“That doesn’t sound like evidence Rick Cryer would get wrong.”
“I watched the interrogation tapes. We have them.” Garrett cued up a tape and then paused it. “The first time there’s talk about her dad being home it’s raised by Rick’s partner during the questioning. Everyone runs with it from there. Rick watched with me. Neither of us saw it until the fourth or fifth run-through. It looked inadvertent, but it happened.”
“Fuck me.” Wren didn’t need to see the tape. Not yet. If Garrett said that was on there then it was. Part of Wren didn’t want to watch. Once he did he wouldn’t be able to go back to not being sure.
The break-in. Michael Finn’s shaky alibi. The fact he stopped Emery from going out that night and kept her busy. All those years of being angry. His insistence the investigation stop. The tape of the questioning. The timing. It all piled up until Wren was pretty sure he knew at least some of the answers about Tiffany.
Garrett folded his arms in front of him. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Wren really didn’t. His mind went blank. The only thing in there was the image of Emery’s face. Hearing the accusations from him would destroy her.
“I don’t think she’s in any real danger.”
“But that’s not the point, is it?” Wren dropped his head in his hands and tried to think. Tried to reason it all out. But he didn’t need much time because the answer was all too simple. He looked up again. “Who am I kidding? There isn’t a choice about what I have to do next. Like it or not, I promised her answers.”
“Let me ask her questions. Let me be the target,” Garrett said. “It’s okay if she’s angry with me.”
It was an easy solution to an impossible problem, but it likely still wouldn’t work. It also ignored who Wren was and how he lived his life. “When have you ever known me to duck a hard task?”
“I’ve never really known you to be in love before, so I don’t know what the rules are now.” Garrett’s eyebrow lifted as he stood there not saying anything. “You’re not denying it.”
“There’s no way I can be after only knowing her a short time.” Right? That was the rational answer. It was too soon. They barely knew each other . . . but she did know almost everything about him. Despite that, she hadn’t run.
“Yet, you are.”
Yes, he was. “And now I have to blow it all up before we can figure out what we have. There’s a missing girl out there.”
“I think we both know that’s not true.”
Wren didn’t even want to think about that part of the puzzle. The how and why and what really happened out on that street that night. He couldn’t even let his mind go there yet. “I never should have gone to that coffee shop that first morning.”
“I warned you.”
“Remind me of that the next time I try to fire you.”
Emery heard Wren come in. He’d called to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Since it was almost nine, she’d eaten long ago, but she hadn’t expected him to be this late.
“Keith played chauffeur today. Not a bad way to come home.” She peeked around the corner to welcome Wren. That’s when she saw it. The stern expression and clipped walk. “What’s wrong?”
His footsteps thudded against the floor. He kept walking until he hit the kitchen and put his briefcase on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “You’re going to hate the next few minutes. If it’s any consolation, so am I.”
She tried to remember if she’d ever seen him like this. All clenched and bubbling with fury. “What are you talking about?”
“You searched the name Wren once you spotted it in Gavin’s file, right?”
“Of course.” There was no way that could be a surprise. Any normal person would do the same thing, even him. “God, this is why you look like that? Come on, Levi. You investigated me, too.”
“I’m not upset about the search. It was smart. Expected.” He took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator then put it back in.
He seemed to be wrapped in a weird haze. Walking around. Doing odd things then turning and walking again. Tension radiated off him. She could feel his anxiety. It pinged around them. And she’d never seen his eyes so lifeless.
Something terrible had happened. She was terrified to ask what. “Then what’s the problem?”
“Did you keep a file on that name?”
“Yes.” Wait . . . she thought back to the boxes. That only mad her angry, so she tried to block the break-in out again. “Well, I took notes and kept the searches so I wouldn’t repeat them and waste time.”
He swore under his breath as he closed his eyes. “And all of that information was in the files missing in your boxes.”
That was it. Someone figured out who he was. That was the only explanation. She didn’t remember writing anything down that would logically trace back to him, but maybe.
Guilt crashed into her from every direction. “Oh, my God, did someone come after you?”