Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

W hen I was almost back to Rocky Start, having successfully avoided Harvey, Rowan Masters in his sci-fi truck came rolling toward me. I expected him to pass by, but he pulled a U-turn and came up next to me, powering down the driver's side window, and I stopped, my heart pounding.

"Rose, I've been looking for you."

Not the thing to say to me at that moment, and he must have seen it in my face because he lost his smile. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "I just had a bad experience."

He was quiet for a minute, and then he said, "I'd never hurt you."

I nodded. Men were good at saying that until they lost their tempers.

He was speaking softly now. "Let me take you back to town. You have your dog with you. He can sit between us."

"She," I said. "Maggs is a she."

He tried again. "Rose, I don't know what happened, but it looks like it was bad. Do you want me to follow you back to town to make sure you get there safely?"

I liked the idea of Maggs between me and him. He wasn't Harvey, but he was a guy, and I was a lot more rattled than I'd realized. Adrenaline or something. But him following me into town sounded ridiculous, so I opened the door, let Maggs get in first, and then got in. "Thank you."

He nodded and started the car again. "You want to go back to Oddities, right?"

Oddities was where Poppy and Max would be. I needed to talk to Max, but not yet. If I talked to him when I was this upset . . . "Maybe the picnic table beside the river. It's quiet there and I can calm down." And there would be too many eyes on me for anybody to lay hands on me.

He nodded, and we rode in silence. For a fancy car, the interior was surprisingly boring. Instead of a wheel, there was a steering rectangle with buttons on it. And a large display in the center. That was it.

I'd become calmer as we crossed the bridge, which is when it occurred to me that I was looking at an expert on serial killers. Which I was now believing Harvey Ware was.

"I have questions," I said.

"I figured," he replied. "So do I." So he slowly drove into town. Very slowly. "Shoot," he said.

"Not a good thing to say in Rocky Start," I said.

He laughed. "I'm picking that up."

"What are you really doing here?"

"Researching."

"You've said that. Something drew you here."

"There's been a series of killings around the country," Rowan said. "Spanning over two decades. Roughly once every six months. What's remarkable about all of them is there is no clear evidence identifying a suspect."

"Then how do you know they're by the same person?"

"There is a similar signature," Rowan said.

"And that is?"

He gave that irritating, coy smile. "That's something law enforcement is keeping a lid on."

"But you know it."

"The FBI knows it because I'm the one who discovered the Director."

"The Director?"

"That's what I've labeled him."

"Why?"

He drove toward the park at the river, turning off State.

"The FBI doesn't fully agree with me that these killings are the work of the same person. I kept it out of my first book, but I've always been on the lookout."

"And this is why you're here in Rocky Start?" I persisted.

"Actually, my focus was on Bearton," Rowan said.

"Why?"

"There was a death there a couple of weeks ago. Ruled an accident. But my AI program alerted on it. Some of the parameters fit."

"Bearton is seventeen miles away and?—"

"Then I heard people in Bearton talking about this really strange funeral here in Rocky Start and it piqued my interest." He stopped before turning onto River Road.

Great. Ozzie's funeral had brought him here. "That was my boss, Ozzie. We gave him a Viking-zombie funeral just like he wanted. Who died in Bearton? And why do you think an accident was actually the work of a serial killer?"

"This man you worked for," Rowan said, proving he was not easily redirected. "Ozzie. He never existed. The man you're with now doesn't exist. The German woman who runs the shop where we last talked didn't exist before suddenly popping up here in Rocky Start. The weird thing about erasing people's pasts is that it actually says a lot about them. It takes a lot of behind-the-scenes muscle to pull that off in today's digital world. Just like the Director seems to have no evidence and no past."

"I understand you're pretty dark yourself," I said.

"Dark?" He smiled. "What an interesting term. Did you google me?"

"Not an answer."

"I like to keep a low personal profile," Rowan said. "You know, there's an outstanding warrant on you in New Jersey. Fleeing prosecution."

"I believe that's out of date and no longer valid."

Rowan shook his head. "It's current. I checked last night. No statute of limitations on it."

My heart sank. Fucking Herc. Lian hated him, Max hated him, and now I hated him even more than I had when he'd killed Serena in my shop. He was supposed to have taken care of that. I was tempted to tell Rowan that, and maybe he'd go away, but Max had told me enough about Herc to know that would most likely be signing Rowan's death warrant.

"Sometimes it's better not to delve into peoples' pasts."

"True," he said. "But it's my job."

"You should probably go back to Bearton. There's nothing here for you."

"I don't know," Rowan said. "Seems like a pretty intriguing place."

He turned onto River Road and slowed down by the picnic table. I looked past him and spotted Max approaching the picnic table, engrossed in a conversation on his special phone. Probably talking about everything in this town that was going wrong.

The truck sprang to life, and I looked at Rowan, startled again, but he was as confused as I was.

"What the fuck?" he said, as the truck suddenly accelerated, and the steering wheel took on a life of its own, even as he wrestled with it.

And headed right toward Max.