Free Undercover Hunter by Rachel Lee

sense to him.
    She bought a touristy bright blue hoodie with the outline of mountains stamped on it and the words Where The Mountains Never End on the back.
    He didn’t say a word, though, until they’d paid and were outside.
    “A hoodie? What good will that do you?” he asked while he pawed in his bag for the ski mask he’d just bought. Mary had been kind enough to clip the tags off.
    “That house gets drafty,” she answered. “Besides, Mary was nice and I wanted to make her feel as if we enjoyed the visit to the store.”
    “Didn’t we?”
    “Not by half,” she said, pulling her own ski mask on and tugging her jacket hood up. “So people are bad-mouthing Gage Dalton.”
    “Don’t they always when the cops haven’t solved the crime yet?”
    “Do they? Probably. Maybe they just never said it to my face.”
    “A lot of people wouldn’t want to say anything critical to your face,” he remarked with amusement. He was sure he hadn’t been the only one treated to her thorns.
    She faced him. “You got something to say to me, Bankston?”
    He sighed. His breath came out in a white cloud. “I was joshing.” Partly. But damned if he was going to argue with her on the street. “I thought we had a truce. Remind me that one of the terms of armistice is to tiptoe.”
    She looked away from him for a moment, then said, “Sorry. This whole situation is...well, it’s not what I’m used to. I seem to need a whole new set of coping skills.”
    “You’re not the only one,” he admitted. “I’ve never dealt with a serial killer before. Wyoming doesn’t seem to be the most popular destination for them.”
    “Given this cold? I wonder anyone comes here.”
    “You want to look around more or head back? If you’re getting hungry, then we should head back. Baking potatoes takes a while.”
    She turned in a slow circle, surveying the storefronts, the sheriff’s office just down the darkened street, the courthouse, the church even farther down. The town appeared dead. “Things like this shouldn’t happen in a place like this. And if you tell anyone I said something that stupid, you’ll pay.”
    Truth was, though, he kind of knew what she meant. “Big cities, sprawling suburbs,” he agreed. “Although there was that guy in Appalachia...”
    “Don’t remind me,” she said, but sounded down.
    “Time for food,” he judged. “This cold sucks the energy right out.”
    “It just plain sucks,” she said bluntly.
    He laughed for the next half block until they reached their car.
    * * *
    The potatoes were in the oven, the steaks sitting on a platter in the fridge. He had promised to broil them rather than fry them, but DeeJay didn’t know how she was going to eat a baked potato without a lot of sour cream or butter. Maybe the diner wasn’t that bad at all. Sitting in one of those booths, they’d at least have had their ears to the ground.
    She stared at the envelope on the table, the one that Sarah Ironheart had left with them. She ran her fingers lightly over it, wondering if she should make herself read it once more. She didn’t know if she could stomach it. She’d seen plenty of horrible stuff in the army, but kids? This was in a class of its own.
    A chill snaked down her back and she went to get her new hoodie from the bag in the living room. She pulled it on as she walked back to the kitchen, where she found Cade as mesmerized by that envelope as she had been.
    “Did we miss something?” he muttered as she took her seat.
    “I don’t know. He’s got to be doing something that someone’s noticed. Nobody is that good.”
    “But if he blends into the local scenery...” He left the thought incomplete. “Maybe we should talk to the old sheriff. You heard what Ironheart said. Nobody sneezes without him knowing.”
    “If he knew anything, he’d already have said so,” DeeJay argued. “But I’m not opposed to talking with him if Dalton okays it.”
    “Sometimes the right line of questioning can