I can just hear her breath turn quick and wild and scared.
“Oh,” she says. “I’m…I’m at the carnival grounds helping Justin right now. Clark’s not here. He was supposed to come help, but I thought he just ditched me and was busy with his uncle.”
Fuck.
“What’s wrong?” Justin asks in the background. “Drea, you look pale.”
She pulls the phone away enough for her voice to mute a bit, though I can still make out, “It’s Dad. Clark’s missing, he thinks.”
There’s a fumbling sound on the other end of the line, then Justin’s voice comes over. “Chief? It’s Justin.”
“Hey,” I say with a flush of relief. At least I know my daughter’s somewhere safe; Holt must’ve dropped her off. “You seen Clark Patten around?”
“Not hide nor hair,” he says. “But I’ll keep an eye out. Ask around. Somebody had to have seen him recently. Half the town’s been in and out of here getting the last stuff set up.”
“That’d be appreciated.” I pause. “Say, if you run into him, keep him busy, Justin. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“Chief?” Justin sounds puzzled.
“Trust me, I got a funny feeling,” I say. “That’s all.”
We exchange a few more terse comments, then I hang up and look down into Rog’s watery, worried eyes.
“We’ve got fire crew out at the carnival grounds,” I say. “They’re keeping an eye out and asking around about Clark. Wherever he is, they’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, thanks! Finally some good news,” Rog says, clutching his phone to his chest, closing his eyes. “I’ll go have a drive around and see, too.”
“Good man. I’ll keep my eyes peeled. But you should let the sheriff know, too, just in case. Missing minor and such. He can put the word out to his deputies.”
I pause, though, fingering the device in my jacket pocket. “One more thing…I don’t wanna add to your woes, but I came by to show you something.” I hesitate a moment longer, then pull the device from my pocket—and I know by the click of recognition in his eyes even before I ask.
“Is this yours?”
* * *
It’s his.
And that’s another nail in Clark’s coffin.
Except Rog says it’s been messed up by someone who doesn’t know how to use it.
He says it’s a little magic trick, not meant to hold more than an ounce or two of fuel. Magicians use them all the time for dramatic bursts of flame.
He said someone who knew how to use it wouldn’t have dented up the little fuel can like it is. They’re fragile and have to be opened just right. Whatever the person who used it did, it also fucked up the firing mechanism, so it only gave off a weak flame.
Somebody clueless tried to rig it to go off by itself once he left the building.
But since he didn’t know what he was doing, he just broke it, and sabotaged his own arson attempt.
That’s a pattern pointing at unfamiliarity with pyrotechnics, and once again steering away from Clark.
So if Clark’s missing, and he ain’t the arsonist…
Where’d he go?
That question’s still weighing on me like ten tons of bricks by the time I make it home.
The burden lifts a little as I step inside, and I’m greeted by the sound of singing.
Peace.
She’s practicing that song from The Nest.
The one about a desperado who’s got a heart of gold inside gunmetal plating, that tired man looking for a reason for his heart to still beat.
Can’t help but smile. It still feels like she’s singing that song for me.
Like she’s singing it to guide me home.
And I can’t resist following the sound upstairs, where she’s curled up in my bedroom like she belongs there.
I want her to belong there.
Hell, she’s gorgeous.
Just simple and natural, swimming in one of my oversized t-shirts and a pair of pajama shorts, her legs bare and lush with the guitar in her lap pressing down on her thighs.
They give in to the soft pillows of flesh around it, her bare feet tucked up under her knees.
Her hair falls and sways around her face as she bends over the neck of the guitar and strums away, her lashes lowered in quiet focus, strawberry lips moving in low, lyrical thrums that turn simple words into pure soul.
It’s like she knows.
Just how bad she’s messing me up, screwing me for life and for any other woman.
My eyes fuse on her sweet face, wait for her gaze, and I smile like a total fool when it comes.
Fresh need erupts out of me like a howl, this fierceness ripping through me, making my blood pulse in time to her music.
And before I know I’m moving, I’m striding toward the bed, reaching for the guitar, pulling it out of her fingers and setting it aside where it won’t get busted.
Goddamn if I can resist when I’m alone with her sweetness.