Page 37 of Clear Path

Diana asked the question casually. Maybe too casually. One of Diana’s strengths when she’d been the police chief was making suspects so comfortable that they forgot who they were talking to.

Sadie brushed the thought aside. Diana wasn’t interrogating Aaron. She was just making conversation.

“Yep. We’ve been swamped. I didn’t even take a real lunch break. I ran out and grabbed a sandwich to eat in the back while I checked in a big order.”

Sadie froze.

He was lying.Whywas he lying?

She’d skipped lunch to take care of the order, not him. Not only had he taken his break, he’d come back late—and empty-handed, after promising to pick something up for her to eat. He told her he’d lost track of time because he’d detoured from the deli to check out the excitement outside Rory’s apartment.

She’d blown up at him because he was already on a performance improvement plan. He’d come in late twice last week despite her waking him up and handing him a mug of coffee before she left their place to open the store. Taking a ninety-minute lunch when he already had two strikes was beyond irresponsible. It was almost like he was daring her to fire him. When she pointed this out, he’d begged her to doctor his time record, but she hadn’t. So not only was his lie stupid, it was provably false.

Diana and Aaron’s voices faded as they walked away. But Sadie leaned back against the rock and worked through her racing thoughts.

What had Aaron being doing for an hour and a half? Had he gone to Rory’s place hoping to run into her?

She knew in her heart that he wasn’t over Rory. Their relationship, if you could even call it that, had been brief. More like a fling. But when Rory walked into a room, Aaron lit up. Sometimes she caught him watching Rory with longing in his eyes.

Big deal, he had a crush. That didn’t mean he had anything to do with her disappearance.

Her attempt to convince herself fell flat. If that was true, why had he just lied to Diana?

Maybe he was embarrassed about slacking off. Especially after she’d read him the riot act.

But what if there was more to it than that? Ninety minutes was just about enough to time to bike the twelve miles to the cave and back. It would be tight, but for a cyclist as fit and experienced as Aaron, it was doable. He probably hadn’t. Almost certainly hadn’t. But hecouldhave.

She should tell Diana. As soon as she had the thought, she dismissed it.

No, she shouldn’t. Raising the issue would distract from the search effort. And she didn’treallybelieve Aaron had done anything wrong.

Diana’s warning about her relationship had her rattled. That was all.

But the twist in her stomach told her she had to say something. She muscled down the whisper of guilt that said she was a disloyal girlfriend. Then she pushed off from the boulder and went down to the trail to find Diana and set the record straight.

But Diana had her head bent down listening to something Evan was saying, so Sadie called the search party together and told them they had one more mile to go. She could talk to Diana when they reached the cave.

25

Bodhi got his chance to talk to Lucas when they finally reached the spot on the trail where he’d spotted Rory’s bike. Sadie called for the search party to take a five-minute break before they headed to the cave. They dropped their packs and scattered across the clearing to stretch, make phone calls, and drink some water.

Bodhi made a series of neck circles and stretched his arms overhead before pulling out his canteen. He drifted toward Tripp and Lucas, who were standing a bit apart from the others.

“—didn’t expect her to be so dramatic,” Tripp was saying. “Business is business.”

“She overreacted,” Lucas agreed. “She always did had a flair for theatrics. It’s not like she’s never shown a little skin?—”

A clatter drowned out the rest of the sentence. Evan had dropped his metal water bottle, and it bounced off a rock. The two men turned toward the sound and Bodhi used it as an excuse to nod a hello.

Lucas nodded back.

“I gotta drain the snake,” Tripp announced loudly before he walked a few feet away and plunged into the trees not far from where the red trail bicycle still sat.

Once Tripp was out of sight, Bodhi edged closer to Lucas, who was rifling through his backpack. He held up an assortment of bars for Bodhi’s inspection.

“Which one of these is the least disgusting? You look like you know your way around trail bars.”

He leaned in. “The date bar is pretty good. It’ll make you thirsty, though.”

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