I was just about to relent when Adam slapped his hand on the hood. “Thanks for getting this finished up, Poppy. Jamie always wanted to have it done.”
He had. Jamie had talked about fixing it up all the time. We’d just never had the space and he’d never had the time. But now, I could see it through.
I had to see this through.
So I swallowed the lump in my throat and gave Adam a small smile. “Midnight blue. He always wanted it to be midnight blue.”
“And cream interior,” Kyle added as he opened the door.
I nodded. “And cream interior.”
The sound of Jamie’s truck filled the shop as Kyle started it up. As he drove it outside, we all followed behind as he steered it toward Cole’s trailer.
“I guess I could have just come and gotten it myself,” I told Cole as we walked. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s better this way. The last thing I want is for you to get stranded on the side of the road. The engine might run, but those tires won’t last another fifty miles.”
I didn’t know if that was true, but it made me feel better.
Cole jogged ahead, pulling out the ramps on the trailer so Kyle could ease the truck onto the flatbed. Then together, Cole, Kyle and Adam all chained it down.
“Thanks, Debbie. It was nice to see you.”
She nodded and forced a smile, then gave me a one-arm hug before turning and going back inside the house without a word.
I stared at the house, wishing there was something I could do to get an invitation inside. I stared at the house, knowing there wasn’t. So I turned back to the guys, standing alone and waiting for them to finish.
“Thank you,” I told Kyle as he and Adam came over.
Kyle nodded and looked back to the truck. “Take care of it.”
“I will.”
Then without a handshake, a hug, or even a good-bye, he went inside with Debbie. The click of the door’s latch echoed for miles.
“Bye, Poppy.” Adam waved at me, then Cole as he headed back to the shop. “Nice to meet you, Cole.”
Cole nodded but Adam had already turned his back to us, done with that job and on to the next.
I glanced at my watch before they blurred with tears. Twenty-nine minutes. I’d been dismissed after only twenty-nine minutes.
Jamie’s family didn’t have to say it—I’d heard it loud and clear.
Good-bye.
Kyle and Debbie wouldn’t be back to Bozeman to visit my restaurant. They wouldn’t be inviting me back to this ranch to spend holidays like I’d done so many times before. They wouldn’t be a part of my life.
Without a backward glance, I walked past Cole to his truck. “Let’s go.”
“You got it.” He didn’t hesitate to get us the hell off the ranch, driving in silence until we reached the highway. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
I wanted Jamie to be alive so he could fix up his own truck. To do his own birthday list. I wanted him to be here so his parents weren’t so heartbroken.
I wanted the ache in my chest to disappear. I wanted it to stop teasing me with reprieves, only to torture me with each return.
I want to be happy.
I couldn’t remember how it felt to be truly happy.
“Give me your hand.” Cole placed his hand, palm up, on the console between us.
I shook my head, knowing that if I touched him, I’d never keep the tears at bay.
“Poppy, give me your hand.”
“I can’t,” I choked out.
“Poppy,” he whispered. “Give me your hand.”
I didn’t have the strength to resist his gentle voice so I untucked my hand from between my knees and placed it on his. The second his long fingers closed over mine, the first tear fell. Then the second. Then the rest.
I cried for the loss of a family. For the loss of Jamie’s parents as friends.
I cried because Cole’s hand under mine made me feel better.
Better and worse, all at the same time.
“Nothing.” I shut off the TV and tossed the remote on the table.
I had a bitch of a headache from staring at a small screen all afternoon, watching the surveillance tape of Jamie Maysen’s murder for the tenth time today. Just like the nine times before, there was nothing to go on.
As I pinched the bridge of my nose, I closed my eyes, hoping the thumping in my skull would go away.
It had been two weeks since I’d taken Poppy to pick up that old Ford from her in-laws. Two weeks and I felt like all I’d done was sit in this goddamn conference room and watch security feeds. Every night, I went home feeling like my head was being split in two.
And tonight wouldn’t be much different.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my temples and started rubbing just as the door opened.
Matt came in and took the chair at my side. “Anything?”
“No.” I dropped my hands. “I’ve been studying the liquor store tape and running it against the parking lot footage we got from the grocery store. No one matching the killer’s description comes in or out within five hours of the murder.”
“Mind if I watch the liquor store footage again?”
“Go for it.”
He swiped up the remote and rewound the video to the beginning, then pressed play. I was grateful there was no sound on the footage. Seeing what happened in that liquor store was gruesome enough without adding a soundtrack to the mix.
The TV screen filled with a grainy video taken from a camera that had been located in an upper corner of the store. The cashier, Kennedy Hastings, was smiling and chatting with Jamie Maysen as he carried over his haul—gin, vodka and margarita mix. He set them down on the counter, then took out a wallet from his back pocket, saying something to Kennedy that made her laugh.
She’d had a pretty smile. Kennedy’s curly brown hair had been cut short but it suited her round, dark face
