Tag, You’re It
TAG, YOU’RE IT
MORGAN
What had happened at the waterfall yesterday shouldn’t have happened. It was that simple. Instead of processing the information with a calm, clinical approach, she’d allowed her hormones to get the best of her and kissed Patrick Callaghan.
Oh, but what a kiss it had been.
It hadn’t just been a meeting of lips; it had been a full sensory experience.
The feel of his arms wrapping around her.
The hard press of a well-built, lean, toned male body against hers, offering stability, protection, and a sense of comfort she’d never felt before.
An inexplicable rightness that made no sense whatsoever.
She told her today-self that her yesterday-self was over-romanticizing it. That her reaction was a result of shock and fear from discovering that someone may, in fact, have been trying to kill her, combined with Patrick’s proximity and ready availability.
Her yesterday-self countered with a very hearty and robust call of bullshit. She’d imagined kissing him for a while now. The opportunity presented itself, and she took it.
Simple as that.
Except nothing about this was simple.
Frank joined her in the kitchen and grunted his version of a good morning before helping himself to the coffee she’d made.
Donna appeared shortly after with her reusable grocery bags, the daily newspaper, and her no-nonsense approach to getting things done.
Life went on as usual for everyone else, while she struggled to make sense of the last twenty-four hours.
Her phone chimed with an incoming message. She saw Patrick’s name on the screen and thought about pretending she didn’t see it. But that was a coward’s way of handling things. She was a grown woman. She didn’t back away from things that weren’t easy.
Which, her snarkier side reminded her, was what put her in Pine Ridge to begin with.
She looked at the text.
Patrick: New developments. Call me.
She frowned at the phone. It wasn’t the “we need to talk” message she’d been expecting. There was nothing personal about it, which was both a relief and a disappointment.
Patrick: It’s important
She stood. Patrick didn’t seem like the type to overdramatize. And, barring her aberrant behavior, he had been extremely helpful. She couldn’t not answer.
Frank was watching her closely. “Problem?”
She hoped not. “No. I just need to take this.”
Morgan took the phone into the living room and tapped the call icon on Patrick’s message. “What’s up?”
“A friend of mine came upon a car hidden in the brush about a mile from the campground.”
Her first—and irrational—thought was, “What friend?” but she stopped the question before it could pass over her lips. “You think it might be Varro’s?”
“Might be. He had to get there somehow, right? Anyway, I’m heading up that way to check it out if you’d like to come with me.”
Hell, yes, she wanted to be there. “Tell me where and I’ll meet you.”
“Sending a location now.”
Her phone dinged a few seconds later with a link that provided GPS coordinates to an area about a mile southeast of the campground.
Morgan popped her head back into the kitchen, finding Donna talking quietly with Frank. Both of them ceased speaking immediately and turned to look at her, which was weird, but not an immediate priority. “I need to head out for a bit. Not sure how long I’ll be.”
She grabbed her jacket and was out the door before they could question it.
Patrick was already there when she arrived, standing outside his SUV, looking better than any man had a right to be in well-worn jeans and an open flannel shirt, giving her a peek at the snug-fitting shirt beneath. Her heart picked up speed just looking at him, which was rather inconvenient.
“Morning,” he said, holding out a thermal cup. “Coffee?”
“You brought me coffee?”
He shrugged easily. “Just returning the favor.”
“Thanks,” she said, accepting the cup.
He pointed to a barely there break in the brush about ten yards away. “The vehicle is a little ways back from the road. You okay walking it?”
“Of course.”
He picked up the backpack at his feet and led the way.
They walked the trail without speaking. The ground was hard under the first real frost of the season, their breath visible in the air.
About a quarter mile in the trail bent south, the brush thickening, and then she saw it—a silver-gray midsize sedan pulled well off the track and into the tree line, deliberately positioned so it wouldn't be visible from the road.
She stopped.
This was no simple abandoned car. This was a professional placement. She'd have walked right past it if she hadn’t been looking for it.
“How did you find this?”
“I didn’t,” Patrick said. “Bruno did. He and Wade walk these old logger trails often.”
It was clear from the state of the vehicle that it hadn’t been there long. No visible buildup of leaves or dirt. The tires were fully inflated and relatively clean.
She pulled out her phone and documented the position first—the angle, the depth into the tree line, the absence of tire tracks visible from the trail. Then she pulled on the nitrile gloves she always carried in her jacket pocket and walked a slow perimeter while Patrick held back and let her work.
No registration sticker. She shone her light through the driver's window. Interior equally clean. Professionally so.
She straightened up and looked at the trunk and thought about what might be in it. Same with the glove compartment. The temptation to find out was nearly overwhelming, but she held herself back. Without proper equipment and a controlled environment, she might inadvertently corrupt evidence.
“Did Wade report this?”
“No. He wanted to let us look at it first.”
Morgan blew out a breath. Given the way the local authorities had contaminated the death scene, they would have done the same here. “Not much we can do without a forensics kit.”
Patrick held out his backpack and smiled. “You mean like this one?”
Her already-high opinion of him rose another few notches as he pulled out everything they’d need for latent prints, tape lifts and swabs for trace evidence, a UV/blacklight, Slim Jim kit, a mechanic’s inspection mirror, and an RF signal detector.
“How…?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Another uncle?”
Patrick’s grin widened.
“You have some very useful uncles,” she murmured, admiring the kit. It had everything a professional forensic investigator would use, and some gadgets that looked military grade.
“That I do.”
Two and a half hours later, Morgan pulled off her gloves.
The only thing she’d found was a parking garage stub that had fallen under the seat—the same parking garage where she’d seen Varro talking to her supervisor, which confirmed her memory but offered little else.
The rest was clean. Too clean. Like the actual crime scene, the car had been meticulously wiped.
“We’re dealing with a professional,” Morgan said unnecessarily as they walked back.
“Agreed. Can I ask you something?”
She tensed, snapping out of MDI mode and into whatever mode this was when she realized he was in touching distance. “Uh, sure.”
“What do you know about Joe Moretti?”
The question surprised her so much, she stopped in her tracks.
“Joe Moretti? He works at the ME’s office. Been there forever. Why?”
“Because he was supposed to get the call for that scene in Philly. Not you.”
She gaped at him. “How could you possibly know that?” she asked, then remembered that she wasn’t just working with Patrick Callaghan—she was seeing DeepTrace in action. Somehow, that made him even more attractive.
“Why did they call you that night?” he pressed.
She thought back, sorting through memories and cases until she found the right day.
“The dispatcher was new and had looked at the wrong schedule. She apologized for the mistake, but I told her it was fine.” A blessing, she’d thought at the time, because it got her out of an uncomfortable dinner party with her mother and her stepfather and some of her stepfather’s associates. “What’s this about?”
Patrick took a minute to answer, as if he was choosing his words carefully, then answered with a question of his own. “Would you say Moretti’s good at his job?”
Morgan barely withheld her snort. Joe was lazy, sloppy, and known for taking short cuts. “No. But he does have the highest close rate in the department. Again, I ask, why?”
Patrick’s eyes were practically glowing. “Would he have had the same issues with that scene as you?”
“No. He wouldn’t have even…” The words died out as the implications became clear. Patrick was suggesting that whatever she found at that scene would have been missed by Joe—either intentionally or because Joe was a slacker. There was just one problem with that theory.
“I didn’t find anything conclusively damning at that scene.” Only a hunch that had kept her from signing off until she could investigate further.
“No, but you were asking questions that might have led you places someone didn’t want you to go.”
She stopped when they reached the vehicles and turned to face him. “You think Varro was sent to my supervisor to get me taken off the case, a case I wasn’t supposed to work to begin with?”
“It tracks.”
“Well, mission accomplished,” she said raising her hands. “I’m here and off the case. Why would Varro follow me?”
“Plausible deniability for anyone back in the city.”
She heard what he wasn’t saying. Putting her on leave stopped her from digging deeper, while casting a discrediting shadow over her.
If she continued to raise concerns, she could be written off as a disgruntled employee.
And, if she just happened to have an “accident” while visiting her grandfather several hours away from the city, no one would connect the two.
Fortunately for her—assuming Varro had followed her to Pine Ridge with an agenda—that wasn’t a possibility any longer. At least not from Varro.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So we’re back to who killed Varro?”
It was the same question she’d asked him at the waterfall, right before… yeah.
“That, I don’t know.”
“Thanks for showing me this, but we should probably call it in.”
He nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
They stood there, an awkwardness between them that was new. One that hadn’t been there prior to her losing her mind and kissing the daylights out of him.
“I should probably go.”
His blue eyes met hers, looking far deeper than she wanted them to. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Just need to think some things through.”
“Okay. You know how to reach me.”
“I do.”
She walked back to her car, pleased that he wasn’t pushing her while kind of wishing he would.
Was she the only one who’d been so affected yesterday?
Or had it just been another instance where a woman practically forced herself on him?
Had she somehow turned into the flirty barista who’d looked at Patrick with the cow eyes that day?
So wrapped up was she in that thought that she didn’t sense his approach until he was right behind her.
“Morgan.”
“What?” She turned around only to find him right there, his much bigger body crowding her personal space. Then one hand was gripping her waist; the other cupping the back of her head as he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.
It wasn’t a kiss.
It was a possession.
The kiss lasted a minute. An hour. A month. Who the hell knew? When he finally released her and stepped back, she felt dizzy and weak in the knees and had to lean on the car to stay upright.
“Tag,” he said softly. “You’re it.”
Then he opened the door, helped her inside, and waited until she drove away.