Page 74 of Cowboy Heat

“Let’s try to find out. Do you have a printer here?”

Kissy actually hoots. “I sure do!”

Kissy’s shower must’ve done her wonders. She’s oozing all kinds of energy as she guides me inside her bedroom to the cabinet her printer is in. She tells me how to use it, her Wi-Fi password, and finds a way to talk about how much the town has changed in the past fifty years or so. I’m barely keeping up by the time she all but skips through the bathroom door again.

That energy translates into honest-to-goodness excitement as she finishes putting her makeup on.

She closes the door behind her. I can still hear her singing a tune.

I can’t make out the words, but I find that the sound of her sure is nice.

I’m disappointed to drown the noise out when I call Ethan back. I text him a picture of the map first. Without telling him everything, I explain the map’s oddity in relation to our missing person.

“There are two differences with this map and the new ones,” I say, wrapping up. “The cemetery and then some woods next to the parish road that were cut down to make way for new neighborhoods.”

“And so you think if this man has any attachment to the map, it would be because of one of these two places,” Ethan finishes.

“I’m hoping.” Especially since we’re fresh out of any other leads at the moment.

Ethan takes a second. He must be looking at the map on his phone.

“Hiding in a neighborhood would be easy if he had a house there but, from the sound of this guy, I’m thinking he takes pride in going the difficult route.” I hear some keyboard clicking on Ethan’s end. He must be at a computer. “From a quick search of Robin’s Tree online here…I’d put all my eggs in this cemetery basket. The area is away from any major roadways and the area around it? Yeah. Heavily wooded. An overview via satellite also shows only one or two buildings even remotely near it. Objectively, this is where I’d go to hide. Especially if this place is as forgotten as your lady there claims.”

I sidestep the lady comment but find myself agreeing.

“Even if he’s not there, maybe this will at least help us get a better idea of how he thinks.”

The clicking stops. Ethan speaks clearly next.

“You’ll be outside in a remote area that might only have seen the attention of one person for the last few days,” he says. “Go back to the details. Broken grass, disturbed dirt, foot prints, twigs snapped. Scope the place out four times. Not just once or twice. Have the local look at the area with the attentionofa local and then as objectively as possible.”

Excitement at a possible lead starts to roll through me.

“Okay. We can do that.”

I’m about to say thank you to the man but he speaks first.

“And, Beau? Don’t go into the woods alone.” His tone hardens. He’s stating simple fact. “They have a tendency to eat people whole. Even those lying in wait in small-town Louisiana.”

It’s a warning.

I know he’s not wrong.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Kissy

Renard Cemetery doesn’t looklike the picture Drew Tatum’s grandfather took. In the old picture, there was a box coffin splintered on top of mud and some stray trash and debris mucking around both. He’d taken it right before dark too, and that had made everything more ominous.

Now, the clearing between the trees looks almost magical.

The grass has been growing good and nice. Weeds too. The trees around us give privacy from the road we’ve parked next to up a ways, and the tombstones that remain are covered in green and worn down with age. There’s sunlight too, and it’s finding just the right way to pour down on us from above to lift my spirits.

I step between two tombstones that have mostly survived the years and hold my chin up so the light warms my face.

A girl can forget she’s in danger for a bit if given a good enough sunbeam to bask in. Maybe cats have had it right all along.

“Have you been here before?” Beau’s deep rumble is something I swear I can almost feel in my chest.