Survival Clause, стр. 43
Pearl was with him, tongue lolling in a canine grin. She’d spent her formative years chained under a camper up on the Devil’s Backbone, and while she’s gotten used to, and pretty happy about, living inside, she isn’t all that keen on those things called stairs. In this case, Rafe must have cajoled her upstairs with a doggie biscuit, because it was still in his hand.
“Here you go.”
He handed it over. Pearl took it daintily and then crunched into it. I had my mouth open to protest—“Not in the nursery!”—but it was already too late. Crumbs scattered on the floor, and Pearl proceeded to demolish her bone, stubby tail wagging. Rafe headed for the bathroom.
By the time he came out, I had put Carrie on the floor for some tummy time. She’s spent a large part of the evening cooped up in her seat, and it’s good for her to move around. Since she’d figured out how to roll over once, she was trying to do it again, her small, pink body rocking back and forth with the effort. Pearl had licked up the remaining crumbs from the floor and was prone across the threshold with her big head on her paws, watching Carrie intently. I was always a little bit worried that Pearl would see Carrie as prey, but so far she seemed clear on the fact that Carrie was human, and part of the family, and not a chew toy to be demolished. I hovered pretty close, though, I’ll admit that.
Rafe leaned a shoulder in the doorway and watched. “She’s gonna do it again.”
I nodded. She probably was. “You look better.” And not just physically, although he did look quite nice, in faded jeans and a comfortably soft T-shirt that molded his upper body, with his feet bare and moisture still clinging to the roots of his hair. But the shower had beaten some of the tension from his face and body, too. He looked more relaxed, not so braced for battle.
He shrugged. “We’re home and safe. I guess that helps.”
Yes, it did. “How long do you expect it’ll take to find this person and stop her?”
“Not long,” Rafe said. “I just called Vasim—”
“At home?”
“He’s still at the police station,” Rafe said. “He’s on second shift this week. Gets off at eleven.”
Ah. “And did he have anything to report?”
“No,” Rafe said, “but I lit a fire under his ass so he can get me something soon.”
Lovely. “He’s doing us a favor, you know. He doesn’t have to spend his time doing this. It isn’t his job.”
“It is now,” Rafe said. “Tammy’s making it Vasim’s mission in life to get that license plate. And he’s getting paid, remember.”
I remembered. But still. “You were nice to him, weren’t you?”
“I’m always nice,” Rafe said, with blatant disregard for the truth. He had absolutely no reason not to be nice to Officer Rehman, though, so if he said he had been, he probably had. “You ready for bed?”
I wasn’t, particularly. It was a little earlier than usual. But I recognized the gleam in his eyes, so I told him, “Just let me feed the baby. I’ll be in in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he told me, and pushed off from the door jamb. “Don’t linger.”
No. I plucked Carrie from the floor and headed for the rocking chair in the corner so I could get her taken care of and get to my husband’s needs as quickly as possible.
Charlotte picked me up bright and early the next morning, and by the time Rafe pulled up to the front of the police station, we were parked nearby, keeping watch.
There was no sign of the compact from yesterday. “Maybe she knows you spotted her and she’s using another car,” Charlotte suggested.
I nodded. “Maybe. Although she came back after I followed her out of town yesterday morning. That’s when the video of Rafe kissing me was taken. After I had already followed her car down the street and around the corner. If she’d come back then, why wouldn’t she do it now?”
“Maybe she figured you wouldn’t think she’d be back yesterday?” Charlotte said. “Maybe she thought it would be safe to double back because you wouldn’t be on the lookout because you’d already run her off?”
Maybe. “There he is.” I gestured to the Chevy that pulled past us and to a stop outside the police station. A second passed and Rafe got out. Like last time, he stood for a few seconds and looked around, and like yesterday, I knew that he spotted us. Like yesterday, he didn’t give any indication of it. After a moment, he headed up the stairs and into the building. Unlike the first morning, no one called out to him today.
“Yesterday,” I told Charlotte, “she was parked up there and left this way. But when Vasim ran the video footage for later, after she came back, she was parked down on this side of the hill, and drove up onto the square and away in the other direction.”
“Maybe she knew you were here,” Charlotte suggested, “and decided to draw you away the wrong way.”
Possible. “In that case, she lives up on the north side of Columbia.”
“Or farther north.”
I nodded. “But probably not too far. She’s around this area too much to be driving in. If she’s outside the police station before eight in the morning, and at Beulah’s, on the south side of Columbia, at eight at night, she probably doesn’t live in Franklin or Nashville.”
“No,” Charlotte admitted. “Although she could work here and live somewhere else. Did you get a good enough look at the license plate to tell whether it was