Page 413 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

He picked up before the second ring.

“Busy?”

“Too busy to talk to the FBI? No, ma’am.” For a second, she wondered if he’d been drinking. “Especially not when every time I turn around, something has happened to you. It’s definitely been an interesting couple of weeks.”

“Nice change from the normal pace?” she asked.

“Sure, as long as things go back after.”

Addie wasn’t sure that would happen. She told him where she was headed and why, and McCauley said, “I’ll be there in fifteen. I don’t live far.”

“Sure?”

“You gonna go in alone if I don’t show up?”

Addie wasn’t going to answer that.

McCauley got the idea. “Exactly. So it’s good you called.”

“Russ made me.”

McCauley snorted. “I’ll be there.”

“Copy that.”

The gate was open when she pulled in two top 40 songs later, making her wonder if Lyric ever closed it. Did she leave it that way so customers could come and go as they pleased? Addie didn’t spot the captain’s car.

Addie turned the volume down on her music. She flipped off her headlights so there would be no glare on the cabin windows to wake anyone and eased toward the structure.

Close enough to see that the door was ajar.

Addie parked and sent a text to McCauley. He still had a couple of minutes before he would get here. If someone were inside and hurt, they might not have time for her to wait. Addie needed to at least look.

She pulled on a vest from her trunk and fastened the straps, then slid her gun from the holster on her hip. A badge on display. Just in case anyone had a question about who she was—or her reason for being there.

First was to listen.

No sound came from inside.

Addie used a free hand to ease the door open. The creak cut through the dark, quiet night. Inside, the cabin looked normal but like it needed cleaning. Not the destruction that had been evident at Jake’s apartment. This place hadn’t been ransacked like that.

Still at the door, she looked everywhere within eyeshot without going in, which she would do with McCauley when he got here. She didn’t see anyone, and there was still no sound. No one cried out for help.

Addie had to hold back for now and wait.

She started to turn and look for McCauley’s car when someone rushed from the house and slammed into her.

Addie fell back, stumbled off the porch steps, and hit the ground.

A dark figure jumped over her and ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Addie rolled over on the ground. Arms stretched out on the ground in front of her. She aimed at the fleeing figure, her finger on the trigger.

A door opened across what amounted to a cul-de-sac. An older man in a bathrobe stood with light behind him, silhouetted in the glow from inside his cabin. Addie moved her finger off the trigger of her weapon.

The guy who’d shoved her off the porch raced between two cabins and disappeared into the dark.

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