Chapter 31
“ Y ou’re sure you want to go to The Pancake Bar?”
“Is that so unbelievable?” Polly asked, looking up at Joel, a hint of a smile on her face.
“Didn’t he tell you that your croissants were so tough they could double as doorstops?”
“Well, yes?—”
“Then you told him that his coffee tastes like it’s been filtered through gym socks.”
“I was actually really proud of that comeback.” It had just slipped out, like she’d practiced it or something.
He shot her a glance from behind the wheel. “Usually, you pretend you hate his pancakes.”
“What can I say, I’m a changed woman.” Plus, everyone saw through that lie. Because who could actually hate Basil’s pancakes? No one. They were so good, she would bet every dollar she had that they were actually unhateable.
He squeezed her thigh. “Not too changed, I hope. I really like the Polly I know.”
“The one who called you a sexist asshat because you told me that lifting heavy boxes was a man’s job?”
“Yeah, that one. The one who’s not afraid to put me in my place and tell me when my attempts at flirting don’t come off the way I intend.”
“That was you flirting?”
“Thank God I have you now and don’t have to do that anymore.”
She chuckled.
He pulled up in front of The Pancake Bar. “I can smell the pancakes from here.”
“Can you smell my croissants from the parking lot too?”
Joel grinned and leaned over the middle console, hovering his lips an inch from hers. “Sunshine, I can smell you and that fruity scent that teases my nose from a million miles away.”
“That’s sweet. But it’s not what I asked.” She turned and climbed out.
He caught up to her halfway to the door and slung an arm around her waist. “Did you just withhold a kiss from me?”
“I would never.” She stepped inside, and her smile widened at the sight of Maggie by the counter, talking to Maureen. “I’ll be back.”
She went to step away, but he grabbed her arm, tugged her back, and kissed her. A full swipe of his lips against hers. A taste of her tongue.
She moaned, falling into him. Getting lost in him.
When he lifted his head, she almost wanted to groan.
“ That was my kiss,” he breathed against her mouth, before heading over to where Ryan, Ethan, Zac, and Connor sat.
Argh. He didn’t fight fair.
Maggie looked up as Polly approached. “Hey! You look happy.”
“It’s been a good morning.”
Maureen turned toward her. “Polly, dear, how are you doing? It’s been a month now, right?”
“To the day.” She still couldn’t believe an entire month had passed since Cox had kidnapped her. “I’m doing really good though.”
“That’s great. You know every time I walked past Cox, I used to get this cold draft. I sensed something off about him, but sometimes intuition gets fogged by a friendly smile.”
“It’s okay—he’s locked away now.” And with any luck, he wouldn’t be getting out for a long time, if ever.
“Thank God. And thank God for our SAR team. We need them here.” Maureen leaned forward. “Catching one shadow often only makes others more obvious.”
“What do you mean?” Was she talking about the original missing women? Did she know that the ones dating back over twenty-five years might be connected?
Maureen just gave her an odd smile. “I should get going. I’ll see you both later. Remember to stay safe.”
Polly was still frowning as she watched the other woman leave. “Sometimes I wonder if there’s some merit to Maureen’s self-proclaimed psychic abilities.” She looked back at Maggie. “Is that crazy? Tell me it’s crazy.”
“I think we’d be crazy to discredit Maureen.” She sipped her coffee.
Basil stopped opposite them. “Polly. Nice to see you today. Guess I should be nice to you after your ordeal. Although, that was a month ago.”
“Basil, you can be whatever you want to me, as long as you bring me your biggest stack of pancakes possible.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Would that be the same pancakes that you called lumpy and inconsistent a few months ago?”
“I think we should call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yeah. We should support each other. We do live in the same small town.”
Basil slammed his palms onto the counter. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Polly?”
“I’m just someone who appreciates the best pancakes in the world.”
His eyes narrowed, and he held her gaze for a few moments like he was waiting for her to crack. When she didn’t, he muttered something indecipherable under his breath before walking to the kitchen.
Maggie chuckled. “I think you broke his brain.”
“I don’t understand why everyone is so shocked by my wanting to come here. Yes, Basil and I have had our moments. But one of us needed to be the more mature business owner, and I’ve taken that upon myself.”
“People are obviously being ridiculous.”
“Thank you.” She glanced around The Pancake Bar.
David Collins sat in his usual corner booth. Joe Ferris was standing by the guy’s table, and they were having what looked like a serious conversation. Anika and Mark were just outside, and, if Mark’s folded arms and Anika’s jabs at his chest were anything to go by, they were arguing.
Her mother had said she might pop in this morning. Maybe Jonah too.
Polly’s relationship with him had gotten better in the last month. She’d apologized for suspecting he was the Deep River killer and was finally seeing what her mother saw—he was a good guy.
Hell, he’d supported Teagan through her AA meetings and kept it all private and confidential at her request.
He was also well suited to her mother. Possibly more than any man she’d been with before.
She wasn’t going to go so far as to say they were a forever kind of thing. Polly needed time, and a lot of it, to believe in that. But she could admit they seemed solid.
It wasn’t just her relationship with Jonah that had improved.
A week after the incident, she’d had a long talk with her mother about the impact of her dating, even confessing her fear of small spaces that had developed from that one stepdad.
Her mother had revealed that she actually felt regret for bouncing from guy to guy for Polly’s entire life.
They’d cried. They’d hugged. And now they were better than they’d ever been.
“I love this town,” she said under her breath. “And it feels just a little bit safer since Cox was taken off the streets.”
Maggie nodded. “I know what you mean. I just wish…”
Polly looked at her best friend. “Your mom?”
“Yeah. I wish they’d find her killer.”
Polly wished that too.
Cox was only responsible for the murders in the last twelve months.
He was a copycat. Which meant the original killer, the person responsible for five women in roughly twenty-five years, was still out there.
Six years had passed since the last woman had gone missing.
It was possible they’d stopped or died or left town.
There was also a chance the women weren’t connected. Only two of the five had been found. Maybe the other three had gone missing in the forest on their own. Maybe there was nothing sinister about their disappearances.
Or maybe there was.
“You boys are doing a really great job at protecting this town,” Ferris said, hitting Joel on the back. “First Maggie’s stalker, now Cox. You’re earning your money.”
“Any update on the identity of the guy paying our wages?” Ryan asked, leaning back in his chair.
Ferris laughed. “I would tell you if I could. But he likes remaining anonymous.”
“But you know, right?” Ethan asked.
“Of course.” The smile slipped as he looked out the window. “Ward has been a pain in my ass.”
Joel almost scowled. “What’s he doing now?”
“Telling anyone who’ll listen that he solved the most recent case, and your team did nothing but get in his way. Gerome’s spreading the lies too.”
Connor scoffed. “No one will believe that.”
“I don’t know, both of them have pretty big mouths.” Ferris shook his head. “Anyway. I should get going. Just wanted to stop by and tell you boys how proud I am of you.”
The second he headed out of The Pancake Bar, Joel turned back to his team. “How are we all feeling?”
“Glad Cox is gone,” Zac said.
“Sickened that he was inspired by the previous missing and dead women,” Ethan growled. “He killed four women and blamed it on his faith.”
“He saw what we saw though,” Ryan said quietly. “That there’s a pattern of missing women.”
A quiet slipped over the table. They all felt it. The heaviness of wondering if something was coming…and whether or not they could stop it. The blindness of not knowing who was behind the original abductions or which direction they might come from again.
Zac rubbed his chin. “They might have stopped. It started twenty-five years ago. The person responsible could have moved or passed away.”
“Or”—Ryan glanced around the café—“they’re going to choose another target soon. There were years between some of the abductions.”
Ethan cursed under his breath, his gaze going to the counter.
Joel’s followed, but while Ethan looked at Maggie, Polly stole his focus. The way her lips curved into a soft smile. The laugh lines beside her eyes.
He’d almost lost her once. He couldn’t go through that a second time.
“She doing okay?” Connor asked softly from his right.
Joel shifted his gaze back to his friend. “For now. I don’t want her to be a sitting duck though.”
“She won’t. She’s protected by you and by us. For now, the good news is, the original killer hasn’t escalated like we’d originally thought.”
Connor was right. That was good, and it should be their focus. But he couldn’t completely relax. Not yet.
Something at the window caught Connor’s attention, and his friend frowned.
Joel followed his gaze to see Raven outside, fiddling with her purse. A deep frown was set between her brows and she looked tired. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, her lips curving down.
Without taking his eyes off Raven, Connor squeezed Joel’s shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
As his friend headed toward the door, Polly took his seat. “Is it okay if I sit here?”
“Absolutely. In fact,” —he tugged her chair closer, so her thigh pressed to his—“if Connor wants his seat back, you can sit on my lap.”
She scoffed. “I’m sorry, but you will be denied that pleasure. We are not going to be a second Anika and Mark. Public displays of affection are not my thing.”
“Huh.” He grabbed her around the waist and heaved her onto his lap.
She gasped and pushed at his chest. “ Joel .”
He grinned, his hold on her waist like iron. “Is this so bad?”
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Fine. Maybe I like it. Maybe I don’t even care who’s looking.”
He chuckled.
Her gaze caught on the window, and she nodded toward Connor and Raven on the other side of the glass. “Is something going on between those two?”
“Not yet.”
“Yet?”
Joel lifted a shoulder. “I think Connor’s interested. It just depends on Raven.”
“I’m worried about her. I mean, I don’t know her very well, but when I went to the community center to thank her for what she did by the river, she was really jumpy and looked so tired.
” She frowned, still looking at Raven before shaking her head.
“I tried to gently ask her if everything was okay, and she said it was. I wanted to push but…”
“But it’s her life? When has that ever stopped you?”
She hit his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Ow.” He grabbed his shoulder.
“Don’t be a baby.”
“You know, you’re starting to sound like the old Polly. The one who told me to go play in traffic.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Yeah, I was a bit mean. But to be fair, I wasn’t very nice to any man.”
“Luckily, I saw through that hard facade.”
“Was it a facade?”
“We both know you were hopelessly in love with me since the day you first set your eyes on all this.”
Her gaze softened. “I think you might be right, Dawson.”
He hovered his lips over hers. “So you don’t want me to play in traffic?”
“Only if I get to play with you.”
He chuckled before closing that last bit of distance and kissing her. Holding her. Loving her.