I wasn’t thinking hard enough. Either that or I’d wiped away any trace when I’d pressed my hand into the cold tracks the thing had left, because there was barely even a streak of darkness where Newcomb’s body had been found. She hadn’t died there, and dead bodies evidently didn’t carry bleak marks of their own; only violent deaths did.
Good to know, but not at all helpful to me at the moment. I stood there a long time, gaze unfocused as I studied the highs and lows of passion and power within the city, but there were no trails leading in or out of anywhere we’d found a body. Our cannibal was a lot better at hiding his tracks than I was at following them. I felt like I was just a step too far behind, like I could track him if I could only catch up just a little more. I wished to hell I hadn’t flattened out the cold marks he’d left beside Karin Newcomb.
Next time. Next time I’d know better, but next time meant somebody else would already be dead.
Billy said, “Anything?” quietly from just behind me. I startled out of my reverie and blinked over my shoulder at him before shaking my head. He put his phone away and pointed a thumb at our table. “In that case, you might as well eat dessert before it melts. And then we’ll try my idea.”
“Your idea is to consign me to consumer hell?”
I balked in the doorway of an outdoors store, which was to say it sold outdoors equipment, not that it was outside. If it had actually been outside it might’ve been less overwhelming; there wouldn’t be three visible stories of canoes, bicycles, skis, winter gear, tents, campfire utensils, hiking boots and backpacks. And those were just the things I could recognize. There were hundreds of items within eyeshot that I simply had no name for, and no earthly idea what their use might be.
The whole place made my heart beat too fast, like it was actively dangerous. Grumpiness didn’t so much creep over me as bludgeon me, and I tried to back up, trusting the door was an escape route. “I don’t like shopping, Billy. Especially in giant warehouses filled with a million things I can’t possibly need.”
Sadly, the door was blocked by my partner, and made a lousy escape route after all. He prodded my spine to drive me forward, and I dragged my feet as I went. “What are we doing here? I guess if I’m going to go play bait I need equipment, but the department must have some.” That didn’t really seem very likely, now that I thought about it. “Or they could borrow it from Fish and Game, or something. I’m not spending eleven thousand dollars on setting a trap.”
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