“Insert my apology here? Is that what you’re waiting for?” he asked, humor tingeing his tone. She just scowled into the darkness.
“Okay, I guess neither of us is going to fall over apologizing at the moment. I don’t expect you to apologize to me for running off into the woods alone today.” Alice rolled her eyes and made a disgusted sound, which Dylan ignored. “On another note, I’ve made an appointment for you at Morgantown Memorial for a blood test. It’s for four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. I’ll take you over to the hospital. Dr. Shineburg will transfer all the samples to a specialist clinic in Chicago for the actual genetic testing. It takes four to six weeks to get the results, so we might as well get things started.”
She remained silent, but perhaps he noticed her tension because he began stroking her upper arm and shoulder.
“Have you changed your mind about the testing?”
“No. I want to do it. I want to know for certain.”
“Then what are you thinking about?”
“Dylan, why are you so worried about me? I can understand why you have been in the past, but why now?”
“Do you mean why did I come to the woods today, when Rigo told me Jim Sheridan was there? You’re still waiting for me to defend myself?”
“I think I deserve an explanation, yes.”
Again, he didn’t speak.
“Dylan?”
“Jim was the sheriff of Morgantown when Addie Durand was kidnapped,” he began slowly. “He’s supported me over the years . . . encouraged me not to give up in looking for Addie.”
She lay still, absorbing not only his words, but trying to decode what he wasn’t saying.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Of course it is. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
“So why did you come out to the woods and jump all over him? I thought you were friends.”
“Jim is a good cop. Excellent, in fact. Last night, he noticed how tense I was. Around you,” he added after a pause. “He went out to see you today, because he sensed something was going on with me. He was digging for answers.”
“You were surly last night when that alarm went off,” Alice mumbled, uncomfortably aware she was skirting the relevant topic. She frowned into the darkness, attempting to firm her resolve. “You can’t be thinking that Jim Sheridan actually was connecting last night to Addie Durand. Connecting me to Addie Durand,” she added reluctantly.
“What if he did? I told you, he’s an excellent cop. He likely noticed the similarity between you and Lynn.”
She started. “I look like Lynn Durand?” That seemingly casual statement felt like a little bomb had gone off in her.
“Yes. It seems like you do a little more every day.”
“What do you mean?”
“As your hair grows and lightens and you give up on some of the heavy eye makeup,” he replied gruffly, and she sensed his distraction. “My point is, are you ready to answer Jim Sheridan’s questions? Are you ready to have the FBI notified, and deal with the ramifications of them coming here to finally close a twenty-year-old investigation?”
“No,” she exclaimed, alarm making her jerk up and turn partially toward Dylan.
“There you have it. That’s why I didn’t want Jim to find out the truth. Yet.”
For several seconds, she remained in the tensed position, her mind working over what he’d told her. No. Alice definitely was not ready to have various law enforcement officials interrupt her life with questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
That she couldn’t answer, because she hadn’t fully faced the reality of those questions herself.
Dylan had stormed into those woods with a purpose. He’d been trying to shield her.
She eased back onto the pillow.
“I think you might have made things worse with Jim by acting that way. He seemed even more suspicious by your heavy-handedness.”
She heard his soft grunt of irritated agreement. “I realize that. Maybe I have mixed feelings about telling Jim. He deserves to know the truth, but I knew you wouldn’t be ready to face the consequences of him knowing it yet. When it came down to it, no one else could have stopped him from interrogating you except for me. I was worried.”
“I’m fine,” Alice said in a pressured whisper. His hand flexed on her arm, and he drew her closer to his body. She clamped her eyes shut as emotion expanded in her chest. It seemed to rise to her brain until it throbbed in her ears.
I’m fine. Her voice replayed in her head, making her cringe. She’d sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was Dylan.
*
ALICE was dead on her feet when Dylan awoke her in the predawn darkness. She dressed in a half-conscious daze. When she walked out of the bathroom, she saw Dylan waiting for her by his bedroom door. When she neared him, he handed her a bag without a word.
“What’s this?”