She leaned against him and filled in what he couldn’t say. “I had a lot of fun too.”
His tender smile was his only reply. He turned to walk away, when suddenly, his steps faltered.
“What?” she asked in question, glancing ahead.
She instantly realized the problem. A rush of heat swept over her, and not in a good way. She looked left then right, but only saw cars. She scanned the area again. And again. “Um, Hayes, where is the truck?”
He slowly turned to her, jaw set. “I have no fucking clue.”
Hayes swore he’d never step foot into a police station again. Because of Maisie, he’d seen the inside of two in the last two days. He took stock of her sitting in the hallway of the Boulder police department. She kept looking at the clock on the wall, twisting the ring on her finger. Today had been…amazing, the best he’d had in a long time. And Maisie was the reason. Something restless in him settled. Something that felt good, instead of painful. Something that told him it wasn’t wrong for him to smile.
Needing to be close, he reached over and took her delicate fingers into his, and she jerked her head toward him. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her.
She gave a quick nod and began fingering her necklace.
Unsure of how to fix this for her, Hayes brushed his thumb across the back of her palm, glancing out at the station. The sound of a crying baby came from the room across the hallway. To his left, officers discussed cases behind glass. To the right, cops were chatting and joking in the breakroom. The camaraderie was something he missed most. After Laurel’s murder, he’d shut everyone out. But this place, the smells of old coffee and stale air, felt familiar. Good. Almost like a missing part of Hayes was sitting in there.
Maisie nearly jumped out of her skin when Hayes’s cell phone rang. He reached for it in his pocket, looked at the screen. “It’s Beckett.”
Again, she nodded, not looking at him.
Hayes hit answer and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey.”
“At least this time you’re not behind bars,” Beckett said by way of greeting.
Hayes snorted, stretching out his legs, keeping Maisie’s hand on his thigh. “Hilarious. Care to tell me how you know I’m at a police station?”
At that, Maisie’s gaze jerked to him. The remainder of the color left her face, leaving her ghostly white. He made a mental note to find some juice and maybe a chocolate bar after the call, to get her sugar up. He didn’t want her passing out or throwing up.
“Your dad called,” Beckett replied. “He put me on standby to come and get you guys, since he’s stuck at the station, figured you might need a ride.”
Hayes called his father on the way to the police station after the cops showed up at the amusement park. He explained the situation, desperate to get more eyes out there looking for his truck and the Three Chicks Brewery trailer. He appreciated his father’s kind sentiment. “Thanks for being on standby. We’re hanging tight for now. I’ll let you know if we need that ride.”
Beckett said, “Sounds good. It’s un-fucking-real that someone would take the truck at a beer festival. Pretty ballsy. The place had to be packed.”
Hayes shifted in his seat, his chest tightening as the guilt of their reality washed over him. “We were at an amusement park on the way to Boulder this morning. It happened there.”
A pause. Then Beckett chuckled. “Well, I’m glad to hear that Maisie is rubbing off on you. I don’t think I’ve seen you do anything spontaneous or fun in a long time.” Another hesitation, then Hayes chuckled lightly, acknowledging the truth in the statement, as Beckett added, “But, man, I’m sorry this happened. Shitty deal.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Hayes agreed.
Two male officers, with fresh steaming coffee cups walked by, the keys on their belts jingling, when Beckett asked, “How’s Maisie holding up?”
Hayes slid his gaze to her. Her knee bounced a mile a minute, the nail on her thumb bit down to nothing.
“Hanging in there.” He scrubbed at his face, rubbing his tired eyes. “I’m hoping this gets wrapped up soon. My dad made some calls to a few sheriffs. They’ve got units looking for my truck, and the detective working the case seems on top of it.”
“That’s good. What time do you have to get to Boulder for the festival?”
“Five, at the latest.” Hayes looked at the clock on the wall. They still had three hours to find the truck and the trailer. When Maisie’s knee began bouncing faster, he squeezed her hand tight, continuing to brush his thumb across her soft skin. “We’ve got time,” he said to reassure her.
Beckett’s heavy voice showed his doubts. “What chance do you really think you’ll make it to the festival?” When Hayes didn’t answer, Beckett snorted. “That bad, eh?”
“Yeah.” At this point, there was a fifty-fifty chance they’d find his truck in time, but Hayes knew the mind of a criminal. They wanted the beer. They’d likely stolen the truck and trailer simply for that. Clara and Amelia could always drive more beer up for the festival, if they found the trailer with the jockey box, but Hayes wasn’t sure they’d have the time to pull that off. And of course, there was
the other fifty percent chance that they wouldn’t find the truck at all.
Beckett asked, “They’ve got no leads whatsoever?”