“Of course. She’s been helping me keep an eye on Hawke’s comings and goings since he returned from his forced leave of absence that you inspired.”
I snorted. “That was Prudence’s doing. She’s the one who taught him how to bark.”
A check through the lenses confirmed Natalie’s suspicion—Hawke was still sitting in his truck.
While we waited to see what Hawke was going to do next, I checked my messages. Doc had replied to my text letting him know that Cornelius and I had made it out of Prudence’s place alive and were heading back to Deadwood. He wanted to know the lowdown on Prudence, her reaction to Cornelius, and about the Duzarx.
I hesitated on texting him back. Telling the truth involved a lot of thumb typing and my phone was infamous for changing words on me.
“I need to call Doc,” I told Natalie. A phone call would save time.
“Right now?”
“It’s easier than texting.”
“We’re on a stakeout, Vi. You can’t call your boyfriend while spying on bad guys. It’s just not done.”
“Fine, but Doc and I have this policy about telling the truth, and I don’t want to lie to him about what happened up at Prudence’s place.”
“Are you going to tell him about the black eye?”
“It’s just a cheek bruise.”
Natalie chuckled. “If you say so.”
I pulled down the visor. “It’s not a black …” The dimly lit mirror told a horror story. I gasped and then groaned.
Natalie flipped the visor mirror closed. “Keep that shut. Hawke might see the light.”
“He’s way over there.”
“We can’t take any chances.”
I patted the tender skin around my eye. “I need to put some ice on this before it gets even worse.”
“Grab some snow from under those trees.” She pointed at where a plow had pushed it into a pile.
“That’s dirty snow.”
“Do you want to slow that swelling or what?”
I hesitated.
She grabbed the door handle. “Stay here, princess. I’ll get it for you.”
While she crept over to get some snow for me, I texted Doc back with: Short version: Cornelius is an energy-sucking specter collector, and a deadly Duzarx escaped the Open Cut and will wreak havoc unless I kill it soon.
A few seconds later, just as Natalie was climbing back in the pickup, my cell phone rang.
“Don’t answer that.” She handed me a snowball wrapped up in her scarf.
“But it’s Doc. He’s probably heading home from Spearfish.”
“I don’t care. While I was out getting you ice, Hawke left his pickup and went inside the little building.”
“Maybe he’s just taking a piss.”
I’d taken the kids into that building this fall during a bike ride along the Mickelson Trail. Inside were some old photos and articles about the community of Pluma, as well as men’s and women’s bathrooms. I’d have figured the parks department would have locked the building at dusk, but maybe whoever did the locking up hadn’t come by yet.
Natalie rubbed her hands together and then blew on them. “Or maybe he’s meeting someone inside.”
I sent Doc’s call to voice mail and texted: Can’t talk. Spying on someone w/Nat. No lying there, although I decided to be vague in case Cooper apprehended my phone again and went through my texts sometime soon.
Doc replied with: You’ll be the death of me, woman. See you soon.
Grabbing the spare pair of binoculars, I focused on the small building while holding Natalie’s snow-filled scarf up to my throbbing cheek.
“He’s taking awhile,” Natalie said. “I didn’t see anyone else go inside.”
“I’m telling you, he might just need to use the facilities.”
“He didn’t walk like a man who had to use the john.”
I lowered the binoculars. “What did you expect him to do? Walk with his legs crossed?”
She kept watching through the windshield. “No, smartass. He strolled over to it leisurely, which tells me he doesn’t really have to go.”
“Are we really sitting here in the dark analyzing the way Hawke walks when he has to go to the bathroom?”
“You have something better to do right now?”
“Yes. I’d like to go home and put on my pajamas, and then ice my eye while sitting next to my boyfriend on the couch. Of course, I’d ask him to kiss it better, and from there we’d—”
“Doc’s not home yet and your aunt’s couch isn’t comfortable, so quit your bitching and keep watching.”
A minute passed.
“Where is he, dammit?” I adjusted the makeshift ice pack, my fingers freezing from where the snow was melting through the scarf and soaking my skin.
“Maybe someone was already waiting inside for him.”
“But there aren’t any other vehicles in the lot.”
“They could have walked over from the trail.”
Another minute passed.
I switched the snow-filled scarf to my other hand, giving my cold wet hand a break. “This reminds me of when we spied on George Mudder and Ray.”
My ex-coworker, Ray Underhill, and the previous owner of Mudder Brothers funeral parlor had been trafficking something on the sly to or from the funeral home in big wooden crates.
“Did we ever figure out what Ray was hauling for George?” Natalie asked.
“Besides that shipment of bottles full of mead that we found in the funeral home’s storage room, no. But if you’d take one for the team and sleep with Cooper, you might be able to woo it out of him in the midst of sex since he had his thumb on Ray the whole time. Where’s your sense of duty, woman?”
“What am I? Some Russian double agent?”
“You have the lips for it. Those baby inner tubes scream Soviet sex siren.”
She snorted. “Sleeping with Coop is not going to land us any answers.”
I scanned the Mickelson Trail back toward Deadwood, looking for another vehicle parked somewhere else along it. “How do you know?”
“Because I already did it.”
Skirch!!! I lowered the binoculars. “Ha!”
She lowered hers, too, frowning at me. “Ha what?”
“I knew it!”
“You did not.”
“Well, I highly suspected you two were screwing around down in Arizona when I didn’t hear a peep from you.”
“I peeped.”
“You gave me weather
