“Clearly one person would or else he wouldn't be….” I trail off, not wanting to say it.
“Exactly,” Frank sighs in agreement as we pull out of Becca’s driveway. He had me go in with him on this one. He didn’t want to be alone with a female while asking pressing questions about her sex life. I seconded that one, plus I know Becca. I thought she would be more open if I were there. She didn’t really give us much information besides that she’d gone on two dates with Dean, but it never went anywhere.
“How many other women are on the list?” I ask. I can’t see Becca having done this.
“Four.”
“Four!” He hadn’t even been in town that long. “I mean, I’m not judging, I'm just surprised. Emma thought I should...” I clamp my mouth shut, wanting to shove my foot in it.
“Emma thought what?” Crap.
“Nothing.” I stare out the window. Frank’s hand comes down on my thigh, and he gives a squeeze.
“Out with it. I don’t want to have to interrogate you too.”
I roll my eyes at him. “She teased me about dating him.”
“I knew it!” he barks. “You said vet for a reason.”
“See, you’ve already got the spider senses about things. You’re going to solve this.” I praise him to redirect his train of thought away from the idea of me ever going on a date with Dean. It doesn’t work. He just gives me a hard stare. “I wasn’t going to go. I’m just surprised that he’s dated so many local women when she and I always joked we’d never date people around here because you’d always have to see their exes.”
“I don’t disagree with you there.” Frank shifts the car into drive, taking off down the road. “So, it’s not gossip how many girls he’s dated?”
“I guess not, but maybe me and Emma just didn’t notice.” I shrug. Sure, we love gossip sometimes, but it can get redundant. Especially when it comes to who is dating who.
Frank drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Okay, let's think here.” I don’t know about him, but it always helps me to talk through things. “Do we know how many times they were each stabbed? If it was a bunch, it was likely a crime of passion. Also, in a stabbing most of the time the hand slips and people cut their own hands in the process. Becca’s didn’t have a scratch on them.” He flicks a glance my way.
“What? I like crime shows.” He shakes his head. “Stabbing is personal,” I point out too. It’s up close.
“It’s quiet.” I suppose that would be important. Someone would have heard shots in the middle of the day. “I only suspect stabbing and maybe blunt trauma, but that’s for a coroner to make the final call on. You’d be surprised—” Now it’s him that trails off.
“What? Surprised about what?” I ask, trying to get him to open up to me a little bit.
“Nothing.” Oh heck no. There is no way I’m going to let him off that easily.
“Hey! You pulled me into this.” He rolls to a stop at the sign. He pauses for a second, and I think he’s going to change the subject.
“Sometimes you look at a body and you think one thing, but it’s another.”
“You’ve seen a lot of bodies.” It’s not really a question.
“Enough.” It’s not a lot, but at least he gives me something. My natural instinct is to want to ask him more, but I push it down for now.
“Whose house are we headed to next?” I ask as his phone starts to ring.
“What do you have for me?” he says into the phone. Why can’t he put it on speaker? I try to lean over and hear, but I can only make out that it’s a female voice. “All right. I’m headed that way.”
“What’s happening now?”
“I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have brought you.”
“Hey, you did the deputizing thing to Vincent without a second thought. Just so you know, I took like two”—I hold my fingers up—“criminal justice classes in college. Just sayin’.”
He lets out a low chuckle that makes me smile. “I’ve missed you.” He shakes his head, but he’s smiling too.
“I was kind of just thinking the same thing. I’m glad you're back. I don’t know if I said that before I smacked you.”
“I don’t recall. You pressed your body into mine before that, and my mind went other places.” He flicks another glance my way. My face starts to warm.
We might have shared a bed last night, but that’s all we’ve done. There may have been some cuddling before I crashed hard. I woke to an empty bed. I wasn't mad about it. I got that he had a job to do. He’d left a note. That’s a first.
“So, the call?” I try asking again. This isn’t the time to be thinking about Frank and my bed. I need to focus. People are dead, and a murderer is on the loose.