Page 56 of Skin Game
“Well, what I do know is that the body belongs to that woman. The one who showed up Monday afternoon claiming to be my daughter.”
There was a long pause before Elton responded. “This is not good, Gabe. Not good at all,” he finally said.
“Yeah.” Gabe had to agree. “I was at the Sheriff’s Office answering questions for a little while yesterday because the only thing they found on her was some piece of paper with my name and address on it. Did Althea tell you any of this?”
“She doesn’t talk much about work. If Deputy Eagan told her not to say anything, she’d have kept her mouth shut.”
“That makes sense.”
Neither spoke for a moment. Gabe’s brain was working overtime trying to piece this last puzzle of Heidi’s together. He and Elton needed to visit this Denny Pritchard person together and ask him a few questions. Denny Pritchard could be the key. What if he was Heidi’s father?
Finally, Elton said, “How about you and Casey come over fordinner? I picked up some chicken noodle soup. It’s a big container.”
“Sure thing. I’m happy not to cook. Casey said he’d be by, and I planned on inviting myself over to his anyway.” Gabe looked at his phone and saw it was after six.
Crap, he’d lost track of time. Where was Casey? Shouldn’t he have been back from his field trip by now? “We’ll be by later, around seven? We can lay out this new information, maybe come up with an idea or five. I’m going to bring the notebooks with me. I found some possibly interesting comments in one of them.”
Gabe quickly punched in Casey’s cell number, but it went straight to voicemail. The likely answer was that he was in a dead zone. With a frustrated grumble, he tossed his phone down next to him.
Since he needed to do something that was not just sitting around waiting for Casey to show up, and pacing hadn’t done the job, Gabe hopped up, shoved his feet into his boots, and pulled on a jacket.
Grabbing his keys off the hook—thank you, Casey—he headed out the door. Sometimes just aimlessly driving helped him think more clearly.
Maybeif he’d been paying attention to his surroundings, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard. But he wasn’t paying attention, he was thinking about The Current Fuckery.
About Casey, where was he? About a dead girl, who was she really? And an added nutty topping of What The Fuck had his mother been involved in all those years ago that made her flee her home and change her name?
He wasn’t thinking about being ambushed.
Stepping outside, he turned to push the door shut and was ready to slide the key into the lock when a shuffling sound caught his attention. The scuff of a boot against gravel? Gabe twisted to see what the cause was.
A hooded figure, the lower part of their face covered, had slipped out from the darker shadows to Gabe’s right.
They’d been waiting for him, hiding around the side of the house.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed. “What do you want?”
He hadn’t seen a vehicle, so Dark Hood had arrived on foot or parked elsewhere, just like the shooter the other night had. “Are you the asshole who took a shot at me?”
An unyielding object slammed against the side of Gabe’s head.
“Thefuck.” All Gabe could do was try and breathe through the pain. He was seeing stars, which wasn’t good.
Dark Hood rushed him, and Gabe instinctively raised both arms to protect his head; he was already doubled over from the pain. Fuck. Someone from behind him walloped him a second time, and Gabe’s world went black. His last thought before losing consciousness was that Casey had a point.
He was, in fact, breakable.
TWENTY-ONE
CASEY – THURSDAY EVENING
It had taken Casey longer to get to Gabriel’s than he’d expected. First, the rain had started up again, and there were no windshield wipers that could keep up with the deluge. He didn’t envy anyone venturing up Crystal Creek Road in this weather. Hopefully, the asshole driver who sped up the road at forty miles an hour didn’t end up in a ditch or front bumper first in one of the canyonesque potholes. Then, once he was back on the highway, Casey had had to make a stop at the Park Office to trade vehicles and fill Greta in on what he’d learned about Calvin, which was not much.
While he’d enjoyed having coffee with Paul and Etienne, he never did get more than amaybein answer to his questions, followed up with a vague promise to get in touch if they did suspect Perkins was in the area.
It was the curse of living off the grid and wanting to be left alone, Casey grumbled to himself as he drove into Smitty’s and toward Gabe’s. Although admittedly, living off the grid sounded like a curse for him but obviously not for the retired spies or other folks living up there. Their mutual agreement to not pay attention to other people’s business was an issue when something did happen. Something like Calvin Perkins disappearing.
Gabe’s place was inexplicably dark, but the Honda was parked in his spot out front, so he had to be home. Maybe he’d fallen asleep? After all, Gabe had been up since at least three or four a.m., searching for information about Holly Pritchard. Casey’d been up almost as many hours, and he was beat.