CHAPTER NINE
Cole debated paying for Holly’s breakfast. Or at least offering. Sure, it wasn’t a date—he was working, and her meals weren’t his responsibility—but he still felt like a schmuck letting her pull out her wallet.
On the way out of the diner, she tripped over the threshold, and he grabbed her just before she collided headfirst with the sidewalk.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“Breakfast was so cheap,” Cole said.
“Now you understand why I can’t afford to hang around New York indefinitely?”
“Yeah. How ’bout from now on, we take turns buying? It’s awkward getting two bills.”
She studied him a second then shrugged. “Okay.”
They started toward the truck, but everyone and their dog—and he meant that literally, almost everyone was walking a dog—stopped to greet her or give condolences over her unfortunate wedding fiasco. She took it all in stride.
“We’re never going to make it to work if you keep talking to all these people.”
“This isn’t New York,” she said. “I can’t just put my head down and pretend they don’t exist. They’re all angling for information on where you came from. Word will get around soon enough, and it won’t be so bad.”
“Harrumph.”
Holly drove to the base of the mountain and parked at the main visitor’s center, but made no move to get out.
“We doing this?” he asked, looking around the parking lot and wondering why she was still in the car.
“Shh. I’m trying to think of a way to get in and out without my boss finding out.”
“Why? We should talk to him about me tagging along with you.”
Holly shook her head. “Not if I can help it.”
“Why not?”
“Rick? The guy who left me at the altar?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Is your boss,” he said. “Great. Still, I want to talk to him. He needs a description of Edwardo.”
“Ugh.” She sighed dramatically. “He’ll find out anyway. Let’s go.”
On the walk into the building, he glanced down at his new clothes—hunter-green pants and a light brown shirt. “I look like a ranger wannabe.”
“I thought it would be best if you kind of matched me. You’re just missing the badge.” She tapped a long finger on the piece of tin pinned to her chest.
“I have a real badge,” he said, patting his legs. “Somewhere. In one of these pockets.” He’d lost count of how many nooks and crannies lined his pants.
“Can’t have too many pockets.”
“I’m used to two in the front and two in the back.”
At the entry doors, she took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
They entered the building, which was basically a huge log cabin. A long counter topped with information pamphlets and small souvenirs lined one wall. Signs indicated bathrooms off to one side, and he could see what looked like a couple of meeting rooms or offices in the back. Exhibits, presumably about nature and native animals, covered the majority of the floor space.
Cole followed Holly to an office on the far wall. “You want me to do the talking?” he asked.
“You would do that for me?” She seemed surprised and a tad touched.
“I just don’t want to end up in the middle of something awkward.”
“Fat chance of that,” she mumbled before knocking lightly on the half-open door.
Cole assessed the man at the desk. Late-twenties, short brown hair, ears that stuck out a little too far. He wasn’t the best judge of good-looking, but the kid wasn’t hideous.
“Rick,” Holly said. “Just checking in before I head out. Is it still okay I take the Fourth off?”
“You arranged it months ago,” Rick said, answering Holly but eyeballing Cole. “It’s fine. I heard about what happened in New York.”
“That was fast,” Cole muttered under his breath. He entered and stood next to Holly, offering a hand. “Cole Robinson.”
“Rick Flagg.” He offered a limp hand, which somehow Cole expected. He was totally the dead-fish handshake type. “This guy really gonna follow you everywhere?” he said to Holly.
“Look. Dick,” Cole said.
“My name’s Rick.”
Holly covered her mouth and coughed ostensibly. Cole was pretty sure it was to cover a laugh.
“Whatever.” Cole waved a hand. “Holly could be in real trouble. I’m gonna have a photo sent over, and I need you and your people to keep an eye out for anything unusual. Got it?” Cole assumed his tone and icy stare would make it clear there would be no negotiation on the issue.
Rick nodded and looked at Holly. “Can I talk to you a sec?”
“Sure,” Holly said. Cole stepped away to give them some privacy but not entirely out of earshot.
“I’m sorry about everything.”
“This isn’t the place or time,” Holly said. “We can talk later.”
“Um, there’s something you need to know about, and I wanted you to hear it from me before word gets around,” Rick started. “There’s someone else. That’s why I couldn’t go through with the wedding.”
Holly stood motionless, and Cole’s heart went out to her. Not only dumped, but dumped for another woman. Ouch.
“I never cheated,” Rick hurried to say. “We’ve never even been on a date. It’s just that I have feelings for her. And I thought if that was possible while I was in love with you, I probably wasn’t ready to get married.”
Holly shrugged. “So, going with the whole, it’s not you, it’s me?”
“I mean, there’s also the stuff with your dad. We work together. And you’re so tall.”
“I’m sorry, what ?”
“I still want us to be friends though.”
“Okay. Good talk,” Holly said, holding up a hand. She turned on her heels and met Cole in the hall. “Let’s go.”
He hustled to keep up with her long strides. On the way out, she stopped by a little room and grabbed a radio and a set of keys. Then led him out a side door to an official park vehicle—a black SUV. Cole didn’t say a word about driving and silently got into the passenger seat. This was her show now.
“Can you…,” she said once they were in the car. “What the…? How on…? Of all the…”
Apparently, a complete sentence wasn’t in the cards.
“You’re better off,” Cole said. “That guy’s a douche.”
Holly barked out a laugh, which broke the tension. She made eye contact from the driver’s seat, paused for a second, and nodded.
“I almost married him,” she said softly. “What was I thinking?”
He took it as a rhetorical question. Plus, he had no idea what she’d been thinking. “You okay?”
She shook it off. “He’s not the first person I thought loved me to leave me,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. Let’s get out of here.”
She put the car in drive, and they headed off. Near the entrance, the parking lots were filled with vehicles. People heading off on hikes or bike rides, families and couples sharing picnics. But as they got deeper into the woods, signs of civilization thinned. Holly rolled down her window and stuck out her arm. He followed her lead and did the same.
“I shouldn’t be worried you’re taking me to a remote location to kill me, right?”
She pulled to the side of the road and parked. “I just need some fresh air.”
“Well, there’s no shortage of that around here.”
A crackle came over the radio. “Bennett? You available for a bear sighting at Picnic Area Number Four?”
“En route. ETA five,” Holly replied.
“Bear sighting? I thought you were joking about that.”
“We get a ton. People don’t follow the rules about packing up their food and trash.”
“Do you shoot the bears?”
“No!” she said, side-eyeing him before returning her eyes to the road. “It’s not their fault some idiot brings fried chicken or grills hot dogs in the middle of the park. They just want to eat.”
“So, what do you do?”
She pulled into a parking lot where there was only one other car. A family of four stared out from inside the vehicle, eyes glued in awe as a black bear sat hunched over a picnic table, wreaking havoc on a picnic lunch they’d abandoned.
“Watch and learn.”
“Holy crap,” Cole said. “It’s huge.”
“You better stay in the car.”
He watched in horror as she got out, retrieved something from the trunk, and then headed toward the bear.
“Go on,” she yelled, waving her arms. “You’ve had enough. Get. Get!”
She was just going to shoo it away? Was she nuts? He got out, slipped his gun from its holster, and held it next to his thigh. Just in case her plan failed and she needed backup.
“Come on, buddy. Time to go.” Holly continued advancing on the bear, who’d looked up to see what all the noise was about but didn’t seem inclined to let a good meal go to waste.
Holly held up a canister and blasted out some warning honks. The noise, combined with Holly’s shrieking and arm waving, finally caused the beast to turn away from the food. None too happy about having its lunch interrupted, he—or she, Cole had no idea how to sex a bear—reared up onto its back legs and in no uncertain terms, told Holly to bugger off.
Its grumbling didn’t seem to faze Holly, but Cole’s pulse went into overdrive.
“Holly,” he yelled. “Why are you antagonizing it?”
She shot him a quick glance. “If you want to help, put your gun away and make some noise.”
He’d been in his fair share of tense situations. Dangerous, even scary-as-hell situations, but watching as a couple hundred pounds of bear came at them was new. And terrifying. Not wanting to look like a pansy, he holstered his gun and copied Holly’s movements, waving his arms and yelling nonsense.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a minute or two, the bear gave up and lumbered off. Not without taking a chicken leg to go. Holly followed it a ways into the woods, blasting the siren a few times for good measure.
She turned and walked back. “I said no shooting the bears.”
He held up his hands. “Just backing you up. In case the peanut butter and jelly was just an appetizer for a pancake-and-omelet-filled park ranger.”
She laughed and waved the family out of the car. “What happened?” she asked the man.
“We were eating lunch and saw it in the bushes. Thought it would be cool to see it up close, so we threw it some french fries. Next thing we know, he’s helping himself to the main course.”
“When we say don’t feed the bears, we mean it,” she said. “When you do, you endanger them.”
“Them? What about us?” the woman demanded.
“When people give them food, they become comfortable around us. It’s when they get too bold and won’t stay away that we have to put them down. For now, get all this cleaned up and leave the area. Otherwise, he’ll come right back.”
Cole and Holly stayed on site while the family packed up what was left of their lunch. Which they did as if it were a hundred-yard sprint. Holly ensured they picked up every last crumb and reiterated her lecture about not feeding the bears.
“Thanks for that,” Cole said as they returned to the car. “I love a good after-breakfast near-death experience. Maybe we can do it again after lunch?”
“Were you scared, Mr. Tough Guy? Afraid the big bad bear was going to eat you?”
He ignored the sarcasm. “At what point do you cut bait and run?”
“Cole.”
When she didn’t go on right away, he stopped rummaging for his seatbelt and looked at her. “What?”
“Do not ever run from a bear.”
“Why not?”
She huffed. “In his eyes, that turns you into prey. And you will not outrun him.”
“Climb a tree?”
“Not unless you want to share it with a bear who can climb faster and higher than you can. He’ll follow you right on up. And then eat you right on up.”
“Clever.”
She leaned over, opened the glove box, pulled out a pamphlet, and thrust it at him. “Do not get out of the car again until you read this.”
“Bear Safety: How not to Get Killed in the Woods,” he read. “Catchy title.”
“I mean it.”
“So the bear could’ve turned on you. Don’t you ever get scared?”
“Packs of wolves make me nervous. Poisonous snakes and yellow jackets, I don’t care for. Wild pigs, hard pass. But bears, I kind of like. They just want food and get grumpy when they can’t have it. I can relate.”
They responded to another call—an injured hiker. And while Holly performed some minor first aid, Cole stayed in the car and called work to check in.
“Anything on Cruz?”
“Not a peep,” Flanigan said. “He’s either lying low or left town. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Copy that. We went by Holly’s place earlier. No sign of him, but we’ll check back periodically. How’s the case coming? Any luck finding the gun?”
“No. Hopefully, we’ll find that when we find Cruz. One thing you should be aware of. The DA did a background check on our witness, and there’s an issue with the dad.”
That was the second time this morning he’d heard something about Holly’s father. Rick had mentioned it as one of the reasons he broke up. “Go ahead.”
“He’s serving a five-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion. It’s a white-collar crime, and Holly was ruled out as a co-conspirator, but you know how that stuff plays for a jury.”
“Yeah. I do. Guess the DA will have to work around it.”
They talked for a minute more, and Cole requested Flanigan email a photo of Cruz to the diner and the park’s office.
He hung up as Holly was getting back in the car.
“Just got off the phone with Detective Flanigan,” he said. “You know the DA does background checks on potential witnesses?”
“Sounds reasonable,” she said. “So?”
“So. Why didn’t you tell me your dad was doing a nickel at the state pen for fraud?”