Page 65 of Skin Game

Casey insistedon driving them both in the Wagoneer. The truth was, he didn’t have the patience to wait while Elton climbed behind the wheel of his big truck.

“Let’s get going,” Casey said grimly, shoving the Jeep into gear and pressing on the gas pedal.

The drive was around fifteen minutes normally, but Casey pushed the speed a bit and they were there in ten. Elton didn’t tell him to slow down.

Smitty’s always looked a bit lonely to Casey in the colder months. Casey wasn’t sure if it was the lack of seasonal RVers—because there weren’t many to begin with these days—or the leafless maples and birch trees that dotted the area. Sure, there were some evergreens, but the bare branches of the deciduous trees seemed naked and a bit bereft. Gabe thought Bill needed to put up lights. Bill was not convinced.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked his passenger. “What’s the next part of this plan of yours?”

“Plans are for suckers. Let’s take a walk around his house. I know I watched that video you took last night, but I’d like to see the inside with my own eyes too.”

Since they both had keys to Gabe’s place, getting in wasn’t an issue. By mutual agreement, they started at the concrete pad that acted as a porch and circled the house several times in ever-increasing loops, Elton wielding a flashlight to help their eyesight in the early morning light.

“I think someone may have stood here for a while.” Casey pointed at a spot near the back corner of the house where grass appeared to have been crushed. “But there’re no clear footprints and nothing worth doing a plaster cast for. Maybe they waited here until they could ambush him?”

Elton shook his head. “Hard to tell. Could be from a deer.”

A deer, yes. He should have thought of that too.

They looked around inside the house but didn’t notice anything that Casey and the responding deputies hadn’t seen last night. The house was trashed, the boxes were still missing, and Gabriel was not there. Alfred glowered at them, entirely out of place in Gabe’s minimalist—his word—living room.

“Oh, Gabe is not going to be happy about the coffee maker,” Elton commented, noting the machine had been shoved onto the floor and maybe stomped on.

Casey stared down the remains of what had been Gabe’s pride and joy. “Yeah, not happy at all.”

Casey headed back outside. Gabe’s house was small, the whole search had taken them maybe fifteen minutes tops, but he couldn’t be there any longer. Not without Gabe.

Gabe was bigger than life—which Casey’d thought was one of the stupidest sayings he’d ever heard until he met him. Life was fucking huge, how could a human being be bigger than life itself?

And then Gabriel Karne materialized in living color, exploding Casey’s preconceived notions, filling in every bit of space in his vicinity. Demanding Casey’s attention. Courting him—fuckingwooinghim. CharmingCasey, of all people.

The rock that had been squatting in the pit of his stomach since the night before morphed into a boulder, making it difficult to breathe.

He’d gone from being perfectly happy on his own to accepting Gabriel Karne into his life.

To loving the whole package.

“Dammit.”

It was mildly irritating to fully realize you love someone when they’re not around so you can’t tell them. And now he didn’t know if he’d get the chance.

“Stop it.”

Casey snapped out of his thoughts. “Stop what?”

“Stop catastrophizing in that head of yours. It won’t help us figure out what the hell is going on. Come on, let’s get out of here before a neighbor decides to talk to us.” Elton stomped out the door and back to the car.

“Nice bedside manner you have,” Casey called to his back as he shut the door behind him. “Very comforting. I feel much better now.”

Elton didn’t even turn around. “You don’t need kid gloves.”

Casey automatically glanced inside Gabe’s car as he eased between the Wagoneer and the Honda to reach his door. Had anyone checked it last night? He couldn’t remember. Reaching down, he tugged the handle of the passenger door, and it opened easily.

“I’m just going to see if there’s anything in his car,” Casey said.

Unlike his home, Gabe kept his car tidy, no empty to-go cups or crumpled fast food bags littering the floors. Because Bowie rarely rode in it, there was no dog hair either.

A spiral-bound detailed Washington State map was tucked between the driver’s seat and the center console, and a few random coins were in one of those holders that never fit anything useful. Why did car manufacturers bother?