Page 55 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

“Male or female?” Roman asks.

“Male.”

My gift of sight flickers and a tight feeling pulls in my chest. This doesn’t sound like someone panic-buying. The connection between the stone and the roadside stand feels heavy in my mind. To me, it looks like someone is being deliberate, assembling ritual components from multiple sources, carefully, across multiple days.

A truck pulls up behind Wes’s. Pepper Vines, my oldest friend besides Honey, climbs out carrying two plastic coolers.

Dark curls spill halfway down her back in complete defiance of humidity while safety goggles rest crooked on top of her head. Her T-shirt reads Swamp Science is Real Science. Her scent is still faint and neutral, the dormant omega scent she’s carried long past the age most of us perfumed.

Pepper freezes halfway toward the stand when she spots Wes and Roman standing beside me. Her dark-brown eyes narrow first with suspicion, then widen with delight, which is never good for me. “Oh,” she says slowly.

“No,” I reply.

Pepper ignores me. “Honey said you were hanging around with two attractive investigators, but I assumed she was exaggerating.”

“She never exaggerates,” Roman says solemnly.

Pepper points at him. “Oh, this one is good.”

Wes rubs one hand down his jaw like he regrets this stop already.

Pepper sets the coolers beside Earl’s produce tables. “Earl, I need those marsh samples we talked about for my AP biology seniors. Hurry. If I get back late from my planning period, the freshman may burn down the lab.” She glances toward me again. “Why do you look flushed?”

“It’s ninety degrees.”

“Your pupils are huge.”

I hope the swamp swallows me alive.

Roman bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to visibly stop himself from laughing.

Wes looks directly at my face. Then my mouth. Then away again, fast enough to confirm he didn’t mean to do it.

Heat flashes through me so quickly, my fingers tighten around my coffee cup.

Pepper watches the entire exchange unfold with open delight. “This is so much more fun than Honey let on.”

“Pepper.”

“No, continue. I’m emotionally invested now.”

Earl spits a wad of chew on the ground that somehow feels like a snort of amusement.

Wes’s phone buzzes before I can commit murder. He steps a few feet toward the truck and answers, while Roman helps Earl move crates beneath the shade tarp and load them into Pepper’s truck.

I watch Wes without meaning to. Sunlight catches along the edge of his throat when he tilts his head, his mouth flattening gradually as the conversation continues. He looks up suddenly and catches me staring.

My pulse trips.

Wes’s gaze drops briefly toward my mouth before he looks away again.

God. This man is becoming a legitimate health concern.

Pepper appears beside me, carrying a peach. “You know you’re practically glowing, right?”

I elbow her before I think better of it. She grins.

“I will drown you in marsh water.”