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“The nurse sent plenty of extras home with me.”
“Sit down at the table. The ophthalmologist agreed with your hospital orders to rest for a few days.” He’d also concluded that she hadn’t suffered ocular trauma and gave them a list of symptoms to monitor.
Reese dragged out a seat and sank in it, looking, to Hayes’s critical gaze as if getting ready had worn her out. “I heard him. I’ll probably put off mountain climbing for a while.” She sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”
He pulled open the oven, waved his hand through the smoke emanating from it, and grabbed hot pads before taking thebroiling pan out and setting it on the stove. “Nope. Just nicely singed.”
He found a platter in the cupboard and stacked a mound of sandwiches on it before carrying the dish to the table and dropping a sandwich on her plate. “Oven-toasted, the way God intended. Far better than those limp concoctions you get cooking them on the stove.” He returned to the kitchen, served up the soup, and brought their bowls to the table. Belatedly remembering the milk, he made another trip before sitting down across from her.
“Cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.” She smiled slightly. “This was Wednesday’s hot lunch in elementary school.”
“Comfort food. Not as good as the school’s weekly chili and cinnamon rolls, but baking’s a bit beyond my skill level.”
She surveyed the food. Then him. “Thank you. For everything.” He heard the note of sincerity in her voice, but it would be a while before he could tuck away the cold sword of fear that had impaled him since finding her gone.
He forced a smile. “Eat. You’ll feel stronger.”
Reese managed a sandwich and most of the soup. And, because he nagged her, she downed the milk. She rubbed at the condensation on the glass with her thumb. Hayes managed to eat double what she did and reached for his third helping when she spoke.
“You didn’t tell me what Mendes had to say this morning.”
He busied himself with slicing the sandwich in half. “We can discuss it after you’ve had some rest.”
“Look, I get it. I screwed up big-time.” Because he couldn’t disagree, Hayes refrained from replying. “I knew I was going to have to hurry to meet Kervin, and with the detective here I realized there was no way you could make that timeline happen. But I still have to know what you learned.”
He chewed silently, contemplating how much to say to her. Her face was nearly as pale as the bandage at her temple, and she looked like a stiff breeze would blow her over. But the shake was gone from her hands, and her gaze was steady. She was probably right—he couldn’t wrap her in cotton batting, even if he wanted to.
“Mendes was on his way to San Pedro.” He watched Reese carefully. “Someone torched a large pleasure boat at the harbor early this morning.”
Her fingers clenched around the glass. “Were there…victims?”
“The deputy provided me a couple more updates throughout the day. This afternoon, LAPD Harbor Police were able to verify that at least two people died on the boat. Likely the owners. Their adult children corroborated they’d been staying on it.”
“It’s usually crimes of opportunity with him,” she murmured. “If Thorne is linked to Pollack, that murder might be the exception. But he followed the professors in Alabama to their rental after they’d been out at a restaurant. The family in Tupelo had spent the day of the homicides at a park.”
“The security camera on that wharf was broken. But a couple of neighboring ones caught a figure approaching the boat at 2:13 a.m. Can’t make out the face, though.”
“Can I see the footage?”
Hayes picked up his cell, found Mendes’s messages, brought up the videos, and handed it to her. “There are two of them.”
She watched them both, her eyes glued to the screen. If he hadn’t been observing her so closely, he would have missed her slight wince before she handed the phone back. “The height’s right. And the posture.”
He’d caught that, too. Thorne always carried himself with his shoulders angled inward, as if perpetually in hiding. Maybe a carryover from his childhood, when he’d tried to conceal himselffrom his stepfather in an unsuccessful bid to end the cycle of abuse.
“That’s two,” she whispered. When his gaze flashed to hers, she elaborated. “If he killed Pollack—and the fingerprints on the pipe certainly means that’s possible—it’s the second time he’s struck in this state.”
And he was determined to make Reese the third. Hayes was already regretting he hadn’t put this off and given her a chance to recover from the events of the day.
“You would’ve had that in your head when you realized I’d left.” Misery filled her expression. “And again when you saw my car still parked behind the diner with my stuff scattered on the ground. I’m sorry for that. It would have been the worst sort of torture.”
That was an accurate description. But there was no reason to belabor the agonizing hours he’d spent before getting her phone call.
“I got a CHP officer to go to Tranquility Lakes and talk to Kervin. Persuade him to consent to a search of his car.” Because the topic had destroyed what remained of his appetite, Hayes stacked the dishes and took them to the kitchen.
Reese toyed with the spoon he hadn’t grabbed when he’d cleared the table. “He’d driven away before the assailant appeared.”
“He also could’ve lured you there for the purpose of that stranger grabbing you up. He’s not in the clear yet. I had checked him out earlier, but Adam put people on it.” Her attention jerked to him. “No connection to Thorne has been discovered.”