Luna pointed at Birdie. “Exactly. So, you need to tell Bear you love him so he can stay in Rockford, and we can get pregnant at the same time.”
My eyes dropped to Luna’s stomach. “You’re not...”
Luna waved her hand at me. “No. I just mean you need to move along telling Bear you love him so we can plan to be pregnant at the same time. You’re the one who always said when we had kids they needed to be the same age.”
I had said that when we were in high school, but that seemed like lightyears ago. “You and Ransom have known each other for years. Bear and I have known each other for about a month, Luna. I don’t think love should even be on the table.”
“Is there like a certain number of months you need to know someone before you love them?” Birdie asked. “I think the only people who should have a say in whether or not they love someone is the people who are actually involved.” Birdie took a sip of her coffee and smiled. “My parents got married after only knowing each other for two weeks, and they’re celebrating their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary next month.”
“Two weeks?” Luna and I gasped in unison.
“That’s insane,” I muttered.
Birdie shrugged. “I have to agree with you, but it’s worked for my parents. I think sometimes you just know when you meet someone. It certainly doesn’t happen that way for everyone, but I don’t think you should be looking at the calendar and deciding from there if you can be in love.”
Luna wagged her finger at Birdie. “And that is why you are a doctor. You is smart.” She turned her finger at me. “And you need to tell Bear you love him so he can tell you the same thing, and then, you can be Beta. Or Gretar.”
Birdie tipped her head to the side. “Bless you?”
Luna laughed. “Greta called me and Ransom LuRan.” She held up one hand. “Luna.” Then held up her other hand. “Ransom.” She clapped then together and laughed. “LuRan.”
“Oh,” Birdie gasped. “That’s cute.”
I nodded. “It is. Much better than whatever she just said for Bear and me. You should leave the nicknames to me.” Bear and I were fine. I didn’t want to start throwing around the word love. I could possibly just whisper the word and he could run for the hills. I was enjoying my time with him, and I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize it.
Love was not on the table.
Nope.
Bear
“LET’S START FROM SQUARE one.” Ransom tapped his fingers on his desk. “What about the magazines?”
“What about them?” I sighed. “There isn’t one clue in any of them. We’ve compared the magazine found at each scene, with the exact same copy of each, and there is not one difference.” Nothing.
“There has to be a connection,” Ransom insisted.
There was, but we couldn’t figure out what it was.
No one fucking could, besides Leonard Conner Luther.
“What if we do a sweep of the abandoned house and buildings again?” My gut was telling me that Conner was closer than we thought he was. “And maybe even the houses that aren’t abandoned.”
“You’re suggesting we search every house and building in Rockton and Preston?” Ransom laughed. “Do you know how many fucking search warrants that would take? That idea is not going to happen, because I do not want to be stuck at this desk doing all of that paperwork.”
I didn’t blame him. And even if we did go through all the red tape to get those search warrants, that didn’t mean we were actually going to find Conner or a clue to where he was hiding. “Let’s look at the yearbooks again.”
We didn’t need a search warrant to do that.
Ransom spun slowly in his chair. “I know each and every page of those things. Leonard Conner Luther is in each book one time, in alphabetical order next to the same people every year. There is nothing in those things.”
This was the part of being a bounty hunter that I hated. Sometimes, you hit a wall, and all you could do was wait around until a clue smacked you in the face.
I grabbed my keys and stood. “We’ll go through the yearbooks tomorrow. We haven’t looked at them for two weeks. Maybe something will pop out at us that we didn’t see before.”
Ransom threw up his hands. “I guess that’s all we can do.”
I walked out of the police station feeling more defeated than I ever had before.
Something always gave, but right now, nothing was giving.
Not one fucking thing.