Page 23 of The Murder Between Us
There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. Cole stared at him. “Taco pizza?”
“Yeah. Tacos, but spread out on pizza dough. Ground beef, refried beans, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream. Olives, if you want them. It’s very Iowan.”
“Sounds like it.” He watched as Noah smiled. It was there and then gone, as if Noah had enjoyed himself for a single, fractional moment. “Jealous about Jacob’s and my pizza eating?”
“No!” Noah’s hands squeezed the steering wheel so hard the leather screamed, and the tires swerved slightly before he corrected. Silence filled the cabin.
Noah signaled and took the next off-ramp. Three quick turns later, they pulled up to a seafood joint in a strip mall. Red-checked tablecloths fluttered on patio tables clustered in front of the restaurant. Red plastic baskets cradled fish and fries.
“Seafood? In the Midwest?”
“Bluff Lake has the best catfish in four states. It’s fresh. This is one of Des Moines’ hidden treasures.” Noah wouldn’t look at him as he climbed out of the SUV. He slammed the door shut before Cole could answer.
“Guess we’re eating catfish,” he mumbled.Well done pissing Noah off, hotshot.
Lunch was strained. Noah wouldn’t look at him, or talk to him, or acknowledge his existence. He didn’t even sit across from Cole, instead scooting to the right so it seemed like they weren’t together. Like they just happened to enter at the same time from the same SUV, order together, and sit at opposite ends of the same picnic table. Noah stared at his cell phone the whole time, scrolling through whatever he was reading and poking at the screen like he was texting someone every few minutes.
Cole caught up on emails and called his office to check in. The catfish was surprisingly good, and he endured his boss’s teasing about eating fish in the dead center of the Midwest. “Bluff Lake has the best catfish in four states, I was told.” His boss laughed at him.
Twenty minutes later, Noah stood and tossed his lunch in the trash. He hadn’t eaten a single bite. “Ready?” Noah grumbled. He jiggled his keys as he glared at the parking lot.
“Still going to puke if you eat?”
Noah walked away.
The drive to the first of the original six crime scenes was deathly silent. It almost hurt to breathe the air in the vehicle. Waves of misery mixed with quiet fury rolled off Noah, pummeling Cole. He stared out his window, counting the cornfields they passed.
None of the first six were as secluded as the recent murders. None were as rural. In fact, the most rural they got was deserted parking lots and the quiet corners of college campuses. One girl was strangled on a walking path circling the Iowa State quad.
Was the killer easing back in after a long hiatus? Was he spooked from his almost capture, if Kyle and Shellyhadseen him the night Stacy Shepherd was murdered? Had he learned to be more secretive, more cautious?
How was that plan going, after he was interrupted twice? Was that why he showed so much rage? So much fury when his ritual, his private domination, was destroyed?
Where had the Coed Killer been for six years?
Damn it, he needed to talk to Noah about the original investigation. Really talk to him: ask him his thoughts, understand his processes. Hunting a serial killer was a unique experience. The frustration, the feeling of impotence, and the hopelessness that could set in as the victims piled up and the evidence withered… it could make a man go mad.
Memories from the investigation crystallized, hung like ice sculptures in the mind. Noah knew things. He had to.
And Cole had to break the ice that had reformed between them. Damn him and his big mouth. He shouldn’t have said what he did about Jacob, and Noah being jealous. Noah had been nothing but clear that he wanted nothing, absolutelynothing, to do with what had happened between them.
Cole turned to Noah, still searching for what to say—
Noah’s phone rang. He answered it one-handed, not looking at the caller ID. “Agent Downing.” A pause. Then, “What?” he roared. His face went pale, bone white, and his jaw dropped. “When? What happened?” Someone was answering his questions, and Noah’s jaw clenched hard as he swallowed.
He slammed the indicator down and hit the SUV’s lights and sirens as he swerved through three lanes of traffic. “I’m on the way.”
Cole kept his mouth shut as Noah blew toward downtown Des Moines. He concentrated on staying alive, holding on to the oh-shit bar and clinging to his seat belt. As if that would save him if Noah got them into a head-on collision.
Minutes after the phone call ended, Noah burned rubber as he spun the SUV into the Iowa Methodist emergency room parking lot. He threw the car into park in the first available space and took off, running for the double glass doors marked “Emergency.” Cole followed.
He walked in just in time to see Noah badger the front desk attendant, leaning over the counter with wild eyes as he asked, “Katherine Downing? Where is Katherine Downing? She was just brought in—”
“Dad!”
Noah spun. Down the hallway, a brunette teenager in a blood-spattered cheerleader uniform came running toward Noah from the curtained-off emergency room bed she’d been waiting in. There was a bandage taped on her forehead, and her right arm was splinted and wrapped in thick gauze, all the way up to the elbow.
“Katie!” Noah bellowed.
