Free Jenn Vakey - Rilynne Evans 07 - Revenge with Murder by Jenn Vakey Page B

keep things to himself.  As much as she wanted to know what he was thinking, she was going to give him this one.
    Neither of them spoke again before arriving at the police station.  Rilynne spent the time thinking over what Ben might have seen that she missed.  Ben seemed to know that his secretive hunch was driving her crazy, because a satisfied smirk never left his face.  She considered several times just asking him about it, but she talked herself out of it.  She was glad when the station finally came into view, because she wasn’t sure she would have been able to stop herself again had the desire built back up.
    “I won’t be long,” he said when they walked in.  Rilynne nodded as he crossed the room and stepped into the back.  To her surprise, Perez wasn’t there.  She was about to ask Max where he had gone, but all of his attention was directed at the video game in his hands.  She decided not to distract him.  Instead, she sat down in the chair across from Perez’s desk and closed her eyes.
    Rilynne thought over everything they had discovered about the victim.  Since she had yet to meet her family or business partner, there wasn’t much to go on.  She instead decided to focus on Caitlin’s house and the missing box.  As hard as she tried, though, she couldn’t make herself see what had been so important that someone would have broken in to her home for.  By the time Ben walked back out ten minutes later, she had given up on the notion and was instead glancing over everything atop Sergeant Perez’s desk.  The only thing she had settled on before standing up and following Ben out was that he really enjoyed his crossword puzzles.
    “We aren’t actually very far from the head of the trail,” Ben said, glancing over the map he had picked up from the equipment rental store.  “If we take the road to the right, there should be a small path that will lead us right to it.”
    Rilynne followed without hesitation.  With an aptitude for getting lost, she wasn’t even about to question his suggestion.
    “So do you have any thoughts right now?  Anything standing out?” Ben asked.  Though he was asking, she knew him well enough to know it wasn’t exactly his idea of an ideal conversation.
    “Not at the moment,” she replied.  She slid her fingers softly down his arm and wrapped them around his.  “I don’t want to talk about the case right now, though.  I don’t want to talk about anything having to do with work.”
    She didn’t need to look at him to know that a smile had stretched across his face.  She could almost feel it through the warmth of his fingers against her hand.
    “Well, have you decided which trail you want to take?” he asked.  He stopped to look at the large wooden map in front of them.  There were three separate paths branching off around it.
    Rilynne stepped up beside him to examine the trails.  Two of the three were long, weaving around the majority of the island.  “Do you have all of the proper equipment?” she asked.  Ben nodded and motioned toward the pack on his back.  “Then I say we go with the red one.”
    Ben traced over the trail with his finger before nodding in agreement.  “Looks like fun.  Are you sure you can handle it?”
    An impish grin rose on her face as she pushed him toward the head of the trail.  “Just watch me, baby.”
    Rilynne didn’t wait before working her way through the rocky trail.  With Ben right behind her, it took a little over twenty minutes before it leveled off and they could just walk.  “You know what this reminds me of?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “That hike we took while we were in Colorado,” she replied.  “That’s the last time we really went out like this.  At least for pleasure, that is.”
    Ben seemed to think it over for a moment before nodding in agreement.  “Hopefully this time it won’t end the same as that one, though.  Watching you take that fall scared the hell out of me.  The sound