many ways, I know how you feel,” I said. “It’s not easy being a private investigator. I have a love/hate relationship going on with the police department in my town. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve helped them over the years, they don’t want me around. Not really. They probably feel like I make them look bad when I get something right that they couldn’t.”
“The truth is, I know a lot more about you than you think,” he said.
I pulled my knees up in front of me, resting my chin on top. Then I repositioned the blanket. “Like what?”
“For starters, you’ve solved every case you’ve taken.”
“How did you know? Did Maddie tell you?”
He shook his head.
“I looked into your background the day you met with Tate,” he said. “Impressive. But what I don’t understand is why’d you become a PI instead of a cop? You would have made detective by now.”
“I don’t like people,” I said.
He raised a brow. “Care to explain yourself?”
“I don’t possess the works-well-with-others gene. Never have. I like being on my own with no one to answer to but myself.”
The look on his face let me know he could relate.
“The chief ran the paper Tate gave you.”
“And?” I said.
“I’m not sure.”
“About what?”
“The guys won’t tell me if they got anything off of it. Right now, I’m not a member of their ‘club,’ but that’s fine. If they’re gonna continue actin’ how they are, I don’t wanna be.”
“What about the envelope?” I said. “I’m guessing you handed it over too.”
“Nope. Your friend Madison has it.”
“Maddie? Why?”
The envelope had gone from Mr. and Mrs. Tate, to me, to Maddie, to Cade, and back to Maddie again. It would be a miracle if it produced anything useful at this point.
“I’ll explain later, but right now, I was hopin’ you’d tell me more about what you know about the case. You said a few things at Tate’s house, and I have some questions.”
I set my plate down and stood up. “Is that why you invited me out here, so you could get me to tell you what I know? I don’t think so.”
I considered walking back to the hotel, but I had no idea where we were.
“Calm down, would ya? It’s not what you think. I want us to work together.”
I almost spit out the mouthful of eggs I had been chewing. “What? Still?”
“You heard me,” he said.
“No one in law enforcement has ever wanted to work with me—not when they had another choice.”
“Maybe they’re intimidated because you’re a woman, or maybe it’s because you don’t wear a badge,” he said. “You’re feisty as hell, but I don’t scare easily. And besides, this is my dad’s case. If anyone else is going to solve it besides him, it’s going to be me.”
There it was—the motivation behind why he wanted to work together. Cade knew the other guys were keeping things from him, doing all they could to make his job harder. They wanted him to fail. Either that or for him to reach a breaking point and leave, giving one of them his father’s job. But Cade didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who got pushed around. He wanted to find Savannah for his father, but he also had something to prove.
“Is that why Maddie has the envelope?” I said.
He nodded.
“No one besides the three of us knows you found it.”
“And you’re not concerned about—”
“I only care about one thing right now: finding out what happened to Savannah any way I can.”
He sounded more like me all the time.
I told Cade about the other missing girl and her parents who had also received a coloring page in the mail. I told him about my visit to Maybelle’s Market and about meeting Todd, the only person to have seen the kidnapper. I told him about meeting Kris and Olivia’s stepdad and the two old coots who thought Terrence was somehow involved in Olivia’s abduction. Talking about it to someone else made me feel like I hadn’t been such a failure, but it still wasn’t much to go on.
Cade remained silent until I finished, and then he stuck his hand out. “You interested in tryin’ this again?”
It seemed silly, but I shook his hand anyway.
“What now?” I said.
“Now you go back to the hotel and say goodbye to your friend. She said she needs to get back to her lab in order to process the envelope.”
“And then?”
“Then you’re going to meet Chief Rollins.”
CHAPTER 25
I saw Maddie and Lord Berkeley off