Page 41 of Devoted in Death

He pulled her to her feet. “Unless Peabody hits as well, you can start your route in Missouri, and move back from there if you feel the boy wasn’t their first. Give your brain and your instincts a rest.”

She didn’t argue only because she wanted to let it settle in, stew around in her subconscious. Noah Paston—and she’d add him to her board in the morning—hadn’t been their first.

“Paston,” she said as Roarke tugged her out of the room. “The locals did a thorough job—and when he was found over the state line, called in the feds. Small, rural-type community. People knew the kid. Liked the kid. He’d had a breakup with his girlfriend, and a push-and-shove with the guy she dumped him for, but nothing serious. And the push-and-shove partner was alibied tight, and just didn’t read like a killer.”

In the bedroom she toed off her skids. “He did okay in school, opted to do online courses instead of going to college so he could stay home and help with the family business. Garden center. And he played ball, coached Little League along with his father. People liked him, it comes through the reports.”

“Why not the first?”

“It just doesn’t read for me. It’s wrong place/wrong time again. In general he drove home from the ballfield. He had a small truck. But he lent it to a friend about an hour before practice ended. And he stayed longer to work one-on-one with a kid, walked the kid home. That wasn’t his usual routine, so if somebody was lying in wait for him, he wouldn’t have come when they expected. He took a short cut, since he was walking, or told the kid he was going to, and he headed off in the direction of the back road that would cross a field and over that to his house. That was at dusk. Just getting dark.”

“And these two drive by, see him.”

“Yeah, could be that. Ask him if he wants a lift, ask for directions. Or the woman lures him somehow. He’s an athlete, young, fast. He’s got a baseball bat, but they get him. He’s not an easy target, not really, but they see young, stupid, alone on a back road in the dark. He’s a kid, so it’s not for money. He didn’t have any to speak of. A ’link, and they never found it, a good bat and glove, but nothing of real value. And they don’t rape him or abuse him sexually, so it’s not that.”

“Luck of the draw.”

“That’s how it looks to me.” It was circling in her brain, and she wanted it to sink in. “And the first isn’t going to be like that. The first had a reason, had the fuse that lit up. I haven’t found the first.”

“Why dump the body so far away—over state lines, pulling in the FBI?”

She pulled on a nightshirt. “They were en route somewhere—had a destination in mind for the night. Took him along, likely incapacitated. I have to figure they didn’t think about crossing the state line, didn’t consider that. Just take him a good distance, gives them more time to play.”

Still thinking, she stretched out on the bed, running an absent hand over Galahad’s head when he leaped up to join her. “Out-of-the-way places around there, like with the vic heading to Nashville. An old house, cabin, fishing shack, whatever. Clean it up when you’re done, dump him far enough away from the kill site. Who’d look?”

“You.”

“Now, yeah. Plenty of hindsight now.”

“Then,” he corrected, and slid into bed beside her. “You’d have considered the route, just as you are now—considered they’d need somewhere to hold him, and you’d have looked.”

“It doesn’t help him now. There’s one in Arkansas, low probability but I want another look. And a second in West Virginia, I think—”

“Tomorrow.” Roarke wrapped an arm around her, tugged her closer. “Let it sit until tomorrow.”

“You just want me to pay up.”

“I had considered letting that debt ride, with considerable interest, but I’m more than willing to take payment now.”

“You’re always willing.”

Eyes on his she traced her hand down his chest, his torso, his belly and found him hot and hard.

“See?” She wrapped her fingers around him. “How do you guys live with this?”

“It’s a man’s burden to bear.”

“Just a few inches, and it rules the brain, the ego and can obliterate common sense.”

“‘A few’?” he countered, making her laugh.

“Knew that would get you.”

“Used properly it can rule a woman’s brain, her ego and obliterate her common sense.”

“I guess you’re going to show me how to use it properly.”

“It would be my pleasure.”