Page 76 of Skeletons in the Closet

The night had been a bust. We had more questions than answers. When I turned to Tallus, I found him on his phone, a concentrated look on his face, a pinch in his brow. He’d shoved his glasses to the top of his head and was massaging the side of his neck again.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to sort this shit out.” It was the first time I’d heard anything resembling bite in his tone. Tallus was always calm and collected.

“It’s not your job.”

“Shut up, Diem.”

I clamped my jaw and watched him. For all the times I was an asshole, Tallus rarely got snarky. The neck massage continued. Every so often, he moved his jaw from side to side. His face remained strained.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m getting a bad headache.”

“You should put your glasses back on.”

“It’s not the glasses.”

I glanced at his phone screen, trying to decipher what he was doing. He had maps pulled up.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m seeing what’s in that area, so maybe we can figure out who that guy was. He came from inside this building”—Tallus motioned to the location he’d pulled up on his phone—“but the building is home to about fifteen businesses, including two cafés.”

Tallus’s tone was still off, and since I wasn’t good at conversing on a good day, I left him alone, unsure what to say. The vigil ended. People wandered away. A few hugged, and several more stuck around to chat. Sean, his parents, and the kids left.

I stayed alert, hoping to see our mystery man again, but I didn’t. When Olivia departed with her husband and kids, the rest of the gathered crowd left as well.

Tallus shut off his phone with a huff and turned to face me. “What do we do now?”

“I should take you back to your car.”

“No. I want to help. Stop dismissing me.”

“You said your head hurts. Maybe you should rest.”

“It’s fine. If you dump me back at my car, you’ll keep working this case without me, and I want to be part of it. What do we do now?”

I’d been pondering the next step since we returned from trailing Sean. “We need to figure out who the elusive bastard is and how he connects to Beth, Olivia, and Noah. I get the feeling he could provide answers.”

“How do we find him?”

I’d been puzzling over that question myself. There was one way, and it might not yield results, but we wouldn’t know unless we tried.

“I have an idea.” I started the Jeep and took us back onto the street. It was after ten. If Tallus hadn’t been so insistent, I might have given up and started again in the morning. He was obviously not well. But he was along for the ride, and as much as I protested having a partner, I didn’t mind the company.

17

Tallus

My head was pounding by the time Diem pulled into the Motel 8 parking lot, the same place where we’d followed Beth on Friday night. Even the paltry parking lot lights hurt my retinas and made my stomach queasy.

Diem parked and shut off the Jeep, eyeing me with what I gauged to be a huge helping of discomfort. A growing migraine made me snappy, which wasn’t my norm. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but when I was in pain, I wasn’t always nice.

“Wanna stay here?” he asked.

“No. What are you planning?”

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