“Good-bye.”
“Bye—” I didn’t have a chance to say it before the phone went dead. I shook my head. Turning on my ignition, I cranked the air conditioning and smoothed back my hair. Inhaling the cooled air, I lifted my ponytail from my neck and redirected the air-conditioning vent. Though it was past Labor Day and autumn was approaching, it hadn’t stopped the heat. I’d lived in the area long enough to know that it could, any day. Seventy degrees one day and thirty the next. Welcome to autumn in Michigan.
I contemplated Dylan’s warning. I drove a gray Ford Fusion, an inconspicuous car, for a reason. There had to be hundreds of them in the Detroit metropolitan area. Besides, it was only ten thirty in the morning.
If I leave this parking lot now, even to leave Highland Heights, will Dylan or one of the other officers see me? If they do, will they know it is me? How am I supposed to wait almost twenty-four hours before I learn more?
Waiting wasn’t my thing, but then again, neither was surveillance, and I did it. Waiting was a big part of my job. The investigators on television had it easy. They parked their car and then boom, their suspect would walk right in front of them. That wasn’t the way it worked in real life. I’d been sitting in this parking lot since before the sun came up, around six this morning, and my legs were beginning to feel it.
I grinned. Maybe it wasn’t the surveillance my legs were feeling. Maybe it was the aftereffects of last night’s activities. Dylan had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Oh, I could have, but I hadn’t wanted to.
At first I’d decided to cancel our evening plans. I was getting nowhere fast on my research, and I needed to jump in with both feet. Over the last two-plus weeks, I’d made it through all Dr. Howell’s cases more than once. I’d even deciphered Bernard’s sketchy information regarding drugs and missing persons. There were a few unsolved cases as well as people who crossed the border with increased regularity. That wasn’t in itself a crime, but some of their information was questionable. Could that connect them to the drugs?
None of it made sense. There were dots to be connected; I just couldn’t make out the picture they formed. Plus I’d promised the Rosemonts, once again, that I wouldn’t stop. It was one thing to say it on the phone or in an e-mail, but the week before I’d said it while holding their hands. They’d been back to Detroit for the second time since Mindy’s disappearance. I didn’t blame them. Even though I’d promised to do everything at this end, they felt helpless in California and needed to feel involved. I didn’t hold much hope that a solution would materialize from the flyers they’d put all over the city, but then again, who was I to fault them? I wasn’t making progress either.
With that search for answers at the forefront of my mind, I’d made the decision to go straight home from work and forgo Dylan’s house. Imagine my surprise when thirty minutes after I arrived home, he showed up at my door. Though I wanted to be mad, as soon as my gaze met his I knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t only the way he stood outside my door, his long legs barely covered by torn jeans, biceps bulging from his sleeves, and that smug sexy grin that turned my insides to jelly. It was what I saw as I scanned lower. My stomach growled as I saw the six-pack of beer in one hand and a pizza in the other. However, what sealed his fate was the package of time-release fish feeder blocks on top of the pizza box. Even now I had a difficult time keeping a smile from sneaking across my weary face. Shaking my head at the memory, I knew Detective Dylan Richards was getting to me.
I still wasn’t sure if I was the relationship type. This was the first time I’d ever been with anyone as long as I had been with Dylan. That didn’t mean I was ready to become more serious. However, it was becoming increasingly clear that if I didn’t want it to go that way, I’d need distance and a Teflon coating for my heart.
It didn’t bother me that others warned me about his hard-ass ways. The Dylan Richards I knew wasn’t a tough detective. The one who was getting under my skin was the one who drove across the city to support me at the morgue and brought me fish food. Granted, the fish food was time-released, which allowed me to leave Fred on his own for a few days, but still, when I combined that with his sexier-than-hell grin and the bedroom-blue eyes, my pulse pitter-pattered and my insides tightened. The mere thought of him not only beside me, but inside me, had my mind replaying scenes that were probably illegal in some states.