Blowing out a breath, I looked around the room, noticing for the first time that there were several other photos all taped up on the walls and even around the mirror. Each photo featured Cooper and her friend, and almost all of them appeared to be taken near that same lake.
I paused, considering. The photos had all been taken on different days, if the change in outfits was any indication, so she must have returned to the same location over and over. It would make sense that if she needed somewhere to go when she was freaking out, she’d go to a place that made her happy like she was in those photos.
But where the hell was the lake?
Whipping out my phone, I opened the maps app.
“Of fucking course,” I snarled when the screen showed me that there were no fewer than four bodies of water that could be considered a lake within walking distance of Wren and Cooper’s place. “It couldn’t have been easy, could it?”
I thought about calling Wren, asking for a little clarification, but I realized I still didn’t even have her fucking number.
“Christ, get your shit together, Jameson,” I chastised myself as I looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. Which was when I realized that Cooper also had posters on the ceiling above her bed.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the guys fromThe Gun Showwhere they smiled down at the bed my daughter slept in. “Those bozos?”
I’d met the guys a while back, and while they were good kids, they were still rock stars, and that meant I knew exactly what kind of shit they got up to.
The same shit I had, which was nothing good at all.
Reminding myself that having a poster didn’t mean shit, I turned my attention back to the map, zooming in on the different lakes and looking for some sort of clue that would lead me to finding Cooper.
One of the lakes had a fishing pier, another was close to a church. I didn’t know which church Cooper’s friend went to, but if it was the one on the lake, then Wren already had it covered.
The third lake was smaller, but farther from the house than the others and practically right in the middle of town. Not exactly the kind of place someone went when they wanted to get away.
The final option was the largest, long and narrow and nestled in what looked like a thick forest, not too far from the house to be impossible to walk to, but far enough from things to offer a feeling of privacy and solitude.
It was also right next to the only high school in town.
“Bingo,” I said, marking the location on my map and tucking my phone away as a knock came at the door. “I’m coming, baby girl.”
When I opened the front door, Charlie stood there, flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
“What the fuck, man?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “You tryin’ to move in on Wren?”
“What?” His eyes widened as he stood there, staring blankly at me. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you showed up at her place for dinner like it’s your third date or some shit.”
“It’s called basic decorum, Hawk.” He sighed, eyes rolling. “It’s the kind of thing you do when someone invites you over. You bring a small gift to your host.” Shaking his head, he looked at me like I was an errant child. “Christ, Hawk. Don’t you know your Emily Post?”
“Who?”
“Emily—You know what? Never mind. Where’s Wren?”
Still not entirely comfortable with the idea of someone who wasn’t me bringing flowers to Wren, I reached for the items he was holding and set them on the stool just inside the door.
“Come on,” I said, stepping out onto the porch. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Chapter sixty-four
Hawk
Present
“Yousureaboutthis?”Charlie asked, turning the engine off as we parked in the empty school parking lot. The sun was starting to set behind the trees across the lake, the long shadows stretching across the water like gripping claws. Having spent the vast majority of my life in SoCal, where there were basically palm trees and high rises, being in the thickly forested Minnesota woodlands was making me itchy. The area was beautiful, but everywhere I looked, I seemed to be surrounded by huge swaths of nothingness. Trees and fields as far as the eye could see.
It was creeping me out. I was used to the noise and craziness of the city. This small-town shit was like nothing I had ever known; I didn’t understand how people handled it.
