I chose to take Ian to my parents’ bedroom first because the thought of him poking around my bedroom looking for clues into my psyche doesn’t sit well. But the second he asks about the photograph I realize I’ve made a grave miscalculation. Because there is something in his eyes—something in his voice—as he asks that tells me the answer is as important to him as it is to me.
I don’t like it. Don’t like him asking about that picture. Don’t like him even looking at it, if I’m being honest, and I never would have brought him in here if I’d thought it was going to be an issue. Because he sees too much and the absolute last thing I want is for true crime writer Ian Sharpe to look beyond the glamour of the picture to the truth behind it. Not when I’ve spent so long and worked so hard to make sure that nobody sees anything but what I want them to.
He’s dangerous in a way most of the journalists I meet aren’t. I knew it the moment he started digging during lunch yesterday and nothing he’s done in the last twenty-four hours has changed my mind.
Determined to get him out of here and away from the photograph he continues to stare at so intently, I head for the door at a fast clip. At this point, I’d much rather he spend the next hour poking and prodding and examining every little thing in my room than for him to stand here thinking, watching, unraveling. I want him far away from the immortalized memory of a holiday I haven’t let myself think about in months. Years. Want him as far away from that picture as I normally stay.
“Ready to move on?” I ask, making sure my voice is firm, yet relaxed. No need to clue him in about just how uncomfortable I’m feeling.
“No, not yet,” he answers, the firmness I was striving for obviously going right over his head as he steps even closer to the photograph. Then again, maybe not. Maybe it’s just that whatever he sees in that picture is more important than whatever control I’m trying to assert.
Just the thought has my skin crawling, my blood freezing, and I think about simply walking out. But everything I’ve learned about Ian over the last two days tells me even that wouldn’t hurry him along if he doesn’t want to be hurried. He’s not the kind of guy to walk away from a question that intrigues him…if I know nothing else about him at this point, I know that. Why else have I felt like a bug under a microscope all damn day?
Damn it.
“So the bear was a Christmas present?” he asks after a moment.
“It was.” It takes every ounce of talent I have to keep my voice steady and unconcerned.
“From your parents?”
“No. My father wasn’t big on stuffed animals. Called them dust catchers. He had severe asthma as a child and I think he was afraid that if any dust got near me, I’d develop a similar condition.”
I wait, praying that I’ve said enough—and not too much. Praying that this glimpse of my past—and this small chance to probe into something very few people know about—will be enough to tear him away from the portrait of my younger self and knock him off this line of questioning.
“So, if it wasn’t your parents, who did get you the bear?”
Or not. I shrug, act baffled. “Does it really matter?”
For the first time he seems to figure out that I’m watching him as closely as he’s been watching me. I don’t know how he didn’t notice sooner…
I wonder what that feels like—to lose yourself so completely in your own head that you forget that you’re being watched. Studied.
I never forget.
After several long, tense seconds, he shrugs, too, smiles. A direct mirror of my previous lack of concern. “Of course it doesn’t matter. You just look so happy that I wondered if it was a friend or relative who had given you the bear.”
“It was my first real stuffed animal. I was very happy.” I make a face, shake my head. “But that was over two decades and many, many Christmas presents ago. I can’t remember whose name was on the tag.”
It’s a lie—a miserably crafted, total, and absolute falsehood—and there’s a part of me that expects him to call me on it like he has everything else. He doesn’t though. Instead, he just glances back and forth between me and the painting over and over again. I don’t know what he’s looking for, don’t know what he sees, but just the threat of him finding out is enough to have me walking out of the room. If he doesn’t follow, well, then, that’s on him. It’s not like I’m worried that he’ll take something…and if does, well, it’s not like there’s anything in that room I care about anyway.
This time he does follow me though, trailing me through my parents’ suite of rooms and into my own.