Jeremy was being loopy, and as he never had before, I had to think it was a result of today’s events. I was lucky he hadn’t jumped in his car and raced back to Madison without investigating the crime scene. Though it wasn’t my crime scene, or even my house.
I started to stand up, teetered, reached out, and Owen caught my elbow, hauled me upright. I braced my other hand on his thigh. He caught his breath. I yanked it back. I had touched a little higher than was proper. Not that I hadn’t touched even higher before.
Deb’s shoulder mike squawked gibberish. She waited until it stopped then spoke into it. “Say again?”
“No one in the woods, Chief.”
“No one?” Owen repeated. “On a walking trail, in the middle of the day, right after the Falling Leaves Festival?”
Deb cast him a glare, but she transmitted his question. “No one at all?”
“No one that fit the description. Six feet, one sixty.”
Owen let his gaze wander over Jeremy’s slim, six-foot-one frame, then lifted his eyebrows. I ignored him. Jeremy would have no reason to strangle me.
But, as Owen had pointed out, who did? People might go gonzo over losing a pet or a valuable farm animal. Though strangling your veterinarian while wearing a ski mask was well past gonzo.
Except I hadn’t lost a patient since I got here. Damn good luck, or superior diagnostics, maybe both, but I wasn’t complaining. Nevertheless, it meant that no one had decided to feather-pillow me to death because I’d screwed up surgery on Fido.
“Meet Doc Becca at Owen McAllister’s place, will you?” Deb continued. “She’s bringing a forensic specialist out. But you make sure nothing gets effed up, okay?”
“Nothing effed up. Roger that, Chief.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Jeremy muttered.
“Who said I was talking about you?”
“Am I going to be able to sleep in my bed tonight?” I asked. Would I even be able to close my eyes and drift off after what had happened the last time I tried it?
“You should stay with your parents,” Deb said. “At least until we figure this out.”
Which was going to be a major PITA for work, but lying in my apartment staring at the ceiling, jumping at every shadow, wouldn’t help either.
“I need clothes.” My feet were also bare. “Probably shoes.”
Deb let out a growl of annoyance. “Come on.”
She escorted me upstairs, stood in the living room tapping her foot while I changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt in the bathroom, then shoved my feet into my oldest, grungiest tennis shoes before preceding her downstairs. No one appeared to have moved since we’d left.
“We can go in my truck,” Owen began. Reggie woofed; the gaze he turned on Jeremy was very cat with the canary—or cat that could almost taste the canary.
Splode.
What did that mean?
“I’ll follow in my car.”
Jeremy’s eyes resembled those of a canary that had just caught a glimpse of the cat staring in at him from the other side of the cage. Couldn’t blame him, though really, he should probably worry more about Owen. Reggie had a leash. Owen didn’t.
“Becca, ride with me.” Jeremy started for the trees.
“Where are you going?” my father asked.
“I parked at the head of that walking trail through the woods.”
“Explains how he got back here without Billy or me or anyone but Reggie seeing him,” Owen said.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. “You couldn’t know that the trail wound past my parking lot.”
The location of the veterinary clinic would be obvious to anyone who could read a sign, or speak English and ask a question, but knowing where the hiking trail led wasn’t.
“I didn’t.”
“You were supposed to call me when you arrived.”
“I tried. You didn’t answer.”
I’d probably been busy gasping for breath, and I hadn’t had time to check my phone since.
“Then I saw you at the head of the trail.” His forehead creased. “Or I thought I saw you. You never told me you had a twin.”
“She doesn’t,” Owen said.
“There was a woman who looked exactly like you.” Jeremy’s gaze flickered over my face. “Except she had dark eyes, black hair and it was shorter.”
“We need to discuss your definition of exactly,” Owen said.
Jeremy cast Owen an evil glare, which caused Reggie to growl.
“Hush,” Owen murmured. Reggie hushed, at least out loud. In my mind he continued to grumble.
Stink. Bad. And the inevitable: Splode.
“You talked to her?” I asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “I pulled over, called your name. She kept walking onto the trail, so I followed. She was pretty far ahead, then she stopped and stared north. Trail wound around. I lost sight of her, but when I got to the place she’d been, I stopped.” He waved at my Bronco. “I saw your car and the VET sign. The door was open, so I figured you’d gone in. I started to follow then—” He jerked his thumb at Reggie. “That grabbed me.”
Reggie lifted his lip and showed teeth. Asshole.
I turned my inappropriate desire to laugh into a cough-type throat clearing. I was very good at it. “You really thought she was me?”
“You could have dyed your hair. You also said you had a sister.”