“Not my jurisdiction. I can ask Carver to send a couple deputies out to canvas the shops in town.”

“Could be worth it.” And Kade was thinking he might do a little asking around himself. “Thanks, Webb.”

“Keep your hat pulled low, Kade. We still haven’t caught this guy.”

“I will.” The line went dead. Kade returned to the house to find Ellie seated behind the laptop in her bedroom. Since the door was open, he walked right in.

She looked up and smiled, and he felt the familiar warm stirring. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Just talked to Webb Fischer. Guy who killed Dunstan was driving a Hummer. Not many of those around these parts. Fischer’s got his deputies asking questions. Coffee Springs is out of his jurisdiction, so I thought we might go into town, pitch in, and give him a hand.”

“Since I’m getting nowhere on the internet, and I haven’t heard from Zoe, that sounds good to me. Yesterday, I called Heather’s friend, Anna, and left a message, but she hasn’t called me back. We need to know if Bullwinkle’s was a place Heather used to go by herself. If she did, it’ll give us an even more solid link between the two women.”

Kade remembered the only time he and Heather had gone to the pub together. It was the noisy, crowded kind of place she loved. He didn’t want to think of the men she might have met there.

Ellie must have read his dark thoughts. She walked toward him, slid her hands up his chest, and pressed a soft kiss on his lips.

Kade felt the rush, along with a different sort of need he hadn’t expected. Pulling her against him, he kissed her the way he’d wanted to since he’d walked into her room, deeply and thoroughly, a fist full of her thick dark copper hair anchoring her in place.

“Wow,” she whispered breathlessly when the hot kiss ended. “I was just saying hello. I didn’t expect quite so much . . . enthusiasm.”

His jeans felt too tight. “Keep looking at me like that, and my enthusiasm is going to end up with both of us back in bed.”

Ellie laughed, a richly feminine sound that cut right through him, stirring him up all over again. Wisely, she changed the subject.

“So we’re going into Coffee Springs. When do you want to leave?”

“How about right now? I’ll buy you lunch in town.”

She nodded, grabbed her purse and puffy down jacket, and they headed for the door. It had rained last night, leaving the ground wet and muddy, but the storm had drifted on. A few low clouds hung over the mountains, and a damp chill frosted the air, but the sun broke through here and there.