Page 45 of Coyote

“Just so you know,” Coyote informed him, “Bethany and Reginald Archibald are very close friends. She’d never do anything as reprehensible as burn his house down with him in it.”

I jumped into the conversation, “Coyote’s right. Reggie has been like a father to me. He took us in when we had no one. I’d never want to see anything bad happen to him.”

“Yes ma’am, I’m getting that. Your house is cleared. Take what you like.”

“I’m moving out in case Reggie needs a place to live while his house is rebuilt.”

“That’s your prerogative, Ms. Marks. It’s considerate even. Can I get your contact information in case we have any further questions?”

“Of course,” I reply automatically.

Coyote gave his address and I confirmed they had my phone number.

I didn’t know where Breaker had gone, but he showed up around the time the officer walked off. He jerked his chin at the officer when he walked by. “Looks like they’re going to be clearing the scene for a long time,” he opined.

Coyote agreed, “They’ve got a lot of ground to cover now it’s daylight. Let’s get this house packed up.”

We worked together, and to be honest no odious task has gone smoother in my entire life. I’d gotten my hairbrush and hair dryer along with my cosmetics—which obviously weren’t top priority last night—but for some reason I couldn’t find Nessa’s brush. I must have packed it in a rush yesterday and misplaced it.

Much like Breaker had said over breakfast, we had everything boxed up by noon and we were on our way. The process was made easier by the fact that most of the furniture belonged to Reggie. When we were back in the van, Coyote and I talked about Rufus.

“I’m going to go have a talk with him after we unload your things.”

“I feel like we should have alerted the police that he’s been harassing me. Why risk yourself getting into trouble, when we could simply let the police do the job they were trained to do?”

“First of all, it’s not much of a risk. And secondly, the police are fucking incompetent in these small towns. It’s best if I take care of it myself.”

To be honest, I wasn’t on board with that, but I didn’t feel like Coyote was going to listen to me about this, so I just let it go. We unloaded all my boxes into his garage and then he and Breaker took off. I wandered through the garage and into the house, careful to set the alarm after myself. Coyote was particular about security, and I needed to respect that if I was going to be staying in his home. Given what happened at Reggie’s last night, extra security was fine by me.

My mood brightened when I reached the kitchen and found Callie and Nessa making homemade playdough together. I joined them for a while before Callie said she had to get home to her own kids. I reset the security system when she left and laid down on the sofa as my daughter watched cartoons. I was exhausted and worried about Coyote.

Chapter Eighteen

Coyote

We spent hours trying to track down Rufus to no avail. He hadn’t shown up to work today, he wasn’t at home, and his mother didn’t know where he was. Because, yeah like every good stalker slash creeper, he lived in his mom’s basement. I had the idea to scout out the place where Bethany worked. Rufus had met her at the party supply store and might go back there to see how terrified she was, that’s if he was the one who’d set fire to her boss’ home. I kept going back and forth in my mind about whether he was trying to kill her and just incompetent, or if he was really just trying to scare the bejesus out of her and maybe remove one of the obstacles to approaching her. I know that Reggie had told him off about harassing her at their place of business before. Maybe he was butthurt about it, maybe he’d deliberately burned down Reggie’s as revenge and not because he thought that Bethany was in the main house?

We hung around for about three hours before I began to second guess myself. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to show. Maybe we should be staking out his place.”

“Be patient. If it’s true that he’s obsessed with Bethany, this is where he’ll show himself. I think he was trying to get rid of Reggie so he could pop up here whenever he wanted. Maybe he intended to kill him or just thought he’d get badly injured, and away from work for a while. Either way, it would give him an opportunity to harass Bethany.”

“Yeah, I’m tracking with all that. The problem is, he hasn’t shown his ugly mug.”

“He will,” Breaker insisted.

As for myself, I didn’t know for sure. We were sitting in my van across the street from the store, drinking coffee and twiddling our thumbs and it was starting to really get to me.

That’s when I noticed him drive by without taking a second glance. He had another man in the car with him and they were so busy talking that they didn’t even notice me giving them the evil eye.

I shifted the van into gear and pulled out. Breaker grabbed his coffee off the dashboard and spilled it on himself in the process. “Thanks for nothing, jackass! So we’re packing it in for the day? You’re a serious lightweight when it comes to tracking assholes down. You know that, right?”

“I just saw him drive past. He didn’t even glance at the store. But I’m gonna follow him and when the time is right, I’m gonna have my fucking say with him.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. I brought my brass knuckles. I’ll hold him down for you and, you can mess him up,” my brother-in-law sounded quite cheerful at the prospect.

“I don’t need brass knuckles or someone to hold the stupid fucker down. Believe it or not, I can tune him up all on my own.”

Breaker just shook his head and drank down the rest of his coffee before grumbling, “Spoilsport. Where’s the fun in that.”