“Where are you going?” I repeated the question.
“Agent Sterling showed me a list.” Dean put his hands on my wrists and pulled my hands away from his neck. He didn’t let go, just stood there on the sidewalk, his fingers working their way from my wrists to my fingers, until our hands were interwoven. “She wanted to know if I recognized any of my father’s visitors, if anything jumped out to me.”
“And did anything jump out to you?”
Dean nodded curtly, but didn’t release my hands. “One of the visitors was a woman from my hometown.”
I waited him to elaborate.
“Daniel killed people in that town, Cassie. My fourth-grade teacher. Travelers just passing through. The people in that town, our friends, our neighbors—they couldn’t even stand to look at me after the truth came out. Why would anyone there go to visit him?”
Those weren’t rhetorical questions. They were questions Dean was set on answering himself. “You’re going home,” I said. I knew it was true, long before Dean confirmed it for me.
“Broken Springs hasn’t been home for a very long time.” Dean took a step backward and dropped my hands. He pulled his hood back up. “I know the type of women who visit men like my father in jail. They’re fascinated. Obsessed.”
“Obsessed enough to re-create his crimes?”
“Obsessed enough that they won’t cooperate with the FBI,” Dean said. “Obsessed enough that they’d love to talk to me.”
I didn’t tell Dean that everyone from Briggs to Judd would kill him for doing this. I did, however, take issue with his timing. “How late is it going to be when you get there? And for that matter, how are you going to get there?”
Dean didn’t answer.
“Wait,” I told him. “Wait until morning. Sterling will be out with Briggs. I can go with you, or Lia can. There’s a killer out there. You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone.”
“No,” Dean said, his face twisting like he’d tasted something sour. “That’s Lia’s job.”
I’d apologized for digging into this case without him. She hadn’t. I knew Lia well enough to know that she wouldn’t. Dean knew that, too.
“Go easy,” I told him. “Whatever you said to her, she’s taking it hard.”
“She’s supposed to take it hard.” There was a stubborn set to Dean’s jaw. “I’m the only one she listens to. I’m the one who cares if she goes off with two strange men in the middle of a murder investigation. You think that anything anyone else says is going to keep her from doing it again?”
“You made your point,” I told him. “But you’re not just the only person she listens to. You’re the only person she trusts. She can’t lose that. Neither can you.”
“Fine,” Dean said. “I’ll wait until morning to head for Broken Springs, and I’ll talk to Lia before I go.”
Once Lia was involved, I doubted she’d sit back and let him go off on his own. If he wouldn’t take her or me, he could at least take Michael. That might be a recipe for a road trip that ended in a fistfight, but at least Dean would have backup.
Michael doesn’t hate Dean. He hates that Dean is angry and holding it in. He hates that Dean knows what his childhood was like. He hates the idea of Dean with me.
I turned and started walking back toward the house, my mind a mess of thoughts about Michael and Dean and me. I’d made it six feet when Dean fell in beside me. I didn’t want to think about the heat of his body next to mine. I didn’t want to want to reach for his hand.
So I forced myself to stick to safer ground. “Have you ever heard of Judd having a daughter named Scarlett?”
The next morning, I woke up to find that Michael was outside working on his car again. I stood at my bedroom window, watching him going at the bumper with the power sander like rust removal was an Olympic sport. He’s going to destroy that car, I thought. Restoration was not Michael’s strong suit.
“You’re up.”
I turned from the window to face Sloane, who was sitting up in her own bed. “I’m up.”
“What are you looking at?”
I grasped for a way to avoid answering the question, but came up empty. “Michael,” I said.
Sloane studied me for a moment, the way an archaeologist might look at paintings on the wall of a cave. Given the way her brain worked, she probably would have had better luck reading hieroglyphics.
“You and Michael,” Sloane said slowly.
“There’s nothing going on with Michael and me.” My reply was immediate.
Sloane tilted her head to one side. “You and Dean?”
“There’s nothing going on with Dean and me.”
Sloane stared at me for another three seconds, and then: “I give up.” Clearly, she’d expended her capacity for girl talk. Thank God. She disappeared into the closet, and I was halfway out the door before I remembered my promise.
“I may be going somewhere today,” I told her. “With Dean.”