Page 62 of For the Love of Lilah
“Hot and busy.” But now she felt delightfully cool and relaxed. “That teacher I told you about was back. He seems overly earnest to me. Gives me the willies.”
Max’s smile disappeared. “You should report him to one of the rangers.”
“What, for sending off bad vibrations?” She laughed and hugged him. “No, there’s just something about him that hits me wrong. He’s always wearing dark glasses, as if I might see something he didn’t want seen if he took them off.”
“You’re letting your...” His grip tightened. “What does he look like?”
“Nothing special. Why don’t we take a nap before dinner? Aunt Colleen exhausted me.”
“What,” Max said very precisely, “does he look like?”
“He’s about your height, trim. Somewhere around thirty, I’d guess. Wears the hiker’s uniform of T-shirt and ripped jeans. He doesn’t have a tan,” she said, frowning suddenly. “Which is odd seeing as he said he’d been camping for a couple of weeks. Average sort of brown hair, well over the collar. A very neat beard and mustache.”
“It could be him.” His fingers dug in as the possibility iced through him. “My God, he’s been with you.”
“You think—you think it’s Caufield.” The idea left her shaken so that she leaned back against the wall. “What an idiot I’ve been. I had the same feeling, the same feeling with this man as I did when Livingston came to take Amanda out for dinner.” She ran both hands through her hair. “I must be losing my touch.”
Max’s eyes were dark as he stared out at the cliffs. “If he comes back, I’ll be ready for him.”
“Don’t start playing hero.” Alarmed, she grabbed his arms. “He’s dangerous.”
“He’s not getting near you again.” The complete and focused intensity was back on his face. “I’ll be taking your shift with you tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve
He never let her out of his sight. Though they had given the authorities the description, Max took no chances. By the time the day was over, he knew more about the intertidal zone than anyone could want to know. He could recognize Irish moss from rockweed—though he still grimaced at Lilah’s claim that the moss made excellent ice cream.
But there hadn’t been a sign of Caufield.
On the off chance that he had been speaking the truth about camping in the park, the rangers had made a quiet and thorough search but had found no trace of him.
No one had seen the bearded man watching the fruitless search through field glasses. No one had seen the rage come into his eyes when he realized his cover had been blown.
As they drove home, Lilah unwound her braid. “Feel better?” she asked Max.
“No.”
She pushed her hands under her hair to let the wind catch it. “Well, you should. It was sweet of you to worry about me, though.”
“It has nothing to do with sweetness.”
“I think you’re disappointed that you didn’t get to go into hand-to-hand combat.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Okay.” She leaned over to nip at his ear. “Want to rumble?”
“It’s not a joke,” he muttered. “I’m not going to feel right until he’s taken care of.”
Lilah snuggled back in the seat. “If he had any sense he’d give up and go away. We live in the house and we’ve hardly made any progress.”
“That’s not true. We verified the existence of the emeralds. We found a photograph of them. We located Mrs. Tobias, and have her eyewitness account of what happened the day before Bianca died. And we’ve identified Christian.”
“We’ve what?” She sprang up straight. “When did we identify Christian?”
Max grimaced as he glanced over at her. “I forgot to tell you. Don’t look like that. First your great-aunt invades the house and sets everyone on their ears. Then you tell me about the man in the park. I thought I had told you.”
She inhaled, then exhaled deeply to keep her patience. “Why don’t you tell me now?”
