His jaw tightened as he stopped at an intersection. A woman pushing a baby stroller stepped into the crosswalk. He waited, squinting into the sun, and reached for his sunglasses in the console. They were missing, and he was thinking maybe the cops had taken them or misplaced them when they’d searched his vehicle before he remembered he’d left them at the office.
He flipped down his visor, picked up his phone, and after a second’s hesitation, punched in a familiar number, then, using his Bluetooth, waited until Rowdy Crocker picked up. Which took a while.
“Yeah? Cahill?” he finally answered as James eased through the intersection.
“Right.”
“I figured you’d be calling. Been catching you on the evening news. Wow, brother, you’ve really got yourself in a mess this time.”
“The reason I decided to ring you up.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find Megan Travers.”
There was a laugh on the other end. “Because the police can’t?”
“Right.” He turned onto the highway leading south, out of town, and hit the gas. “They seem to think I had something to do with it.”
There was a pause. “I assume you didn’t.”
“Jesus, Rowdy, would I be calling you if I had?”
“Rumor has it your memory of that night isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I didn’t do anything other than get into a fight with her and end up on the losing end,” James said, irritated. Rowdy was, and always would be, an ass. But a smart, highly skilled ass who had spent time with military intelligence, a decision that helped him get out of trouble when he’d been a teenage computer hacker. Now he was a sometimes PI, sometimes surfer, sometimes completely off the radar.
“I’m not cheap,” Rowdy reminded him as James sped past snow-covered fields that glittered under the December sun.
“I don’t care.”
“Good, cuz you really do get what you pay for.”
“Just help me out on this.”
“Okay, I’m on the clock. I’ll dig up what I can, call you, and tell you if I need any more info.”
“Good.”
Rowdy asked a series of questions about Megan, and James filled him in as best he could.
“What about anyone else? Info on . . . another girlfriend, maybe?”
James hesitated, then admitted that yes, he had been seeing Sophia, and that there had been other women, including Gus’s sister, Jennifer, and, well . . . Rebecca.
He was rewarded with a long whistle. “Have you ever thought of slowing down with the women?” Rowdy asked.
“A time or two,” James said dryly.
“Just a thought.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Good,” Rowdy said. “Just one last thing.”
“Shoot.”
A pause.
“You are innocent, right?”
The muscles in the back of James’s neck tensed, and he imagined Rowdy’s cynical smile partially hidden by three days’ growth of beard shadow. “Again, yes.”
“Okay.”
“Just do what you can.”
“You got it.” And then the connection was cut off, and he was left to brood and squint while following a service truck for the local propane distributor. Once he reached the shop, he parked between a van for Riggs Crossing Electric and Bobby’s old pickup. A headache was forming behind his eyes, but he ignored it as he cut the engine and stepped outside.
Ralph sprang from the interior to chase a squirrel up a spruce tree, only to whine at the base as the squirrel chattered at him from an upper limb.
“Leave it,” James commanded, knowing the squirrel was ever elusive.
Just like Rebecca.
No, Rebecca wasn’t elusive. He’d had his chance with her. He’d blown it.
As he walked through the open door, a wall of heat and a cacophony of sounds hit him full in the face. Somewhere beneath the buzz of saws, the rapid-fire tattoo of nail guns, and the hiss of a compressor, he heard the strains of “Roxanne” by The Police.
The crews were in full swing, men and women in hard hats and safety glasses, moving from one site to the other as they worked on three houses in varying stages of construction. The sleek, ultra-modern abode, made primarily from a shipping container, was nearly finished. The second, the ski cabin, was on its platform awaiting tile, and the third, a cottage with a “coastal vibe” requested by the client, was only in the framing stage.
Bobby was in deep conversation with two workers. One was a burly man holding a rolled-up set of plans in his gloved hands, and he stood next to a petite woman wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a tool belt. They were locked in a deep discussion, bordering on an argument, that James wanted no part of. But he caught Bobby’s eye, and the foreman tilted his chin in greeting as James headed up the stairs to the office. By the time he’d reached the landing, his dog had whipped past him to wait at the door.
“No luck?” James asked the shepherd and took the time to scratch Ralph behind his ears. “Believe me, I know the feeling.”
He unlocked the office and glanced down at the houses under construction, as he had a thousand times. He wondered if things were finally getting back to normal.
Yeah, right. Who’re you kidding, Cahill? Until Megan turns up, there is no normal.
In his mind’s eye, her face, clear as day, came into view, and he remembered her playful smile that could turn a little cruel at times and the freckles that spattered her nose when her makeup had worn thin . . .
That caused him to stop for a moment, and he thought, just for a bit, that it was important. But as close to the surface as the idea was, it quickly submerged again. The muscles in his neck tensed. Though most of his memories were distinct, like Megan advancing upon him during their last fight, some were still unclear, murky recollections hanging in the shadows that had yet to come to the fore. He sensed they were important, yet nothing he could put his finger on, which was the problem. And he was sick to death of trying to figure it out, almost as sick as he was of the reporters
