felt it.
The buzzing was deafening, the cold in her fingers crawling into other parts of her body.
“Polly?”
She jumped and turned to see Joel staring at her, his expression one of concern. He was close, his hand on her shoulder.
His gaze shifted between her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Did you know Jenna?”
“She was a regular. She came in every morning to get her coffee. She liked it extra hot with a dash of almond milk.” She wasn’t sure why she’d added that. It felt like she had very little control over any words coming out of her mouth. “She’s dead.”
Dead. The word wasn’t sinking in. Her most reliable customer, a woman she saw every day, spoke to every day, was dead. Murdered. Right here in her hometown of Deep River.
Gasps and voices skittered throughout the room. Scared voices. Distraught voices.
Joel barely paid them any attention. All his focus remained on Polly. On her wide eyes. The way all the color had leached from her cheeks.
He inched closer, the need to comfort her, to make this just a bit easier, consuming him.
But he couldn’t make this better. He couldn’t undo what had been done.
Ryan was at the front of the community center now, talking to the town. Joel didn’t take his eyes off Polly. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes swung from his chest to his eyes. “She…”
“She what?”
Polly’s mouth opened and closed, then she looked down at the popcorn on the floor and cursed.
He lowered with her and helped her put it back in the cup. Her fingers trembled as they scooped at the kernels. “You’re shaking.”
She fisted a hand like she was trying to stop the tremble. “I’m just in shock.”
When all the popcorn was back in the cup, they both stood.
“I’m going to go,” she whispered.
Joel didn’t even have a chance to respond before Polly turned, dumped the popcorn into a nearby trash can, and stepped out of the hall.
He didn’t hesitate. Hell, he didn’t even tell the guys he was going. He just followed her.
“Polly.”
Either she didn’t hear him or she ignored him.
Three quick steps and he touched her shoulder. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” Her gaze wasn’t on him, and she kept moving.
“Where’s your car?”
“I walked.”
“You can’t walk home by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine.” But even as she said it, there was something in her voice. A thread of fear. An edge of uncertainty. That was what every new missing woman did to this town. Took away a little more of their safety.
“I’ll walk you.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t need you to.”
She turned and started walking down the path, and he walked beside her, easily keeping pace.
She shot an annoyed glance his way. “Joel?—”
“I’m not letting you walk home alone, and you don’t want to either.”
She swallowed, her arms wrapping around her waist, but she didn’t argue with him anymore.
For a few minutes, they walked in silence, and he could almost hear her thinking.
This was really messing with her. Just because the woman was a customer?
“Do you have any suspects?” Polly asked quietly.
“No.” His jaw clenched, hating that answer. “But we only found her this afternoon. Tomorrow, Ryan will talk to Ward, and Ethan will look into who she is.”
“Was,” she corrected. “And Ward’s not going to do anything.”
She was right. Ward would do the bare minimum. Exactly why Joel’s team would be looking into it, regardless of what Ward wanted.
“That’s four.” Polly’s words were so quiet, they barely crossed the distance between them.
“Yeah. That’s four in the last twelve months.” Two missing, two dead. All women, all in the forest. And that wasn’t even counting the ones who’d come before them.
“I love this town, but lately it’s feeling a lot less safe.” Her gaze skirted around the street like danger was about to jump out at them.
He inched closer again. So close, he could feel the warmth of her body, and hopefully, she felt his.
His muscles didn’t relax the entire walk to her house.
A woman had been shot today. Was it by the same person who’d killed Priya? Who’d made the other women go missing? If it was, they’d changed their MO. Why?
When they reached Polly’s front door, her fingers still shook as she tried to slot her key into her lock.
After the first few attempts didn’t work, he covered her hand with his own and guided the key in. Her skin was cold, and for a second she didn’t move. She didn’t even attempt to turn the key.
It wasn’t until he took his hand away that she finally unlocked the door and stepped in.
“Thank you,” she said, as she turned to face him.
“I don’t want to leave without knowing you’re okay.” This wasn’t the sassy, confident woman he knew. This woman was scared.
“I feel kind of numb.”
He cupped her cheek, and fuck but it felt right to touch her. “I’m sorry you knew her.”
“Did you…did you see her?”
“I found her.”
That last bit of color drained from her face.
Fuck it. He tugged her against him, wrapped one arm tightly around her waist and cupped her head with his other hand. At first, she was stiff in his arms. One second passed. Two. Slowly, she melted into him, letting him hold her as she pressed her palms flat against his chest.
She was soft and warm, and some of the trembling in her limbs stilled.
When she lifted her head, her eyes gutted him. Because for once they didn’t hide anything. They were pools of vulnerability. Sadness and confusion and pain. But also something else. Something he almost didn’t want to name in case he got it wrong.
Her gaze lowered to his lips. And his gut tightened for a different reason.
Slowly, her hands trailed up his chest. She touched the back of his neck. Then in one strong tug, she pulled his head down and kissed him.
Shit , her lips were soft. And her body molded to his like she was made to fit against him perfectly.
She moved her lips across his mouth, and when he tugged her that bit closer, she gasped. He took advantage and slipped inside, tangling his tongue with hers.
The sound of her moan competed with the whoosh of wind in the trees around them. She tasted like popcorn, kind of sweet but also salty—fucking amazing.
Her fingers whispered across the back of his neck, making the hairs on his skin stand on end and his cock twitch.
He was ready to step inside, slam the door closed and press her to the wall, lose himself in her, when her palms pressed to his chest again and pushed.
When he looked at her, color had returned to her cheeks. But she frowned at him like she was confused about what had just happened.
And yeah, it was fucking confusing.
Never had a kiss tasted or felt like that before. It had made him forget. About the day and the body and the meeting. About everything outside of her.
“I should go inside.” She stumbled back, stepping into her house. “That was… We shouldn’t… I’m sorry, I can’t think. Bye.”
The door closed with a click, and it took him a solid thirty seconds to move. And even then, he could still feel her lips on his. But he’d probably be feeling them for a while.