Page 24 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

She pulls the quilt around her shoulders. Her chin lifts.

"Tell me," she says.

So I do. All of it. Tyler in Alpha Range under the name Derek Bowen. The fresh identity. The eighty-seven percent facial match. The victim advocate who wants to debrief her. The system waiting on the other side of the storm with its protocols and its professionals.

I tell her everything because that's what she asked for on the first night when she looked at me over a mug of broth and I promised her, without saying the words, that I would not be the kind of man who decides what she gets to know.

She listens. The quilt stays around her shoulders. The coffee cools on the table. Outside the clouds continue to peel back from the sky and the mountain emerges from the storm inch by inch.

12

Zoe

The debrief happens at the kitchen counter because neither of us suggests the table. The table is where we held hands last night and it's too loaded now. So we sit on our stools and Ryker opens the field journal to a fresh page, clicks his pen, and looks at me with his working face. The warmth retreats behind the competence and the man who kissed me becomes the marshal who needs information.

I understand the shift. It means he's taking this seriously. Whatever I say here matters beyond the walls of this cabin. It matters to fourteen women and a federal case and the man forty miles south living under a name that doesn't belong to him.

"Start wherever you're comfortable," Ryker says. "I need everything you can remember about Tyler's habits, his routine, the people he interacted with, the places he took you. Take your time. Details that seem small to you might be the ones that matter most."

I wrap my hands around my coffee mug and think about where to begin. The beginning is the diner.

"He came into the diner on a Tuesday. Late afternoon, around four. I remember because Tuesdays were Mr. Henderson's cherry pie day and Mr. Henderson had already left. The diner was nearly empty. One couple in the back booth finishing lunch. He sat at the counter, third stool from the register."

Ryker writes. The pen moves in steady strokes.

"He ordered coffee. Black. And he asked for a menu even though the menu is printed on a board above the pass-through that you can read from any seat. He studied it carefully, line by line. Most customers glance and order. He read it like it contained information he needed."

"What did he order?"

"A slice of cherry pie and a refill on the coffee. He tipped forty percent. Waitresses live in a world of mental math. Ten percent means you did something wrong or they're cheap. Fifteen is standard. Twenty means they liked you. Forty means they want you to remember them."

"It worked," Ryker says with a lift of his eyebrow.

"It worked. He came back the following Tuesday. Same time. Same stool. Same order. Black coffee, cherry pie, forty percent tip. He didn't try to make conversation the first time. Barely spoke beyond the order. The second time he asked my name. The third time he remembered it."

I pause. The memories have edges but I grip them anyway because somewhere in the details is the thing that will help put him in handcuffs.

"He always came late in the afternoon. Never the morning rush, never the lunch crowd. Always when the diner was emptying out. At the time I thought he preferred a quiet diner. Now I think he was timing it. Fewer witnesses. Greta told your team she only saw him once through the pass-through window because he came during the hours when she was in the back doing prep. He knew the diner's schedule better than I did."

Ryker stops writing. "You're sure about that? He knew the staffing schedule?"

"I'm sure. The fourth week he came on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday. He walked in, saw that another waitress was working the counter, and walked right back out. Jenny mentioned it. She said some guy came in, looked around, and left without sitting down. The following Tuesday he was back in his usual seat. It was me he was coming for, not the pie."

"Tell me about his vehicle."

"A truck. Dark blue or black. Newer model, clean, no bumper stickers, no vanity plate. The bed was always empty and it had an aftermarket toolbox bolted behind the cab. He parked at the far end of the lot, always the same spot, backing in instead of pulling in. Backing in meant he could leave quickly."

"Make and model?"

"I don't know trucks that well. It was big. Four doors. Not a Ford because my dad drove Fords and the shape was different. Maybe a Chevy or a GMC. It had chrome running boards along the sides."

"That helps. Color, four-door, non-Ford, aftermarket toolbox, chrome running boards, habitual reverse parking. That's more than most witnesses give us, Zoe. That's good."

The praise lands like relief. The observations I've collected my whole life aren't just clutter. They're evidence.

"What happened after the diner? When did the relationship change?"

I tell him. Not all of it. Not the things that belong to the dark room and the locked door and the version of the story I'll tell the victim advocate when the time comes. But I give him the operational details. The way Tyler introduced the idea of a better job, something vague at first, a business opportunity. How he drove me to a cabin on the other side of Timber Creek where he said his partners were meeting. How the partners turned out to be Dale Weathers and two men whose names I never learned. How the cabin had a lock on the outside of the bedroom door that I didn't notice until the door was closed behind me.