Well, perhaps one thing. Reyes walked up behind me, his heat reaching me long before he did, and its warmth saturated my clothes. My hair. My girlie bits.
“Did you save the day again?” he asked while wrapping his arms around me, his mouth at my ear, his warm breath fanning across my cheek.
“Hopefully. For one person, anyway.”
“And that’s enough?” he asked. “Saving one person?”
I turned in his arms. “I wish I could have been there during your trial. I would’ve told Uncle Bob you were innocent, too.”
“I don’t think even the great Charlotte Davidson could have kept my ass out of prison. Earl made sure there was more than enough evidence for a conviction.”
It still crushed my heart every time I thought about him spending so many years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. At that moment, I could think of nothing worse.
His eyes, a deep, shimmering chocolate with gold and green flecks, narrowed in warning. “You aren’t feeling sorry for me, are you?”
He knew not to dismiss my empathy where he was concerned. There was little I could do about it, and he knew that. At least, he’d better if he didn’t want a spanking.
My mouth tilted into a playful smile at the thought, and he grew intrigued, but before he could ask me about it, Ubie walked up to us.
“Parker’s having a fit,” he said, the humor in his voice unmistakable.
I tore my gaze off my affianced. “ADA Parker does that.”
“I think you do that to him.”
“It’s his own fault,” I said, slipping out of Reyes’s hold so we could walk out the exit. He laced his fingers into mine, and I paused for just a moment. He’d never done that before. Just held my hand as we walked. His warmth spread up my arm and over my chest to settle around my heart. I continued walking beside Uncle Bob. “So, what’s this case?”
“Ah, yes, I have a copy of the file for you in the SUV. We’ve had two suicide notes over the last couple of weeks.”
“Cookie told me,” I said as he led us across a parking lot to his department-issue dark gray SUV.
He grabbed a file out of the front seat, handed it over to me. Reyes took the occasional peek over my shoulder while I perused, but for the most part, he kept a weather eye on our surroundings.
“Just notes,” Uncle Bob said as I looked through the case file. “Both people who wrote them have disappeared.”
“They killed themselves?”
“We have no idea. But we just got another one a couple of hours ago. Woman says her husband left a note in the middle of the night and just disappeared.”
“Was there any sign of a struggle?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t been to the scene yet. We have a team over there now.”
I read one of the notes, typical yet sad, then the next. All kinds of stuff about how the author didn’t deserve to live the glorious life they’d been given. In fact, both authors used the word glorious. That could not be a coincidence. The third note was very different, but it had the same word in it: glorious. “They’re remarkably similar,” I said, marking other strange phrases in all three letters, but the handwriting was unique. As were the signatures.
“Yes, they are. We have three almost identical suicide notes and no bodies.”
I looked up at him. “So, really? They just disappeared?”
“Far as we can tell. No signs of any kind of struggle at the first two scenes, and none of them had ever attempted suicide before. We figure they were forced to write these notes by the same person, then taken somewhere else and were either killed or are being held hostage.”
I leaned against his door. “So, the notes were just to throw you guys off? To stall you? What?”
“You tell me,” he said with a shrug. “I thought maybe you could, you know, poke around and see if they were still alive.”
“I can ask Rocket,” I said. “What’s the connection among the three?”
“We haven’t found any, besides the notes themselves.”
“Okay, you keep looking and I’ll go talk to Rocket after lunch.”
“Lunch?” he asked, his interest piqued. “You buying?”
I snorted. “Not even. But I do know an incredible cook at this local pub.” I tossed a wistful smile to Reyes.
He winked, offered Ubie a head nod, then took my hand into his again and led me to Misery.
“So,” I asked, enjoying the warm, sunny day and the feel of Reyes’s hand in mine, “are you holding my hand because you want to get in my pants or because you’re afraid I’ll escape?”
“You couldn’t escape if you wanted to.”
He did not just throw down that gauntlet.
“And, in case you missed the memo, we have twelve angry hellhounds on our asses.”
I leaned behind him to check out the aforementioned backside. “Can’t say that I blame them. If I were a hellhound, I’d be after your ass, too.”
A reluctant dimple appeared at the side of his mouth.
“Actually,” I said, rethinking that statement, “even if I were an angel, I’d be after your ass. Or a saint. Or a gerbil. I like this.” I indicated his hand in mine. Or, well, mine in his since his was fairly swallowing mine. I stepped in front of him as we strolled to Misery and walked backwards for a minute until I could resist no longer. I jumped into his arms.
He laughed softly and cradled my ass, pulling me closer. “What’s ‘this’?”