Chapter One #2
He was tall. A tall that would have been comical on most, yet the man was wearing his height, and everything else, well.
He looked tailor-made by a group of women who had grown up watching romance movies, where the male lead was the rough-and-tumble handyman next door.
Dark eyes, dark hair slightly unruly but in a neat way, facial hair clipped close, and all pleasing angles making up a face that was as handsome as it was alarming when it popped up out of nowhere.
There was a scar, she thought, near his neck, but for the life of her, Blake’s detail-oriented brain skittered a bit.
The best she could do was raise an eyebrow in question.
A question that the man answered before she could put it into words.
“I thought maybe this could help you out for the time being.” He held out a denim shirt. Blake was so flustered she took it. The man nodded to the doors. “It might make you more comfortable in there.”
Blake blinked a few times.
“You want me to wear this?”
The man shrugged.
“If you want to, you can. I’ve seen a few ladies come in wearing these things like jackets, so it might look trendy.”
Blake was about to do the polite thing and refuse the offer, but feedback from the gym cut through the thought. Blake turned toward the window on the door. The daycare director was at the microphone onstage.
“If you don’t want to wear it, it’s no big deal,” the man added. “You can just throw it on the chair over there.”
He pointed to the corner of the lobby.
Blake eyed the shirt in her hands.
It was long-sleeved and blue. A button-up left open. It seemed clean enough and would certainly cover the water stain.
The man went through the doors without another word.
Blake opened her mouth to tell him no thanks, ask his name and ask why he was doing this, but the director’s voice cut off all worries.
Blake put the shirt on like a jacket and hurried inside.
LIAM FOUND THE woman when a little girl onstage told the entire gym about the differences between moths and butterflies.
While the girl was quiet and mostly still, a woman in the last row of seating was not.
She shot up tall and wielding two cell phones, both of which were trained squarely on the kid.
From Liam’s angle, he could see her mouthing along with the short speech.
He could also she was wearing his shirt.
Liam was glad for it. Offering the piece of clothing to her had been an impulsive act. One that had been spurred on by her body language alone.
He hadn’t meant to, but Liam watched as she tensed and panicked, as she balled her hands into fists, as she hesitated.
All while outside of a daycare program.
Liam had thought about his own mother when he was a kid.
She’d had to do a lot solo since his father was deployed.
Liam didn’t know this woman’s story—if she was single or if she was temporarily by herself—but the urge to help her had been one he couldn’t ignore. He had only hoped it would be helpful.
He was glad to see that it must have been.
“Hey, I found her.” Price sidled up to him, voice low. They were standing at the wall on the side of the open gym. The lights were mostly off, so the stage was the center of attention, but Liam could still see where Price pointed.
“She’s in the flowery dress with the big hair,” he added on.
Liam nodded and pushed his arm back down.
It was bad enough he’d had to come out to the daycare program to track down a potential lead, but then again, it wasn’t like Cassandra West had given them many choices.
“Make sure you’re casual about your run-in with her, or she’s going to feel like we ambushed her,” Price said, once again. “Cass might not be as popular as she once was, but tick her off, and it’ll be like kicking a hornet’s nest.”
“I’m not here to ambush her,” Liam defended. “I’m here to make an appointment, is all. It’s not a big deal.”
That was a lie. It was a big deal to Liam.
Cassandra was one of the last people to see Missy Clearwater alive.
It had been more than two months since Missy’s body had been found.
In the time since, her case had been ruled a suicide.
It was a point of severe contention between Liam and the general public.
Everyone had believed that Missy’s life had taken such a turn that her ending had made sense.
There was no hard evidence to say otherwise, and even her own flesh and blood had accepted this tragic outcome.
Doc Ernest’s original suspicion had also changed.
Like Price, she had had an emotional reaction to the death of a woman she had watched grow up.
So much so, she had mistaken a hope that Missy hadn’t done it to herself for a gut instinct that someone had been behind it.
When, in reality, the fall had been what had done the girl in.
That should have been that, but Liam... He couldn’t let it go.
He hadn’t watched Missy Clearwater grow up, but his gut had doubled down on something not being quite right.
And that all started from the flash drive he had found beneath the bridge.
That’s why, months later, he was still trying to piece together the day of Missy’s death. Off the books. For his own peace of mind.
It’s why he needed to talk to Cassandra West.
And if that meant starting that talk off casually, then he would.
Ten minutes later and that need was bristling under Liam’s skin. He wasn’t a man who fidgeted, but the urgency had him out of the gym and standing in the parking lot before the waves of people started to filter out.
However, he bumped into someone else first.
“Here.”
Liam looked down at the woman who had tapped his shoulder. Red hair, green eyes and a pretty sun dress with a spit-up stain on it.
She smiled. She was holding his shirt.
“Thank you for this,” she added. “It saved me from freezing under that AC for sure. I hope you weren’t too cold.”
Liam, not a man built for small talk, found an easy smile. He tapped his short sleeve.
“No worries here. I’m built warm.”
Liam was about to ask where her kids were, genuinely curious, but the woman’s gaze went behind him in the parking lot. With it, her smile disappeared.
Tension lined every inch of her so quickly that Liam’s body mirrored that tension on reflex.
It was such a complete change that Liam was about to ask what was wrong, but the woman was faster than his concern.
She pressed his shirt into his chest.
“Thanks again,” she said, words cold. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Liam turned around to watch the woman walk with purpose toward something else.
Someone else.
A man he didn’t recognize was standing at the end of the parking lot, staring.
And it wasn’t until the woman got closer to him that he turned tail and ran into the wooded area behind the school. And it wasn’t until he was running that the woman gave chase, disappearing into the tree line in a flash.
And it wasn’t until that moment that Liam forgot all about his potential lead.
He was off and running into the woods right after them, nothing but red hair in his mind.