“Her picture has already been out there, and no one has come forward,” Jane said.
“But we haven’t been out there with it, forcing people to take a close look,” Rocky said. “We’ll try to follow her footsteps. And we’ll go back and retrace Carly Henderson’s last day. We’ll pound the pavement until we find something. Or...”
“Or?” Devin asked.
No one said anything at first.
Then Angela let out a soft sigh. “Or we wait until the killer strikes again—and we move as quickly as possible. He’ll make a mistake.”
“How do you know that?” Devin asked.
“All killers do—eventually,” Sam said.
Auntie Mina suddenly spoke up. “You will find out what’s going on,” she snapped firmly, “and no one else will die.”
With those ferocious words, she was gone.
Angela finally spoke. “Dinner. We have to eat, whether anyone feels like it or not. Everyone needs to keep their strength up right now.”
“I’ll set the table,” Sam said.
“Sorry, guys, but it’s just chicken,” Devin said. “It’s a good recipe, though—chicken and dumplings.”
Jane laughed. “Why are you apologizing?”
Devin shrugged. “I guess because chicken’s always boring banquet food.”
Rocky smiled at her. “Chicken and dumplings sounds great.”
*
They ate, cleaned up, gave Poe some attention and headed back to the hotel. Rocky was quiet, on edge. And yet, when they reached the room he turned immediately to Devin and drew her into his arms.
Neither one of them spoke. They simply held each other, made love, drifted into a doze wrapped up together, then woke and made love again, and finally lay silently in the darkness of their room.
She knew, though, that when he touched her, he was fully with her. That he felt the same arousal she did when their naked flesh touched, felt her lips, moved with her as if they were one.
But she knew, too, as they lay there together listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the slowing thunder of their hearts, that he was brooding on the case. She didn’t speak, only lay with him and let him think. She thought he probably felt the same kind of numbness she did. It was impossible to believe that a friend could have committed murder.
They slept curled together. When they woke in the morning, she was spooned against him, comfortable in the feel of his arms around her.
“We’re moving back to the house,” he said, smiling as she turned to look at him in surprise.
“Um, okay,” she said.
“Margaret Nottingham came to see you there,” he said.
“And led me to a dead woman in the woods. I’m really praying she doesn’t do anything like that again.”
“I just think we need to be there,” Rocky said. “Margaret’s ghost may come or...I don’t know. Just call it a hunch and leave it at that.”
“Is everyone coming?” Devin asked. “It would be fine, of course. We’ll fit them in somehow.”
“Just the two of us,” he said.
She grew momentarily serious at the thought, then reminded him, “It won’t really be just the two of us, though.”
He smiled. “Mina? Well, I suppose I can control my libido in the effort to save lives and provide us with a future.”
Devin looked away quickly.
A future. It was a nice concept. But he was an FBI agent whose job took him all over the country. She wrote children’s books and lived here in Salem.
“I’ll be good, I promise,” he said.
She looked up and smiled at him. “Oh, I’m not worried about you. It’s my own desires I’m worried about. Never mind. The thought of Auntie Mina appearing is something I usually love—but not in my bedroom.” She gave an exaggerated shudder.
“We’ll both behave,” he said.
“Are we bait?” she asked.
“I would never let you be bait,” he said. “You’ll never be there alone.”
She rose up on an elbow and smiled at him. “I’m not afraid. Well, I am afraid, but not of going back to my house. Whoever this is, he’s not relying on strength. He gets people out to the woods and then slips up behind them. He takes them by surprise. I don’t think there’s any way we can be taken by surprise.”
“Not by surprise, no, but I’ve seen desperate killers do things no one would ever expect. But you’ll never be alone,” he swore.
He started to get out of bed, then looked down at her and rejoined her.
He touched her face gently, smiled slowly. Then he bent and kissed her, and when she rose to meet him she felt the hardness of his arousal.
“I guess you’re happy,” she murmured.
“Waking up with you makes me happy,” he said.
She smiled. “I like that.”
“I’m glad.”
They made love again. Devin wondered what it would be like to have a day—just one day―to rise when they chose, make love, wander the streets, listen to music....
Not today, though.