Brooke wheeling beside me, Max was drying the chili pot when we reached the kitchen. “I need to go. I have that stop at the hospital to make,” I said.
Although Max looked disappointed, he didn’t argue, just dried his hands on the towel and turned to Brooke. “I’ll escort Clara out.”
I hugged Brooke goodnight, and as we walked out, she wheeled over to sit in front of the television. Remote in hand, she began surfing through the stations. “Homework?” Max asked.
“Just a little,” she answered.
“Better get to it,” he warned. “Bedtime in an hour.”
Max walked me to my vehicle, both of us hidden in the shadows. “I think she likes you,” he said.
“You’re trying too hard,” I countered, and he shrugged.
“I’m glad you came. It meant a lot to… both of us,” he said.
“I enjoyed it,” I admitted. “Brooke’s a great kid.”
“Yeah, I think so, too,” he said. For a moment, we were quiet, and then Max said, “I’ll put in a call to Doc Wiley and the lab first thing in the morning. Anything I can do tonight, for the case?”
There was something I’d been considering: “Max, do you think there are records in the secret files that might help?” While working my first case in Alber, I’d found a locked room at the station filled with file cabinets bulging with paperwork. The cases went back decades, and had everything from assaults, missing persons and domestic violence, to thefts and allegations of harassment. It appeared none of them had ever been investigated or cleared—all swept under the carpet by my predecessor to protect prominent members of the sect. I’d been working my way through them gradually, organizing and figuring out which ones to pursue. I didn’t remember seeing anything on Myles, Carl, or anyone involved, but I wasn’t halfway through them yet, and I worried that I might have missed something.
“Maybe,” Max said. “Why don’t you ask a couple of the nightshift guys to sift through and double-check?”
“Sure,” I said. “Good idea.”
“Back to what I can do,” Max said. “Brooke will be in bed soon, and I’ll have time.”
“You can look up both Carl and Myles on NCIC, see what the feds have on file about them, any convictions or lawsuits,” I suggested. “I’ll give you a call when I leave the hospital to see what you’ve got and fill you in on Jacob’s condition.”
“Okay. I’ll also put some feelers out in Mexico, email a guy I know with the sect down there, see what I can find out about Carl and Jacob,” Max said.
“Good idea.” My phone buzzed, and I slipped it out of my pocket. A text.
“Something on the case?” Max asked.
“My friend in Dallas says that the shoe print in the kitchen came from a pair of boots made by the Wilderness Shoe Company. It’s a pair called the Steel Ranger.” I held the phone up so Max could see the photo. The boots were high-tops with laces, thick stitching across the toe.
“That should make it easier to track,” Max said. “They can’t sell too many of those around here. I’ll email the DA’s office and ask them to send a subpoena to Wilderness Shoe ordering them to turn over any information on anyone who has purchased those boots who lives in this part of Utah, local stores who stock them too.”
“They might have to work on that. It may take a while,” I groused. “It seems like corporate requests always take days or weeks, not hours.”
“Clara, it’s a start,” Max said. “We’ll find the killer. Wait and see.”
“Sure.” With that, I turned to open the door.
“Clara, I…” Max said, and then stopped talking.
I turned back toward him, and he brushed his hand across my cheek.
I hesitated, but Max moved slowly forward, and our lips met. His were warm and soft, the kiss both exciting and comforting. I breathed him in and felt my body respond. I drew closer, and he wrapped me in his arms. For a few brief moments, I had a place where I truly belonged.
I felt wanted.
Then the war inside me started anew, my mind warning me to be careful, not to open myself up to being hurt, while every instinct I had urged me to fold myself into Max and to hold on to him forever. Instead, I pulled away.
On the drive to the hospital, I mulled over that kiss, our first in nineteen years. Last time I’d been a teenage girl who knew what she wanted: him.