Chapter Thirty

For a heartbeat, I swear this is it. This is the moment where I get a few answers. Maybe even more than a few. But as quickly as the surety sweeps in, it’s torn away again.

I get no more than a single step before the door at the end of the hall—the one that leads to the stairs—flies open with a whoosh and a crash. The guy in the hoodie jerks his attention toward the noise. A small boy comes tearing out of the open door, shrieking with laughter while he looks over his shoulder. A second kid follows the first, and together, they race toward the spot where I’m standing. And as hard as I try to back out of the way, I’m not quite fast enough. The first kid’s shoulder smacks my hip. I stumble and just barely manage to avoid a collision with the second boy. My ass hits the wall behind me. And by the time I regain my footing and look up, the hooded man is gone.

Shit.

The elevator doors are closed. So either he ducked back in, or he slipped past and sneaked into the stairwell. Either way, the latter is the best option if I want to try to catch him. I dart down the hall, grab a hold of the door handle, and pull. Then I hesitate.

Maybe this has nothing to do with me or the missing girls or Smarty-Pants. And even if it does…

I’m not armed. He might be. My shoes are still beside the bed. And there’s nothing safe about going after him like this. But then I hear the echo of a door slamming from two floors below, and it sparks me to give chase anyway. I yank the door and propel myself through.

My sock-clad feet slow me down as they slide over the concrete steps, and I have to grip the handrail to keep from slipping. But I don’t give up. With gritted teeth, I race down the stairs as fast as I dare. At last I hit the bottom landing. I fling open the door, and I spy the hooded man across the lobby.

“Wait!” I call out.

He doesn’t look back, and it’s impossible to know whether it’s because he didn’t hear me, or if I’m being ignored.

“Dammit.”

Ignoring the looks I get from the staff and the other hotel guests, I dart through the space. I have to skirt around a mess of dishes piled onto several room service trays, I nearly smash straight into a luggage rack, and by the time I step outside, the object of my pursuit is out of sight. I stop. My gaze jerks from one side to the other.

The choice is a crapshoot. I’m standing smack dab in the middle of the building, and there’s no obvious indicators of which way the guy went.

Make a decision! My brain shouts at me.

Then it’s made for me. From the right, I hear a dissonant clang. I swing in that direction and spring into a run. I make it to the end of the building in less than five seconds and take the corner at nearly full speed. But my quickness backfires. As my foot hits the pavement on the other side, the screech of tires alerts me to the fact that I’ve stepped into the path of an oncoming car. I catch a flash of white. All I have time to do is to brace for impact. But as I do, a hand lands on my shirt, yanking me to safety.

My heart’s hammering so hard that I can barely hear the driver as she rolls down her window and asks if I’m okay.

“Don’t worry,” says a familiar voice from behind me. “I’ve got her.”

My interest in the car and my near-death experience drops away as I spin around.

“Gabe!” I gasp, pulling back. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass, apparently,” he replies with more than a hint of cheek.

My face warms. “Thank you.”

“Lucky timing,” he says. “What’s going on?”

“I was—” I just barely manage to stop myself from telling him the truth, and I quickly clear my throat and adjust my words without stealing a glance in the direction I’d been planning on going. The adrenaline is already waning. “I forgot to tip the guy who brought me more coffee.”

Gabe’s expression says he doesn’t buy the lie, and the tone of his reply confirms it. “You’re chasing someone down to leave a tip? In your socks, no less.”

My blush deepens. It’s a terrible excuse. But now I can’t back out.

“My brain isn’t working properly, apparently,” I say. “I’m still a little hungover.”

His frown eases into a sympathetic look. “Right. I almost forgot already. And it’s the whole reason I came by. Are you feeling okay?”

“Aside from just about running into oncoming traffic, I’m not all that horrible,” I tell him. “Thanks for the stuff this morning. It helped.”

“Least I could offer. It was my fault for not realizing what I was giving you.”

“Yes. In this situation—where I, a woman whom you haven’t seen in twenty years, and who drank too much and passed out on your couch—you’re definitely the one who should be apologizing.”

He laughs. “I’m glad we’re in agreement. Because I’m also sorry that I wasn’t there when you woke up.”

“Not as sorry as I am for the aforementioned passing out,” I reply.

“Should we just agree that we’re both sorry and both forgiven, and then never speak of it again?”

“Sure. But I somehow feel like you’re getting ripped off in this arrangement.”

He lets out another chuckle. “So are you still planning on chasing down the coffee deliverer, or have you given up?”

I suppress an urge to glance over his shoulder in search of my real target—he’s definitely long gone by now—and I force a light tone. “I’ll catch up with him later, I’m sure.”

“Can I walk you back to your room then?” he offers.

I’m going to say no, but then think better of it. An argument over something so small is suspicious.

“You’re really into walking people places, aren’t you?” I tease.

“Not people,” he corrects. “Just you.”

My face warms, and I try to come up with a clever retort. Instead, I blurt, “You know that I’m going back to Vancouver, right?”

I half expect him to laugh at the sudden question. Or at least to tease me and say that walking me to my room and flirting aren’t a marriage proposal. But he doesn’t.

“I’m aware,” he says. “But I feel like we’ve got twenty years’ worth of time to make up. So unless you’re deeply opposed to my company…”

“I’m not,” I assure him. “I just don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

He lifts his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Zero expectations here, Trin.”

I breathe out, relaxing. “Okay. Then yes, you can walk me back. So long as you’re not planning on coming in to examine my mess.”

His mouth twitches with amusement. “I’d like to take a moment to remind you that I happen to have been privy to the disaster of your childhood bedroom, but I wouldn’t dare.”

“Good choice.”

He holds out his palm, and after half a heartbeat of hesitation, I slide my fingers through his, enjoying the immediate warmth.

“Can I ask you something?” Gabe says as we head for the lobby doors.

“Sure,” I reply. “Ask whatever you like. I just can’t promise that I’ll answer. I like to keep things mysterious.”

“In that case, my question is probably moot.”

“Why? What was it?”

We step inside the hotel.

“I’m not telling you,” he states.

“What? Why not?” I reply.

“Because you literally just said you like things to be mysterious.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“What?”

“It was an outright lie,” I say. “I’m a cop. I actually spend most of my time trying to unravel things that are mysterious.”

He laughs. “Fair point.”

“So…?” I say.

“So…” he echoes. “Stairs or elevator?”

“That’s your question?”

“No. But we kind of need to decide.” He pauses in both his steps and speech, and he gestures to the hallway in front of us. “Right now, it’s just…Schrödinger’s way up.”

I make a face at him. “That’s a terrible analogy.”

“You want to fight about it? I took a first-year philosophy class.”

“Schrödinger wasn’t a—” I narrow my eyes. “Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you haven’t asked the question yet?”

“Would I do that?”

“Yes, you would. Let’s take the stairs. And ask me the damn question.”

He grins and tugs my hand and starts walking again. “Okay. But remember that you insisted.”

“Gabe!”

“What I want to know is…are you ever going to tell me why you’re actually in Whimsy? Because that stuff about wanting to come back and see how things are was also an outright lie.”

His words catch me off guard, and my response shows it. “I—how did you know?”

He tips a look down at me and raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t for sure. Until now.”

“Oh. Well. Shit.”

“I’m surprised you fell for the ruse, actually. Isn’t that the oldest cop trick in the book?”

“Probably. But then again…I wasn’t expecting you to trick me.”

His hand squeezes mine, and then he lets go to hold open the door to the stairs. “It wouldn’t be a very good trick if you expected it, would it?”

I use a sigh to cover my unexpected disappointment over my freed palm. “I guess not.”

“But since my ruse did work,” he says as we start our ascent, “you have to answer my question.”

“Really?” I reply. “Do you have a list of rules hidden somewhere?”

“Are you doubting the veracity of my claim?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. And I actually think the opposite should be true in regard to this so-called rule, anyway. Tricks equal no treats.”

A chuckle escapes his lips, but when he answers me, his voice is serious. “It’s okay, Trin, if you really don’t want to. I won’t force it.”

I hesitate. I have an overwhelming need not to lie to him. But I’m not quite sure that I want to tell him the whole truth. Maybe it’s force of habit. If the missing women were a part of a proper investigation, I’d be keeping the details to myself. Doing anything else hardly seems right.

“I came to help a friend,” I finally say, knowing just how lame it sounds.

“And that friend…is it Asher Phillip?”

“Yes.”

We reach my floor then, and for the second time, Gabe again holds the door for me. Once we’ve both stepped through, his hand finds mine, the warm points of his fingers sliding across my knuckles. He says nothing else, though, until we stop in front of my door. Then he studies me for a second, his expression stiff but implacable.

“Did you come back for romantic reasons?” he finally asks.

The question makes me draw in a surprised breath. “What?”

“I know the two of you were involved, so I just wondered if that had anything to do with it.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“That’s not an answer,” he states.

“I wouldn’t have kissed you last night if I was here for some romantic reason with someone else.” My face heats yet again as I make the admission, but I’m glad to say something completely truthful.

Gabe’s face relaxes. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if I’d known you were under the influence.”

I’m going to make an argument or defend myself in some way. I swear that’s what’s in my head. But instead of speaking, I step forward, tip my head up, and press my lips to his. His mouth is only still for a moment before he responds. He deepens the kiss, and his hand comes up to the back of my head, his fingers sliding through my hair. When we part, I’m breathless, but I’m also already bracing for a request for a bigger explanation for my presence in Whimsy. But Gabe doesn’t make one.

He just gently touches my cheek, then my bottom lip, and he smiles. “I know you really will be going back to Vancouver soon, but we could always become pen pals.”

“Pen pals?”

“Yeah. You get some paper and some kind of writing utensil, and you—”

“I know what it means, dummy,” I say, making a face at him.

Gabe flashes a grin. “You were always clever.”

“Shut up.”

“Shutting.”

“When you say shutting…it’s not shutting.”

He winks, makes a zipped lips gesture, then turns and strides away. And it takes some effort not to call out and ask him to come back. Forcibly, I remind myself that whatever I might be feeling right now, it’s neither well-timed nor well-placed. And when I pull out my keycard and remember that I need to clear the room before going in, I’m actually relieved to have the distraction. Rolling my eyes, I go through the motions of making sure everything is secure and safe before I enter. But once I’m inside, I’m restless.

The fact that the hooded man eluded me is a sore spot. And I still have no evidence that he’s Smarty-Pants.

“He has to be,” I mutter.

But believing that it’s true doesn’t help me. There’s nothing I can do to prove it. The opportunity to catch him has closed, at least for now. And if it is him, he’ll be even more vigilant moving forward.

So call the Whimsy police, says my subconscious.

But I don’t. I brush aside the thought for the same reason I’ve brushed it aside every time before, and instead, I boot up my laptop. I go back to my last search, and I seek out some evidence that Monica Burns had met a man before her disappearance. I find nothing. I even go so far as to track down the last-known number for her roommate—not an easy feat—and I wind up in an awkward conversation with the woman’s brother, where he reveals that cancer took his sister’s life a few years earlier.

After letting that sad piece of news settle, I try a new angle. I initiate a call down to the front desk to ask about who has access to the rooms. The nice young woman who answers the phone confirms what I probably already knew anyway. The cleaning staff and hotel admins have master keycards, and they only give out the programmable, room-specific ones to registered guests. Nothing is panning out, and my frustration is growing.

A dozen times, I push aside the curtain on my window and peer outside in hopes of spying a suspicious figure watching from a distance. I’d even take a dark-colored car at the moment. I get neither. And the more minutes that tick by, the more doubt creeps in. The fifty-nine hours I promised Asher are creeping closer to an end. Which means that my obligations in Whimsy are over, too.

Am I just letting this go, then?

“I’m not going to leave Asher hanging,” I say.

But my doubt morphs into something stronger. My brain punches holes into even the smallest bits of so-called evidence. Everything can be explained away. The only truly loose end is Smarty-Pants. And for all I know, he’s just some guy who grew up in Whimsy and likes to date young university students. Was anything he said to me truly threatening? Not really. And as far as the person I chased goes…did he even see me? Is his sudden flight in any way related to what I’ve been doing? People in hoodies aren’t exactly an uncommon occurrence in a mountain town in October. Maybe I dropped my missing notebook out in the hall. I haven’t exactly been at my shiniest over the last two days.

I feel like I need a little more time. But contrarily to that, I don’t want to continue. And the headache has most definitely returned with a vengeance. I’m about to give in and lie down for a rest when my phone buzzes from its spot on the kitchenette counter. Sighing, I step over to grab it. I look down and see Charlotte Clarke’s name displayed on the screen. Right away, my pulse spikes.

I click to answer. “Hello?”

“Detective?” Charlotte says, her voice no more than a whisper.

“Yes, it’s me,” I reply.

There’s a pause. “He’s here.”

My pulse increases even more. “Who is?”

“The fake reporter. He’s sitting right across from me.”

“Where’s ‘here,’ Charlotte?”

“The Whimsy Café.”

“Okay,” I say, careful to sound nothing but calm. “Can he see you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replies. “I was already here when he came in, and I’ve got a stack of textbooks on my table, kind of blocking me in.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“Yes, completely. He’s got the same hat and the same hoodie.”

My mind goes to the man who I’d seen in the hotel hallway. I don’t want to delay any further, but I feel a need to know if it’s the same guy.

“Is the hoodie gray?” I ask. “And is the hat white with black and red trim?”

“Yes.” She sounds understandably puzzled. “Do you know who he is?”

“No. But I think I may have seen him myself.”

“What should I do?”

“Stay where you are,” I reply. “I’m on my way.”