LITMIR.BIZ

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hard at Harry. “OK—as long as you promise not to change your mind along the way.”

      Harry awkwardly raised his right hand.

      “I promise,” he said and gave her a quick kiss.

      Jillian smiled and looked reassured. She wagged her finger at Crivaro and said …

      “And don’t you go trying to persuade him otherwise!”

      “I wouldn’t think of it,” Crivaro said with a chuckle.

      The couple seemed a lot more relaxed now. Harry even picked up his sandwich again and as they all kept eating, he regaled Riley and Crivaro with small talk. Now and then, Jillian added details or corrected him.

      Harry and Jillian had recently become first-time grandparents, and their youngest daughter was getting married. As usual at this time of year, the weather in Colorado was too cold for their liking. So as they almost always did during the winter, the couple had packed up their camper and driven into the warmer Southwest, where they were hopping from one campground to another.

      Harry proudly showed Riley and Crivaro a picture of their camping rig—a fair-sized trailer towed by a white truck. Harry called the getup “our home away from home.”

      As the small talk continued, Riley noticed a wistful expression on Crivaro’s face.

      She wondered …

      Does Crivaro envy them?

      Again she noticed that Crivaro and Harry looked close to the same age. She hadn’t given any thought to Crivaro retiring. Did he ever think about that?

      Would he see any point in it?

      Although there was a lot Riley didn’t know about her mentor, she did know that he was divorced and had an estranged son.

      Crivaro’s life wasn’t anything like Harry and Jillian’s, with their close and happy family. If he had grandchildren, he’d never mentioned them to Riley. He’d told her that his ex-wife was happily remarried, and his son had gone into real estate, and …

      “They’re perfectly normal, just like regular folks.”

      With a self-deprecating laugh, he’d added …

      “Maybe I just can’t do normal.”

      Not for the first time, it occurred to Riley that Crivaro must be a very lonely man.

      If his work was the only thing that gave his life meaning, if he felt that he’d missed out on something, then naturally this perfectly normal, happily retired couple could stir up melancholy feelings in him.

      Was loneliness one reason he’d brought her along on this peculiar trip?

      There had been moments when Riley had felt that Crivaro was more like a real father to her than that bitter ex-Marine who lived alone in the mountains. At least he sometimes praised her for doing something well, which was more than her actual father ever did.

      She wondered …

      Does he ever think of me as a daughter?

      The group finished eating and headed on out to the parking lot. Riley was relieved that the weather was actually very pleasant. Warm, but not hot or humid. Maybe the clothes she had with her would serve after all.

      She’d expected to see the whole camping rig from the photos, but they were just headed toward a truck.

      “Where’s the camper?” Crivaro asked.

      “That’s the beauty of our rig,” Jillian replied. “We can disconnect the house and leave it in the campground while we drive around in our … um … extended car. Not as fancy as some, but it’s very practical.”

      Crivaro and Harry climbed into the front seats, and Riley and Jillian got into the wide back seat.

      As Harry drove out of the airport, he started to regale Crivaro with more small talk—what routes they had taken coming south from Colorado, where they intended to go next, what places they visited every winter, even where they’d found good restaurants along the way. It seemed to Riley that he had an endless supply of trivial things to talk about, but Crivaro appeared to be listening contentedly, apparently not bored at all.

      Riley tuned that conversation out. She was grateful that Jillian, sitting beside her, didn’t seem inclined to indulge in similar meaningless chatter.

      But then, Riley wondered, should she be saying something like that to Jillian, if only to be polite?

      As Harry pulled onto the freeway and headed north, Jillian spoke up. “I see that you’re engaged.”

      Riley was startled by the remark, but quickly realized that Jillian was looking at her engagement ring.

      She smiled and said, “Yes, I am.”

      Jillian half-smiled as she asked, “Have you set a date for the wedding?”

      Riley gulped at the question.

      “Uh, no, not yet,” she said.

      The truth was, she and Ryan had no idea just when the date would be. Sometimes it seemed like the whole idea was little more than a fantasy.

      “Well,” Jillian said, “I wish you every happiness.”

      Jillian then turned her head and gazed out the window.

      Riley felt a lot of meaning in those words.

      “I wish you every happiness.”

      Jillian and her husband certainly seemed to have found happiness. But Riley sensed that their happiness had been hard won, and that Harry’s work in law enforcement hadn’t made things easy for them.

      Riley found herself thinking about her own future.

      What was in store for her?

      She and Ryan had sometimes been wonderful together. But she was afraid that any lasting happiness might be hard won for them, too.

      Would she eventually have a happy retirement with someone she loved?

      Or was she going to wind up alone like Agent Crivaro?

      Riley looked out the window on her side of the truck. The landscape outside was unlike anything she’d ever seen, except in pictures. Apart from areas where people had built structures and cultivated greenery, this land looked lifeless to her.

      Somewhere in a desert setting like this, a young woman had been brutally robbed of her life. Had the same monster killed before?

      If so, Riley and Crivaro had to put a stop to his murders once and for all.

      CHAPTER SIX

      As the truck neared the town of Tunsboro, Riley noticed that Jillian was getting uneasy again.

      And maybe with good reason, Riley thought.

      The two men in the front seats weren’t talking about road trips and other trivia now. Harry had turned off his steady flow of inane chatter and gotten back to the topic that was most on his mind.

      “You know, I’m starting to come up with a theory about those two murders,” he said. “Want to hear it?”

      Riley heard Jillian let out a gasp. She knew the woman must be worried that her husband would renege on his promise not to get mixed up in the case at the last possible minute.

      Looking irritated, Crivaro just grumbled inaudibly.

      Riley got the distinct feeling that his intended answer was “no.” But Harry was clearly determined to talk about his theory anyway.

      “I think—no, I’m almost sure—the killer is a camper, someone who hops from campground to campground.”

      “Someone like you?” Crivaro asked wryly.

      Harry chuckled and said, “Yeah, like me except for the years spent catching slime like that. But in a way, yeah, you’re kind of right. The killer has to be someone who blends right in with the whole campground culture. Campgrounds have got to be where he stalks his victims.”

      Crivaro

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